The Rhythm of Memory

by Alyson Richman

  “Oh, my wife, ever the bourgeois,” Octavio chided. “You have to remember that I didn’t come from such privilege.”

  “I’m serious, Octavio. Things aren’t that simple! Nothing is black-and-white with politics.”

  Octavio bit the tip of his pencil. “Well, it might not be simple, but Chile will still have to change its ways in order to progress. We can’t maintain the mentality of a gray elephant where the rich stay rich and the poor remain impoverished.”

  “Octavio,” Salomé said with a slight hint of caution in her voice. “Just because you are helping Dr. Allende doesn’t mean you have to become the spokesperson for the socialist party. Try and keep some distance.”

  “I cannot help a man that I don’t understand. The more I read, the more I understand and sympathize with his platform. He has a vision and I admire him for it.”

  “Admire and undertake as your own are two separate things. We both have seen how quickly politics can change in Chile. How many presidents can you count who were in and out of office since you yourself were a little boy?” She looked at him sternly. “Too many, I bet, to count!”

  “You don’t understand, Salomé.” And for the first time in their marriage, Octavio seemed to almost patronize his wife. “I am going to be part of a fundamental change in our country’s politics, and I am excited about it!” He paused and looked out past the garden, past where the children were quietly playing and into the hills. “I haven’t been this excited in years about anything. Finally, I’m getting to use my acting skills and my brain. I just might be able to use my talents and influence to do some good in this world, not just sell cinema tickets that make the studios even richer than they already are.”

  Salomé shook her head. “I understand completely, Octavio. Believe me, I understand all you’ve sacrificed for us over the past five years. I just don’t want anything to jeopardize our happiness. Is that so wrong of me?” She couldn’t help being cautious about her husband’s burgeoning political involvement. She had grown up overhearing her father and grandfather discussing politics during her childhood summers at the hacienda. She knew that few governments enjoyed a long life in Chile.

  “Nothing can change what we already have,” he told her gently as he got up from his chair and ran his fingers through her long hair.

  Had the cameras been rolling at this moment, Octavio might have realized that the words he was uttering were spoken without reflection and that, if he were a character in a script, he couldn’t have sounded any more naive.

  Twenty

  GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN

  APRIL 1970

  All her life, Kaija had imagined herself on her wedding day looking as her mother did in the portrait Kaija had carried since she was small. As a child, she had stood in her bedroom in Sweden with a cluster of violets and sweet peas between her hands, and blossoms in her hair, and tried to imagine that day when she would look into that faded black-and-white photograph and recognize herself in the image of her long-lost mother. For, in her mind, her mother never aged. She would always remain that slender, silent woman in the photograph whose delicate features seemed to be cut from a wedge of freshly fallen snow.

  Now her wedding day to Samuel had arrived, and Kaija began to prepare herself for the ceremony. As her adopted parents were no longer living, she had asked Samuel for a small civil ceremony, because there was no one to give her away.

  True, she did not miss having Astrid’s company. The old woman had never been kind to her and would never have risen to the occasion of her adopted daughter’s wedding. As far as love was concerned, Astrid had gone through all the books Kaija had had as a child, ripping out all of the pages that were devoted to love. Anything to do with sex was also naturally eradicated from the house. It was as if her own self-loathing had prevented her from ever seeing anything good in the world. And love became the enemy in her own self-waged war.

  However, had Kaija’s adopted father been alive today, he would have embraced her and held her to his chest before walking her down the aisle. She knew he was smiling down at her from above.

  After some nervous pacing, Kaija decided to put some light opera on the old phonograph, hoping that would calm her nerves. Rummaging through her records, she decided on Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and placed the player’s needle down carefully. The music floated through the apartment as she washed her long blond hair, dried it, then braided it down the center, finally coiling it into a loose bun. “It would be silly to put flowers in my hair,” she thought to herself, then chastised herself for being so sentimental. “After all, the ceremony is only at the town hall…” But for all these years, she had imagined herself looking as her mother did in that treasured portrait. Her solid stature. Her long, white dress, and the string of violets and stephanotis in her upswept chignon. Now, as she studied her own face in the mirror, she could see nothing of the woman she so desperately wished she had known and loved.

  She would never know that her mother too had lost her own mother at such a young age. That the crucifix had been worn by the women in their family for countless years. But what Kaija did know was that the same necklace that had once touched her own mother’s skin now rested against hers. And that, in some small way, brought her comfort.

  Kaija went over to her nightstand and retrieved her mother’s photograph, as an aria from the opera crescendoed in the background. The black-and-white tones had faded to a soft gray, the sun having absorbed much of the pigment over the years. Kaija looked at it intently.

  “I must be joyous today,” she instructed herself. “I am marrying the man I love.”

  Nevertheless, sadness weighed upon her. It was not that she lacked excitement for her marriage—indeed, she loved and cherished Samuel and desperately wanted to be his bride. She finally had someone to love her, to cherish her as if she were completely his own. It was only that she missed the female companionship that she imagined accompanied most brides. She wished she could have had someone to share these premarital moments with.

  Yet, now, she was alone, with no one around even to help her get dressed. No one to braid her hair or massage her shoulders. And, more importantly, no one to share a last-minute giggle or calm the prewedding nerves. A girlfriend would have been the next best alternative. But Samuel and she had been inseparable since her first semester, and Kaija had made few friends since she had moved to Göteborg.

  As she finished her makeup and dabbed a bit of perfume behind her ears, she wished she had chosen a dress to wear. The suit she had selected the week before seemed painfully plain on the hanger on the closet door. Kaija wondered why she had chosen it in the first place, as it seemed so unremarkable now.

  The woman in the shop had told her that the silk was imported from France and that the short hem and notched collar were the latest trend. She also recommended a matching white pillbox hat and soft kidskin gloves.

  Kaija unwrapped her purchases from the perfumed tissue paper, slipped into the suit, and pinned the hat on her head with bobby pins. She wiggled her slender fingers into the gloves and readjusted her skirt.

  After several careful steps, Kaija took a long, studied look at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized herself. She thought she looked like an ambassador’s wife, not a bride to be. Her crucifix was hidden behind a smattering of tightly closed buttons, and her braided chignon was covered by the pillbox hat. Even her tiny hands were hidden beneath a casing of leather.

  “I cannot possibly go like this,” she thought to herself, her fingers trembling as the clock was already striking half past ten. She was supposed to meet Samuel in less than an hour.

  She picked up the photograph of her mother one last time, studying it even more intensely than she had only minutes before.

  Her mother was radiant. She looked as a bride should, innocent and youthful.

  The contrast with how she felt she looked so depressed Kaija that she decided to remove her pillbox hat and slip off her kidskin gloves. She unbuttoned her suit jacket and slid o
ut of her skirt. Within seconds, she was standing in the center of her bedroom with nothing on but her undergarments, walking toward a closet that had almost nothing to offer her: a couple pairs of trousers, two pleated skirts, and one winter dress and one for summer. The summer dress she had bought the previous year. Made out of linen, it was not white, but rather a pale pink. A dusty rose color with an eyelet hem.

  She pulled it out and into the sunlight. “It’s almost white,” she mused as she slipped into it and zipped up the back. It felt so much more comfortable to her than the constricting suit. “This will have to do,” Kaija murmured to herself as she ran to the mirror and twirled around, the skirt billowing up like a bell. Finally, she felt like a giddy bride.

  Samuel didn’t even realize that his bride wore pink instead of white. To him, she was already the very image of purity and beauty. When he saw her for the first time that morning walking up the steps of the town hall, he was overcome with emotion. He couldn’t believe that this exquisite creature had agreed to be with him for life.

  She had sprinkled wildflowers in her hair, plucking them from the landlady’s garden as she walked down the path to meet her anxious groom. And she had placed her crucifix around her neck so that it nestled softly between the cleavage of her small, rounded breasts.

  Samuel barely noticed the crucifix anymore, as he had grown to accept it as though it were an extension of Kaija’s body. Something that grew out from her, rooted in her heart and woven into her skin. He dared not envision what would happen to her if he asked her to remove it.

  That morning, before they were pronounced man and wife, Samuel vowed to cherish Kaija always. He kissed her lightly on the lips and placed his arms around her waist.

  “I want a big family,” he teased her as they exited the gilded town hall, and she lovingly squeezed his arm.

  “We will make our own family now, my love,” Samuel said as he escorted Kaija into the waiting car. “A dozen little children…” And with that, he winked playfully at his radiant bride.

  Twenty-one

  SANTIAGO, CHILE

  APRIL 1970

  Octavio arrived at Allende’s house on Guardia Vieja Street, a quiet residence filled with the scent of ripening fig and apple trees. He paid the taxi, walked through the gate, past the unfenced garden, and up to the porch. He straightened his tie, tapped the dirt off his shoes, ran his fingers through his hair, and readjusted his curls.

  Nearly seconds after he rang the doorbell, Octavio was formally greeted by Allende’s wife, Hortensia Bussi, a dark and attractive woman with small, delicate features.

  “You must be Don Octavio,” she said graciously, and motioned for him to step into the vestibule.

  “Yes, and you must be Doña Hortensia.”

  She smiled back at him. “Yes, but please call me Tencha,” she said as she extended her hand to him.

  “Come this way.” She ushered him through the dimly lit corridor, past Allende’s study, the intimate parlor, and through two French doors that opened up onto a sunny terrace that overlooked a blooming garden of dahlias and sterling roses. There, Allende was sitting on one of the chaise longues with his hat pulled slightly over his brow.

  “Salvador,” Tencha called out to him, “Don Octavio has arrived.”

  The sun cast shadows over Allende’s face. He now held his hat in his hand and was sitting upright, smoothing his trouser pleats with his left palm.

  “Good afternoon, Don Octavio, so good of you to come. Can we offer you something to drink? A whiskey, some pisco, or perhaps a little boldo tea?”

  “Yes, maybe some tea. If it is not inconvenient…”

  “No, no, my good friend.” Allende went to pat Octavio on the back. “A little tea sounds good before we sit down for some work. You must excuse my little nap. I have been working such late hours that I must have fallen asleep in my chair!”

  “It happens to us all, Doctor,” Octavio said as he sat down. “I’ve done it myself on many an occasion.”

  “Yes. Yes.” Allende cleared his throat. “Well, how would you like to go about this little tutorial?”

  “Well, I think it is best that we begin working on the presentation of your speeches. Have you any that you have recently prepared?”

  “Yes, I do. They are in my study.”

  “Let’s take a look at those. I’ll have you read from them, and you pretend that I am the cameraman standing there in front of you.”

  “I’ve always done better in front of crowds. I feed off their energy. It gets my adrenaline going.”

  “Yes, I understand.” Octavio’s voice was warm and compassionate. “That is one of the differences between the stage and the screen. In a studio it is only you, your fellow actors, and the crew. In the theater, you have the thrill of the crowds. The interaction between the audience and the performer is invigorating.”

  “Exactly!”

  “But now you must forget about those impassioned speeches that you used to give on top of Santa Lucía Hill, in Tierra del Fuego, deep within the copper mines, or in the freezing cellars of the meat-packing plants. I cannot teach you what you already know. However, television is an entirely different arena.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So I will teach you how to master it. I will instruct you how to hold your head, where to rest your hands, and when to raise your palms. When you make your political promises, you should gaze directly into the lens, and when you comment on the decline of our children’s health and educational system, I will encourage you to bow your head ever so slightly.” Octavio paused. “Dr. Allende, I will teach you to manipulate the camera to your advantage.”

  So, that afternoon, after Tencha had brought out the steaming cups of boldo tea, the two men practiced until evening fell upon the house on Guardia Vieja Street.

  Octavio arranged the chairs so that Allende sat facing him, the speech he had drafted only hours before resting neatly on a garden stool in front of him.

  “Men and women of Chile,” he began, “I have dedicated my life to serving the people—”

  “Slower, my friend,” Octavio interrupted. “And when you are speaking, stare at my finger.” He lifted his forefinger and positioned it so that it centered Allende’s gaze.

  “I have been inside the mines and seen the conditions in which our nation’s people work for pitiful wages, for foreign companies whose only interest is to fatten their own wallets…”

  “Good!”

  “I have seen the small child whose limbs are twisted and whose growth is stunted because his family could not afford the proper nourishment that no child should be deprived of…”

  “Yes, now take off your glasses and shake your head slightly to emphasize the shame of this!”

  “But I won’t be able to see…”

  “You’ll put them on as soon as you finish the sentence. I will have the cameraman focus on your eyes at that point. Dr. Allende, you are probably the only sincere politician alive. Let the viewers see that in your gaze. It is what attracted me into accepting this job, and I am confident it will have the same effect on the voters.”

  “I must confess, Don Octavio, that I am beginning to think this ‘staging’ of my speeches is bordering on insincere.”

  “You shouldn’t think of it as that way.”

  “Perhaps the public should see me just as I am. An occasional hesitation of speech can’t completely obliterate a past dedicated to community service?”

  Octavio was silent for a moment. “I agree with you on a certain level. My wife actually shares a philosophy similar to yours. But, as Neruda pointed out, the Kennedy-Nixon debates showed that the public is partial to not only the more eloquent candidate but, also, to the more photogenic one. Neruda tells me that Nixon looked absolutely dreadful on camera, which probably cost him the election.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that, but…”

  “If you trust me, I will make sure that you look your best and that your words are heard, without any distractions. There is not
hing insincere about that. After all, they will be your speeches, crafted from your heart and carved from your mind.”

  Allende smiled. “All right then, let’s get back to work.”

  For several hours each week, Octavio continued to visit the Allende household in private. There, the doctor relinquished his role as aspiring Chilean presidential candidate and became a student of elocution and mannerisms that would transfer elegantly onto film. He listened as Octavio read the speeches that Allende had prepared the night before, studying the inflection that Octavio placed on certain words and mimicking his hands when he wished to emphasize certain points. After several sessions, Allende began to learn the art that Octavio had become famous for. It was as if one were seducing with one’s words, with one’s gaze. “Imagine you are staring into a beautiful woman’s eyes, like the way you did to your wife, Tencha, the first night after you were wed.”

  And, indeed, Allende understood the language in which Octavio spoke. He could envision all the images the actor urged him to think of when he was speaking. He heard Octavio’s voice whispering in his head even when he slept, so that, even in his dreams, he was speaking in a mellifluous voice and holding his head straight and his spine erect. If he had searched the world over, he would never have found a better teacher than Octavio.

  For weeks, they practiced maintaining eye contact and perfected the art of the pregnant pause. He assured Allende that, when his eye began to blink, if he paid it no attention and continued to speak eloquently, then people too would ignore it and concentrate on his words.

  As the doctor triumphantly grew more confident in front of the camera, the stutter eventually ceased. And in the weeks that followed, he seemed more zealous than ever before.

  It was inevitable that, by hearing Allende’s speeches each day, Octavio became a passionate and learned listener of Allende’s ideas. Sometimes, as he made his way back to his dusty pink house, Octavio would recite some of the lines from Allende’s latest speech and gesticulate on the street as if he were on a podium himself. The doctor’s words inspired him. It brought out the performer in him. But these were not empty words from a script. They were passionate, well-intentioned words, ones with vision and the capacity to change the very fiber of Chile. Where men were treated equal regardless of class, and where industries were owned by the people, rather than by the rich multinationals. The more time Octavio spent with Allende, the more he came to agree and support him politically. He was no longer aiding him because it flattered him as an actor, but because he truly believed that Allende was the best candidate for Chile.