She shakes her head and says that I’m already acting like a wife and those words sound great to my ears. He wakes up by ten o’clock and comes to the kitchen. Gumercinda serves him breakfast while I scold him for not letting me know he was coming.
“I told my sister to tell you,’ he says with surprise. “Perhaps she forgot.” He is wearing a white turtle neck sweater and black pants and I can’t stop staring at him.
“I told you I was coming, didn’t I?” he says with a little smile. “It just took a little longer to take care of things at home.”
“Now it’s my turn to show you around, I hope Ricardo will be nice enough to lend us his motorcycle.”
“I’m sure he will,” he says putting sugar in his coffee. “He’s a pretty good kid.”
“Let me warn you that there isn’t much to see here, after we see the Salt Lakes, it’s pretty much over in Uyuni.”
“I’ll be with you, won’t I? That’s all that matters to me.”
Those words and all they imply nearly stop my heart from beating. He does care about me and I haven’t dreamed up the whole thing.
Ricardo is a good sport and he lends us his motorcycle. We ride to the Salt Lakes on a sunny, windy day and he kisses me there for the first time taking my breath away. I embrace him wanting to melt into him but his common sense always prevails. We go to the movies often, spending the entire time kissing and making up stories for father when he questions us about the picture. We take long walks in town laughing at the colorful stories I make up about the students. We shop for groceries in the open market and tell the vendors we are married, delighting in our lies and the curious looks of people who know he isn’t a local fellow but someone much older and sophisticated than me. We kiss in public deliberately provoking the bad tongues, and flaunting our relationship in front of the local boys who slighted me at the dance.
Uyuni has never looked more beautiful, more magical to me, perhaps mother was right and love is all a person needs to achieve real happiness in this world. If Fernando would stay here with me, I would be the happiest person on earth, but I know he has to go back sooner or later, and try to steel myself to handle it in a mature fashion, inwardly dreading his parting.
He stays a month, and it’s the happiest time in my life, I spend every second in his company acting light and gay, but whenever he brings up the subject of leaving, a shadow comes over my face and I feel tears welling in my eyes.
“Hey,” he says holding my chin and forcing me to look at him. “I’m not going to forget about you. Time won’t change anything.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
He sets the date to go to Argentina but keeps changing it again and again to please me, till the time finally comes he has to leave, and all my resolve to be strong and dignified fails me, and I cry unabashedly in his arms in front of my father that freezing night at the station. Realizing the depth of my feelings, father shows unusual tact and sensitivity, giving me room to mourn and respecting my privacy.
“Time will take care of this,” he says catching me crying in the garden, a few days later. “And I’m here for you if you want to talk about this.”
But I know time will not take care of this, I can’t eat and I can’t sleep and there is no relief for my agony. I struggle to understand what has transpired between us, driving the maid crazy with questions that have no answers. I feel needy, desperate and out of control. I’m not used to feeling this way and this neediness terrifies me. I want to go back in time and erase him from my memory but each new day only intensifies my longing.
At last I receive a three page letter from him from Argentina, and I quickly retreat to my bedroom, locking the door behind me to read it in private. I draw the blinds so that my sister who has seen my stepmother handing me the envelope doesn’t peek from the windows, ruining everything. I rip the envelope open and begin reading it slowly, gently, savoring each word. It is a letter full of longing because he can’t get me out of his mind either, and is having a hard time focusing on his studies. He says he loves me and wants me to come to Argentina as soon as possible so we can work it out. He’s willing to talk to father, to make a lifetime commitment.
I let out a scream of happiness and press the letter to my chest dancing around the room joyously. It’s a validation of my feelings, a passage from girl to woman. I look in the mirror and see a different person there, a person capable of loving and being loved in return. I read and re-read each word, each paragraph till I know the letter by heart, keeping it buried under my pillow to re-read it each night before I go to sleep. I answer him passionately, telling him that I adore him and will wait till he talks to father so we can get married in Argentina. I will take the midnight train like Mili, and my heart beats furiously in anticipation. Unfortunately my sister sneaks into my bedroom while I’m at school and snatches my letter, mockingly sharing its contents with everyone in the household before Fernando has a chance to talk to them.
“He must be out of his mind,” says father coming to my room that night with a solemn look in his face. “An innocent vacation romance is one thing, but wanting to marry you is another, he must have lost his senses.”
“Why? I love him and he loves me.”
“Because you’re sixteen years old and he’s twenty five, don’t you see how ludicrous that is?”
“We’re in love,” I say defiantly. “And we are going to get married.”
“We’ll see about that,” he says tersely. “You’re still a minor under my custody, and I can legally stop you.”
I have never hated my intrusive half sister more, I feel angry, violated, and every loving, tender word he wrote me in private is now public knowledge.
“How far did this relationship go anyway?” asks father, glaring at me with suspicion.
“What?”
“Don’t give me that innocent look. You know what I mean, you’re not a child.”
I spring to my feet as if jolted by electricity, and spit the words angrily. “Unfortunately not far enough, no thanks to me, I assure you.”
He scoffs. “He was smart about it or he would have ended up in jail,” he says heading for the door. “And as for you, if you want to be like your mother, go right ahead.”
He had saved the best for last. I wanted to chase him down the hall and make him eat his words but instead just stood there angry, paralyzed, and unable once again to defend my mother. Why did the world insist in condemning her? She had Oscar and Angel out of wedlock but so what? She was an honest, decent person and she killed herself supporting us. How many people had abortions galore and were never condemned by the world? But with mother the evidence was there in her children and that made her a bad person. I never understood that rationalization. People killed with impunity by aborting their children and that was completely acceptable, but having children by different fathers out of wedlock was a terrible sin, and the world despised you.
My father, of all people, was the one who should be scorned and condemned by the world because he forgot he had a child, but here he was now acting like his record was impeccable. And now he had tried to cheapen the romance, making it into something sordid, unseemly but I wouldn’t let him, what had happened between Fernando and I was beautiful, and neither he nor anyone was ever going to taint it.
I retaliate by keeping my distance from everyone but the damage is done and I despise my father more than ever now for insulting my mother. Trying to alleviate the tense atmosphere Rosa steps into the fray cautioning me not to do anything crazy.
“I called my brother and told him to wait till you’re eighteen years old,” she says with concern. “If this thing is real, it will stand the test of time. You’ve got so much time ahead of you, two more years won’t matter. In the meantime you can write to him as much as you want or call him on the phone but always under our supervision, do you understand? I don’t think your father is being unreasonable about this but rather very considerate of your feelings.”
&n
bsp; I don’t answer her wondering if I could ask Fernando for money and run away, but I am convinced they open my letters before mailing them and feel cornered, trapped like a rat. I hate them for trapping me, for not understanding, for turning the most beautiful experience of my life into something shameful, sordid. I can’t understand why it should matter to father if I’m married at sixteen or eighteen, he doesn’t love me, he will never love me, and this would be an easy way to get rid of me. The whole thing puzzles and mortifies me; I pour my feelings out in letters to Fernando and hope my father does read them so he’ll know how I view his attempts at playing my father now, at this late date in time.
A short time later, Aunt Sonia unexpectedly calls wanting me to come home for vacation. My heart leaps with joy because I am convinced she will give me the money to go to Argentina. I pack in a hurry, this was the break I had been looking for, and the thought of seeing my family again fills me with happiness. I can’t wait to see Oscar and my mother, and wonder if Angel is still the same impish little person.
Father takes me to the station and gives me a warm embrace before the train departs. Time has passed by quite slowly for me in Uyuni, but standing there waiting to board another train, it seems only yesterday I got off that train for the first time. I wave at him with mixed feelings, realizing that we would never be close just as mother had predicted, but that I do feel something in my heart for him, can it be the famous blood ties, some secret inner pain or the longing for what might have been? I’m still furious he doesn’t understand my feelings for Fernando, assuming I will get over it the way one gets over an illness and can’t wait to prove him wrong.
My half sister cries saying goodbye to me at the house, and I wonder if she suspects I don’t intend to come back. She has been intrusive and annoying but I have liked her better than the others, she has been my companion on the roof of the house where we sunbathed for hours with baby oil, much to the annoyance of my father.
The lack of curiosity of the whole family towards me never ceased to puzzle me, however. I had been full of questions about their life from the beginning, but they never learned anything about me, just as mother had predicted. My sister told me they traveled all the time, including a brief stay in Argentina where father turned down a lucrative contract because he couldn’t bear to leave Bolivia. He had also turned down contracts to stay in Mexico and the United States where he had been sent for a couple of months, choosing to remain in his own country against the wishes of the rest of the family. I listened to her in astonishment till she explained that father was a true patriot and that in those countries he would be just another engineer, but in Bolivia he was a very important man with a lot of connections.
~~~
Aunt Sonia welcomes me with open arms saying she has great news she can’t wait to share with me. I try to talk about Fernando but she dismisses me with impatience. “Your Uncle Jorge called, he needs someone to take care of his baby and he thought of you, you’re going to America, isn’t that great?”
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing, but the timing is terribly, terribly wrong.
“I already discussed it with your father over the phone and he’s agreed to pay your fare, he knows it’s for the best, isn’t that great?”
Now I understood the hint of sadness in his eyes as he waved goodbye to me at the station and wonder if the rest of the family knew it too and that’s why Ana María cried in my arms.
I’m speechless. I know all about my uncle’s relationship with Felicia, but never imagined that the baby from that illicit union, which had caused so much pain and suffering to Aunt Alicia, would change my life one day. I think of Fernando and feel sick to my stomach.
“What’s the matter,” snaps my aunt. “You look green.”
“You know I always wanted to go there,” I say, stuttering. “It’s been the dream of my life but something’s happened, something I need to talk to you about.”
“Your father had told me all about it,” she says, impatiently. “But I told him you’re smart and ambitious, and you’re not going to let a silly romance stand in your way. Don’t disappoint me now; I expect great things from you. These things happen all the time, but we don’t let them change the course of our lives, it’s all a part of growing up. I had my heart broken many times but I got over it. I hate to think where I would be if I had been foolish and sentimental like your mother, in her situation I would have aborted the baby and come to La Paz as I asked her to, instead of forcing your father to marry her.”
“That baby was me Aunt Sonia.”
“I know, I know, but you were just a little cell, you would have been born anyway but under better circumstances.”
“But I wouldn’t be me, I would be somebody else.”
“Are you going to be practical about this or are you going to be your mother’s daughter and pass up the opportunity of a lifetime?”
I lower my face and begin crying. “I love him,” I tell her through my tears. “And nobody understands.”
“I’ve always helped you before because you were worth helping, but I don’t have patience for all this nonsense. You have to get busy right away, there’s a lot of paperwork to be done. First thing you’ve got to do is talk to your mother because we’re going to need her consent again. The next one is to write to the guy and tell him it’s over, he’s older than you, he will understand.”
I cry myself to sleep that night knowing that the dream of my life has come at a very high cost, and that I will have to give up Fernando. Thinking of him which has brought me nothing but pleasure now brings me pain. I will beg my aunt to let me call him, so I can tell him personally to wait for me, sending him a letter seems cold and wrong, but when I mention it to her the next day she refuses, telling me that these things are better done in the most impersonal way, and that she will give me the money to send him a letter by registered mail if possible. I pour my heart to him in a long letter, telling him that I will go to America only temporarily till I’m old enough to get married. I tell him that nothing will change my feelings for him and that I am obligated to make this trip. I send it praying that he will answer me quickly; I need to know he understands my decision, the same way I understood his decision to go to Argentina without me.
~~~
The reunion with mother is as heartbreaking and emotional as I had expected it to be; we hug and cry in each other arms, unable to believe we are really together after two long years of separation. She looks older, wearier, with dark circles under her enormous eyes and new lines on her forehead. She also looks puffier, more bloated.
“Are you retaining water, ma?”
“No,” she says looking away. “Something else is going on.”
“What.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’re not sick are you?” I ask with alarm.
She bites her lower lip. “Not really, I just don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ll tell you about it later.”
Oscar comes into the room with Angel and they both hug me excitedly. Oscar has gotten taller, slimmer, and his expressive dark eyes stand out more on his pale, freckled face. He still has the grace of a gazelle while Angel looks like a cat, with slanted green eyes and a pointy chin. He’s big boned like his father but has more coarse features, with a bigger nose and pocked marked skin. Mom makes chicken soup with rice and we eat it with bread.
“I missed your soups,” I say savoring each bite. “Nobody makes soups like you.”
We go for a long walk at my request, and the shabby neighborhood and smell of poverty I had almost forgotten, assails me at once. There are more vagrants and outcasts living at the foot of the hills now, and mother says it’s very dangerous to go out at night. The old familiar feelings of pain, impotence and rage hit me looking at the crowded, shabby shacks, exploding with beggars and barefoot children.
“It’s gotten really crowded since you left,” she says reading my mind. “But it’s not that bad, really. I still sell a lot of m
y baby clothes at the Black Market.”
“Do they pay you on time at least?”
“No, but the natives give us groceries and cooked meals in exchange. You know how tasty their food is, impossible to resist really. I was sick with laryngitis a few months ago and they took care of me. They brought me soup and bread. I helped another starving baby last year and they have become very fond of me ever since.”
“How did you manage that again?”
“They kept giving him coca water instead of milk because the baby kept throwing up and wouldn’t keep anything down, so I gave him rice water which is very nutritious till he got better.”
“Rice water?”
“Yes, the Chinese live on it; it’s an excellent substitute for milk.”
“How do you know that, ma?”
“I read it some place child, I don’t remember where now.”
“So you saved another baby,” I say sarcastically, wondering how long their good will is going to last this time. “What happened to your assistant?”
“I had to let her go. I simply couldn’t keep paying and feeding her anymore.”
“Oh, ma,” I say pressing her arm. “That must have hurt. I know how fond you were of her.”
“Welcome back to my reality,” she says tearing up. “Did you really think anything would change?”
“I don’t know what I thought.”
“Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente,” [“What the eyes don’t see, the heart won’t feel”] she says referring to my absence. “I didn’t want to burden you, but things have been very difficult for us.”
Beyond the Snows of the Andes Page 28