Beyond the Ties of Blood (29 page)

“Have you thought about seeing a doctor? Maybe you could get some sleeping pills or something that would make you sleep deeper and not dream so much.”

Her mama didn't answer her, so Laura went back to turning up the volume on her Walkman.

In the summer of 1990, Laura and Marcie discovered the Chilean group Inti-Illimani. When Laura saw an advertisement for a concert they were giving in Boston, she asked her mother if they could go.

“Ay, Laurita, yes,” Mama said, looking up from the journal she always seemed to be writing in lately. “They're wonderful. You'll love them. They'd just started out when—” She cut herself off.

“Do you want to come?” Laura asked, regretting it the moment the words were out of her mouth.

“I don't think so,
m'hijita
. The memories … I don't know, I think I have all I can handle right now.” Laura was embarrassed at how relieved she felt.

Marcie's mother dropped them off at the theater. Laura couldn't believe the number of people there who were speaking Spanish. She linked arms with Marcie, because she could see that her friend was feeling a bit disoriented and out of place. As they pushed through the crowd to find their seats, Laura felt her chest fill with a new kind of exhilaration.

When the lights went down in the theater, the boisterous crowd was suddenly silent. All at once the curtain went up and the theater was filled with a cacophony of musical sounds. When the stage lights came up, seven men appeared. They had long hair and dark clothes, and some of them wore black ponchos. The lights at first only illuminated their craggy, serious faces, a startling contrast with the upbeat tempo of their guitars, drums, reed pipes, and other instruments. After a short hush, the audience was on its feet, cheering and clapping. One of the older members of the band, his long white mane reflecting blue and silver in the stage lights, approached the microphone. Again the crowd hushed.

“
Buenas noches.
”

The crowd responded in kind. The singer continued in Spanish.

“My apologies to the members of the audience who cannot understand me. I'm sure their friends will translate for them.” He waited a minute for the translations, which could be heard as a muffled murmur through the crowd. Laura translated for Marcie.

“My
compañeros
and I are filled with hope tonight.” A cheer went up from the crowd. “About six months ago, we Chileans inaugurated a civilian president for the first time in almost twenty years.” Another cheer. “We are honored to pass through Boston, a city that always welcomed us warmly during our long exile, on our way back down to our country to celebrate the formation of a Truth Commission.” Thunderous applause. “To mark this historic moment, we will play for you tonight a combination of some of our old favorites, with recent songs that speak directly to the situation today. We dedicate this concert to the Chilean people, and to our future as a democratic country.”

They played for over two hours without a break. Occasionally they rested by playing quiet songs, and the audience sang along. Sometimes Laura sang words that she had never heard, and yet she knew them. She turned to Marcie from time to time and translated softly.

After an especially energetic version of “Samba Landó,” a song about the African heritage in South America, the white-haired leader stepped again to the microphone. His hair was now plastered with sweat.

“Don't worry,” he said to the hushed crowd. “We're not done yet. We'll take a short break, and then bring out a surprise guest. And after we play a couple of songs with her, we will finish with two other songs that we know you will like.”

They returned fifteen minutes later with a red-haired woman whom they introduced as Holly Near. The first ballad they played, by Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, brought tears to Laura's eyes. She translated some of the words for Marcie: “I give you a song when I open a door / And you appear from the shadows / I give you a song at daybreak / When I most need your light / I give you a song when you appear, / The mystery of love, / And if you don't appear, it doesn't matter, / I give you a song.”

“Why are you crying?” Marcie asked. Laura knew then that the song was about her father, his shadowy presence at daybreak when her mother woke from a dream, the mystery of her love for him.

Holly Near stayed for one more song, a version of Violeta Parra's “Thanks Be to Life,” transparent as a mountain stream. Then the leader was at the microphone again.

“We want to thank you for being such a wonderful audience tonight,” he said, holding up his hand to stop the applause. “You carried us on your backs when we got tired, and I think we did a bit of the same for you. But now we are really, really exhausted. So we are going to play our encore for you now, and then leave, so there's no point in trying to bring us back again. You can see my head, the sweat sticking to each blessed inch of each strand of hair, and my
compañeros
are all in the same condition. Still, one last thank-you. With your love and energy you inspire us as we return once again to our beautiful country. We will sing three songs appropriate to the occasion:
‘Vuelvo'
;
‘Llegó volando'
; and ‘
Las caídas
.'”

As Laura whispered to Marcie at the beginning of the first song, its title meant “I Return” and it was about an exile returning to Chile. That was all she could tell her, because after that she was once again carried on the crest of this strange-familiar music. But it was the last two songs that brought down the house. The first of the two was about dictatorship, not only in Chile but in all of Latin America, and it ended with the promise that the day would soon come when the people would fight back and bring a new dawn to the continent.

The last song Inti-Illimani played that night was about falling dictators: “And they'll keep falling, / there's no doubt. / Freedom works, / suffers and sweats / and finally cleans / our land / of the sterile excrement / of the little tyrant. / Oh, what a relief!”

The whole theater was on its feet when they were done. As the band filed off the stage, the audience locked arms and swung back and forth, chanting the last line of the song in Spanish, over and over, “
Ay, qué consuelo
.” Though Marcie and Laura had to leave, threading and pushing their way through the swaying crowd, it showed no signs of letting up.

Laura rushed out the door of their apartment, a piece of bagel still in her mouth, the zipper to her backpack at half-mast. She waved acknowledgment at whatever advice her mother was giving her, not interested really in knowing what it was. She hated oversleeping and having to rush for the bus. It made her feel out of control, and unable to get ready for the day. At least she didn't have to find a coat. After a short respite during the last week of vacation, the blazing temperatures of the August drought had returned for the first week of school.

She managed to catch the bus, though she had to knock on its already closed door. She settled in her usual seat, the sweat stinging her eyes. Thankfully the bus was air-conditioned. Opening her backpack all the way, she felt relieved to see that her Walkman was there, one of her favorite tapes of Inti-Illimani still in it. After she and Marcie had gotten back from their concert at the end of July, she'd started collecting their albums as quickly as money permitted. Putting on her headphones, she settled back into the cool seat and closed her eyes.

The tape had ended by the time she got to the high school, so she took off her headphones and stashed away her equipment before getting off the bus. As she stepped onto the sidewalk, Marcie came running up.

“Laura, guess what!” Her wavy light-brown hair was caught up in a high ponytail, and she was wearing a short-sleeved blouse over a halter top. “I just ran into Simon and he asked about you. He's hanging out with this guy Brandon, a transfer student from another high school, and they were wondering if we'd like to meet up after school. You think you can come? Do you have to ask your mom first?”

“I don't ask my mom anymore,” Laura said. “I just tell her.” But things turned out a little differently that day. When Laura called her mother from the public telephone near the school, her voice sounded strange and excited, but also like she'd been crying.

“What is it, Mamita?” Laura asked.

“No, it's fine, Laurita, go with your friends, I'll be all right.”

But Laura could hear, from long experience, that her mother was not all right. She told her she'd come right home and went to find her friends. Marcie and Brandon were already talking up a storm, standing very close to each other. All three looked up when she approached, and Simon put out an arm to wrap around her shoulders.

“Sorry, guys, I can't go,” Laura said. “I'll catch up with you next time.”

When she reached their apartment, her mother was sitting in the armchair in the living room. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she was smiling. On the couch near her was a man Laura had never seen before. He seemed quite young, and a lock of his dark hair kept falling over one eye. He was sweating in his suit and tie, but one side of his jacket, from the collar to the shoulder, looked damper than the rest.

“Laurita,” her mother said, “this is Ignacio Pérez. He's a lawyer from the Chilean Truth Commission.”

Ignacio stood and walked toward her, as if to give her a peck on the cheek. Laura put out her hand. He stopped himself in time and took her hand in his. “Pleased to meet you, Laura,” he said formally. Laura shook hands with him and looked back at her mother.

“
Hijita
, Ignacio came because your grandparents have brought your papa's case before the Truth Commission that has just formed in Chile. Remember when you came back from the Inti concert? They'd mentioned it and you asked me what it was? The Commission wants me to come to Chile and testify.”

All of a sudden Laura felt like the ground was moving under her feet. She sat down on the other side of the couch.

“Maybe the two of us can go together, Laurita. You can meet your grandparents, see Chile …”

“What about school?” Laura asked. “I've just started the year.”

“We can figure that out later,
hijita
. You're so good in school, I think if you miss a month, or maybe two, you'll have no trouble making it up. When we came from Mexico you adapted so fast and made good friends, and you learned English, and—”

“Mama. I lost a year.”

“You know what,” Ignacio said, making a move toward the door. “We can adapt to whatever the two of you decide, as long as you come down sometime in the next four months. Maybe during vacation? No, no, don't worry,” he continued as Eugenia made a move to escort him down the stairs. “I know my way out. I'll call you in the morning, all right?”

As soon as the door closed behind Ignacio, her mother turned her back on her and moved into the kitchen, washing some things in the sink.

“What do you want for dinner, Laurita?” she asked when she was done.

“Nothing,” Laura answered. She went to her room and closed the door, and her mother didn't even try to come and talk to her. Over the next few weeks as her mother and
tía
Irene packed up the apartment and she said goodbye to her friends, she spent a lot of time in her room listening to Neil Young's album “Freedom.” She brought Paco out of retirement and cuddled him as she lay on the bed. But she found that she could no longer listen to Inti-Illimani.

The plane traveled on through an endless night sprinkled with stars. Like she had done for the previous two weeks, on the plane ride from Boston to Miami Laura had shut her mother out by putting on her earphones and turning up the volume on the Walkman. When the flight attendant requested that she turn it off for landing, Eugenia saw her chance and pulled the guidebook out of her bag.