Chasing the Sun: A Novel

by Natalia Sylvester

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Natalia Sylvester

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781477851067

  Cover design by Jennifer Carrow

  Author photograph by Eric Sylvester

  Cover art © Aline Gonçalves

  To Eric, for insisting

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  PART TWO

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  Lima, Peru

  1992

  1

  DAY 1

  HE IS ALWAYS thinking of the last words he said to her—thank you, see you at dinner, rarely a simple I love you—as if they were status reports to a colleague, a quick memo to see where they stand. Andres always speaks last; Marabela has never cared for last words because her power lies in silences. When he calls to say he’ll be home late from work, he waits several seconds for her to respond. In that time, he tries to guess what she’ll say next, his thoughts teetering from hope to dread, and when she finally speaks, her words land flatly in the middle.

  “You promised you’d be home for dinner. We haven’t sat down together in weeks. Can’t work wait?”

  He tries explaining why it can’t. Andres is already on his way to meet with the president of one of the largest canned food manufacturers in the country, hoping to convince him to switch the printing of his labels to his company. The meeting is about more than business; it’s about setting a good example for his son. “Even if I could reschedule, I’ve already picked up Ignacio from school. You know how much it means to me that he come along.” He wonders if Marabela still remembers (if she even still cares about) the stories Andres used to tell her of how he started shadowing his father when he was only nine. Ignacio is already sixteen, and today will be the first time he sees his father in action. It’s time he learned about business, responsibility, and confidence—things he won’t absorb sitting in a classroom.

  Marabela sighs in that half-resigned way she always does when she knows there’s no arguing with him. “Fine, but why does it have to take so long? Just finish early and come home.”

  “I left a few reports on my desk. I’ll need to go back for them after the meeting.” His company’s projected earnings for the next several months will need to be adjusted if he lands this new client, and the exercise will help demonstrate to his son that hard work adds up. “It shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”

  “It’s just that I don’t like asking the girls to work late. They have their novela at eight. It’s the least I can do.” Marabela sounds hesitant.

  Andres scoffs. It’s ridiculous that his household schedule is dictated by a soap opera. Is La Perricholi really more important than his and his family’s time together? “You ask more of me than you do our own help,” he says.

  “Por favor, Andres.” She sounds tired, always so tired, of arguing with him. “Don’t make me seem like the unreasonable one when I’m just trying to be fair. They shouldn’t have to work late just because you do.”

  He can sense the conversation going nowhere—just more hurtful words and no solutions. As usual, he’s overcome by an urge to take it all back and start over. “What if you pick up the papers for me? Could you do that?”

  “Right now? I wasn’t even planning on going downtown. I was just on my way out to the pharmacy to get Carla’s medication, but your office is completely out of my way.”

  Picking up medication for the maid is going completely out of the way, too, he thinks. “But I’d be home for dinner. Isn’t that what you want?”

  The line goes silent as she considers.

  “Only if you promise you’ll be home for dinner on time.”

  “I’ll do everything I can.”

  She doesn’t agree or disagree. She simply hangs up.

  For months now, they’ve moved past good-byes, but the conversation leaves him feeling unsettled. He thinks about calling her back and saying forget about the papers, but perhaps he’s making a big deal out of nothing. Marabela often runs errands downtown. Why should a man have to be so careful with his wife that he can’t ask for a simple favor? Would she really leave him over a stack of forgotten papers, over a tie that needs straightening? Lately he has tried not to be needy, but the truth is, a husband has needs. Every marriage does, especially theirs, yet they’ve gone months, maybe years, ignoring this simple fact.

  The driver turns a sharp left and Ignacio gets pushed against his father in the backseat. They can already see the factory up ahead, its perimeter enclosed by a thick sky-blue wall. The security guard at the entrance asks to see their national identification cards, jotting down their names and license plate number before letting them in. As the gate rattles open and they pass under the factory sign, Andres points to the long, stocky building up ahead.

  “Manuel Orozco started out canning just olluco, precut in strips and chunks,” Andres tells his son. He remembers what the packaging looked like years ago, with its red and white stripes and several of the root vegetables in the center, as if someone just wrapped the Peruvian flag around a can and slapped a picture of its contents on the front. The design hasn’t changed much, and the printing quality is atrocious. “They do all sorts of fruits and vegetables now. Peaches and peas and choclo. But the olluco is what they’re known for, and they really need a label that’ll bring out its bright yellow color to catch people’s eyes.”

  “Is that what they called you for?” Ignacio asks.

  He adjusts his tie and grins. “Well, it’s what I called them for.”

  They’re greeted by Manuel and his wife at the front steps of the factory, then led through its heart, full of rows and rows of workers in hairnets and aprons filling an endless line of naked cans with food. A small conference room upstairs overlooks the machines and assembly lines, and once inside, Andres can see his son is mesmerized by their perpetual motion. He hands him his suitcase, hoping to redirect his attention to the client.

  “Never too young to start learning to be more like his father, right?” Manuel says.

  “Hopefully not too much. I suspect he’s gotten most of his best qualities from his mother.”

  Manuel’s wife laughs and asks how Marabela is doing. The women know each other from a mutual acquaintance, and when the couples last ran into each other at a dinner party, Andres seized the opportunity to set up this meeting. From the way Lara spoke about the company, he could tell Manuel’s wife was the one he’d need to convince, despite her lack of an official job title. He’d hoped Marabela would come with him today to help make a good impression.

  “She’s so sorry she couldn’t make it. She was really looking forward to seeing you again,” he says.

  “Tell her I said hello and that I hope she feels better,” Lara says.

  The meeting goes better than expected. Manuel tells them all about the his
tory of his company and what they’re planning on doing next. He asks if Andres’s company has ever handled this quantity of canned food products, and Andres jokes that lucky for Manuel, they’ve had plenty of practice on smaller competitors. He has Ignacio hand out printing samples from his suitcase, and the vibrant colors and glossy finish seem to impress them. Lara runs her fingers over the paper, which pleases Andres immensely. It’s meant to be touched to be fully appreciated; his ink never runs.

  On their way back to the car Andres bets his son that Manuel will call soon, possibly in the next week or two, but Ignacio seems more interested in Lara.

  “Why did she think Mom doesn’t feel well?”

  “It’s nothing. It was just easier to tell them that than say your mother wasn’t interested in coming.”

  “Why would she come?”

  He sighs, unsure how to explain the less concrete aspects of business. “Sometimes those kinds of things help the situation along. A man like Manuel wants to know the person he’s about to do business with shares his values. That he’s a good husband, a family guy. That he can be trusted.”

  Marabela tired of this early on in his career, saying it made her feel like she was showing off their marriage for profit. Andres hopes his son won’t ask for further explanation, but he only nods and says, “Can’t really blame her for not being interested.”

  The ride home is slow and quiet. It is nearly seven and traffic still swells with people anxious to get home, to be one day closer to the weekend. Unwilling to let their tardiness or his son’s attitude ruin his good mood, Andres settles comfortably into the backseat of his Town Car, feet stretched before him so that his pants reveal his thin black socks. Ignacio sits by the opposite window, staring at passing cars and street vendors. Through the tint of the glass, the city looks grayer than usual, the horizon obscured by thick smog ahead of them and tall, jagged desert dunes covered in makeshift homes to the north and east of them. The only sound in the car is the low hum of the engine and the whistle of the air conditioner. Ignacio won’t stop fidgeting with the buttons on the door, and when they come to a red light, his fingers get away from him and the glass starts lowering.

  “Señor, tres paquetes de galletas por un sol.” A young boy, no older than thirteen, pokes his head through the window. Ignacio shakes his head and starts rolling up the window when his father leans forward to stop him.

  “Not so fast. You already got his hopes up. Don’t toy with the kid.” He leans over and shouts, “¡Dos paquetes! Go ahead, pay him.” He nudges his son.

  “But you’re the one who—” With a stern look from his father, Ignacio stops protesting and fishes two coins out of his pocket. He takes the packets of cookies from the boy and hands one to his father. As they drive away, Ignacio turns the cookies over in his hands, the thin plastic crinkling between his fingers. The wafers and their creamy centers are all crumbled together, having been carried up and down the street in the little boy’s bag for God knows how many months. “You know I’m not going to eat these,” Ignacio says.

  “That’s not the point. He’s a hardworking boy. You have to give him credit for jumping at an opportunity,” Andres says. He tries to ignore how his son shakes his head, looking at his father out of the corner of his eye. Andres slaps him softly on the elbow and smiles. “Next time you need air . . .” He raises his voice so the driver can hear him: “Jorge! The sunroof.”

  Without turning to look at him, Jorge pushes the sunroof button, and Andres lights a cigarette, exhaling toward the sky. They leave the busy intersection behind.

  He leans forward to the center console between the front seats, which used to be an armrest until Andres had a car phone installed. He is the first of his friends to have one, and lately he’s been using it at every opportunity; it comes in handy when he needs to fill an awkward silence or ignore troubling thoughts of work and home. Now, he picks up the heavy brick from its base and dials the house, anxious to know if Marabela ever passed by the office. Yes, Consuelo says, Marabela left soon after they spoke but has yet to return.

  By Andres’s calculations, Marabela should have been home at least an hour ago from running his errand. Strange—Marabela is never late. She has a schedule written out for each day. Her charity meetings, lunches with friends, salon appointments, and even the kids’ activities are planned to the minute.

  He puts out his barely smoked cigarette and quickly lights another to keep his hands occupied.

  Of course, Marabela was late once before.

  Four months ago, he came home to find the kids eating alone, their faces blank and bewildered when he’d asked after their mother’s whereabouts. He remembers how quiet the house felt that night, as if maybe she was just sleeping, or sick, instead of gone. The kids read in their bedrooms all evening and brushed their teeth with the bathroom door closed, and, after Marabela still hadn’t come home in time to tuck Cynthia in and kiss Ignacio good night, they poked their heads into Andres’s bedroom and announced they were going to bed. He couldn’t tell if they were checking on him or checking for her.

  Hours later, Marabela finally called to say that she was leaving him. It was a short conversation, with little explanation and too many silences in which she was probably trying to spare his feelings. At least she was being truthful, he’d thought back then. He, on the other hand, had been burdened with lies, making up stories to the kids about her visiting a friend who’d suddenly fallen very ill. If Marabela hadn’t changed her mind and come home after three long days, he might’ve had to tell Cynthia and Ignacio the truth. He’s not sure he could’ve forgiven her then.

  Andres wonders if he’ll get a similar call tonight, if they haven’t moved past this at all but only masked it, poorly, for the past several months. As they turn off Avenida Benavides into his neighborhood, he’s flooded with uncertainty. He imagines the kids’ muted movements as they get ready for school, the maids’ extra care setting dishes on the table and refilling his drink. If Marabela’s left him again, he’s not sure he can bear another day of convincing everyone she’ll be back, least of all himself.

  When they finally reach the house, Andres holds his breath as the wooden-paneled door to his driveway tilts open to reveal an empty spot where Marabela’s car is typically parked. They wait for the door to close behind them before Jorge gets out and opens the passenger doors. Like most upper-class homes in Lima, the Jimenezes’ residence, even their front yard and garage, is completely enclosed by cement walls and locked gates that clear the first floor of the home. Anyone passing along the sidewalk would have to call in through an intercom by the Spanish-style door, and only then, once they’re buzzed in and have walked down the thin terra-cotta-tiled pathway that winds through the yard, lush with palms, fruit trees, and scattered orchids, would they reach the entrance to his home.

  They walk through the garage into the kitchen, and he instructs Ignacio to take his suitcase up to his office. Andres walks through the dining room, where the table’s already been set, and into the living room, where Carla is dusting off the wooden furniture, half expecting to find Marabela reading a book or sifting through shopping bags. Ignacio disappears up the stairs while Andres checks the mail piled up next to the telephone in the corner of the room. There’s just enough sunlight left to illuminate the dust Carla’s sweeping off the cabinets, coffee table, and chest of drawers. It seems that’s all the poor girl ever does, but the furniture, covered almost entirely in hand-carved swirls of leaves, flowers, and berries, creates the most intricate pockets of dust Andres has ever seen.

  He clears his throat and Carla stops what she’s doing to say hello and ask if he needs anything. Something strong, he thinks.

  “Just have Consuelo bring me a pisco sour upstairs,” he says. Consuelo, who’s been working with them for nearly two decades, knows exactly how Andres likes his pisco sours, and Andres isn’t sure he feels comfortable asking her fifteen-year-old niece to make him a cocktail.

  He trudges up to his office, throwing his tie
over the back of his chair, but otherwise doesn’t know what to do when he gets there. Andres had anticipated having the papers he’d asked Marabela to pick up, and without them there isn’t much he can do but wait. Already his son has locked himself in his room, having scampered off quietly like a rabbit.

  He phones his secretary, Edith, to ask if Marabela came by the office.

  “No, sir, and I haven’t left my desk, even for a minute.” Edith, a middle-aged divorcée who has never had a job before this one, is always eager to please.

  “Thank you, Edith. I’m sorry you had to stay so late, please go ahead and get home. In fact, come in a couple of hours late tomorrow. I’ll take care of the papers in the morning.”

  Now he is truly worried. Ever since Marabela left, he has been careful not to ask anything of her. Not for a section of the paper in the morning. Not for a kiss good night in the evening. He has not even asked her for a quick glance to check if he’s shaved his sideburns evenly. If she’s left him again, he’ll have no one to blame but himself. He should have stuck to what was working for them—ask nothing and expect no problems in return.

  What strikes him now is that he should’ve seen this coming a second time. He searches their bedroom for signs he might have missed, but her belongings are intact. The luggage is filled with smaller baggage and winter clothes as usual. Her toothbrush and French soaps are still in their place by the sink, always within reach of her right hand and then her left. Her favorite purses are arranged by color and size along the top shelf of the closet. Perhaps most shocking of all, her camera is still tucked among her bras and underwear in the top drawer, in a padded case so large it makes the clothes look like an afterthought.

  Still, the presence of Marabela’s possessions does nothing to convince him she hasn’t left. The first year Andres’s company started seeing a profit, he’d tried to indulge her with jewelry and expensive European shoes, but she’d insisted that she could give it all up in a day; it mattered only that the family was together, healthy, and happy. Now he’s afraid only half that statement remains true.