Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  They stood alone in the hall for a few minutes. “You didn’t have to defend me from your sister’s comment,” Eugenia said softly. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know that. It’s just that I don’t understand why they have to harp on Laura, and on you looking so young all the time.”

  “I told you before we came about your mother’s feelings. I’m not surprised that Ceci has been brought up to speed on it.”

  “Well, it’s none of their business,” Ignacio answered, taking Eugenia’s hand and bringing her close, kissing her lightly on the lips. “Once everyone is in their rooms and a little time has passed, I’ll come over,” he whispered.

  Eugenia pulled away and shook her head. “No, Ignacio. By bringing me here, I think you made it their business. And your mother made it perfectly clear that each of us was to sleep alone.”

  “Well, too bad.”

  “I prefer we not make a scene.”

  One last quick kiss on the mouth, and they closed the doors to their assigned rooms.

  Laura spent the first couple of mornings after her mother left strolling in the open-air patio in the middle of the large country house, drinking in the sun and the scent of wild roses, or sitting on a bench in one of the four covered passageways that framed the garden on all sides. She savored the snatches of conversation as her grandmother and aunt walked in and out. It was always around the noon hour that Grandma Isabel emerged from the kitchen, robe saturated with flour and the fragrances of promised treats. After planning the large afternoon meal, she would issue one last warning to María and Irene and walk back through the hall to take her daily shower. Once she had gotten out and dried herself, she signaled it was all right to enter by opening the door to her dressing room just a crack, but it was understood that only her daughter was allowed in. The lavender fragrance of her body powder and cologne mixed with the wild roses and the smell of fresh sun.

  On the third day, Irene took Laura out horseback riding. They left early, packing a picnic lunch, and did not return until almost dinnertime. They galloped in the hills, along trails shaded by eucalyptus trees, their long, slim leaves redolent with spice under the horses’ hooves. They ate lunch by the side of a gentle stream, its clear waters full of young trout. Later, when they stopped to rest in the tall, dry grasses higher up on the slopes looking out across the valley, Laura felt something stir deep within.

  “I don’t know what it is, tía,” she said, “but I feel a bond with this land. I’ve never been here before, but it feels familiar.”

  “People say the blood speaks, Laurita. Maybe that’s what it is. Your mama and I grew up with this land, coming every year. Maybe, somehow, that got passed down to you.”

  The feeling of rootedness stayed with her, even when they got back to the house and Grandma Isabel was fretting about being left alone for the whole day.

  “I hope you don’t pick up your aunt’s old habits, Laurita,” Grandma said at dinner. “When she was little and her papa was still around, the two of them went out almost every day. I never saw them.”

  “Well, Mamita,” Irene teased. “Certain things must run in the blood.”

  That night, Laura had the dream for the first time. She was walking on the same trail where she’d galloped with her aunt. It started off as a warm, sunny day, but then a fog came down, thick as spoiled milk, turning everything a haggard shade of grey. As she struggled to find her way, a man loomed up from the shadows. He was not very tall, perhaps a head taller than she, and his clothes were a drab olive green. Blocking her way, he stared at her with large black eyes from under thick dark eyebrows that met in the middle. His eyes were so black, they had no pupils. As she tried to push past him on the path, he reached out a massive square paw and clutched her arm. “You’ve finally come back,” he breathed, giving off a sour, humid smell. And she found she could not escape.

  After that, every day she had a harder time getting out of bed. She was afraid to go to sleep at night, afraid the dream would come back. Listening to the comforting sound of Silvio on her Walkman, even cuddling Paco the pink porcupine, didn’t push the dream out of her mind. She tried to write about it in her daily letter to Joaquín, but nothing sounded right. When her aunt took her out horseback riding again, she refused to go back to that trail.

  The convertible raced toward the north, hugging the two-lane highway between Valparaíso and Concón. It was about ten o’clock, and the sun was playing hide-and-seek with the morning fog that blanketed the cliffs along the ocean. Looking at the large rocks that jutted out, like elbows, into the sea, Eugenia wondered if one could build a small house on one of them. Pablo Neruda’s house in Isla Negra was like that, a ship balanced on a large rock, closed and abandoned for nearly twenty years and only now opening back up. Even with the renovation in progress, sadness and loss still bubbled up from every corner, so thick you could hold them in your hand. Yesterday she and Ignacio, their arms around each other, had read people’s messages, carved with love, desperation, or political orthodoxy, into the wooden fence that protected the house from the road.

  Eugenia shivered in the wind that came over them now from the water, while Ignacio negotiated his sports car around the curves he’d known by heart since he was a teenager. She zipped up her jacket and looked over at him, his eyes behind sunglasses, his black hair ruffling about.

  The morning had started auspiciously enough. They got up early and Ignacio announced that he was taking her up the coast to Concón, to a wonderful seaside restaurant where they had fresh locos. “I know they’re your favorite,” he said. Ignacio’s mother had appeared, still in her bathrobe, her hair pulled back in a quick bun, and insisted they sit for a few minutes and drink a cup of coffee together.

  “Tonight’s going to be our last night here,” Ignacio said as he finished off a second croissant. “Eugenia needs to get back to her family in the countryside and I have to finish up a couple of things at the Commission.”

  “But Nachito, you just arrived,” doña Cecilia protested.

  “Sorry, Mamacita, but you know that until all the work is finished at the Commission I can’t control my time, even in the summer.”

  “Can you at least make it back next weekend? I’ve invited the Hiriart family, and María Paz was really looking forward to seeing you. Sorry to bore you with this, Eugenia, but María Paz and Ignacio have known each other since high school. They went out for a while before he left for Europe. Since he’s been back I’ve always meant to … you know how these things are—”

  “María Paz and I broke up before I left for Europe. There’s a reason I didn’t look her up when I got back, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, hijito, you never told me you’d parted on bad terms. It’s just that with all that work you’ve had, first with the firm, then the Commission, you never seem to go out and enjoy yourself. You’re not getting any younger, and I just thought …”

  “María Paz’s father was in charge of the detention camp near here.”

  “What?”

  “Hundreds of people disappeared from there, Mama! And who knows how many more were strapped to metal bedframes and electrocuted within an inch of their lives!”

  “Nachito, you know we don’t agree with the things people did, but now that we have democracy back—”

  “When did you ever stand up for anyone? Those criminals were in power seventeen years, and you looked the other way the whole time!”

  “Did you break up with María Paz because of her father? It’s not fair to blame her, you know, she—”

  Ignacio’s face had closed then, his cheeks crumpling inward. When he spoke again, his voice was low and gravelly. “Whose fault do you think it was, then? We’re all to blame, Mama. Even those like me, who left the country instead of standing up to them.” He got up from the chair and his napkin fell to the floor. “Eugenia,” he said, bending to pick it up and tossing it on the table. “Are you ready to go? I’ll meet you at the car in ten minutes. We can pack when we get back.�
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  Since they’d started out in the car he hadn’t said a thing. She’d heard him exchange a few more words with his mother when she was in the bathroom, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying over the water as she brushed her teeth.

  “How long till we get there?” She tried to make small talk. “Will we have time to walk on the beach first? Did you make a reservation?” she persisted. “I know it’s not the weekend, but it is the summer.”

  “Just wait a little longer, okay?” His voice sounded torn. “I need a little more time.”

  They drove on in silence. Slowly the folds of fog began to move inland and the sea was revealed in all its majesty, waves sporting helmets of foam on their glimmering heads as they crashed among the rocks.

  “It’s not María Paz’s fault, and it’s definitely not yours,” she finally said.

  He banged his fist on the steering wheel and the car veered slightly toward the precipice. “I’m not asking for your absolution!”

  “I’m sorry, Nachito. But at some level I think you are.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Your work with the Commission. Listening to everyone’s stories, holding their hands, letting them cry on your shoulder. Sure, part of it is official. But now I see it’s also personal.”

  They were coming to the outskirts of Concón, and Ignacio made a quick turn into a small parking lot next to a seaside walkway where couples were gathering for their morning stroll. They stood for a moment next to the wall overlooking the harbor. Then she took his hand and began walking, establishing distance between them and the others.

  “So you think our whole relationship has been about my guilt,” he said. She could barely hear his voice above the sounds of the waves and the gulls circling overhead.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What, then?”

  “I’m not really sure. But remember what I said in Bucalemu? That I wanted to know how things felt when we’re not dealing with torture or disappearance? I’m beginning to think we can never get there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of who I am, mostly. But at some level, I also agree with your mother. You’ve become so consumed by the Commission, by human rights, it seems you can’t allow yourself a normal life.”

  “Why are you defending her?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point, then?”

  “She’s your mother, and she’s no fool. Like I told you when we first arrived, by bringing me to their house, from our trip where we had so obviously been sleeping together, you fired the first shot. She needed to defend you from falling into my clutches.”

  “She’s not entitled to decide what’s right for me. Only I can do that.”

  “Maybe so. But you seem to need their approval. Otherwise, why did you bring me to their house?”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  She let go of his hand and stopped walking, leaning against the seawall. Seagulls glided by, and their caws seemed to be mocking her. When she looked down at her hands, she saw they were trembling. She had to force her voice out from behind the sudden swelling in her throat. “Your mother’s entitled to think about what life should be like for you. She’s entitled to want someone for you who’s not six years older than you are, a returned exile with a subversive pedigree, and a single mother. And I think I agree with her. It’s not right. I’m not right.”

  He had stopped next to her, and had been rubbing the toe of his shoe back and forth in the sand that was sprinkled among the stones of the walkway. He came closer and took her hand once more. “It felt awfully right in Pichilemu. Or what about Isla Negra?”

  “True. The two of us alone. Walking along that scruffy beach with all those surfers. Or crying at Neruda’s fence. But what about Sundays, when it’s time to take the kids to your mother’s house? Or in the summer, when we argue over spending January at the beach or in the countryside? Or eating dinner at your sister’s or mine’s?”

  He let go of her hand. “That’s so trivial, it doesn’t even deserve—”

  “But Nachito, that’s exactly why it does. When you’re done at the Commission, you deserve a life where you can sometimes putter around in the everyday, talk about it, argue over it. You need to share that with someone who can laugh with your children in your parents’ backyard and warn them not to hurt your mother’s roses. That’s not me.”

  She resisted the urge to take his hand again. She swallowed. A large weight pressed down on their shoulders. He rested both elbows on the seawall and gazed at the breakers below. She ran a hand over his forehead, pausing on the long strand that hung now, victim of the laws of gravity, halfway down his cheek. Then it blurred in her tears. When he looked up, he was crying too. And they finally had to drive on, through the curtain that descended now, murky and dank, across the summer sun.

  Ignacio dropped Eugenia off at the farm shortly before midnight. They’d driven straight through from Concón, not even stopping for lunch, buying bad coffee and stale sandwiches at a convenience store next to the gas station. He called his mother from a phone booth, saying something had come up and they were not going back for their bags.

  “She’ll pack it up and send it to Santiago,” he said. “Custodio will run it by your mother’s house. I’ll call and make sure that Rosa’s there. It’s mainly dirty clothes anyway.”

  Hair drooping over his ears and sad smudges under his eyes, he refused her offer to stay the night. Despite her stiffness, he gave her a tight hug and kissed her on the lips. Then he was off, the top to his convertible raised against the clouds of country dust. For a moment she just stood there, her lungs shut down by loss, watching the light of the full moon reflect silty and flat across the road. Then, forcing herself to breathe, she opened the front door.

  Irene leaped up from the couch where she was still reading. Eugenia simply shook her head at her sister’s startled question and walked back to her room.

  “So it didn’t look good last night,” Irene said the next morning when the two sisters sat down for an early cup of coffee. “And it doesn’t seem like you slept much, either.”

  “It’s over.” Eugenia blew her nose into the tissue she was carrying.

  “Do you want to elaborate at all?”

  “Ay, Irene, I should have known it from the start.” She sipped her coffee for a minute, wiping her eyes with the frayed tissue. Irene went into the kitchen and brought out a fresh box, then refilled their mugs. Eugenia grabbed another tissue and blew her nose. “He said love wasn’t about math, but six years is a lot, plus his mother … I did side with her, but what a bitch!”

  “Whoa, Chenyita, that’s a lot to take in all at once. Remember, I wasn’t there.”

  “We made love the first night after we left, and the very next morning we had this argument, me saying I was older, him saying it wasn’t about math. The idea of the trip—well, it felt so good when we were alone, in Pichilemu, walking on the beach. I guess I just relaxed, so I let him take me to his parents’ house in Algarrobo.”

  “Oops.”

  “No kidding. I should have said no, but I guess at some level he really needed their approval, I could see that. Against my better judgment, I guess I hoped things had changed since the lunch in Santiago.”

  “You haven’t told me about that one!”

  “Until he phoned, you know, I honestly didn’t think anything would come of it. But a couple of days after we arrived, he took me and Laura to his parents’ house for lunch. His family is so like our family, Nenita! His dad is really sweet, he was so nice to Laura, but his mother kept harping about how young I looked to have a teenage daughter. And after lunch she took me out to her rose garden. I was admiring this one rose, so she clips two of them for me to take home. But at the same time, while she’s being so nice, she goes on about how these roses are gorgeous in their prime and call so much attention to themselves, but once they begin to decline, no one cares about them anymore.”

/>   “Did you tell Ignacio about it?”

  “It didn’t seem right to go into detail at that point. But when we got to the beach house, it was clear she’d talked to his sister about me. Plus she knew we were together, and she made us sleep in separate rooms, twin beds. Then the last morning, before we went out, she got into this thing about some old girlfriend of his who was coming to visit next weekend. She did this whole song and dance about how he was getting older, didn’t have a social life, that she was worried, and I’m sitting right there the whole time! But that wasn’t the worst of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Turns out that the girlfriend’s father had been in charge of a detention camp. When Ignacio found out, he broke up with her. His mother hadn’t known about it. So it all came out, and he got going on how everyone is to blame for the dictatorship, even those like him who left the country. That’s when we got in the car and drove north.”

  Eugenia took out a fresh tissue and wiped her eyes and cheeks. “Ay, Nenita, I just don’t know anymore. In Boston, I longed to come back. I felt like such a foreigner there! Maybe that’s why I jumped at the chance when the Commission brought me back to testify. I was hoping to come home. But now, I feel even more out of place. Will I ever be more than a survivor? Can I ever be more than a bad memory for people like Ignacio’s parents?

  “Maybe it’s for the best. As much as it hurts now, it would have been worse if I had let myself get in deeper with him. I was up all night thinking about it. When we first made love in Bucalemu and had that argument about age, I said to him that I’d like to make sure we had something together that wasn’t about human rights. Only last night did I see that, for him, these are beautiful but abstract concepts. I carry the damage on my own skin.”

  Eugenia began sobbing. Irene moved closer and took her sister in her arms. When Eugenia began to calm down, Irene took several tissues from the box, mopped her sister’s cheeks, wiped her nose, and hugged her close once again. After a while Eugenia spoke, her voice little more than a whisper.