Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘I was always the boy,’ laughed Sofia.

  ‘Well, the boys never wanted to join in. How embarrassing!’ She sighed. ‘Do you remember making the grown-ups pay to watch us?’

  ‘Yes, I do. What did we do with the money?’

  ‘Well, it was meant to go to charity. I think we spent it at the kiosco.’

  ‘Do you remember the time Fercho bribed Agustin to run naked through our finale dance?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Dear Fercho. You know he’s in Uruguay?’ Maria sighed sadly.

  ‘Yes, I do. I saw Eva Alarcon - you remember Eva, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. She married your Roberto.’

  ‘He was never my Roberto,' said Sofia defensively. ‘Anyway, they were in England and filled me in a little.’

  ‘Agustin’s still in Washington. He comes to visit about once a year although his wife doesn’t like it much. Poor Agustin - if he’s ever allowed to come home he does so alone. I don’t think his wife is very nice. Agustin deserved better. But Rafa’s here with Jasmina. He has such beautiful children. You’ll love Jasmina.’

  Maria told Sofia as much as she could about the past. She wanted to. She felt that perhaps by telling her cousin she would somehow feel included and then maybe the years wouldn’t appear to have been so many, or so long. Sofia listened, often moved, sometimes amused, while her cousin recounted her life and the lives of her family from the moment that Sofia had been taken from them.

  When she finished Sofia was still kneeling beside her bed clutching her cousin’s bony hand in hers. Maria used to be curvaceous, ‘womanly’ Paco once called her. Now she was gaunt and had lost all her hair, but her smile

  held all those innocent moments they had shared at Santa Catalina and she longed so much to turn the clock back and relive them again.

  ‘Sofia, all these years ...’ sighed Maria sadly.

  ‘Oh Maria, I cannot begin to tell you.’ Sofia silenced her with the wave of her hand.

  ‘Sofia, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Me too. I should never have stayed away for so long. I should have ...’

  ‘Let me speak, you don’t know the whole truth.’ Maria’s face was full of shame.

  ‘What do you mean, Maria? What truth?’

  Maria’s hazelnut eyes, as large as marbles, shone with remorse. She swallowed hard, trying to control her emotions that grappled their way to the surface, dragging up the guilt that for years had plagued her conscience with poison.

  ‘I lied to you, Sofia. I lied to you and I lied to Santi.’ She turned her face away. She couldn’t look at her cousin; she was too ashamed.

  ‘How? What do you mean?’ Sofia suddenly felt a cold draught slip in through the crack in the door and shivered. Please not you, Maria. Not you! She

  prayed silently.

  ‘When I found out that you and my brother had been lovers I was so angry. You used to tell me everything and yet you had completely shut me out. I was one of the last to know and you were meant to be my best friend.’ Large tears rolled down her cheeks, dropping onto her pillow.

  ‘Maria, I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone. Just look at the reaction we received. There was no way anyone would have let me marry my first cousin. It was disgraceful!’

  ‘I know, but I felt so left out, and then you went away. You never wrote. You just wrote to Santi. You never even bothered to drop me a line. It was as if I meant nothing to you. Nothing at all.’

  Sofia suddenly realized what Maria was trying to say. ‘You made sure he didn’t get my letters, didn’t you?’ she said slowly, but her mind was in turmoil. She would never have believed it if Maria had not told her personally. It was so unlike her to be vindictive. Yet, she couldn’t hate her. She was dying. She couldn’t hate her.

  ‘I saw how upset Mama was. She was inconsolable. We all felt betrayed. Saddened. It tore our family apart. Mama and Anna barely spoke for a year!

  And it was years, literally, before life went back to normal again. Santi had a bright future. Papa was desperate that he was going to throw it away because of you. So I wrote and ...’

  Told me that he had fallen in love with Maxima Marguiles.’ That letter had shattered all Sofia’s dreams, like a mirror that had reflected her strongest desires, splintered into a thousand pieces. The following year in London had been the bleakest of her life. No wonder Santi had never written; he had been waiting to hear from her. He wouldn’t have known where to reach her. He must have waited like she had, after all. He hadn’t stopped loving her.

  The weight of these revelations crushed her spirit and she sat on the floor mute with disbelief, gutted of any feeling at all. She had given away her child because she had believed he hadn’t wanted them. But he had, he had wanted them. The last twenty-three years had been lived out in response to a misunderstanding, in response to a lie. Maria would never know what she had done.

  ‘Please forgive me, Sofia. Please try to understand why I did it. I lied. He didn’t even know a Maxima Marguiles. He was miserable without you.’ Maria inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. How fragile she looked, and how tired. Her skin was sallow and lifeless; when her eyes were shut she appeared almost dead except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

  Sofia slumped onto the cool linoleum floor, recalling those long hours spent wishing and praying that he would come and find her. No wonder he had never come.

  ‘But you could have returned, Sofia. You didn’t have to run away for ever.’

  ‘Maria, I never ran away! I was sent away,’ Sofia snapped angrily.

  ‘But you didn’t come back. Why all this time? Please tell me it wasn’t just because of me?’ Maria opened her eyes and looked at her cousin imploringly. ‘Please tell me it wasn’t because of what I told you?’

  ‘I didn’t come back because ...’

  ‘You had everything here, everyone loved you, why did you throw it all away?’

  ‘Because ...’ she choked desperately.

  ‘Why, once time had diminished your feelings for each other, why didn’t you come back? I’ve felt so guilty for so long. Please tell me it wasn’t because you despised me. Why, Sofia, why?1

  ‘Because if I couldn’t have Santi I didn’t want Argentina, or Santa Catalina. Without him there was nothing for me here.’

  Maria looked at Sofia and her expression changed from self-pity to amazement.

  ‘You loved my brother that much? I’m so sorry,’ she said in a low voice.

  Sofia could not speak. Her throat had constricted, leaving her numb with anguish. Maria gazed at her cousin with solicitous eyes.

  Then it is my fault,’ she said sadly. ‘I was wrong. I had no right to meddle in your life. I had no right to take your love away.’

  Sofia shook her head and smiled bitterly. ‘No one took it away, Maria. I shall love Santi until I die.’

  Those words had scarcely had time to settle when the door swung open and in walked Santi. Sofia was still sitting on the floor. The sunlight now flooded into the room and she winced in the brightness. At first he didn’t recognize her. He smiled politely, those familiar green eyes revealing a certain sadness they hadn’t had before. The gloss of youth had been replaced with lines and creases that gave his face a ripe wisdom and charm. He too was heavier than he had been back then, but he was still Santi, the same, irreplaceable Santi.

  Then a spark of recognition struck him in the face and his cheeks strung crimson before draining of colour altogether.

  ‘Sofia?’ he gasped.

  ‘Santi.’ Sofia wanted to run into his arms and bury herself in the familiar smell of him, but a petite, dark-haired woman entered the room behind him followed by a tall, thin man and she had no choice but to remain by Maria’s side.

  ‘Sofia, I want you to meet Claudia, Santi’s wife, and Eduardo, my husband,’ Maria said, detecting her cousin’s discomfort. Nothing could have prepared Sofia for that moment. Although she had known for years that he had married, just like herself, in her dreams
he was always there for her. Drowning in disappointment she pulled herself up. She shook hands with them, deliberately ignoring the Argentine custom of kissing. She just couldn’t kiss the woman who had taken her place in Santi’s heart.

  ‘I must go, Maria,’ she said, desperate to leave the room. She had to get out. She had to be left alone to think all this over.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ the dying woman asked, concerned.

  ‘The Alvear Palace Hotel.’

  ‘Perhaps Santi will take you to Santa Catalina, won’t you, Santi?’

  He nodded in bewilderment without taking his eyes of her. ‘Sure,’ he mumbled.

  As Sofia passed him on her way out their eyes locked together for a second as they had done so many times in the past, and in them she recognized the Santi she had grown up with and loved. In that brief moment she realized that her return was going to bring her more pain than her departure had done twenty-three years before.

  Chapter 37

  Thursday, 6 November 1997

  Sofia returned to the Alvear Palace Hotel emotionally depleted. Once in her room she shed her clothes, creased and sweaty from her journey, and fell into the shower. She let the water pound onto her skin and enfold her in mist. She wanted to lose herself. She wanted Santi’s face to disappear into the steam. And yet the tears came as readily as the water and Santi’s face clung to her thoughts. She knew she should stop but allowed herself the luxury of sobbing loudly and in private. When she finally emerged her skin was as wrinkled as a rhino’s and her eyes sore from crying.

  Sofia hadn’t expected to see Santi. She didn’t know when she expected she would see him, certainly not in her first hour of being in the country. Her nerves hadn’t been prepared for the double shock. Maria’s dying body had been enough without the appearance of the man she had never ceased to love. She had hoped to see him later, when she had had time to prepare. She must have looked terrible. She cringed. She had always been vain, and although their lives had taken different routes she still wanted him to want her.

  From what Maria had told her, they both believed the other to have betrayed them. Now the truth was known, what was he thinking? Supposing he had waited until he truly believed she had forgotten him? Suppose he had been anticipating her return to find the years passing without a word. She could barely think about it without feeling sick with longing to hold him and tell him of the months she had awaited his letters, only to receive nothing and to give up completely. What wasted years. And now what?

  She reached for the telephone. She wanted to speak to David, just to hear his voice. She sensed the danger in seeing Santi again and didn’t trust herself. She was about to dial the number when it rang. She sighed and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Señor Rafael Solanas for you in reception,’ said the concierge.

  ‘In reception?’ News travels fast in Buenos Aires - her brother had found her. ‘You had better send him up,’ she replied.

  Sofia threw on the white fluffy hotel dressing gown and brushed her wet hair back off her face. She studied her swollen eyes in the mirror. How could she expect Rafael to recognize her when she didn’t even recognize herself. What was he going to say? She hadn’t seen or heard from him in what felt like a lifetime.

  He knocked, she waited. She stood a moment watching the door as if it was about to open all by itself. When he knocked again, this time impatiently, she had no choice but to open it. When he entered they stood and looked at each other for a brief moment. The years hadn’t changed him. If anything, he had got better-looking. He was obviously happy and his happiness radiated about him like an aura that extended itself towards her and engulfed her. He smiled and threw his arms around her, lifting her off the ground. She felt like a child as her feet dangled off the floor. Involuntarily she responded with equal affection and embraced him. The gulf that time had assembled between them seemed to have existed only in her mind.

  After a while they both laughed into each other’s bodies.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ they stammered in unison and then laughed again. He took her hand and led her to the bed where they spent the next couple of hours sitting and just talking, about old times, present times and the lost years. Rafael was a very contented man. He told her about Jasmina, and how he had fallen in love with her back in the early 1970s, when Sofia was still at Santa Catalina. He reminded her that she was the daughter of the eminent lawyer

  Ignacio Pena. ‘Mama was weak with delight,’ he said. ‘She had always admired Alicia Pena.’ Sofia remembered her mother’s snobbery with a cringe, but Rafael seemed to float above those trivialities as one can when one is truly happy. He had five children - the eldest was fourteen, the youngest only a couple of months. Sofia didn’t think he looked old enough to have a daughter of that age.

  ‘You know Maria is to be taken down to Santa Catalina this evening?’ he said finally. Having avoided the subject they were cruelly jolted back to the present.

  ‘I know,’ she replied, feeling the pleasure of their reunion dissolve with the reminder of her morning visit to the hospital.

  ‘I’m afraid she will die, Sofia, but it will be a relief for her. She has been so sick. In so much pain.’

  ‘I feel guilty, Rafa. If I had known she was to have such a short life I would never have been so selfish. I wouldn’t have stayed away so long. I wish I had come back sooner.’

  ‘You had your reasons,’ he said without bitterness.

  ‘I wish I had shared her life. We were best, best friends. I feel such loss.’

  ‘Life is too short for regrets, Grandpa used to say that. Do you remember?’

  She nodded. ‘You’re here now, aren’t you?’ He looked at her with tenderness and smiled. ‘You don’t need to go back to England. You’re home now.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll have to go back at some stage, the girls will be driving David up the wall!’

  ‘They’re my nieces, my family, they must come home too, Sofia. You belong at Santa Catalina. You should all come out and live here.’ He sounded just like their father, she thought.

  ‘Rafa, it’s impossible, my life is in England now. You know that.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be. Have you seen Santi yet?’

  Sofia felt her cheeks sting at the mention of his name. She tried to act natural. ‘Yes, briefly at the hospital,’ she said casually.

  ‘Did you meet Claudia?’

  ‘His wife? Yes. She looked ... very nice.’

  Her brother didn’t notice how difficult it was for her to talk about Santi, let alone his wife. For Rafael, her affair with Santi was part of another life that they all once shared but which was now so long ago it no longer counted. He didn’t suspect, not even for a moment, the love that burned with her every thought of Santi, as if with the long years that too had passed into distant memory.

  ‘I am driving down to Santa Catalina this afternoon. Will you come?’ he asked casually. She was relieved not to have to rely on Santi to take her. She wasn’t ready to confront him yet.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen Mama or Papa for years, they don’t even know I’m here.’

  Then it will be a surprise.’ He beamed cheerfully.

  ‘Not a pleasant one, I suspect. But yes, I’ll come. I’ll come for Maria.’

  ‘Good. We’ll have a late lunch. Jasmina and the children are already on the farm. As it’s a Thursday we had to take them out of school so they could be there when Maria arrives.’

  ‘I so look forward to meeting them all,’ she gushed, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  ‘They’ll love you, they’ve heard all about you.’

  Sofia wondered what exactly they had heard. Before she left for the country later that day she called David. She told him she missed him, which was true, she did, and she suddenly wished he had flown out with her.

  ‘Darling, you’re better on your own. You need time alone with your family,’ he said, touched to know she needed him. He didn’t know how much.

  ‘I don’t
know whether I want this after all,’ she said, biting her thumbnail anxiously.

  ‘Darling, you do, you’re just scared.’

  ‘You’re so far away.’

  ‘Now you’re being silly.’

  ‘I wish you were here. I don’t want to do this alone.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Anyway, if it’s really that bad you can just take the next plane home.’

  ‘You’re right - I can, can’t I,’ she replied, relieved. If things got difficult she could simply leave - easy! After all, she’d done it before. David passed her on to her daughters who chatted away enthusiastically, unaware of the cost of the call. Dougal, the new spaniel puppy, had already eaten most of David’s socks and had managed to chew his way through the telephone cord. ‘It was a miracle your call got through at all!’ giggled Honor. When Sofia replaced the receiver she felt much stronger.

  Buenos Aires disturbed her. She felt like a tourist where once she had belonged. She knew every side street and watched the shadows of her past haunt

  the sidewalks and plazas replaying scenes from long ago. She wondered if Santa Catalina would evoke the same sensations and it troubled her. Once again she began to wish she had never come.

  However, to her delight, the drive out to the countryside became increasingly familiar. They left the sprawling, cancerous city behind, passing fewer and fewer houses until they reached the long, straight roads of her youth that cut through the plains like old scars. She breathed again the well-known scents of her childhood. The sweet grass, the dust and the unmistakable, intoxicating eucalyptus.

  When they arrived at the gates of Santa Catalina it was as if those twenty-three years had been no more than a dream. Nothing had changed. The smells, the sun filtering in lucid shafts through the avenue of maple trees onto the dusty drive, the skinny dogs, the fields full of ponies and as they approached even the house, her home, was the very same one she had left behind.

  Nothing had changed.

  They drew up outside the house and parked under one of the tall, shadowy eucalyptus trees. Sofia noticed a group of young children playing on the swings in the park; they recognized the car and came running towards them.