Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  “Thanks, but I’m not done yet. Let me just sit here and finish my juice. When you’re done up there, I’ll find you near the statue if I’m still around. You’re easy to spot with your red hair. And Manuel”—she added as he turned to go—“thanks for the drink.” He turned back and nodded slightly in her direction, then turned again and disappeared into the crowd. Minutes later, she could see the blaze of his hair as he began to climb the stairs, megaphone in hand.

  Eugenia sat at the table alone, nursing her sore left foot. She finished her drink slowly, enjoying the coolness of the liquid and the shade. Her foot felt a lot better after a while, though she came to realize how foolish she’d been to wear these boots to a demonstration. She got up from the table and began to walk back toward the plaza. She jumped when she felt a hand grab her arm, and for an instant she thought she was being robbed.

  “Hey! Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking all over!” It was Sergio. He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Man, what a crowd. Stinks to high heaven around here.”

  “You really must’ve been held up.” Eugenia looked at her watch. “I got so hot waiting around that I decided to have a drink.”

  “Have to be careful around here, babe. The hygiene isn’t quite what you’re used to in your neighborhood, you know.”

  “It’s okay. I had a good guide. He knows the places around here.” She met Sergio’s quizzical gaze and continued. “It’s that guy up there with the megaphone.”

  “Manuel Bronstein from the University of Chile?” Sergio spluttered. “You know who he is? He’s one of the top guys in the Revolutionary Left! He’s from the south, Temuco I think. Word is that he had to come up here because the cops were after him. Not the kind of guy you want to invite to your house for dinner, little girl! Family’s been in the country one, maybe two generations, no land to speak of. Man, I can just see your mama’s face when he gets to the door, red beard and all, reeking of black tobacco and garlic, nicotine stains on his broken fingernails. Believe me, doña Isabel would faint at the sight.”

  Eugenia straightened up to her full height and wrenched her elbow free. “You can say whatever you want, but there’s a few things I know for sure, without your help. He was here early. He and his friends did all the work to get things going. He was thoughtful enough to see I was hot. He offered me a juice, making sure we went to the place that boiled its water. By the time you showed up, you were two hours late, as usual. And even if your imported Marlboros smell a lot better than his black tobacco, the stench of your patronizing attitude makes me want to throw up!” She turned and headed for the plaza, surprised at her own assertiveness and at how happy she felt that it was finally over with Sergio. It had been a long time in coming, but it took that drink with Manuel for her to finally realize it for herself.

  The minute Eugenia stepped off the curb onto the cobblestones of the roundabout, she felt herself swept up and carried off by the whirlpool of humanity that now filled the whole area from the plaza to the river. As long as she relaxed into the current, she discovered, everything was fine. She felt herself carried along in the general direction of the statue. At one point she managed to look back and saw Sergio’s well-groomed head bobbing along.

  The ebb and flow of the crowd carried her closer to the statue, then further away. After several tries she found herself at the very edge of the swell as it reached the wrought-iron gate, and somehow pulled herself free by holding on to the rail. Sergio, still a good ten feet behind, was carried off into the center of the eddy once again. She saw him turn to look at her, and then he disappeared into the mass of berets, bandanas, and tousled locks. She sat down by a bed of sad petunias and considered her next move.

  “Well. I didn’t expect to see you here again so soon.” Manuel was standing next to her, trying to wipe the streams of sweat with a grimy handkerchief. His face was haggard, and he walked with a slight limp. He managed a crooked smile. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. He fumbled through the pockets of his jeans and pulled out another handkerchief, slightly cleaner than the first one. He sat down next to her and pressed it into her hand. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head and opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. After taking a few deep breaths she tried again. “I … I’m all right. It’s just that Sergio …”

  “I saw him in the crowd, but he was being carried in the other direction. Did he find you?”

  Eugenia nodded, blowing her nose into his handkerchief. “Yeah, he found me. Acted like everything was my fault. Said some pretty mean things. So I told him to get lost.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders for a moment. “It isn’t like I didn’t warn you.”

  “Yeah, I guess now I can see better what you meant.” She turned toward him. He took his arm off her shoulders and stood up, still looking down at her.

  “I’m sorry he was such an asshole. I have a last shift now before the folk singers come back up for their final set. Will you be all right here by yourself for a while? After that we can go if you want, maybe get a sandwich and some coffee.”

  She nodded, surprised at how very much she actually wanted to wait for him. After putting a hand on her shoulder for a second, he grabbed the megaphone and left. Sitting by herself, she wondered for a moment if it was a good idea to go out with him. After all, at least according to Sergio, Manuel was from the provinces, the son of immigrants, and a member of the most radical and dangerous leftist organization. Even she, who didn’t follow politics that much, knew that they supported armed revolution and did not form a part of Salvador Allende’s leftist government. Yet there was something about him. Was it his gentlemanly ways, paying for her drink, offering to help her up? Was it the contradiction between his arrogant attitude and the vulnerable glimmer she’d detected in his grey eyes? Or it could be a lot simpler. Maybe she’d finally had it with being the good daughter, especially since her mother’s meddlesome matchmaking had gotten her involved with Sergio.

  The first few hours of the demonstration had been more political, a generally supportive celebration of Allende’s first six months in office. Speakers had praised the speeding up of land distribution to the poor in the countryside and his generally pro-worker policies. The rest of the day turned into a youth festival, with folk music and dancing. When the folk singers began their last set with a ballad, Eugenia found herself humming along, reaching down deep inside her memories for a familiar melody and harmony. Next they played several of Violeta Parra’s more well-known protest songs, including “Long Live the Students,” which still brought cheers and clapping from the tired, thinning crowd. Her favorite, though, was “Volver a los 17,” a song she knew by heart. It was an ode to love and how it could make anyone young and happy again. Sergio said it was sappy, but it always made her cry. And from the reaction of the crowd she wasn’t the only one. They finished up with a long medley of Víctor Jara songs, anchored by “I Remember You, Amanda,” another sappy one, according to Sergio. But she loved this one, too, especially the part where Amanda waits at the gate of the factory for her lover, an idealistic guerrilla leader, only to learn he had been killed in the mountains. And that last line, it somehow always punched her in the stomach: “Many did not return, including Manuel …” Now that last line had a new meaning.

  “Hi. Sorry it took so long.” Even though the folk singers had ended their set, she had been so deep into the mood of the music that she jumped, and it took her a minute to return to the present. He was sitting next to her. “So I guess I made a liar out of Víctor Jara, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you know, the part about many of them not returning, including Manuel. But I did return. Manuel is back.”

  “It’s not really a joke in the song, you know. It’s really sad. She’s waiting at the gate, and he doesn’t come back, because …”

  “I’ve heard the song before. It isn’t as if … Is something wrong?” he asked upon seeing he
r clouded expression.

  She was silent for a moment, looking out over the few remaining people, mostly couples holding hands or hugging in the slanting afternoon light. “I don’t know,” she sighed, trying to get a grip on herself. “Sergio always made fun of me for liking that song. He said it was mushy.”

  Manuel leaned his elbow on her shoulder and left it there, a surprisingly intimate gesture, considering that they had just met. They sat for a while, watching the weeping willows in the parque forestal take on the apricot hues of the approaching dusk. To their right the traces of snow on the Andes mountains glowed against the fading sky. Manuel took his arm down and let his hand rest for a moment on hers.

  “Are you hungry? We can go back to that same place. They make a mean steak-and-avocado sandwich. And their espresso isn’t half bad.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled her up to a standing position, took her hand in his, and began walking. Once again she was caught off guard by his dominant manner, so soon after he had seemed so gentle and nurturing, but decided not to resist.

  They sat at their same table. The young man who had served them before came out, carrying a pad and pencil. He’d changed his stained jacket and was wearing a navy blue one. “What’ll it be, compadre?” he asked.

  “Bring us a couple of your steak-and-avocado sandwiches, no mayo, and a couple of espressos. Make the lady’s a cortado, you know, the way you add just a touch of steamed milk …”

  “Coming right up, compañero.” The waiter gave Manuel a mock salute.

  “What made you think I wanted a cortado?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but …”

  “So then?”

  “Well, you can’t always make assumptions about people.”

  “Why not, if I’m right?”

  Eugenia sat back in her chair and snorted. “How can you know you’re right if you don’t listen to the other person?”

  Manuel chuckled. “Now you’re right, little one,” he answered, reaching for her hand.

  “Don’t call me ‘little one.’” She yanked her hand away. “It’s so patronizing.” And it was what Sergio always called her. She was done with that, now.

  The waiter arrived with the sandwiches and the coffee. Napkins, silverware, and sugar materialized from the neighboring table. Manuel piled four teaspoons into his small cup.

  “Let me just hazard a guess,” he said after he’d taken a bite of his sandwich and washed it down with the sweet black liquid. “This isn’t really about me.”

  She was silent, chewing on the slightly stringy steak, savoring the combination of flavors with the salted avocado. The espresso’s slightly burnt undertaste was heightened by the frothy milk. “Let’s just forget it, okay?”

  “Fine with me, but only if you’re willing to share a bottle of red wine. These guys have a really good Santa Rita, and they sell it cheap.” He motioned over the waiter. “The Santa Rita Tres Medallas, please, garzón,” he joked.

  The thick, cherry-toned Cabernet was like a soft blanket against the evening chill. Manuel ordered another bottle when they finished the first one, and pretty soon they were sitting very close together, her head on his shoulder, both smoking black tobacco cigarettes.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get home,” she said, the unfamiliar roughness of the cigarette stinging her tongue slightly. “My mother will smell the black tobacco a mile away.” She took another puff anyway, savoring the peppery aftertaste.

  “One possible solution is that you don’t go home till it wears off.” He was now running his free hand through her soft ringlets.

  “Somehow, I think not going home at all isn’t going to solve the problem,” she said, nudging him away playfully.

  “You can’t blame a guy for trying.” He let go of her hair and his hand dropped slightly to her jaw line, gently bringing her head closer. They kissed. The hairs of his beard were surprisingly soft, and he tasted of burnt oranges. Her cigarette lay abandoned in the ashtray.

  “So what do you think we should do?” he asked finally, his voice hoarse.

  “I don’t know. But one thing is clear: Sergio is going to find a way to tell her.”

  Manuel sighed and his chair scraped loudly as he pulled back, fumbling in the crushed pack for another cigarette. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s my mama’s favorite. From ‘a good family.’ They have land right next to ours. He’s not very happy right now, I’m sure of it, and he’s going to find a way to get back at me. What better way than to tell my mother about you?”

  Removing the cigarette from the pack and scrabbling around in the matchbox helped him regain his composure. She wasn’t exactly sure what had upset him most, her suggestion that he wasn’t from a good family, or her bringing up Sergio. After lighting it and blowing out a cloud of smoke, his voice had recovered its ironic tinge. “No offense, but what were you doing with him anyway?”

  “Our families saw each other every summer vacation since I can remember; he was the handsome older boy next door. When I started at the Catholic University this year, his mama said to watch out for me. It felt like everything was already decided, you know? He’s a big-time leader, all my girlfriends were jealous. I don’t know.”

  “Tell me the truth. Did you know he was running around on you?”

  “It’s not like I thought about it consciously, but when you said that before, I wasn’t surprised, just offended that you’d said it to me. I guess I didn’t want to admit it to myself, and hearing it from someone else set me off.”

  “You’re right, I was acting like …”

  “It’s okay. Never mind.”

  Manuel stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, pulling her up and into his arms. His kiss was deeper, longer. She felt the tingle on the inside of her lips move down her body until it became a weakness in her knees. When it was over, she leaned into him, resting her head against the middle of his chest.

  “I live right here, just on the other side of the river,” he whispered. “Come back with me for a few minutes, then I’ll find you a taxi.”

  They walked across the plaza and through the park, stopping to kiss again under a weeping willow. As they strolled across the bridge, their arms around each other, the Mapocho River caught the reflection of the rising moon.

  On the other side of the river, Manuel put a key in the lock of a tiny door next to a dry cleaning shop. They climbed up a flight of dark, narrow stairs. Inside the apartment, he turned and crushed her in his arms, not even bothering to close the door at first. His lips left a line of fire along the curve of her right breast, fire spreading, gathering, knotting. Soon they were lying on his unmade bed, his large hands hot on her bare skin, not able finally to get close enough, soon enough, they were still too far apart, and then the pain. She gasped and drew back.

  “What in the hell …?” His voice was suddenly very far away. And then so was he. She sat up. “You hadn’t … he hadn’t … why in hell didn’t you say something?” He’d bolted up from the bed and was already zipping up his pants. Then he began pacing back and forth. She was silent at first.

  “What’s the matter?” she finally asked.

  “Why in hell didn’t you say something?”

  “You mean because I’m a virgin?”

  “Well, yeah …”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “It’s 1971! Come on!”

  She began picking up her clothes. No matter how hard she tried, she’d never be part of this radical crowd. Her eyes filled with tears, and she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or from shame. What was the point, anyway? But then he sat down on the bed next to her.

  “Wait a minute, stop.” He took both of her hands in his. “Look at me. Just a moment.” She refused to look up, not wanting him to see the tears. She focused on trying to zip up her boots.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “To be honest, it was quite a surprise.”

  “I know, I should have said something, but … wel
l, it happened kind of fast, I’d never let Sergio go that far. I don’t know, I didn’t want to stop, I …” She stood up and walked to the window, finally able to zip up her jeans and put her jacket back on. She stood by the window looking out at the moonlit street, the leaves of early fall swirling in eddies across the abandoned cobblestones. She rested her forehead on the pane.

  “I didn’t want to stop, either.” He was standing right behind her, running a hand along her neck. She melted back into him, then turned into his embrace. He drew away first. “But it won’t be like this. Not the first time. Let’s find you a taxi.”

  Boston, 1990

  Had she fallen in love with Manuel because he hadn’t been willing to take advantage of her virginity? The more she wrote in her journal, the more Eugenia realized that her love for Manuel had also been a way to escape the grip of her mother’s neediness and smothering ideas about social class and codes of behavior. She’d forgotten how tied up Sergio had been in her own family’s drama, and to her mother’s desire to hold on to her after Irene had left.

  Her parents had fought all the time when she was younger. She awakened sometimes in the middle of the night to hear muffled arguments. Afterwards, her mother’s sobbing could go on for hours. Somehow she’d felt responsible, she realized now. She tried so hard to be the good daughter who didn’t cause her mother more problems than she already had, especially since Irene had always gotten along better with Papa. At the very least she could be her mother’s favorite. On the farm in the summer or on vacation, it was always her sister who volunteered to go out with Papa on horseback, the two of them galloping off in the early morning and not heard from again until after dark, when they returned covered with dirt, several recently killed rabbits dangling from their saddles. When the really difficult times began in the marriage, Irene usually sided with Papa, leaving Eugenia to defend Mama.

  She’d pieced the story together bit by bit. Her mother’s family, from the Chilean landowning elite, had come into hard times while Mama was growing up, a product, she now knew, of the falling prices for agricultural goods. Her papa, a chemical engineer, was from a family that had made a lot of money in the textile industry and, after they got married, he used his own money to bring Mama’s family’s farm back from the brink of bankruptcy. For a while things seemed to go well, and she remembered golden summers and family vacations as she was growing up, long, lazy afternoons spent at the river that ran through their property, picnics full of laughter and playfulness in which Mama and Papa seemed only to have eyes for each other.