Beyond the Ties of Blood (36 page)

“Ah! Finally I meet these two famous women!” The deep, booming voice belonged to a large woman with very broad shoulders. Her walnut-colored face was framed by delicate wisps of salt and pepper, timid refugees from the large black bun perched on the top of her head. Eugenia barely had the time to stand up before she felt herself disappear into Tonia's embrace.

“Let me see you,” Tonia said, setting Eugenia free in a trail of burnt wood and rosemary. “You are just as I imagined,” she continued. “But the most beautiful woman here is your daughter.” Tonia turned to face Laura. “And, if truth be told, she looks more like the first Chileans than any of you.” She laughed softly. “In fact, Laurita, you have just the kind of hair and complexion to show off what I brought for you.” Reaching into a pocket in the apron she wore over her flowing skirt, she brought out a small cloth bag and shook its contents into her large palm. “
Copihues
,” she said, holding out a pair of large, brilliant silver earrings for Laura to see. “Take them,” she coaxed in answer to Laura's sharp intake of breath. “They're for you. Everyone says they're the Chilean national flower, and it seemed like a good way to welcome you home. But it's also true that
copihues
are a Mapuche flower, because they grow wild in our forests in the south, which is why they have been in our culture for hundreds of years. Go ahead, try them on. Look at yourself in the mirror.”

Sara took Laura inside, and Samuel and Tonia sat with Eugenia as the fragrance of oranges grew more pungent in the afternoon sun.

“Tonia is from a small community south of Temuco,” Samuel said. “But she spent years living in Sara's house when they were both girls.”

“That was a long time ago,” Tonia laughed, “before I finally accepted my place in life. I had to welcome my grandmother's spirit,” she continued. “My grandma would not take no for an answer.”

“For many years Tonia was a
machi
, a Mapuche healer,” Samuel explained. “But after her son disappeared with the military coup, she came north. Sara's picture, she saw it in a magazine about the Committee and came to find us.”

“Look, look!” Laura came running back for everyone to see. The large silver copihues hung, like upside-down tulips, from her earlobes. She had tucked her hair behind her ears to set them off, and the contrast between the shimmering patterns in the metal and the raven brilliance of her mane was breathtaking.

“They are absolutely gorgeous,
m'hijita
,” Eugenia said. “Have you thanked Tonia?”

Tonia had stood when Laura returned to the patio and now took Laura's hands in hers.

“They were made for you,” she said, and gathered Laura into her burnt-wood embrace.

“They're wonderful. Thank you so much,” Laura answered, her voice muffled by the larger woman's biceps.

“You're welcome, little one,” Tonia said, standing back and combing Laura's hair with the fingers of both hands. “Welcome home.”

They sat out in the patio and Tonia prepared a gourd of
mate
tea for everyone to try. Laura liked the sweet, pungent, almost woodsy taste of the
mate
. Not since their lunch with Ignacio's parents had Eugenia seen her daughter so relaxed. But she was still surprised when Laura spoke up, putting her hand on Sara's arm.

“
Abuelita
, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,
m'hijita
, anything you want.”

“Do you have a photograph of my papa?”

Eugenia shook her head in answer to the unspoken question in
doña
Sara's eyes. “I can't count the number of times I've regretted it,” she said. “We never had the money for a camera.”

Doña
Sara stood up upon hearing Eugenia's answer and took Laura's hand, and they went into the house. Eugenia, Samuel, and Tonia sat in silence, watching the sun begin its late-afternoon descent.

“I think it'll take a while,”
don
Samuel finally said, clearing his throat. “Sara made a book with all the photos when we packed up our house in Temuco.”

When Sara and Laura returned, the sun had almost set, and they all scrabbled around for sweaters and shawls to fend off the evening chill. After a few moments they stood up to say good-bye. Grandmother and granddaughter shared an especially long hug as
don
Samuel went into the house to call a taxi. When the two women drew apart, Eugenia noticed that her daughter was holding a manila envelope against her chest.

“What did Grandma give you?” Eugenia asked when they were settled in the taxi and on their way back to her mother's house. Without a word, Laura passed the envelope to her mother.

Eugenia opened it to find a single eight-by-ten photograph. Although it was in black and white, there was no mistaking Manuel's hair and beard, his intense grey eyes. It looked like his last school picture, a school tie and V-neck sweater peeking out along the bottom.

Eugenia put the picture down on her lap and blinked back the sudden tears. It couldn't have been more than a year later that she'd met him, that same vulnerable intensity shining in his eyes, though his hair and beard had gotten longer and more ragged. For a moment she thought the longing that coursed through her would break her spine in two. She would soon learn that this was also the picture that
doña
Sara carried, pinned to her blouse, at every public gathering of the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared.

The phone rang the next morning during breakfast. “
Niña
Laura,” Rosa said, peeking her head into the dining room. “It's for you.
Doña
Sara.”

Laura hurried out into the hallway and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Good morning,
m'hijita
. I hope I haven't called too early.”

“No, Grandma. We just finished breakfast, and I'd been up for a while anyway.”

“Good. Listen, Laurita, I have a favor to ask you. When I got down to the Committee's office this morning, I found a huge pile of new requests for documentation. They must have arrived on Friday, when I wasn't here. Me and Tonia, we just can't keep up by ourselves. I've called one of our members who has a son about your age, and I think he's going to help us after his school lets out at the end of the week. But I know it won't be enough. So … of course you'll have to ask your mother, but I was wondering if you might like to help us, too?”

“I'd love to, Grandma, and I'm pretty sure that Mama will say yes, but are you sure I can help? I'd just started tenth grade back in Boston, you know. I'm a year behind in school.”

“Oh, don't worry,
hijita
, the work is not that complicated once you get the hang of it. And besides, from what I can see, you're a very intelligent young lady.”

“Okay, Grandma. Do you want to wait on the line, or should I call you back after talking to my mother?”

“Just call me back,
hijita
. I'm sure your mama will say yes, but just call back and let me know when you're coming.”

After she hung up the phone, Laura went bounding back into the dining room. “Mamita! Grandma Sara wants me to help out at the Committee! Can I? Please?”

Eugenia and
doña
Isabel looked up from their conversation. “What kind of help does she need?” Eugenia asked. “Did she explain on the phone?”

“They just got a lot of requests for documentation, and they need people to help because she and Tonia can't do it all themselves. She's going to ask another kid about my age whose mother works with them, but he won't get out of school until the end of this week.”

“Is she sure that you and this other boy will be able to do the work she needs?”

“I asked her that already,” Laura said, a hint of irritation in her voice. “She said she would teach me what to do.”

Eugenia picked up her cup of coffee and brought it to her lips. “Then I'm sure it will be fine,” she said after taking a sip. “And I think it's a great idea. It will help you make other friends and get out of the house.”

“Are you sure it's all right, Chenyita?”
doña
Isabel asked. “The Committee is all the way downtown, isn't it, and Laura isn't familiar with the city. And I think the neighborhood around there has gotten pretty tough in the last years. I haven't been down there, but—”

“Don't worry, Mamita,” Eugenia interrupted. “I'll go with her the first time, make sure everything's all right, help her find her way on the metro. It will do Laura good to start seeing other parts of the city.”

An hour and a half later, after both mother and daughter had showered and dressed and they'd made a call to confirm arrangements with
doña
Sara, the two set off to the subway on their way to the Committee's offices.

“Laura! Laurita!” Eugenia called as she came down the stairs.

“I think she's in the backyard, Chenyita,”
doña
Isabel called from the kitchen. “She's been out there for almost an hour helping Demetrio with that new jasmine vine, the one with those gorgeous yellow flowers that he's been trying to train up the side of the house. I don't know what's gotten into that child,” she added as her daughter passed through the kitchen on her way outside. “She's spending so much time in the garden, and when she's not back there she's at the offices of that committee. I hardly see her, and—”

The rest of
doña
Isabel's sentence got lost in the slam of the screen door as Eugenia left the kitchen and walked down the back patio stairs. Laura was balancing precariously on the top of a step-ladder, trying to loop the tallest branch of the vine over a hook that Demetrio had installed among the bricks halfway between the first and second floors of the house. Worried that startling her daughter in the middle of this task would be too dangerous, Eugenia waited until she was halfway down the ladder.

“Laurita. Have you packed your bag for our trip to the country? You know we leave tomorrow morning. From the look of your room you haven't picked what you're taking yet.”

“Ay, Mamita.” Laura struggled to keep the irritation out of her voice as she finished climbing down and stepped away from the ladder. Her hair was pulled back in a barrette, and the ubiquitous
copihues
danced back and forth against her tanned cheeks. “How hard will it be to throw a few things in a bag? How long are we staying, anyway?”

They had been fighting back and forth for several weeks. When
doña
Isabel suggested they spend the summer at the country house, Laura's reaction had been completely negative.

“I want to stay here,” she insisted. “
Bobe
Sara and
tía
Tonia need me at the office.” Eugenia had been startled by how quickly Laura had fit in at the Committee's offices, and her using the Yiddish word for “grandma” had also taken some getting used to. “Besides,” Laura continued, “what is there to do out there? Here, I like to help Demetrio in the garden, and Joaquín and I go out for ice cream after we're done working at the Committee.”

Laura had relented a bit when she learned that Irene was coming for the holidays, and that Sara and Samuel did not celebrate Christmas, so she would not be depriving them of a holiday celebration with her absence.

“Well, okay,” she agreed. “But only for a few days.”

Irene traveled almost directly from Boston to the country house, stopping in Santiago only overnight. That had been four days ago, and she'd been telephoning ever since to hurry them up. “The house is open and ready,” she told Laura. “It's time to come down. You'll really like it.” But Laura kept dragging her feet. She said good-bye at the Committee as if she was leaving for years, and Eugenia had caught her and Joaquín in the back room exchanging addresses. “We're gonna write every day, even if it has to be on toilet paper,” she announced when Eugenia asked her about it. Then she'd gotten involved in Demetrio's jasmine project.