Beyond the Ties of Blood (37 page)

“
M'hijita
, with Irene there and everything, it makes sense to stay until after New Year's, don't you think?” Eugenia suggested.

“But Mamita, that's more than two weeks!” Laura wailed. “What will I do there?”

“Nobody will be back at the Committee until after the New Year, I can guarantee that. Besides, don't you want to spend some time with your aunt? She's really good on horseback, she can teach you a lot of things,” Eugenia wheedled. “In fact, when we were growing up, there were days when she and Papa didn't come back until sundown. She can show you trails in the hills, places I've never been.”

“Well … all right.” Laura started toward the kitchen, then turned back. “So, how much should I pack? Can we do laundry there? Can I ride horseback in jeans and sneakers?”

Eugenia put her arm around her daughter's shoulders. “The servants will do the laundry. I don't think you need more than a week of clothes, and you can ride in jeans and sneakers. But it will get cold at night, so you'll need a sweater, and maybe a jacket or sweatshirt.”

The two women banged the patio door, startling
doña
Isabel, and started up the stairs to Laura's bedroom.

“Am I glad I listened to Irene's warning and wrote down the directions she gave me over the phone,” Eugenia said as she drove the rented car up to the large wooden gate that separated her family's property from the road. “Everything is so different.”

“Mamita,” Laura said impatiently from the front passenger seat, “I get it already. This must be the tenth time you've said the same thing.”

It was true that she had been repeating herself since the moment they'd left the last small town on the way out to the farm. She'd seen, on the land itself, what Irene had said on the phone.

“You need to be ready for big changes,” Irene had warned. “I know everyone says that the military gave the land back, and it's true, to some extent at least. But we only got back about half of what used to be our farm, and the rest went to the people who worked for us before. Everything's divided up now: there's a piece for Mamita, a piece for me, even a piece for you. They're all cultivated together, of course, but there are fences between them. Mama's just put in a small grove of fast-growing pines, for easy cash. The people who used to work for us, they're small businessmen now. A lot of them have planted pine trees too.”

At least the man who came to open the gate looked familiar. When he approached the car and looked inside, his smile showed a gap where his two front teeth should have been.

“
Niña
Eugenia!” he marveled, “finally my eyes can see you again!”

She tried to remember who he was, and vaguely connected him to the family that had kept the horses, the Garcías. They had been the most loyal of all the workers, and had warned
doña
Isabel the day before the illegal takeover of the farm. But this couldn't be the patriarch from back then, who twenty years ago had already been at least fifty-five. His son?

“Inocencio?” she ventured. His smile widened, taking in all the folds and furrows of his weather-beaten cheeks. As he chattered on, giving her an update on all his relatives, explaining about his own family, his wife, four children, how he now had enough money to fix his teeth, she only partly understood his lisp. She focused on the piece of land that clearly belonged to him now, to the right of the dirt path that led up to her mother's country home. A late-model truck stood beside a newly painted residence that, she calculated, must have at least four bedrooms. The half-grown pine forest extending back from the house, as far as her eye could see, also belonged to him. Harvesting its ancestors had probably helped pay for all this prosperity.

“Well,
patrona
,” he rasped finally, “welcome. You need any horses, you tell me, okay?”

She thanked him and said good-bye, off-balance with the contrast between his obsequiousness and his more modern capitalist ways.

“Mamita,” Laura asked as they set off toward the house, “did you understand him?”

“Only partially,” Eugenia said. “He has a country accent, and the missing front teeth didn't help.”

“Oh, good. For a moment there I thought I'd just stopped understanding Spanish.”

Irene was waiting for them when they pulled up. “Well, you made it in one piece,” she said after hugging them both. “Did you have trouble finding the place?”

“Ay, Mamita,” Laura said in mock dismay. “Don't repeat yourself yet again!”

“It's just that, since we left San Jacinto, I've been saying that I'm glad I wrote down your directions,” Eugenia explained at Irene's quizzical look. “But the biggest shock was Inocencio García.”

“Well, you recognized him, that's already pretty impressive,” Irene laughed.

“What I just couldn't wrap my mind around was his kowtowing to me, calling me
patrona, niña
Eugenia, the whole thing, and then right behind him his large house, new truck, and pine forest!”

“Welcome to the new Chile, Chenyita,” Irene answered. “María,” she called, stepping back toward the house. “My sister and her daughter have arrived, and we need to get their bags to their rooms. Then,” she added, looking at Eugenia, “maybe we can sit down and have a snack?” At Eugenia's nod, she called after María's disappearing back, “Just leave the bags in the rooms for now. We'll need you to serve the coffee, maybe some fried egg sandwiches. Has today's bread arrived? Did you check the hens to see if they laid this morning?” To María's muffled “
sí, señora
,” Irene added, “I'll take care of setting the table. Just bring things out when you're done.”

They sat down to frothy mugs of freshly boiled milk flavored with coffee. Country eggs sizzled inside fragrant rolls that tasted like they had just emerged from the oven. Even the orange juice was freshly squeezed. Sitting at the head of the table, her dark blond hair increasingly highlighted with modish streaks of white, her light brown eyes framed by discreet wrinkles, Irene looked the part of the grand country matriarch.

“Ayayay,” Laura exclaimed, “I don't think I've ever tasted an egg quite like this.”

“I'm not surprised, city girl,” Irene teased. “It hasn't been an hour since María pulled them out from under our hens.”

After they were done, Irene took them back to their rooms, making sure they had the towels and linens they needed, showing them where to hang their clothes and the extra blankets on the top shelves of the closets. At first, when Eugenia had seen the front of the house, it looked as if nothing had changed. But once inside, she realized something was different, although she wasn't exactly sure what. Then she began to notice subtle changes: a new window here, a different placement of a door there. Startled, she realized that the house had been redone, even as her mother had taken care to keep the same style and ambiance.

“It'll still get cold at night,” Irene warned, “and we don't have heating in this old place.”

“It's not as old as I remember it,” Eugenia answered. “It's subtle, but Mama redid the house.”

“That's true,
hermanita
, but we haven't put in central heating, and I don't think we ever will. So we'll just have to make do with blankets.”

Not long after they were unpacked, the summer's buzzing afternoon heat settled down upon the house. After making sure there would be a mail pickup the next day, Laura retired to her room and closed the door. Irene and Eugenia retreated to the coolness of the living room, its thick curtains shut against the afternoon sun.

“What's up with her?” Irene asked once they had settled into the couch's thick cushions.

“I'm not entirely sure, but all signs are that she's found a boyfriend.”

“Oh, really? That was quick!”

“His name is Joaquín. He's been working at the Committee since school let out for the summer, and she's been down there a lot, too, helping
doña
Sara.”

“So that connection has worked out.”

“Amazingly well, actually. Almost from the moment they laid eyes on each other.”

“Well, that's good, isn't it? It's what you wanted.”

“Absolutely. The problem is that it isn't working out so well with Mama.”

“Oh? Not that I'm really that surprised.”

“You know Mamita, you can probably write the script without my telling you a thing. But every word that comes out of her mouth, somehow it's always a judgment, a veiled criticism. Even before she speaks, I can see Laura tense up.”

“You didn't think that had somehow changed, did you?”

“Well, I guess not. But it's just that in comparison to
doña
Sara and
don
Samuel … I don't know. They're so grateful to have Laura, that everything she does, everything she says … she can do no wrong in their eyes. And I think Mama's beginning to notice.”

They were silent for a few minutes, relaxing into the quiet of the country afternoon.

“Maybe this is an opportunity for the two of them to get to know each other better,” Irene suggested.

“Could be. We'll see what happens. By the way, when is Mamita expected?”

“Who knows. Too many things to close up at the house, leaving instructions for Demetrio, the usual. She called just before you got here. The car she hired had just pulled up.”

Doña
Isabel made her entrance as they were sitting down to dinner. In addition to her three suitcases and several boxes of items for the kitchen, she brought two cases of wine.

“I think we should toast the fact we're all together,” she said as she sat down. “I can't remember the last time I had both my daughters with me at the table, and I've never before had my granddaughter with me at my country house. So it calls for a celebration!”

Irene had prepared a chicken stew flavored with basil and rosemary picked fresh from the garden, and the thick flavors matched perfectly with the roundness of the Estate Reserve Merlot
doña
Isabel had chosen. It was the first time since she and Laura had arrived, Eugenia thought, that
doña
Isabel relaxed. After they finished off the peach cobbler María had baked, they settled back at the table with cups of sweet tea.

“Laurita,”
doña
Isabel began after a short silence, “has your mother ever told you the story of the takeover of this estate?” When Laura shook her head, she continued: “Well, it was during the revolutionary years, you know, when Salvador Allende was president, and your mama and papa were students. Your mama and Aunt Irene were always worrying about me, and whether I'd be safe coming out here all by myself.”

“Those were hard times, Mamita,” Irene said. “Don't forget, you used to keep Papa's old hunting rifle by your bed at night.”

“That's right,”
doña
Isabel said. “And it got especially difficult when that peasant group connected with the Revolutionary Left, your papa's organization, Laurita, began moving into this area. So in 1972, it must have been in late February, because it was so hot, they knocked on the door at three in the morning. They had decided to invade our farm. By dawn they'd covered the barns and gates with Revolutionary Left flags, plus handmade portraits of Che Guevara. And they had persuaded the servants and workers to join them!”

“What did you do, Mamita Isabel?” Laura asked excitedly. She had sat up straight as the story built to its climax.

“Well,
hijita
,” her grandmother answered, basking in this new attention, “I'd always told my daughters that the servants were loyal. I was partly right! The Garcías—you remember Inocencio, don't you, Laurita? He's the one who opened the gate for you when you arrived. Well, Inocencio's father, who was in charge of the horses back then, heard the rumors. He told me the day before that a takeover was being planned. So I decided to leave before they arrived!”