“What things?”
“Terrible warnings about drugs, venereal diseases, prisons, mental hospitals, abortions—they treat us like idiots. Does that seem trivial to you?”
“It seems like way too much. I’m going to give that dame a piece of my mind. What’s her name? Angie? She’s about to find out who she’s dealing with!”
“No!” I shouted, grabbing her arm.
“What do you mean, no! You think I’m going to allow my granddaughter to be treated like a Guantánamo prisoner?” And the Chilean mafia marched off toward the director’s office. Minutes later Angie called me.
“Maya, could you please repeat in front of your father what you told your grandmamma?”
“What?”
“You know what I’m referring to,” insisted Angie without raising her voice.
My father didn’t seem too shocked, and simply reminded me of the judge’s sentence: rehabilitation or jail. I stayed in Oregon.
On the second visit, two months later, my Nini was delighted: finally she’d got her little girl back, she said, none of that Dracula makeup or gang member’s manners, she saw me looking healthy and in good shape. That was due to the five miles I was running a day. They let me because no matter how far I ran, I wouldn’t get anywhere. They didn’t even suspect that I was in training for my escape.
I told my Nini how we inmates outwitted the psychological tests and the therapists, so transparent in their intentions that even the new arrivals can manipulate them, and it wasn’t even worth talking about the academic level: when we graduated, they’d give us a diploma of ignorance to hang on the wall. We were sick of documentaries about the warming of the poles and excursions up Mount Everest; we needed to know what was going on in the world. She informed me that nothing worth telling was happening, just bad news with no solutions—the world was ending, but so slowly that it would last until I graduated. “I can’t wait for you to come home, Maya. I miss you so much!” she sighed, stroking my hair, dyed several colors unknown in nature with dyes she had mailed me herself.
In spite of my rainbow hair, I looked discreet compared to some of the other kids. To compensate for the innumerable restrictions and give us a false sense of liberty, they let us experiment with our clothes and hair according to our own fantasies, but we couldn’t add any piercings or tattoos to what we already had. I had a gold ring in my nose and my tattoo of 2005. A guy who had overcome a brief neo-Nazi phase before opting for methamphetamines had a swastika branded into his right arm, and another had the word fuck tattooed across his forehead.
“He’s a vocational fuckup, Nini. They’ve forbidden us to mention his tattoo. The psychiatrist says he could get traumatized.”
“Which one is he, Maya?”
“That lanky guy with the curtain of hair across his eyes.”
And off went my Nini to tell him not to worry, there’s a laser treatment now that can erase the swear word from his forehead.
Manuel has taken advantage of the short summer to collect information, and then, in the dark hours of the winter, he plans to finish his book on magic in Chiloé. We get along really well, it seems to me, although he still grunts at me every once in a while. I don’t pay any attention. I remember that when I met him, he struck me as surly, but in these months of living together I’ve discovered he’s one of those guys who’s ashamed of his own kind heart. He makes no effort to be nice and gets frightened when someone grows fond of him; that’s why he’s a little scared of me. Two of his previous books were published in Australia in large formats with color photographs, and this one will be similar, thanks to the backing of the Ministry of Culture and several tourism outfits. The editors commissioned an upper-crust painter from Santiago to do the illustrations. He’s going to find himself in difficulties trying to represent the horrifying beings of Chilote mythology. I hope Manuel gives me more work, so I can return his hospitality. If not, I’m going to be indebted to him until the end of my days. The worst thing is, he doesn’t know how to delegate; he assigns me the simplest tasks and then wastes his time checking up on me. He must think I’m a doofus. Worst of all, he’s had to give me money, because I arrived with nothing. He assured me that my grandmother wired some money to his bank for that purpose, but I don’t believe him; such a simple solution would never occur to her. It would be more in keeping with her character to send me a shovel to dig for buried treasure. There are treasures hidden here by pirates from way back, everybody knows. On June 24, Saint John’s Eve, you see lights on the beaches, indicating chest burial sites. Unfortunately the lights move, which throws off the greedy ones, and besides, it could be that the light is a trick of the brujos. No one has ever gotten rich yet from digging up the beaches on Saint John’s Eve.
The weather’s changing quickly, and Eduvigis knit me a Chilote hat. Doña Lucinda, who’s at least a hundred years old, dyed the wool with plants, bark, and fruits of the island. This ancient little old lady is the resident expert. No one else gets colors as strong as hers—different tones of brown, red, gray, black, and a putrid green that suits me really well. With very little money I was able to outfit myself with warm clothes and sneakers—my pink boots rotted in the humidity. In Chile everyone can dress decently: there are all kinds of places that sell secondhand clothing and American or Chinese stuff left over from sales, where sometimes I can find things in my size.
I’ve acquired respect for the Cahuilla, Manuel’s boat, so frail in appearance and so brave at heart. She’s carried us galloping across the Gulf of Ancud, and once the winter’s over we’ll go farther south, to the Gulf of Corcovado, visiting the coves along the coast of the Isla Grande. The Cahuilla is slow but safe in these tranquil waters; the worst storms come out on the open sea, in the Pacific. In the villages on the most remote islands live the antiguos, old-fashioned people who know the legends. Those traditional folks live off the land, the animals they raise, and fishing, in small communities, where the fanfare of progress has not yet arrived.
Manuel and I leave at daybreak, and if the distance is short we try to get back before it gets dark, but if it’s more than three hours away we sleep over, because only navy ships and the ghost ship El Caleuche sail by night. According to the antiguos, everything there is on land also exists underwater. There are submerged cities in the sea, in lakes, rivers, and ponds, and that’s where the pigüichenes live, bad-tempered creatures able to provoke swells and treacherous currents. Much care is required in wet places, they warned us, but it’s a useless piece of advice in this land of incessant rain, where everywhere is always drenched. Sometimes we find traditional people willing to tell us what their eyes have seen and we return home with a treasure trove of recordings, which are later a pain to decipher, because they have their own way of talking. At the beginning of the conversation they avoid the subject of magic; those are old wives’ tales, they say, nobody believes in that anymore; maybe they fear the reprisals of those “of the art,” as they call the brujos, or just don’t want to contribute to their own reputation as superstitious people, but with persistence and apple cider Manuel worms their secrets out.
We had the most serious storm so far, which arrived with giant strides, raging against the world. There was lightning, thunder, and a demented wind that rushed at us, determined to send the house sailing away in the rain. The three bats let go of the beams and started flying around the room, while I tried to get them out with the broom and Dumb-Cat swatted futilely at them in the trembling candlelight. The generator hasn’t been working for several days, and we don’t know when the maestro chasquilla will come—if he comes at all, that is; you never know, nobody keeps regular hours down here. In Chile they call any handyman or jack-of-all-trades a maestro chasquilla if he can half-fix something with a piece of wire and a pair of pliers, but there aren’t any on this island and we have to rely on outsiders, who make us wait for them as if they’re dignitaries.
The noise of the storm was deafening—rocks rolling, tanks, derailed trains, howling wolves, and
suddenly an uproar that came from deep in the earth. “It’s shaking, Manuel!” but he was unperturbed, reading with his miner’s lamp on his forehead. “It’s just the wind, girl. When there’s an earthquake the pots fall down.”
At that moment Azucena Corrales arrived, dripping wet, in a plastic poncho and fishing boots, to ask for help because her father was very sick. In the fury of the storm there was no signal for cell phones, and it was impossible to walk into town. Manuel put on his raincoat, hat, and boots, took the flashlight, and got ready to leave. I was out the door right behind him, not about to stay there on my own with the bats and the gale.
The Corraleses’ house is near, but it took us ages to cross that distance in the darkness, soaked by the waterfall from the sky, sinking into the mud, and struggling against the wind pushing us back. For a few moments I thought we were lost, but soon the yellow glow of the Corraleses’ window came into view.
The house, smaller than ours and more run-down, seemed barely able to stand, its loose planks rattling, but inside it was cozy. By the light of a couple of paraffin lamps I could see old furniture in disarray, baskets of knitting wool, piles of potatoes, pots, bundles, clothes drying on the line, buckets to catch the drips from the roof, and even cages with rabbits and hens that couldn’t be left outside in the storm. In one corner was an altar with a lit candle in front of a plaster Virgin Mary and an image of Father Hurtado, the Chilean saint. The walls were covered in calendars, framed photographs, postcards, publicity posters for ecotourism, and the Nutrition Manual for Seniors.
Carmelo Corrales had been a burly man, a carpenter and boat builder, but he’d been laid low by alcohol and diabetes, which had been undermining his body for a long time. At first he paid no attention to the symptoms; later his wife treated him with garlic, raw potatoes, and eucalyptus, and when Liliana Treviño finally forced him to go to the hospital in Castro, it was already too late. According to Eduvigis, the doctors’ intervention made him worse. Corrales didn’t change his way of life; he kept drinking and abusing his family until they amputated one of his legs, in December of last year. He can no longer catch his grandchildren to whip them, but Eduvigis often has a black eye, and nobody ever mentions it. Manuel advised me not to inquire, because it would be embarrassing for Eduvigis. Domestic violence is kept pretty quiet here. It’s not something that ever gets discussed.
They’d moved the ailing man’s bed over near the woodstove. From the stories I’d heard about Carmelo Corrales, his drunken fights and the way he mistreated his family, I imagined him as an abominable man. But there in that bed was an unthreatening, emaciated old man with his eyes half closed, mouth open, breathing with an agonizing rasp. I thought diabetics were always given insulin, but Manuel gave him a couple of spoonfuls of honey, and with that and the prayers of Eduvigis, the sick man came round. Afterward Azucena made us a cup of tea, which we drank in silence, waiting for the storm to abate.
About four in the morning Manuel and I went back to our house, cold by then, because the stove had been out for a while. He went to get kindling while I lit some candles and heated up water and milk on the little paraffin ring. I hadn’t noticed, but I was trembling, not so much from the cold as from the tension of that night, the gale, the bats, the dying man, and something I sensed in the Corraleses’ house and didn’t know how to explain, something evil, like hatred. If it’s true that houses get permeated with the life lived within their walls, in the Corraleses’ house there is wickedness.
Manuel quickly lit the fire, and we took off our wet clothes, put on our pajamas and thick slipper-socks, and wrapped up in Chilote blankets. He drank his second cup of tea and I drank my milk, both of us standing up, drawn to the stove. Then he checked the shutters, in case they’d come undone in the wind, filled my hot water bottle, left it in my room, and went into his. I heard him go to the washroom, come out again, and get into bed. I stayed up listening to the last grumblings of the storm, the claps of thunder, which were moving off, and the wind, which was starting to tire of blowing.
I’ve developed various strategies to overcome my fear of nighttime, and not one of them works. Since I arrived in Chiloé I’m physically and mentally healthy, but my insomnia has gotten worse, and I don’t want to resort to sleeping pills. Mike O’Kelly warned me that the last thing an addict recovers is normal sleeping patterns. I avoid caffeine in the evenings and things that might get me worked up, like books or movies with violent scenes, which might later come to haunt me at night. Before I go to bed I drink a glass of warm milk with honey and cinnamon, the magic potion my Popo used to give me when I was a little girl, and a tranquilizing infusion that Eduvigis makes for me of lime flower, elder, mint, and violet. But no matter what I do, and even though I go to bed as late as possible and read until I can’t keep my eyes open, I can’t deceive my insomnia, which is implacable. I’ve spent many nights of my life not sleeping. I used to count sheep; now I count black-throated swans or white-bellied dolphins. I spend hours in the darkness, one, two, three in the morning, listening to the house breathing, the whispering of ghosts, monsters scratching under my bed, fearing for my life. I get attacked by my lifelong enemies, sorrow, loss, humiliation, and guilt. Turning on the light is the equivalent of giving in. Then I won’t sleep for the rest of the night; with the light on, the house doesn’t just breathe, it also moves, palpitates, its protuberances and tentacles come out, the ghosts acquire visible outlines, the frights get worked up. This would be one of those endless nights. I’d had too much and very late stimulation. I was buried under a mound of blankets, watching swans fly by, when I heard Manuel arguing in his sleep in the room next door, as I’d heard so many other times.
Something provokes these nightmares, something related to his past and maybe to this country’s past. I’ve discovered a few things on the Internet that might be significant, but I’m just taking shots in the dark, with very few clues and no certainty. It all started when I wanted to find out about my Nini’s first husband, Felipe Vidal, and I was led to sites about the 1973 military coup, which changed Manuel’s whole life. I found a couple of articles published by Felipe Vidal about Cuba in the 1960s, when he was one of the few Chilean journalists who wrote about the revolution, and other reports of his from different parts of the world; he seemed to travel a lot. A few months after the coup he disappeared; that’s the last thing that comes up on the Internet about him. He was married, and he had a son, but the names of his wife and son do not appear. I asked Manuel where exactly he’d met Felipe Vidal, and he answered curtly that he didn’t want to talk about that, but I have a feeling that the stories of these two men are connected somehow.
In Chile, many people refused to believe in the atrocities committed by the military dictatorship, until irrefutable evidence emerged in the 1990s. According to Blanca, no one can deny that abuses were committed anymore, but there are still those who justify them. You can’t touch this subject in front of her father or the rest of the Schnake family, for whom the past is best kept buried. According to them the military saved the country from communism, imposed order, eliminated the subversives, and established the free market economy, which brought prosperity and obliged Chileans, lazy by nature, to work. Atrocities? They’re inevitable in war, and that was war: a war against communism.
What was Manuel dreaming of that night? I sensed the evil presences of his nightmares again, presences that have scared me before. Finally I got up and, feeling along the walls, went to his room, which was faintly illuminated by the distant glow from the stove, barely enough to discern the outlines of the furniture. I had never been in that room. We’ve cohabited closely; he helped me when I had colitis—there’s nothing as intimate as that—we run into each other in the bathroom, he’s even seen me naked when I get out of the shower distractedly, but his bedroom is forbidden territory, where only Dumb-Cat and Literati-Cat can enter without an invitation. Why did I do it? To wake him up so he wouldn’t keep suffering, to deceive my insomnia and sleep with him. That’s it, nothing
else, but I knew I was playing with fire. He’s a man and I’m a woman, even if he is fifty-two years older than me.
I like to look at Manuel, wear his old sweater, smell his soap in the bathroom, hear his voice. I like his ironic sense of humor, his confidence, his quiet company, I like that he doesn’t know how fond most people are of him. I’m not attracted to him, none of that, but I feel a huge affection, impossible to put into words. The truth is, I don’t have many people to love: my Nini, my dad, Snow White, two who I left in Las Vegas, no one in Oregon, apart from the vicuñas, and a few who I’m starting to love too much on this island. I approached Manuel, without being careful not to make noise, slipped into his bed, and hugged his back, with my feet between his and my nose in the nape of his neck. He didn’t move, but I knew he’d woken up, because he turned into a block of marble. “Relax, man, I’ve only come to breathe with you,” was the only thing that occurred to me to say. We stayed like that, like an old married couple, bundled up in the warmth of the covers and the warmth of us both, breathing. And I fell soundly asleep, like the times when I used to sleep in between my grandparents.
Manuel woke me up at eight with a cup of coffee and toast. The storm had lifted and left the air washed clean, with a fresh scent of wet wood and salt. What had happened the night before seemed like a bad dream in the morning light that bathed the house. Manuel was clean-shaven, his hair wet, dressed in his usual way: misshapen pants, high-collared shirt, sweater frayed at the elbows. He handed me the tray and sat down beside me.
“Sorry. I couldn’t sleep, and you were having a nightmare. I guess it was stupid of me to come into your room . . . ,” I said.
“Agreed.”
“Don’t pull that old maid’s face on me, Manuel. Anyone would think I committed an irreparable crime. I didn’t rape you or anything even close.”
Maya's Notebook Page 12