Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  Sara and Samuel were surprised at how much they’d still hoped to find Manuel alive. Through her work on the Committee, Sara had seen these attacks of grief, held people’s hands through them, every time a death had been confirmed. But neither she nor Samuel thought the same thing would happen to them. They’d assumed they understood the situation too well. But like everyone else, they had to grieve the death of their illusions.

  “He was so young,” Shmooti repeated over and over as they drove home from the North-South highway. “He needed more time. We needed more time. Sure, we make mistakes. But we needed time to tell him we were sorry.” The problem was, they’d only discovered their mistakes because he’d disappeared. Sara knew that was the hitch in Shmooti’s logic, the persistent mirage of a way out. The disappearance itself sometimes felt less painful than the bottomless what-ifs.

  When they got home, they closed all the curtains and turned on no lights. They put on slippers instead of shoes. Sara covered the mirrors with dark shawls. It wasn’t until they’d each brought an empty orange crate into the living room to sit on that their eyes met, brimming over with recognition. Shivah. It was time to mourn. They did not move for two days, even when the phone began to ring at persistent intervals.

  On the third day, Tonia knocked on the door. “What is it, Sara?” she asked. “How come you haven’t been to the office? How come you don’t answer the phone?”

  “An ex-guard from Villa Gardenia saw him, Tonia. He saw Manuel. He said Manuel disappeared from there. Everyone at the Committee knows what that means, we’ve seen too many of these cases already. He’s dead.”

  Tonia came over and sat next to her on the crate, putting her large hand on Sara’s back.

  “This darkness, I’ve seen it before. It’s dangerous. It’s how my Florindo died after Renato …”

  “No, Tonia. It’s Shivah. Jewish mourning.”

  “My people say that everyone’s tears help to send the deceased over the river to the other side, so they don’t get lost and keep wandering among the living. Will my tears help Manuel?”

  “That’s not the Jewish way.”

  “Then I will stay a while. And you will need to eat.”

  Organized by Tonia, the women of the Committee began coming by in twos or threes. After Sara and Shmooti missed two shabbats in a row, people from the synagogue began coming by as well. Once a day, Sara and Shmooti would get up and brush their teeth. Occasionally they would take a shower. After the first seven nights, they began sleeping in their own bed. But they kept the vigil going. When they finally thought to ask what day it was, they discovered they’d been sitting Shivah on the orange crates, the house dark yet full of people, conversation, and the fragrance of food, for three months. Shmooti’s hair and beard made him look like Moses.

  “Sara,” he asked when she teased him about his scraggly appearance, “did you ever sit Shivah for your mama and papa, or they for their parents?”

  “Mama and Papa couldn’t,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  Shmooti nodded. “I couldn’t either.” After a pause, he continued, his voice raspy. “So the twelve weeks, they will just have to be enough for everyone.”

  They opened the curtains then, uncovered the mirrors, and cleaned the house. Freshly showered and shampooed, Shmooti with a new haircut and shave, they began to use the networks of the Committee and quite a bit of their own money to track their son’s lover. She was the only link left, and besides, the ex-guard had said she was pregnant. Might there be a grandchild? By April of the next year, shortly after Patricio Aylwin was elected the first civilian president, to general rejoicing, and almost immediately announced the creation of the Truth Commission, they’d traced Eugenia to Boston.

  When Sara Weisz and Samuel Bronstein appeared before the Commission to request an investigation into the disappearance of their son Manuel, they walked into an office with high ceilings, as cold as midnight. Sara held on tight to the hand of a young lawyer with large, sad eyes who had stepped forward to greet her. Shivering in the chill that rose from the floorboards, she looked straight into the mournful depths of the young lawyer’s gaze.

  “Young man,” she said. “A crucial witness in my son’s case lives in Boston, in the United States. Please find her and bring her back.”

  In the first week of September, once the winter’s hard frost had melted and the sun began to warm the soil, Sara and Samuel replanted geraniums on the stucco walls of their house. They began sitting out on the patio over the noon hour, when the sun was warmest and the newly forming orange blossoms sent a tentative fragrance out toward the snow-capped mountains. That same week, during the worst September heat wave Boston had ever seen, the young lawyer with the sad eyes rang the doorbell of Eugenia Aldunate’s apartment.

  IV

  Displaced

  Boston, 1990

  Eugenia called very early one morning in May. Irene was sitting in her yellow kitchen, watching the rising summer sun turn the linoleum a luminous shade of gold. Her coffee maker had beeped and she had just finished filling her mug. This was her favorite time of the day, when no one else was up. She could sit quietly, comfortable in her own skin, sheltered by the warmth of her own house.

  “Nenita? Did I wake you?”

  “Chenyita? No, don’t worry; I’m already drinking my first cup of coffee. But what is it? You wouldn’t call at this hour unless it was important.”

  “Yeah, usually I’m not even up. But I couldn’t sleep. Listen, I just got a call yesterday from a Chilean lawyer, from that Truth Commission that got set up recently. Remember the article I showed you in the New York Times? It’s supposed to investigate all the people who were disappeared, and although I don’t count because I’m still alive, at least it’s a start and—”

  “Whoa, wait a minute; you’re going a hundred miles an hour. What does all this have to do with you? Who’s this lawyer? What did he want?”

  “It turns out that Manuel’s parents have been very active in the Committee of Relatives, and they brought the first case before the Commission. They’ve named me as a witness, and I’m really the only person who can swear to having seen him in Villa Gardenia, in the shape he was in, right before he disappeared, so—”

  “Chenyita.” Irene’s voice took on a hard yet patient edge. “What did the lawyer want?”

  “He’s coming to interview me in about three months. Depending on the results, the Commission might have funds to fly me back to testify.”

  “And Laura?”

  “There’s no point in saying anything to her now. With her starting high school and all, it might be a good moment to take a break. If things go well, I’m sure the Commission will be happy to fly her back with me. And she has always wanted to see Chile. Of course she doesn’t remember anything; only what she’s read in books. But maybe this will help her find a place where she can fit in. She can even meet her paternal grandparents …”

  Eugenia’s voice trailed off. There was a long silence, punctuated only by the exhale from her cigarette.

  “Is there something you want me to do?” Irene asked.

  “I don’t know. It depends. But since you were there so much longer and saw the dictatorship with your own eyes … I don’t know. All I saw, really, was Villa Gardenia and then the Mexican embassy. But you. You lived through so much more of it than I did.”

  “Chenyita, all I did was answer phones and drive cars. You, on the other hand …”

  “But you were in the human-rights movement. You understand them better. Me, I …” Eugenia coughed.

  “Well, look,” Irene said after a pause. “You know I’m here to help. Just don’t promise anything or sign anything without consulting me, okay?”

  After she hung up the phone, Irene poured her second mug of coffee and settled back into her chair at the kitchen table. But her early-morning mood was gone. She hated to think about it this way, but every time she began to settle down, her sister had a crisis. First it had been the earthquake, and now the transi
tion and the Truth Commission. Ever since the coup, she’d been there for her sister, and that wasn’t going to change. But now her own memories of those days paraded, uninvited, across the linoleum floor.

  July 1971

  It had been nearly two months since Irene had returned from Boston. She had always planned to complete her degree in organic chemistry at MIT before deciding whether to return to her native land or try to get a job in the United States. But then she began to get wind of the changes going on. Increasingly curious, she took a year’s leave and accepted a job as an assistant research chemist at the University of Chile. In preparation for her return, she wrote her mother that she was homesick and wanted to get her foot in the door of the Chilean academic system. She wrote Eugenia separately and said she was also coming back because she needed to see for herself what Chile looked like, with all the changes that were in the air.

  She knew there would be fences to mend with Mama, given how she’d left the country three years before. They’d exchanged letters, but there was always a cold and distant tone to her mother’s communications. And when the reality of her new job had sunk in and she was assigned the late shift at the lab three nights a week, she’d had to rent an apartment downtown. That set Mama off and they began having the same old fights.

  Two weeks later, when she was almost settled into her apartment, she had stayed later than usual at the lab. She’d been so involved in her work that she hadn’t heard the footsteps in the hall. She jumped when the door opened suddenly.

  “What the—?!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize someone else was here.” The other woman was wearing blue jeans under her lab coat and her hair was long and very dark, pulled back in a doubled-over ponytail and held in a leather clasp with a wooden needle threaded through it. Her eyes were large and round and brown, framed by thick, straight lashes. As she moved closer, Irene caught a breath of sandalwood perfume and an undercurrent of cigarettes.

  “Hello,” Irene said. “I didn’t know anyone else had been assigned to this shift. By the way, I’m Irene.” She held out her hand.

  “I’m Gabriela,” the other woman said, smiling. Her hand was slightly smaller, and it was warm and dry to the touch. “I’m the technician here, and I don’t always have a set schedule. I was a bit behind, so I thought I’d come in and catch up on some maintenance I’ve been putting off. At this hour it’s easier because there’s less going on.”

  “I agree. It’s very peaceful.”

  They worked in cordial silence for a while. But Irene was acutely aware of Gabriela’s presence, every movement or cough. And whenever Gabriela moved from one side of the room to the other, a wave of smoky sandalwood tickled Irene’s nostrils.

  Irene finished checking the last set of measurements and looked at her watch. Three-thirty. It was probably time to call it a night. She got up from the stool where she had been sitting and stretched, yawning lightly. Gabriela was on the other side of the room.

  “Well,” Irene said, “I think I’m done for today.” Gabriela looked up from the centrifuge she had been recalibrating.

  “I’m almost done, too,” she said. “Do you live nearby?”

  “In fact I do. I rented an apartment up the main avenue a few blocks from here.”

  “Wow. You’re so lucky. I still live at home with my family, and when I come in at this time I often end up waiting until the morning rush hour before catching the bus home. It feels safer that way, and I discovered there’s a small room at the back with a cot.”

  “You’re welcome to come back to my apartment with me and wait until a safer hour. I’m always too keyed up to sleep for a while, anyway. We could have a cup of tea or something. And I have a couch in the living room that must be more comfortable than that cot.”

  “That sounds great,” Gabriela said. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”

  They walked out together into the quiet of the early morning. Except for the occasional taxi that blinked its headlights at them to see if they wanted a ride, the streets were deserted. Arms folded across their chests to try to keep warm, they hurried the short distance to Irene’s building. They rode up the elevator to the fifth floor, and Irene opened the door.

  “Come on in,” she said. “I’ll start the space heater, and the living room should be warm in no time.” She turned the switch to start the flow of gas and placed a lighted match next to the wick to get it going. “Take off your coat and make yourself comfortable. It’ll just take a minute to warm up some water for tea.”

  Gabriela took her coat off and settled into the sofa, taking a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches from the inside pocket of her bag. In addition to her jeans and black boots, she was wearing a form-fitting turtleneck sweater the color of nutmeg. Her breasts were small and round and high, and the nipples stood out with the cold. She crossed her legs.

  “A cup of tea will hit the spot,” she said. “It always seems to be coldest in the early morning. By the way, is it all right if I smoke?”

  Irene brought out an ashtray and took her coat and Gabriela’s to the hall closet. She hung them up and went into the kitchen. Her hands were trembling slightly and it took two matches to light the stove. She filled the kettle and put it on the flame. As she riffled around in the cupboard above the counter, she was surprised at the strength of her attraction. It hadn’t occurred to her that this would happen in Chile, where, in spite of the socialist government, people still seemed so straitlaced and repressed.

  “Is Earl Grey all right?” she called.

  “Sounds perfect,” Gabriela answered.

  Irene took the tin down and pressed some leaves into the teapot. By then the kettle was boiling, and she filled the pot with hot water. Placing the rest of what they needed on a tray, she picked it up and walked back out into the living room.

  “Mmmmm. That smells so good,” Gabriela said. “And you must have read my mind. I love Earl Grey with milk, and I have a real sweet tooth.”

  Irene set the tray down on the coffee table and sat on the couch, with what she hoped was a safe distance between them. For a while they were busy pouring, spooning in sugar, and stirring.

  “This is perfect,” Gabriela said, leaning forward to put her cigarette out in the ashtray. “Thanks so much.”

  They were silent for a while. The milk and sugar warmed Irene’s belly, but she was also conscious of the knot of arousal gathering inside. Before she’d gone to study in the States she’d had a group of friends, mainly from the advanced science program. She remembered one of them, a boy on her same schedule, and their occasional trysts in the back of the science lab in the early mornings before the teacher got there. During her years at MIT, there had been several clumsy classmates who’d taken her to the movies and tried to make out in the back row. At the beginning of her third year she’d met another woman, on an exchange from nearby Wellesley College. They’d been friends for a while, and in the free spirit of the time, they’d experimented with something more. Irene had been fascinated by the softness of her friend’s hands, and how they felt along her skin. Although the relationship did not last for more than a few months, Irene had found women more interesting after that. She’d learned to read the codes, to get a sense for who was open to a relationship, and yet often it was still the other woman who had made the first move.

  Trying not to be too obvious, she glanced at Gabriela. They were probably about the same age, their early-to-mid-twenties, but she was pretty sure that Gabriela hadn’t gone to the university. Her reference to taking the bus to her family’s house, when combined with her olive skin and black hair, suggested to Irene that she was from a working-class family.

  “I’m sorry, Irene,” Gabriela said, interrupting her thoughts. “I really need to go to the bathroom. Can you show me which door it is, please?”

  After escorting her guest to the bathroom and making sure there was soap and fresh towels, Irene sat back down on the couch. Whatever the political changes going on in Chile, she thoug
ht, it was clear that the sexual atmosphere hadn’t opened up enough for her to feel comfortable making the first move. When Gabriela got back from the bathroom, she would suggest that it was time to try to get a bit of sleep. She’d bring out some blankets and a pillow, and that would be that.

  “That’s much better,” Gabriela said as she approached the couch and sat down. Was it Irene’s imagination, or did she sit a bit closer? Gabriela turned to face her, bringing one leg up just a little on the couch in order to find a more comfortable position. In addition to the touch of sandalwood that floated across her face, Irene smelled something muskier and more pungent.

  “Would you like another cup?” Gabriela asked. “Let me serve it this time.” She stood and came around the table, picking up the teapot. They both reached for Irene’s cup at the same time, and their hands met. At first, neither of them moved. Then Gabriela put down the teapot. Still sitting and without looking up, Irene moved her thumb lightly, back and forth, across the top of Gabriela’s index finger. When Gabriela pulled away, Irene felt a flash of panic. Had she misinterpreted? But Gabriela knelt by the side of the coffee table, bringing her face even with Irene’s. Their eyes met, and it was Gabriela who reached out, stroking Irene’s cheek, her lips grazing Irene’s nose and chin before settling gently, yet more firmly, upon her mouth. Irene tasted the bittersweetness of tobacco.

  By the end of July, when winter had Santiago in its dank and frigid grip, Gabriela was staying over whenever she worked late at the lab, and also on weekends. One Sunday, after it stopped raining, they decided to take a walk. Heading east, then north, they reached the willow-lined pathways of the parque forestal. Although it was Sunday, the recent cold rains had emptied it out and they were alone. After walking a bit, they found a secluded corner behind the generous branches of an old weeping willow and sat down, their arms around each other. In that deserted corner, the rays of the sun an afterthought following the hard rain of early afternoon, they felt secure and anonymous enough to kiss. Irene closed her eyes.