Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  “But you don’t know, do you, because you can’t remember. And given how many nights it’s come back, it’s not just a dream. In Boston, when all the memories started flooding back, it helped to write in my journal. Do you want us to get you one? Or maybe a good therapist will help you sort it out. I could ask Bobe Sara—”

  At that point Laura ended the conversation. As the February winds blew through the city, pushing the smog out over the surrounding mountains, an increasingly desperate Eugenia moved her bedding to the living room couch. “I have to get some sleep,” she mumbled when Sara asked her if she was comfortable on that old thing.

  As the smudges under her eyes got darker, Laura still insisted on going to the Committee every day. The only person who understood her was Joaquín. At one o’clock every afternoon, through the rest of Joaquín’s summer vacation, they took a break and went to a small park a block from the Committee’s offices. They entered the café on the corner of the little plaza and asked for chicken-and-avocado sandwiches and fresh fruit juice. The owner, an older man with a large salt-and-pepper moustache, began to recognize them and even to have the bread toasting and the fruit in the blender when they arrived.

  “Well, if it isn’t the two young lovebirds,” he chuckled when they appeared. “Your usual will be ready in a minute. The juice today is kiwi. Is that all right?” Every day it was a different fruit, and every day it was delicious, but he always asked just in case. He wrapped their sandwiches in wax paper, poured their juices into large paper cups, and always gave them a bit of extra change, shaking his head and smiling when Joaquín pointed his error out. “The difference is on the house,” he always said. “See you tomorrow.”

  They sat on the same bench every day and talked music. After talking with Joaquín, Laura found she could listen to Inti-Illimani again. They both loved Inti, and he was almost as addicted to Silvio as she was. He also introduced her to other groups from the eighties, like Los Prisioneros. When their first album came out, he and his friends had really related to their name, Joaquín explained. People his age had always felt like they were in jail. Their parents had messed up the country with politics, and it was the kids who had to pay for Pinochet, with no money, no jobs, and the schools worse every year. Then they were the ones who had to put their lives on the line in the streets to bring the dictator down.

  Even though she’d grown up in exile, Laura could see now she was part of this generation. She, too, felt like a prisoner: of her mother’s past, her mother’s desires, her mother’s fears. And now a prisoner of her own dream. She liked their song “The Dance of the Surplus Ones,” and the words of the chorus: “Join the dance of the surplus ones / No one is going to add to us / No one ever wanted to help us.” She too felt like a surplus one. She often thought her mother would have been better off without her.

  At the end of February, Joaquín was unusually silent as they sat on their bench and ate their lunch. They both knew that once he had to go back to school, they would only see each other on weekends. It hung in the air between them, thick as soup.

  “You know,” he finally said, “we’ll still have Saturdays to ourselves.” Laura didn’t answer. “But maybe you should tell me now, while we still have a few days together,” he continued. “At some point you’re gonna have to tell somebody. And it might as well be me. You know I won’t tell anybody else.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled, pulling at a stringy piece of chicken that peeked out from the side of her sandwich.

  He took the sandwich out of her hand, wrapped it back up in its waxed paper covering, and placed it on the bench on her other side. He took both of her hands in his and pulled her close. He kissed her full on the mouth, more strongly than he ever had before, and one of his hands sought out her skin under her shirt, moving up and under her bra along her left side. When he let go she couldn’t catch her breath.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, his own breath coming in short spurts. “There’s no one else in this world I want to take care of except you. So you need to tell me why the bags under your eyes are getting bigger every day.”

  Joaquín stood up from the bench and, tugging on her hand, led them back into a part of the park that was protected from the street by a grove of mature oaks. There, among the trees, they found a patch of soft grass and lay down together. She told him about her dream, and how at first she couldn’t escape from the man with the muddy eyes. When her papa came to save her, he always faded just as she reached for him. Every night, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hold on to her papa. She woke every morning exhausted from trying. He told her about his recurring dream, too, the headless man who was his papa and who stumbled around running into things because he did not have eyes to see. Neither had ever thought of telling their mothers, who lived trapped in their own grief and loss, about these dreams. In the tenderness of their joined lips they found they could escape together. With their fingers they learned to give each other pleasure.

  Sara and Eugenia were sitting on the couch that had become Eugenia’s regular bed. The pillow and blankets were neatly tucked away in a corner. Although the school year had begun that week, there had been no word from Foreign Relations about either citizenship petition, so Laura still could not go to school. She insisted on going to the Committee every day and working on her own, staying until Joaquín came over after classes let out. Then the two of them spent the afternoon and early evening together, and Laura often did not come back until after dinner. When her mother asked where she had been or what she had done, she said she was tired and went to her room to listen to music. In the morning over breakfast she answered all questions with monosyllables, and she dreamed the same dream every night.

  “I don’t know what else to do,” Eugenia said. “I’ve tried to persuade her to see a therapist, or even just to write in a journal, but every time I bring it up she cuts off the conversation. And the bags under her eyes are getting deeper and deeper, and she’s spending more and more time with that boy Joaquín. Do you think they’re doing drugs, or …”

  “I wouldn’t think they’re doing drugs,” Sara answered. “I know the boy’s mother, and she is a caring and upright person. But Joaquín lost his father in the repression, too, you know, and his mother spent a good part of her life looking for him. So who knows how that affected the boy? Still, hija, and I don’t mean to scare you with this, but perhaps our first concern should be whether or not they’re having sex. After all, she’s sixteen, you know, and he’s seventeen. And they’ve been spending quite a bit of time together unsupervised.”

  “I’ve thought of that, too,” Eugenia said, “but what can I do? If she won’t even talk to me about her nightmare, what will she say if I ask about birth control?”

  “Ay, hija,” Sara said. “Being a parent is never easy. I remember how much I worried about Manuel when he rebelled, how powerless I felt. I’m sure your mama felt the same way.”

  “You’re right,” Eugenia said. “Now I can see my mother in a completely different light. But I’m worried sick. Every time Laura settles down somewhere, it seems I end up moving her again. Right now, with the uncertainty about school, who knows where we’ll end up? I’m not sure how much more she can take. And she refuses to talk about anything with me. Do you think she could be in some kind of danger, and I would never know?”

  “Maybe there’s something else we can do,” Sara said suddenly. “I was a couple of years younger than Laura when I had a horrible experience in school. It doesn’t matter anymore what it was, but I felt like my world had broken in two. The only one who understood was Tonia. She was living with us at the time. I don’t think I ever told her what happened. She just knew, somehow, what to do.

  “This was before she became a machi. Later she could take a person’s urine and read their whole story in it. It’s like an X-ray of a person’s life, she told me. But even then, when we were girls, she could see things that others couldn’t. It’s
true that the coup turned her world inside out and she stopped working as a machi. But she really loves Laura and might be willing to help. There’s no harm in asking, and Laura might feel more comfortable talking with her, as Tonia has a distance from Laura that neither you nor I have. I know she’s going to be working at the Committee tomorrow. If you go in the late afternoon, you can talk with her alone once Laura and Joaquín leave.”

  Tonia opened the door to the Committee’s office before Eugenia knocked. This had happened several times before, that Tonia knew something before it had actually happened. When Eugenia had shared her surprise with Sara, the older woman smiled. “I know just how you feel,” she said. “Even though I’ve known Tonia since we were ten years old, it still took some getting used to when we reconnected here in Santiago. But she’s a machi, and they read the world differently.”

  Eugenia wondered now, as she entered the coolness of the old office and followed Tonia down the hall to the sitting room, if this ability to read the world had declined at all when the older woman had stopped practicing her craft. She didn’t know much about what had happened to Tonia, just that it had something to do with the coup and her disappeared son. And now Eugenia was about to ask her to come out of retirement.

  “Do you want some mate?” Tonia asked as she pointed to an armchair close to the open window. “I have some water on the stove.” Eugenia nodded.

  As she sat waiting for Tonia to return, she looked around the room. Through the door to her left she could see the main desk in the receiving area. Boxes of files were stacked everywhere. No matter how much work people did, they just kept piling up. And it would only get worse, now that the school year had started and Joaquín had gone back to classes.

  “I put some sugar in when I pressed down the mate leaves, but let me know if it needs more.” Tonia strode back into the room carrying two gourds, their silver inlays and silver sipping straws gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. She handed one to Eugenia, who sipped from it and nodded that the sweetness was fine. Tonia sat down in another chair facing Eugenia.

  “Sara told me you needed my help,” she said.

  Eugenia took another long sip of mate before she answered. She’d learned over the past few months that the best way to deal with Tonia was to get straight to the point, but it still surprised her in a country where everyone else seemed to prefer an indirect approach.

  “That’s right, Tonia. It’s Laurita. We’re worried sick about her.”

  “What’s wrong with that beautiful young girl of yours? She and Joaquín seem very happy working together.” Since the beginning, when Tonia had given Laura the copihue earrings, the two had developed a deep mutual bond. Laura basked in the old woman’s acceptance, and glowed when Tonia told her once that she looked like a Mapuche beauty queen.

  “Well, I don’t know what’s wrong, and she refuses to talk about it.”

  “What worries you?”

  “She’s having nightmares. She insists she doesn’t remember them when she wakes up, but from watching her I’d say it’s the same one, or at least a similar one, every night. It’s been going on for weeks, and she seems less and less willing to talk with me. There are huge circles under her eyes, and the only thing she looks forward to is seeing Joaquín. She’s coming home late, and refuses to tell me where she’s been. I just don’t know what to do anymore, I …” Eugenia’s voice broke.

  “Well, hija, this way of acting, this rebellion, keeping secrets, many young people go through it, no? What makes you think it’s more than this?”

  “I know that rebellion is common at her age, and I remember doing a lot of things behind my mother’s back, too. But Laura’s been through a lot. She’s worried we might have to go back to Boston, because we can’t get her into school until her citizenship comes through, and I haven’t been able to find work. She feels settled here, a lot more than I do, to be frank. And I’m worried that, with all this insecurity, she might do something truly irreversible, and because she won’t talk to me, I won’t be able to help her before it’s too late.”

  “Like what, for example?”

  “Take drugs … get pregnant … run away …”

  Tonia stood up and went into the kitchen, returning with the kettle to refresh their mate.

  “There really isn’t much we can do to prevent this,” she said. “It’s the way of this generation. I see it around me everywhere. They’re angry, they don’t know what to believe in, and they think we let them down.”

  “But the nightmare, Tonia. It’s taking so much out of her. How much more can her body resist?”

  “Does she talk during her dreams? Can you understand what she says?”

  “All she ever says when she’s asleep is no, no, no. Which is pretty much all she says when she’s awake these days. But one thing I can tell you is that her dreams seem to have a common structure. She starts out moaning, then she roars, then it goes back to moans, whines, and finally whispers.”

  Tonia sat forward in her chair. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the dreams?”

  Eugenia thought for a moment. “No,” she finally said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe something about how she looks?”

  “Now that you mention it, her hair gets flat with sweat. And when I get close, tía, I can see her eyes are open. And the strangest thing, her eyes get so dark they have no pupils.”

  Eugenia didn’t know exactly how to ask for help, and surprisingly Tonia stopped being direct. For a while both women hid behind the ritual of mate, Tonia offering more water and sugar, then quizzing Eugenia about the strength of the tea. Did it need more leaves?

  “So doña Sara thought you might have some advice,” Eugenia finally said.

  “How so?”

  “Well, she said you used to specialize in cases that were hard to understand.”

  “That was before. In my youth.” Tonia stood up and walked to the window, staring at the street below. A silence settled over them, and Eugenia felt a chill go through her. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a vain effort to warm them.

  “Tía Tonia, I know that you stopped working as a machi with the coup. Doña Sara told me.”

  Tonia’s shoulders hunched forward. When she spoke, her voice sounded muffled. “That’s why I can’t help you.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t save my Renato. That’s why I can’t help you.”

  “But I don’t understand, I—”

  Tonia turned to face Eugenia. “Kuku Fresia, my grandmother, became a machi after she was hit by lightning as a child,” she said. “But then Chilean soldiers burned down her village and turned her people’s lives upside down. There was nothing she could do but bury them and walk on their bones, so she died of grief.” Tonia walked over to Eugenia’s chair and leaned down with her hands on the armrests, her face inches away. “When Chilean soldiers came to our village with the coup, m’hijita, there was nothing I could do but watch the young people die. For weeks I heard their spirits moan along the river.” She stood up and turned around again, her back slightly stooped as she resumed staring out the window. “The broken gourd,” she whispered. “My Renato … I couldn’t read the signs.”

  Eugenia went to stand beside the older woman. The roar of rush-hour traffic rose up from the street. A man with an accordion and a trained monkey was setting up for business on the corner right below.

  “Tía,” Eugenia said, grabbing her arm. “Forgive me. But as one mother to another, I beg you. Please.” The old woman refused to look up. Eugenia continued. “I know you love her, tía, and I’m not asking for much, not really. I’ll even keep it a secret if you wish. But doña Sara said you could read a person’s urine. No one else needs to know, especially not Laura. I can find a way to collect it at night, when she gets up to go to the bathroom. I have a special pan I just bought at the medical supply store, it’ll fit under the toilet seat and she won’t notice it in the dark. Just this once, please. I could never fo
rgive myself if something happened and I hadn’t …”

  Tonia looked up at last, a glimmering mist in her honey-colored eyes. “I know what you mean,” she sighed. “I didn’t, and I haven’t.”

  “Does this mean that you will—”

  “Just this once. Put the pan in your bathroom tonight. In the hospitals they tell you to put the pee in the refrigerator after you collect it, but don’t do this. I need it to be warm. Not warm from the body anymore, but just natural, at room temperature. I’ll come by the house tomorrow morning. Once Laura arrives here I will say I have an errand, and I will come up to the house.”

  Eugenia let go of Tonia’s arm and the two women stood there, next to the window, their eyes holding them together. For just a moment, in a lull of traffic and when the accordion grinder was taking a rest, a single swallow began chirping.

  “Just put it in a clean glass jar,” Tonia said, “so I can place it up against the light.”

  The next morning broke cool and clear. Eugenia had been up most of the night, and as she stood at the window that looked out on the back patio of the house she could see the burnt tones of early fall spread across the cordillera to the east, gathering in the brown wrinkles of the valleys thirsting now for the first winter snows. Laura had been up at irregular intervals during the night. When Eugenia woke during one of her daughter’s bouts with dreaming, she placed the pan in the toilet and waited for Laura’s next trip to relieve herself. The girl had gone back to sleep again around five and Eugenia had crept into the bathroom, gathering the urine in a clean glass jar and placing it on the kitchen counter, washing and putting away the pan so that nothing looked out of the ordinary. Then she had wondered what to do with the jar sitting in the kitchen, and finally decided to take it out onto the patio and hide it in the corner right under the living room window so that it could not be seen from the house. When she’d come back inside and looked out to make sure it was well hidden, the glow of first light had caught her attention.