All Roads Lead to Austen

by Amy Elizabeth Smith

  The walk home was a lot less carefree than the one there. Being passed by a flock of small, screeching green parrots lightened my load for several blocks—wild parrots in the city! But by the time I made it back to the doormen’s office I was winded, my back and shoulders on fire.

  “You found the sale!” Demetrio the Spaniard greeted me as I staggered up, while Don Alberto hurried to open the security gate.

  I emptied my bags onto the counter to display my loot to Demetrio. Don Alberto scooped up the bags as I repacked them and, despite my protests, wouldn’t give them back until I was inside the door of my apartment.

  “Well, good-bye for now,” he said, smiling over his shoulder as he left. Pleasant as he was, Don Alberto was well into his sixties. Still, I was beginning to get the idea that he was, in fact, flirting.

  ***

  How did a nice guy like Sense and Sensibility’s Edward Ferrars get caught up with a sneaky skunk like Lucy Steele in the first place?

  “Want of employment,” that’s how. If he’d had work or studies to keep him busy, he tells Elinor at the novel’s end, he never would have entered into an engagement so rashly. Most of us love to gripe about our jobs, but our “employment” often makes us who we are. After all my months of book shopping, hanging out with Diego, doing reading groups, and recovering from dengue, Santiago was where my employment resumed. I’d be teaching two literature courses for U.S. and Canadian students at a Chilean university that offered a special semester on a North American timetable, January to May; a typical Chilean semester wouldn’t start until March.

  I’d assumed the miserable slump I’d fallen into in Ecuador was all about the dengue I’d contracted in Mexico and about missing friends and family—and most of all, Diego. Entering the university building in central Santiago and seeing the rooms where I’d be teaching showed me there was more to it. Despite some language difficulties, I immediately felt at home among my new Chilean colleagues. The specialist in American history and culture was Carmen Gloria, an attractive, vivacious woman my age with full, dark hair shot through with striking auburn highlights. She reminded me immediately of Nora—not so much in looks but for her warm, positive, welcoming energy. A friend in the making, I hoped.

  School is my element. So yes, I am a nerd. My book orders were in, my handouts were ready to go, and there I was, Dr. Smith again.

  The study abroad coordinator, a somewhat timid man in his thirties with large, solemn eyes and dark, curly hair, took me out to lunch to celebrate my reporting for duty and to brief me on the students before classes started. “These are good kids,” Ramon said as he led me into the restaurant. “But you need to approach study abroad differently. Trim back your reading just a bit. And add some field trips. They love field trips.”

  Field trips—check.

  “Students are often gone on the weekends because they come here to travel,” he explained. “It’s perfect that you’ll be teaching travel literature. And it’s one of my favorite genres.”

  As talk shifted to reading preferences, I realized that Ramon, bright and well read, could be the perfect person to help me with Austen. The Guatemala, Mexico, and Ecuador groups had all been arranged before my arrivals, but knowing that I had five months in Chile, I’d decided to do the legwork once I got to Santiago. Now, maybe I didn’t have much legwork to do.

  At the first reasonable opening I asked, “What do you think of Jane Austen?”

  Ramon took a sip of wine. “Austen is a classic,” he nodded tactfully. “But do you know who I really love?”

  Then he did it—he named the author who makes hard core Austen loyalists sigh in distress, the author who wrote, “Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shinbone” and “It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.” What a contrast with gentle Sir Walter Scott, lamenting that “such a gifted creature died so early!”

  Who could contemplate assaulting Austen’s corpse with…Austen’s corpse? I love to horrify students by sharing these quotes on the first day of my Jane Austen class and asking them to guess the source. Surely the culprit must have been John Wilkes Booth, Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson. Maybe Adolf Hitler?

  Nope. Mark Twain.

  Why on earth did Twain hate Austen so much? It helps to know the context for his most biting comments. Twain’s friend William Dean Howells was an over-the-top Austen fan, and Twain couldn’t resist tweaking his nose on this. The “It seems a great pity” comment actually comes from a private letter to Howells, not any polished statement Twain published. The “shinbone” crack was also from a private letter, one to Joseph Twichell.

  There’s no way a writer as good as Twain could fail to appreciate a master stylist like Austen, so I’ve got a theory. The cynic in him was galled by all of the happy endings Austen pulled out of her bonnet. Wicked humorist that Twain was, how could he not love great writing like this from Northanger Abbey: “A family of ten children will always be called a fine family, when there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number.” Or this, from Persuasion: “The report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted; at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report.”

  So, Ramon’s affection for Twain didn’t put him on the wrong side of a literary divide for me. My opportunity to pursue Austen came over our decadent dessert, when Ramon asked, “Aside from teaching, what are you hoping to get out of your time here in Chile?”

  I explained about the Austen reading groups I’d already done and, by the time the check showed up, I had one committed Austen reader and Ramon’s promise to deliver more.

  “A number of my friends are poets,” he smiled. “That would be appropriate for the land of Neruda, wouldn’t it?”

  ***

  It’s a shame how little formal education Austen got to enjoy—only about two years total. What an intimidating student she would have been, no doubt smarter than most of her teachers, taking in lectures with an exacting mind, ready to greet any dullness in her lessons with sharp, sly commentaries. But given how well she turned out, maybe there’s something to be said for being more or less self-educated, after all.

  For my new students in Chile I was offering versions of two literature courses I do at my home university, one on travel and the other on war. There were five students in the travel class and four in the other, smaller groups than I was used to but good by the standards of the study abroad program. Mine were the only classes taught in English, giving students the chance to speak up without being nervous about sounding like boneheads.

  I’d heard that when studying abroad, at least one student per class will seriously go native. This is good if it means they’re adapting well, not so good if they start missing classes and flunk the semester. I couldn’t resist trying to guess which one it might be. In my travel lit course, Alison and Jenny both were open, sunny California girls, and if I hadn’t learned that Matt was from Alaska, I’d have assumed he was also from California. All three seemed too classically American to seriously blend in with the rather broody, often black-clad Chilean students thronging the streets outside. There were six other colleges and universities in the neighborhood, located a few metro stops from Santiago’s huge, impressive main square, the Plaza de Armas, and close to La Moneda, Chile’s equivalent of the White House.

  Taylor and Anne, on the other hand, would bear watching. Taylor had an adventurous hippie chick quality to her, and Anne, the only East Coast student, was smart and pleasant but reserved. A Chilean in the making?

  From the war literature class, Sarah, who was dating a Colombian and had spent long stretches of time in Latin America, already seemed on her way to going native. I was pleased to discover that Brooke, who also had somet
hing of the hippie chick about her, was a fellow Pennsylvanian. Michelle, the most bubbly and cheerful, was a Californian and Emily, sweet and polite, the one Canadian.

  Our first field trip, I announced, would be to Santiago’s largest cemetery, where we could visit the graves of famous Chileans. “Cemetery” isn’t always a word that makes people happy, but as Ramon had predicted, the students knew which part of the sentence really counted:

  “Field trip! Yay!”

  Two weeks later the anticipated day arrived. The students were especially curious to see the grave of Salvador Allende, since we’d discussed the 1973 coup against Allende in both classes. Despite the CIA’s support of the coup, the typical U.S. perspective now is that Augusto Pinochet, who held power until 1989, was a dictator.

  Pinochet and company forced the elected president to put a bullet in his own head and tortured and killed thousands of Allende’s supporters in 1973, among them musician Victor Jara, Chile’s Bob Dylan (picture Nixon having Bob Dylan tortured and killed, and you get the idea). Given that thousands more Chileans were kidnapped, tortured, and killed over the next decades, it’s hard to see how anybody could call Pinochet anything but a dictator. I’d warned my students, however, not to make assumptions. A considerable percentage of Chileans felt that Pinochet saved their country from becoming another Cuba. Today Chile has a strong, stable economy, and some credit this to Pinochet (while others point out that Chile always had a strong, stable economy, in comparison with its neighbors).

  Basically, it’s best not to discuss the coup unless somebody brings it up. It’s a raw, painful subject, one that can surface unexpectedly. The day before the cemetery trip I’d casually mentioned to the doormen how much I enjoyed walking along the banks above the Río Mapocho when, suddenly, Emilio fixed me with a hard stare.

  “After the coup, that river is where people went to look for their brothers, their children. Their mothers.” His voice cracked. “The banks were stained with blood because that’s where those bastards would throw the people they’d murdered.” He spoke slowly, deliberately, wanting to make sure I understood every word.

  I could only nod. Two things were clear: that some terrible, terrible story lay behind this pain and that any response I made would sound trite. Demetrio the Spaniard, seated next to him at the counter, put an arm around his shoulder. After a moment, Emilio gave a short, uncomfortable laugh. “But you’re right; it’s nice to walk along the river now.”

  Standing at Allende’s grave with my students, I recalled that exchange as a solemn silence descended among the students, typically so animated and talkative. It was one of those moments that never could have happened in the classroom. On the granite wall above the crypt are inscribed the words of Allende’s final speech to the Chilean public during the bombardment to wrench him from La Moneda, the Chilean White House. Two of the students slowly sounded the words out in Spanish, touching the stone gently as if reading Braille.

  For anyone wondering if Salvador Allende and novelist Isabel Allende are related, they are. He was her cousin, and his overthrow sent her into exile in Venezuela, where she wrote La Casa de los Espíritus (The House of the Spirits), her best-known novel. But most Chileans I asked said, “Her newest novel is better, Inés del Alma Mía—Inés of My Soul—about the Spanish settlement of Chile.”

  Shortly after our field trip I hunted for Inés near the University of Chile, an area Carmen Gloria told me was a used book heaven. In the block closest to the metro stop Universidad de Chile are dozens of small used books stalls, along with an extensive indoor book mall and several independent bookshops. On the right days of the week you can also find a large book fair several blocks south of the metro, near the Parque Almagro.

  This sort of book commerce has all but disappeared from the States, a fact that truly makes me sad. A person simply can’t earn a living in a major city with a bookstall of the size operated by many people in Santiago. Large chains and Internet businesses are efficient, but for real booklovers, there’s nothing to replace the pleasure of browsing used bookshelves and visiting with people who know every title they have for sale. I quickly found Inés there at a good price (although, alas, still no Nancy Drew in Spanish).

  Austen never wrote historical fiction, but given her complaint that history is “dull, with the men all so good for nothing and hardly any women,” she would have approved of Allende’s giving us an important female perspective, although she would have been scandalized by the story itself. Born in Spain in 1507, Inés Suárez sailed to Peru in search of her husband, who had followed Pizarro to the “New World.” By the time she arrived he was dead, but the dashing Pedro de Valdivia was very much alive. They became lovers, despite Valdivia’s having a wife in Spain. Inés joined the party of conquistadores heading south to claim the territories that would become Chile—if only they could subdue the Mapuche, the indigenous people already living there.

  Inés saved Valdivia from attempts by subordinates to hijack the expedition, nursed men in battle, and even donned armor and fought. Eventually Valdivia, now considered the founder of Chile, died gruesomely at the hands of the Mapuche whose land he had invaded; Inés married one of his young captains and lived to a ripe old age.

  The book dealer who’d sold me Allende’s historical novel had it right when he’d handed the volume over with a smile: “If you haven’t heard this story before, you’re going to love it!”

  ***

  Who knows if Inés and Valdivia were the cause, but Chileans seem to have had an odd spin on marriage and extramarital hanky panky ever since. Affairs don’t raise too many eyebrows, perhaps since divorce only became legal in Chile in—I am not making this up—2004. Previously, people with enough money and influence could get an annulment, although it’s hard to imagine how they did so with a straight face when they had children. To this day average Chileans settle for separation and on-the-side arrangements. Affairs just-for-the-heck-of-it happen, too.

  For instance. Every time I spoke with the tall, handsome security guard at the university building, he kept me updated on his wife’s extended stay in Spain with their daughter. Late one afternoon he shifted the topic from his wife’s absence to my being all alone in Chile, far away from my family—surely I was lonely, too, and surely it would be nice for us to be lonely together, yes?

  I’m no expert, but I’d like to think that in the United States, cheating still carries some sense of shame. Don’t married American men on the prowl sneak their rings off and fake bachelorhood? In Chileans’ defense, they’re very up-front about things; the guard had made clear he was off the marriage market. When I turned him down he shrugged and smiled but didn’t seem too put out. Thank god, since I’d now have to see him every day I taught.

  This little encounter forced me to rethink a decision I’d made only the day before. Don Alberto, the friendly doorman at the apartment, had asked me out to dinner. I usually don’t date men in the “old enough to be my father” category, and of course there was Diego. But given our current separation and my uncertainty about the long-distance situation, keeping our options open was only reasonable. And yes, I was lonely. Don Alberto was attractive for his age and had a kindly, patient air. He could be just the man to help me adjust to a new city. In a moment of weakness, I’d agreed to meet Don Alberto that upcoming weekend at a nearby restaurant.

  Then in a moment of clarity, after the brush with the amorous security guard, it dawned on me that Don Alberto probably wasn’t single. Marriage was the norm in Chile, and newly legal divorce was out of the reach of a doorman’s salary.

  “There’s something I need to know,” I said to Don Alberto the day before our date, as he abandoned his post yet again to walk me to my apartment. “Are you married?”

  I watched the painful struggle on his face between “I don’t want to lie” and “I don’t want to blow this date.” To his credit, honesty won out. “Well, yes. I am. But th
ings with my wife are—”

  I gently stopped him. “Thank you for being honest. But I can’t go out with you if you’re married.” Not only would Jane Austen have approved—if it had happened to her, no doubt she would have written something scathing about him in a letter to Cassandra (a letter Cassandra would then have dutifully burned upon her sister’s death). But Austen’s good judgment would probably have kept her from getting into this type of situation in the first place. What had possessed me to agree to a date with a man I’d now have to see multiple times every day?

  Don Alberto eyed me wistfully for the next week but didn’t say a word. Then one morning as I was in the basement loading the dryer, I turned to find him watching me from the doorway.

  “Won’t you reconsider?” he said without preamble. “Can’t we just have coffee, just as friends?”

  “Well, if you mean it—just as friends.” Coffee was innocent enough.

  “Really?” he said, smiling brightly. “That’s wonderful!” Then he grabbed my face with both hands and laid a great big kiss on me, tongue and all.

  I shoved him backward, too stunned to speak. Had he been younger, I would have socked him on the jaw. Given that he was married, he probably had kids, and given his age, they had kids. I couldn’t go around punching somebody’s granddad even if he had frenched me, uninvited.

  “Forgive me! Forgive me!” he sputtered. “I thought that you—I mean I—” Then he turned and dashed out of the laundry room.