“Niña Celeste, come eat your breakfast! You’ll be late!” Nana’s school-day morning voice is as loud as ever!
“Coming, Delfina!” I am halfway down the stairs when I remember Tía Graciela’s conch shell. I quickly grab it from my nightstand, wrap it in one of Abuela Frida’s blue scarves to keep it from breaking, and put it in my backpack for good luck.
The zuzu, zuzu sound of the cable car sends shivers up my spine. It speaks to me in a funny voice like Abuela Frida’s bumblebee accent. Zzzzzz, zzzzz, zzzzz! Back to zzzzzschool!
The first thing I see when I approach the courtyard of the Juana Ross School are the bright colors of the Chilean flag. I remember learning a song that taught us the meaning of the national colors on my first day as a student here. I was five years old and also had julepe in my stomach. I hum softly to myself and remember: “White snow of the Andes, red blood of our heroes, blue skies with a single brave star.”
As I move closer toward the tall metal fence separating the courtyard from the street, I see many young children running around whom I don’t recognize at all. That used to be us: me, Cristóbal, Ana, Gloria, Marisol, Lucila. Now I am one of the “big kids” in the eighth grade at the high school. The julepe churns like a storm inside me—there’s no more Ana, no more Lucila. As I pass through the front doors, I notice there are small holes and jagged cracks in some of the windows. Earthquakes or gunfire? I shiver.
The hallways have their same familiar musty smell. The paint on the walls—as white as a winter day on Juliette Cove—has begun to crack. Beneath I see the colors of the murals we painted years ago to celebrate the election of Presidente Alarcón. Those memories guide me back to Marta Alvarado.
She is there, sitting at her desk, wearing her long red coat. Her head is turned down toward a pile of maps. “Señorita?” my voice barely comes out in a whisper.
“Celeste? Is it you? Celeste Marconi!” Señorita Alvarado springs from her chair and nearly knocks it to the ground as she runs to catch me in a tight hug. “Oh, what a sight you are! How beautiful! What a miracle you are back!”
Marta Alvarado gives me the traditional Chilean greeting I missed so much: a kiss on both cheeks. Her dark hair is thinner, and like Papá’s, streaked with strands of gray. “Celeste, welcome back!”
“Gracias, Señorita Alvarado. I am so happy to see you!”
“Celeste, you look lovely and, I must say, a bit taller . . . though not too much!” Señorita Alvarado stands on her tiptoes, and we laugh and embrace again.
“Come, I will take you to your classroom.” She guides me by the elbow. “Did you know that Principal Castellanos has returned from exile in Spain?”
“No, I didn’t!” My heart takes a happy leap.
“Yes, but instead of being principal, he has returned to teaching Spanish literature at the high school. He told me that reading the classics gave him hope during the years of worry for all his friends here, and so he wants to pass that on to you young people.”
“That’s wonderful!” I exclaim. “Then he will be my literature teacher?”
“Sí! And knowing you, I am sure you will be his prize pupil!”
Suddenly so much in my world seems right.
“Here we are, Celeste, classroom 14.” Señorita Alvarado peeks around the doorway. “I see someone who will be very happy to see you. Go ahead, Celeste, but don’t forget to visit at the end of the day to tell me how everything went.”
I step through the doorway. Julepe. Then I spot a girl in the back. Her head is down, and she is scribbling furiously in a notebook, but I would know that glossy black hair anywhere. “¡Hola, amiga bonita!”
Marisol slams her book shut and looks up with a start. “Celeste! You scared me half to death!” She gets up to kiss me on both cheeks. “I’m doing last night’s homework, and I thought you were the teacher! Oh! I am so glad you are back in school!”
“I am so glad you are here.” I confide in my old friend, “I feel nervous, Mari.”
She nods understandingly. “A lot has changed, amiga . . .”
My heart aches. I’ve reminded her of Lucila. But I know what might cheer us both up. “Mari, before the bell rings, let’s go play hopscotch with the little girls for old time’s sake!”
Marisol grins. How I have missed that grin! “Well, I was trying to finish my algebra . . . but . . .”
“But that is what lunchtime is for, right?” I tease her. “Isn’t that what you always say?”
“All right, all right! For you—hopscotch, kickball, jump rope, whatever!” Marisol gives in. “I just hope the senior boys don’t see us!” She smoothes some flyaway strands of hair back into her red barrettes.
“C’mon. You look gorgeous!” I urge her out the classroom door. We link arms and walk down the corridor. Marisol begins to skip, then tips her head back and shouts, “Guess what, everybody?! Celeste Marconi is back!” The echo of our laughter and footsteps fills that whole long, empty space.
Tremors
When we walk outside, I forget I ever wanted to play hopscotch. My mood changes almost instantly from light to dark. Why pretend things are back to normal? My eyes drift over the school yard. I don’t know half of the kids here, and so many who I expect to see are missing! Marisol must read my thoughts. “I know,” she says with a squeeze of my hand. “I can’t say you’ll ever get used to it, amiga. But it will start to feel more normal. Not that it’s a good thing . . .” Her voice trails off.
“Look! There’s Cristóbal waving us over!” Marisol sounds relieved. I am too. Cristóbal is sitting at our old bench. I am so happy to see him, especially with his pendulum—once so dangerous to take to school—swinging from his left hand! Marisol and I sit next to him. Nobody says much. Maybe, like me, they are missing Lucila . . . and Gloria, too. We sit like that—close together but in our own worlds—until the first bell rings.
The rest of the day passes by in a blur. In high school, our classes, as Marisol put it, “are more sophisticated now, like us!” It’s true, and that’s the best part about being back in school. There are so many new things to explore—philosophy, psychology, physiology—and best of all, languages. I am grateful that either Marisol or Cristóbal is in all of my classes . . . except for English. Marisol decided it would be more romantic to learn Italian, and Cristóbal is taking the beginning English class. When I walk into the classroom for Advanced English, I find there are only five other students. They are all seniors, except for a junior boy who speaks English with his Canadian father at home. Once I would have been so afraid to be in a new class with older kids, all of them strangers. It would have felt like such a big deal. How much the past two years have changed me!
The final class of the day is Spanish Literature. I rush down the hallway to make sure I arrive early. For the first time since seeing Marisol this morning, I feel actually happy. My old principal is back!
I rush through the door, and there he is, scrawling “metaphor” on the blackboard. “Señor Castellanos!”
He turns around and smiles. “I’d know those eyes anywhere! Celeste Marconi?”
“Sí, señor. Welcome home!”
He nods his head somberly. “Gracias. And the same to you. I hear you also went away. Where did you go?”
“The United States. And you, señor?”
“To the place I was born, Celeste. Granada, Spain. My parents brought me to Chile when I was a baby. To me, Valparaíso was always home. But I am glad I had a second motherland to flee to when our own became so troubled.”
I look at Señor Castellanos. I have so many thoughts in my head, so many questions to ask, but I can’t seem to get any words out! He smiles understandingly. “Why don’t you take a seat, Celeste. We have a whole school year ahead of us to talk about many things.”
“Sí, señor.” I turn from him and see Marisol waving excitedly from the second row. She is sitting at a desk and has put all her books at the one right next to it.
“Saved you a seat!” She grins. And sudden
ly for a moment it feels like old times. Just when I thought things would never be the same.
Too many tremors. Too much shaken up inside me. They settle into place only to be shaken up once more! I hold on to the edges of my desk. Will things ever just stay put?
What is happening to me?
I look down at my white knuckles. I didn’t realize how hard I was holding on. “¡Amiga! ¡Amiga!” Marisol whispers. “There isn’t an earthquake! Celeste, let go!”
I take a deep breath and put my head down on my desk. “Celeste, is something wrong?” Señor Castellanos’s voice floats over me from the front of the class. I raise my head, confused.
“I feel dizzy. Can I go to the bathroom?”
“Why don’t you go to the nurse’s office instead,” Señor Castellanos says. “Marisol will take you.”
The nurse is not the same nurse as before. But she is kind. Marisol gives my arm a squeeze. “I’ll come by for you later,” she says. I nod. All I want to do is close my eyes and forget.
How strange that not long ago I was on Juliette Cove, closing my eyes to remember!
Love Among Empty Spaces
When the dismissal bell rings, I am tired, but I feel better. Marisol is waiting for me at the door of the nurse’s office. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.” She threads her arm through mine.
“I promised Señorita Alvarado I would come by,” I say. “And I think I just want to be alone.”
Marisol looks a bit hurt, even though she is smiling. “Okay, feel better.”
“Gracias, Mari.” I hug her tight, and she hugs me back even tighter. In that hug I know she understands.
I knock on the door of Señorita Alvarado’s office. “Come in!” she calls. I open the door and see her sitting beside Señor Castellanos.
“¡Hola, Celeste!” they speak in unison, and then smile at each other.
“Hola, Señorita Alvarado, Señor Castellanos.”
“Are you feeling better, Celeste?” Señor Castellanos asks. “I know that the first day back can be full of so many emotions—”
Suddenly the question I have to ask can’t wait. I do something I have never done and interrupt my teacher: “Please tell me! Where are all my old classmates? It seems that half of them aren’t here!”
Señor Castellanos, grim-faced, looks to Señorita Alvarado, then back to me. “We don’t know, Celeste.”
“Things have gotten so much better,” Señorita Alvarado adds, “but we are still afraid to ask for their whereabouts. Hopefully, day by day, more familiar faces will arrive back at our school, just like today. Such a happy day for us, Celeste!”
Señor Castellanos looks again at Marta Alvarado. He shrugs his shoulders and puts out his hands as if asking for help, as if he is carrying a great weight and doesn’t know how to put it down.
Señorita Alvarado moves closer to him and speaks. “It is such a blessing for Marisol López especially to have you back. She always tries to put on a brave face, but the disappearance of her cousin has been very difficult for her. Those girls are like sisters.”
Marta Alvarado looks down, and I watch in disbelief as Señor Castellanos puts his arm around her. He clears his throat and adds gruffly, “You have heard, Celeste, that Gloria was sent to a private school?”
“Sí, Cristóbal Williams told me.”
I am afraid to ask them another horrible question they can’t answer, but it burns in my throat and I feel like I might choke on it. “Celeste, what is it?” Señor Castellanos’s face is concerned.
Then he looks at Marta Alvarado yet again. I sense them casting question marks over my head. They are fishing for some sort of answer from me. Señorita Alvarado’s soft voice carries her own sorrow to my ears.
“Celeste, we miss . . . everyone . . . so much . . .” Señorita Alvarado speaks to me like I am still eleven years old. “We just have to wait and be patient. . . .”
“But that’s what I did for two years on Juliette Cove!” I am surprised by the anger in my voice. Why is it so hard for adults to tell the truth?!
I wave my hands in frustration. I think of Mamá. How she always did the same thing. “She’s so like you, Esmeralda . . .” I remember Papá’s words. I suddenly need my mother so badly.
Mamá . . . please be safe at home! Please don’t ever go away!
“I went and found my father! Why can’t we go look for Lucila?! Why do we all just sit here waiting?”
Señor Castellanos holds me firmly by both shoulders. “Celeste, try to understand. Right now no one can—or will—say where they went. Just like no one could, or would, say where you had gone.”
I look down, feeling the familiar weight of having to accept unknowing. It may be worse than loss. Loss is a heavy stone that sinks to the bottom of the heart, but then the sands of time bury the pain so I feel it less. Not knowing is a smaller stone, but it’s sharper, constantly churning back and forth inside me.
There is a long silence. The kind I used to try to break, but now I am too tired, too frustrated. “We are going to have coffee at Café Iris,” Marta Alvarado begins. “Will you join us, Celeste?” they say in unison. I now realize how familiar they seem with each other.
“Thank you, but Abuela Frida is waiting for me. I don’t want to worry her.”
I close the office door behind me and blink. My eyes must be wide with wonder. Señorita Alvarado and Señor Castellanos! Could it be? Who would have thought?
The Elections
Dear Miss Rose,
All week Chile has been celebrating our first presidential elections after the fall of the General. The port is full of sailboats with Chilean flags, and ladies are selling carnations and parsley just like for New Year’s. Colorful buses come to Valparaíso from the smallest towns surrounding the city. Papá tells me that people walk in from the countryside for miles on foot just to cast their vote. Politicians walk up and down the hills asking for votes and passing out chocolates.
When I asked my mother how she decided who to vote for, she said: “It is good to listen to what they say, Celeste, but even better to observe their actions.” The candidate that Mamá chose is Mónica Espinoza. She was imprisoned by the General and suffered for years. She talks a lot about helping Chile heal her wounds, and especially is concerned with the poor and the sick, which is maybe why Mamá likes her so much. If Señora Espinoza wins, she will be Chile’s first woman president.
The voting took place on Sunday. Men and women vote separately in Chile, and everyone dresses up like it is an elegant occasion. Even my Abuela Frida—who has grown very frail and doesn’t leave the house much anymore—powdered her face and went down the hills, propped up by my mamá on one side and Nana Delfina on the other! She insisted on walking the whole way. “I want to be a part of everything!” she told me.
And something else: Do you remember I told you about the pelicans who would fly by my window every morning? And how they stopped coming regularly when troubles came to my country? Well, they’re back! All eight of them! Even my favorite, who’s older and slower than ever. I think they’re back because they know democracy’s been restored. Call me crazy, but these pelicans have shown me just how smart they are more than once. I’d say they might be wiser than owls.
Miss Rose, tonight the whole family is waiting for the results to be announced on the radio from Santiago. Papá is pacing back and forth, and Nana Delfina can’t stop peeling potatoes—she says it calms her nerves. All of Valparaíso is holding its breath! I will write to tell you how everything turns out.
Your student,
Celeste Marconi
P.S. I have been trying to keep up my English. I hope that I wrote well enough for you to understand!
I lick and seal the envelope just as my father calls my name, “Celeste! Come! The radio just announced it! Mónica Espinoza has won!” I run to the balcony, where my entire family has gathered. We wave to our neighbors as people flow into the streets.
“Come!” Papá takes Mamá’s hand and mine. He clear
s his throat, and I can see his eyes are wet. “Let’s go down to the harbor!”
The streets move slowly as a sea of people come down the hills to celebrate. Cristóbal is waiting for me at the bottom of Butterfly Hill. He is smiling, awake, and excited! I jump up and down, and Cristóbal grabs me by the waist and we dance until we are dizzy. Joy fills my body and shakes out all the heaviness of hard times and leaves it on the side of the road with old carnations, candy wrappers, and signs that say VOTE ! I know the next rains will wash that old heaviness into the gutters along with the dust.
“I Should Still Continue to Be”
This week Mamá and Papá reopened their clinic, the repairs all completed, just as my mother promised. Many people from all over Valparaíso come to see them. Not only do my parents listen to their heartbeats, but they also listen to their stories. They sit down and let their patients talk to them because, Papá says, speech cures pain. When the patients depart, they give my parents fresh eggs, bread, or sweets, like they always have, because they don’t have any money to pay.
Tonight my parents return before dinner, and Papá hands a burlap bag to a scowling Delfina, who frets about “Delfina’s Esmeralda working long hours for peanuts, and with her feeble health!”
But Papá tells her, “Delfina, queen of the kitchen! We have delicious eggs to eat for breakfast. Smile.”
As if she is reminding him who really runs our house, Delfina makes scrambled eggs for dinner. “We’ll have them now, since they are freshest!” She places a plate heaped high with what look like fluffy yellow clouds in front of my father and, with eyes full of mischief, hands him a fork.
Mamá winks at Delfina and then turns her attention toward me. “How was school, Celeste?”
School never stops being strange. Seeing the empty spaces. What happened in the past hardly mentioned at all. But instead I say, “We are reading Wuthering Heights in my Advanced English class!”
I Lived on Butterfly Hill Page 23