“What did Aunt Sonia have to say about all this?”
“What else? She was horrified and wanted me to arrange for an abortion, she said she would pay for it and wanted to send me to Brazil to her friend’s house to get away from her. She hates Silvia and thinks I could have done a lot better for myself.”
I lift my eyebrows and he snaps. “You don’t agree with that, do you? You don’t think I could ever kill my own child?”
“No, of course not, but I wished it hadn’t happened this soon. I mean…she is only a teenager, why didn’t she use birth control?”
“We used birth control but it failed, nothing is one hundred percent secure, you ought to know that.”
“I take pills and they are one hundred percent secure.”
“They make Silvia sick; she tried them and had to give them up. Look, it is not a tragedy, the baby is the biggest gift I ever got, I’m very happy about it. I’m going to be a great father; I’m going to give my child all the things I didn’t have. And I’m going to make a success out of this marriage; I’m not going to be like my father fathering kids all over the place and then forgetting about them. Now stop worrying and put a smile on your face because we are here,” he says ringing the doorbell of a stucco corner house, blocked by gigantic trees. “Wait till you see her, you’re going to love her right away.”
We hear dogs barking and steps rushing down to the front gate. A tall, round faced girl with lustrous long black hair and small brown eyes opens the door and looks at me with curiosity.
“Oscar has described you perfectly,” she says with a wide smile showing a lot of gum. “I practically feel that I know you already.”
We go up five flights of stairs and I finally arrive at her apartment breathlessly.
“I’m sorry,” I tell them panting. “But I’m still feeling the effects of the attitude.”
It’s a small, roof top apartment with marvelous views of the mountains. Here they call them “garcionaires” [“Small apartments”] because of their size and bohemian aspect. There is a big balcony outside where they do their laundry, cook barbecues and hope to raise a dog. The furniture is second hand and sparse. They have a few couches on the floor covered by colorful blankets, and a round table in the center. The kitchen is small, and in a corner of the dinning room is a stack of records. “That belongs to Oscar,” says Silvia, proudly. “You know he is crazy about music.”
I start looking at them and find album after album of The Beatles which were the biggest fad when I was living with Aunt Sonia, during my last year in Bolivia.
“He has every album they ever recorded,” says Silvia. “He taught himself to speak English with them.”
My eyes get moist. There is so much about him I don’t know, so many years during which struggling with my own problems, I knew nothing, heard nothing and didn’t much care about anything.
Their bedroom is hidden on the side, and it is a quaint, soft yellow room with the queen size bed covered with an alpaca bedspread they have purchased in the black market. On the wall there is a big black and white portrait of the two of them embracing and she tells me her brother, who is an aspirant photographer, took it and gave it to them when they got engaged. It is a beautiful picture and he has captured more than just the happiness in their faces, he has captured their souls.
She makes me tea with cookies and we talk. She is cute and observant but perhaps the most attractive thing about her is a gentility and softness that immediately puts me at ease. She talks slowly and carefully, enunciating each word naturally, and the almost melodious inflection in her voice is soothing, enticing. She projects serenity, her dark eyes two big pools of uncomplicated waters. I understand at once why he fell in love with her. In his tumultuous young life, she was an oasis, a place of refuge. I find myself liking her, cheering for her, perhaps this is what was meant for my brother and not the life I wanted to give him. And it is obvious they are in love, there is a sweet happiness in their faces and I know in that moment that nothing is going to prevent me from being present at their wedding.
We spend a pleasant afternoon during which I learn she has a sister and a brother who live downstairs with her parents, and that Oscar and her just finished painting their love pad in anticipation of my coming.
“Thanks for lending me Oscar,” I tell her upon leaving and she smiles and says she would never dream of interfering with Oscar’s famous sister.
“Take all the time you need and just let him come home to me one week before the wedding, that’s all I ask.”
“Well, what do you think?” asks Oscar, excitedly, as we walk back home.
“I like her,” I tell him. “I really like her. I think you’re going to be very happy with her, and God knows you deserve it more than anyone in the world.”
“I knew you would. She is a wonderful person and we practically have been living together already, we get along great, you know.”
“I gathered as much,” I say, smiling mischievously. His curly hair is in disarray because of the sudden wind, but nothing can mar his handsome features.
“You’re going to make a very good looking groom.”
“What about her? She is gorgeous.”
“Of course she is.”
“That’s it? You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”
“What do you want me to say? I’m not the one who’s in love with her.”
“Don’t be superficial like Aunt Sonia; you don’t know how I see her.”
“What did Aunt Sonia say about her?”
“She picked her apart, feature by feature, she wanted me to marry a blonde, blue eyed girl like you, but I wasn’t surprised because that’s her style.”
“She is beautiful, Oscar, and I’m very happy for you.”
“Are you really? That means the world to me, you know.”
“I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
~~~
Our next stop is the hardest, the house in El Alto mother fought so hard to acquire, and where they both had spent the most painful months of their lives. We take a cab up there, passing dusty street after dusty street till we finally get to a white house in the middle of the block. I pay the cab driver, we get off and Oscar hesitates and lights a cigarette with trembling hands.
“Uh, uh,” he moans. “It means nothing to you but to me, to me, it is hell on earth.”
I see the shadow of pain coming into his eyes and hug him. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not up to it.”
He takes a deep drag. “It brings horrible memories but I have to face them some day. Just give me a few minutes. We are here already, and we have to go through with it. I’m not going to let you come all the way up here for nothing.”
I look around the frigid, humble neighborhood, famous for its hash climate, and try to imagine her walking the narrow streets holding her children - her enormous eyes crazed by sickness and worry - her mind beset by unbelievable torment. Oscar is silent, his face is grim and he seems to be struggling with himself.
“We don’t have to go,” I repeat. “Just point to the house, is it the middle one?”
“Yes,” he says, steeling himself. “Let’s go.”
We knock on the wooden door of the ranch type house and wait a few minutes. Oscar looks tense and sick.
“The façade has changed,” he says, nervously stubbing his cigarette on the floor.
“When mom had the house it was all brick. It looks like the new owner has sloppily thrown stucco over it now.”
The Indian man opens the door and wants to know what we want. Oscar explains the situation and the man looks at me with suspicion.
“Please,” I beg him. “It will mean a lot to me if you just let us take a look. I promise we won’t be long.”
Two barefoot children come to the door and he yells at them to go back.
“My aunt sold you the house, remember? Seňora de Malta?” says my brother. “She said it would be fine to see it, she said you would remember her.”
; “La Seňora? Si, está bien, entren, entren.”[“Oh, the Mrs., yes, that’s fine, come on in”]
Oscar shows me the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, and tells me it looks the same, except for the furniture. I pause a few minutes imagining her cooking, cleaning, living her life in this house. We go to the courtyard where she had planted her flowers and I remembered how lovingly she had described the spot before illness struck her. Oscar looks pale and he thanks the owner in a low voice.
“You weren’t there because if you had been, you would have gone mad, Vicky. Sometimes I don’t know how I kept my sanity,” he says walking away from the house briskly, as though chased by a demon.
“I’m sorry I put you through it, please forgive me.”
“The sight of our bedroom,” he says tersely. “Was a place of purgatory, there is just no other way to describe it. Night after night I would hear her cry out in pain and night after night I would give her a bottle of aspirin which she chewed up like candy in an effort to stop the pain but nothing did,” he lights another cigarette and his face is distorted by the memory.
“Trying to quell cancer pains with aspirins, if it wasn’t so tragic, it would almost be laughable. She would stop crying for a while and just as I was beginning to fall asleep again, I would hear her steady moaning again, ay, ay, ay, ay, and I would cover my face and shut my ears but I couldn’t shut her out, I couldn’t shut her out and that nearly drove me crazy. I used to fear the night; because as soon as it started getting dark I would find myself shaking, breaking into a sweat, as if I had a fever or something. In the daytime it wasn’t so bad because she was distracted with her daily routine, but at night she would go crazy with pain and I would see her pulling her hair and banging her head against the wall moaning “why don’t I just die,” “why don’t I just die,” while I ran around in a fog trying to help her. I would bring her a hot water bottle; I would massage her right arm which had become damaged because of the operation but nothing helped.”
“Please don’t tell me anymore.”
“You wanted to come here, you wanted to face the truth and now you’re going to listen to me because I need to get this out, do you understand?”
I assent and he sits down on the curb and lights another cigarette.
“You don’t die,” he says with a bitter laugh. “That’s the funny thing, you have nightmares for years, you walk around with weights but you survive. Yet at the time it was happening I thought I was going to end up dead one day or I was going to kill her because I hated her, you see? I hated her illness, her relentless pain; I wanted to relieve her and myself. I thought of choking her with a pillow, she was torturing me and I wanted to make it stop, just make it stop but I never had the guts.”
I want to shut my eyes and try to escape the horror I had sensed, I had dreaded but I can’t, for some sick reason I’m compelled to listen.
“She had a hemorrhage one night,” he says with his voice trailing off. “And I had to run around looking for help. It was a particularly bitter night, the kind this area is famous for, and I didn’t even have time to put on a coat, I ran outside in my pajamas, I started knocking on doors, yelling, screaming, thinking I would go crazy till at last somebody helped me and came to the door. Mother’s bed was drenched in blood and she had put a sheet under her to stop the flow, but it kept coming, and by the time the ambulance came she passed out and I thought she was dead and started screaming and couldn’t stop till a neighbor slapped me hard saying I was hysterical. When I came to I was in her house and she told me mother was in the hospital and everything was going to be fine, that’s when they brought her to the hospital you saw and two months later she died.”
I ride back home in a silence heavy with consternation and grief. As I watch him smoke one cigarette after another, a fine, steady rain falls upon the city. I’m suddenly seized with a powerful desire to protect him, to shield him from the world and all its evils. I have suffered but my suffering doesn’t compare to his. I picture myself a child, alone with her in that desolate house and marvel at his resiliency to live through it. Yet I also know he has something I will never have, closure.
“I need a drink,” I tell him. “Can we go some place and have a glass of wine or something?”
“Good idea,” he says, smiling for the first time. “I’ll take you to this cozy little place in El Prado, let’s take a cab there.”
“No, I rather walk. I could use the exercise.”
“But it’s a long, long walk, Vicky,” he protests. “It must be at least five miles.”
“I don’t care. I need it.”
“To tell you the truth, so do I,” he says understanding. “Let’s do it.”
We start walking past congested streets full of people and cars for what seems to be a long time and finally head north passing the Chokeyapu River, it is filthy, smelly and quite small, but memories of Uncle Berto wash over me. I’m small again, the river seems enormous and he is holding my hand tight and reassuring me. I can touch his face; feel the smell of his soap, admire his strength. I turn away in pain.
The city has changed, it has grown. I see new bridges and buildings creeping up all over the place. It is a rather pretty, exotic city, surrounded by hills and narrow streets full of color and diversity, yet it still affects me, it still fills me with discomfort and claustrophobia. I’m free now, I’m a visitor, I can see my own country with a tourist’s eye, yet a part of me still wants to flee, to break away. I’m still afraid of entrapment, of ending up back where I started from, and I know it’s illogical and I fight it with all my might, but the old fear is always there lurking in the background.
We get to a bar in Miraflores and order two glasses of wine. It isn’t the nice place he had wanted to go to in El Prado, but it’s perfect for our condition at the moment because we are both drenched in sweat from the long walk.
“That long walk was a kind of therapy,” he says looking at me intensely. “I’m so glad you suggested it.”
“That’s my remedy for everything in life, Oscar, just walk, walk your demons away.”
“To say nothing of ghosts,” he says with a soulful look.
We drink in a silence charged with meaning, a sadness and desolation pervading our senses; an aura of unreality and bitter reality assailing us.
“I told you it would hurt, didn’t I?”
“I know, but I still had to do it.”
He lowers his head and orders another drink. “What do you want to do tomorrow?”
“The cemetery, do you mind?”
“No, after today I don’t mind anything.”
“I want to see the two graves.”
“Sure, anything you want, my sister.”
“I love you, Oscar, I’m sorry I wasn’t in your life the way I should have been.”
“I’ve always known that, and that knowledge has sustained me all my life. You had your own problems; I couldn’t expect you to take mine on too.”
“Still, I wish I had been there for you during that horrible time.”
“You were there in spirit; I always sensed your love and concern for me.”
“Did you? We were buddies since we were little, weren’t we?”
“The best, but I knew even then that you couldn’t live my life, all you could do was live your life the best way you knew how.”
“I want to see Angel and Daisy too.”
“They are living with their grandmother. We’ll go there whenever you want.”
“Do you ever see them?”
“No, and I’m really sorry about that but they are living different lives now and it’s been difficult to arrange it.”
~~~
I know that after mother died my aunt had fought in court for custody but she had lost. The judge had ruled that children belonged with their parents and Gustavo had been granted full custody.
“Why did Aunt Sonia fight? She never really wanted the children.”
“Guilt,” says Oscar. “After ma died, Aunt Sonia went crazy with g
uilt. “She refused to give mom the peace of mind she needed by telling her she would take her children, and she went she to pieces when she died, but it was too late, the law favors the father and she couldn’t have them. Just as well, I don’t think she could have handled it.”
But my aunt had changed; she had mellowed with the passing of the years and the tragedies she had suffered. The loss of her husband, who had been her rock, had hit her hard, and there was now sadness and loneliness in her demeanor. Cockiness and self assurance had given way to self doubt, confusion and a growing sense of fatality, yet I still saw in her the unmitigated courage which had always been her biggest strength.
Looking at her now I realized that I felt enormous compassion for her, she had gotten Uncle Jorge, Ramiro, Ana and me out of the country but she had stayed behind. She had had vision for us to lead a better life, but she was condemned to spend the last years of her life in the country she detested. She had tried to block pain from her life but pain had found her nonetheless. I even understood now why she had hated mother so much, why she had always had a visceral reaction to her.
Grandma Claudia was an open wound in her life and mother reminded her of her. She saw in mother the same impractical nature and mawkish sentimentality she hated in her own mother, but the root of it all was that she couldn’t forgive Grandma Claudia for abandoning her as a child, so she beat up on my mother; it was almost a primal, unconscious thing. She could have benefited so much from therapy, the way I did, but I knew she would never even consider it, so she was destined to die without ever really knowing herself.
Carlos too was different, quiet, withdrawn, hostile and rebellious. He had adored his father and the loss had been devastating to him.
“He acted crazy,” says Oscar. “Singing in the shower a day after he died, pretending nothing bad had happened. None of us knew what to make of it.”
Beyond the Snows of the Andes Page 49