Beyond the Ties of Blood (4 page)

“Where are you going now, Irene?” she asked every afternoon when Irene would get up from the table to change out of her uniform, substituting the pleated plaid skirt, white blouse with tie, navy blue sweater, and beige knee socks for the blue jeans that were becoming more popular among the girls their age.

“I'm meeting some friends downtown, Mamita,” her older sister answered, in that excessively patient tone so typical of late adolescence.

“What about your homework? You can't let your studies slide now, you know, less than a year before the academic aptitude test.”

“I don't have any.”

“That's not possible,
hijita
, you're in eleventh grade now, there's always homework in eleventh grade.”

“Mamita.” Irene's tone would become tight. “If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times. I'm in the advanced science program. I have time in the early mornings, when I'm watching the experiments in the lab. Why do you think I'm out of the house by seven, usually before you even come out of your room?”

“Don't use that tone of voice with me, young lady. I only have your best interests in mind. God knows how hard it's been for me, and you just don't …”

That was always the moment when Irene would slam out of the dining room, and Eugenia would hear her steps going up the stairs. And that would be the cue for Mama to turn her attention to the younger daughter, who sat there wishing she were on her way out the door just like Irene.

“Chenyita,” she wheedled, using her pet name for Eugenia, “are you going to change into more comfortable clothes and begin your homework? I can have Teresa bring you a cup of hot tea with milk in a little while, when you're ready to take a break.” Eugenia would trudge up the stairs, ever the dutiful daughter, unable to slam the door and follow in Irene's footsteps.

It was a year later, about halfway through her last year in high school, that Irene dropped a bomb at the dinner table.

“Mamita,” she said casually during dessert one evening, “I've decided to apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the United States, for their degree program in chemistry. My teacher this year, Mr. Roberts, thinks I'm talented enough to get in.”

Mama choked on her baked apple. “What?
Hijita
, what in heaven's name are you talking about?”

“Just what I said. I'm applying to MIT.”

“But … but … isn't that very expensive? With your papa gone now, we don't have that kind of money, especially not in dollars, why …”

“I talked to Papa about it last week. He knows some people in the chemical industry who are looking to train new scientists. He thinks they're offering scholarships. The best ones pay for everything, and maybe I can …”

“You talked to your father? Before you talked to me?”

“Mama, the point is that I can get my education paid for, and …”

Mama got up from the table and slammed out of the dining room. Although Eugenia knew that Irene continued to speak with Papa on the phone several times a week, she also knew that her sister had been careful to do so when Mama was not home.

Things moved quickly in Irene's life after that. She put in all the application papers in September, and graduated with high honors in December when the school year ended in the southern hemisphere. By April of the following year she had her acceptance and she boarded the plane for Boston in late June. Though Mama had given her a special goodbye gift, an expensive Spanish–English dictionary for scientists, she refused to go to the airport. “What for,” she sighed. “Her father's been behind this all the way, I know it. He wants to take my daughter away from me.” So Eugenia, Papa, and his new wife went instead. Eugenia still remembered the last-minute flash of panic in her sister's eyes, the slightly too tight hug before she hefted her knapsack onto her back at the gate.

Left alone with Mama in her last two years of high school, Eugenia was placed under the microscope. Mama wouldn't make the same mistakes and lose her, too. “You need to find a nice young man, Chenyita,” Mama repeated over and over, “someone from our own circle who will understand you, a young man who's been brought up right and who will know how to respect and appreciate you.” Three months after Irene's departure, during their stay at the farm over the national independence holiday, her mother announced she had found the solution to their problem.

“Of course,
hijita
, I don't know how I didn't think of it before. I just had tea over at our neighbors'. Their son Sergio is home from the Catholic University, where he's studying sociology. He's such a handsome, polite young man. You know him, don't you, Chenyita?”

Eugenia had often seen Sergio, several years older than she, during summer vacations. He wore his blond hair a bit long and was constantly brushing it out of his eyes. He paraded around with a pack of boys his age that came with him for the summer. They spent their days hunting, fishing, and riding horseback through the valley, and she'd see them ride past her family's house in the afternoons when they returned from the day's excursion. On weekends they rode their horses into town and got drunk at the local tavern. The girl who came in on weekends to help in the kitchen told Eugenia that they spent their time putting the moves on the local girls, and that Sergio always scored with one of them. “It's his green eyes,” she insisted. Eugenia knew that Sergio's blond hair and green eyes marked him as upper-class. The younger local girls, brought up on pulp novels and soap operas, always dreamed about falling in love with and marrying a rich young landowner. And the fact that he wore his hair long, almost hippie-like, only made him more attractive in a vaguely exotic sort of way.

“Oh, come on, Mamita,” Eugenia answered uneasily. “He's at least three years older than I am. Besides, why would he be interested in me? He has friends his own age.”

“That may be,
hijita
, but he's come alone this vacation. I just invited them to dinner for tonight. They'll be over in an hour, so why don't you take a bath and put on something nice.”

They were there at eight, and for the first time in a long time her mother made her signature pisco sours. There was something about Sergio, Eugenia thought, and it didn't only affect the local girls. She, too, found his long blond hair and green eyes quite arousing. He'd obviously been brought up to speed on their mothers' plotting, because he spent the cocktail hour looking her over even as the conversation was mainly between the older adults. When they sat at the table her mother put the two of them next to each other. By the time dessert came Sergio had placed his leg up against hers and was rubbing back and forth very lightly. She had found it hard to concentrate on the conversation, but maybe it was the three glasses of wine she had drunk on top of the pisco sour.

They didn't become a couple, not really. They lived too far away from each other in the city and Sergio was already in college. But whenever they were at the farm at the same time, he came over and took her out horseback riding. They always ended up in the forest. After they kissed for a while among the eucalyptus trees, the crushed leaves under their bodies filling the air with their pungent sharpness, she would suddenly sit up and call an end to the session. Sergio seemed willing to accept this, perhaps because their families knew each other. She wasn't like the little country girls he could have behind the bushes any Saturday night. In fact, Eugenia grew convinced that he found her especially interesting precisely because she would not accept his advances. She began to look forward to their outings.

When she got to the university, things changed. They were all hippies in those days, no matter what their social class, confronting the system, going to demonstrations, smoking marijuana. She was pretty sure he'd told all his friends they were having sex, and he started pressuring her to finally prove her love for him, as he put it. It was after one particularly ugly scene at a party, when he'd been drunk and had tried to force her upstairs, that he began arriving hours late for their dates. Her refusal had been public that time, she now realized, and that had been unforgivable because it made a fool out of him in front of his friends. But when she went to the demonstration that morning, she thought she still wanted to reconcile.

As she wrote in her journal on a daily basis in the peace and quiet of the summer break, Eugenia thought back to an especially warm afternoon at her family's farm, when she and Sergio had gone riding after a large barbecue punctuated by red wine. The head servants had killed and cut up a steer and a sheep, and placed the pieces on the old grill over a pit of hot coals. Gathered under the weeping willow tree in the back, the two families had feasted on the juicy, smoky meat with potatoes also roasted on the grill, and a salad made of tomatoes, onion, and cilantro. After several bottles of Chilean Cabernet, they had also savored a meringue cake with wild strawberries her mother had made. Then the stable hand had prepared two horses, one for Sergio and one for Eugenia. They rode off, Eugenia having to hold on more carefully because of her tipsy state.

When they were hidden away in their usual spot in the forest, he began to undress her. She could tell he had been with lots of girls. He knew just where to touch her. Inside her blouse, moving lightly over her nipples, then down her belly. She felt an urgent warmth and opened her legs, wishing his hand in, pushing hard against him. But then he unzipped his fly. She tried to get up but he pinned her down. After struggling for a few minutes, she managed to bring her knee up and score a direct hit between his legs. He doubled over in pain, and she was able to stand up and rearrange her clothes, even get back on her horse before he recovered.

“Quite the tiger,” he said when he was finally able to get up. “But it's all show, little one. You're as frigid as the Andes in winter.”

At the university, surrounded by girls in faded jeans who wore tight blouses with no bras and thought nothing of making the first move, she'd begun to fear he was right. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she, too, be a modern girl? When she hadn't wanted to stop with Manuel, she felt immense relief. But, she realized, in order to be absolutely sure, she actually had to sleep with someone. Even more important to her, however, was the fact that someone had to desire her enough to try again. By the time Manuel called, almost a week after they'd said good-bye, she could barely breathe from waiting.

Santiago, 1971

She had the chauffeur drop her off on the other side of the plaza, closer to the river. She waved good-bye and walked in the opposite direction, toward downtown, until she saw him turn and drive back up Providencia Avenue toward the mountains. Then she walked southeast across the plaza toward the line of sandwich shops. Almost immediately she saw him, sitting under the awning at the same table.

“Hello.”

He looked up from his book at the sound of her voice. “Well. That was quick.”

“Mama was in a good mood and sent Jacinto in the car to drop me off.”

“A chauffeur and everything. I didn't realize I'd made it into the jet set.” He stood up and came around the table, taking her in his arms. He was so full of bravado, trying to be cool. His familiar scent, burnt oranges with a touch of black tobacco, enveloped her, but she pulled away before he kissed her and sat down.

“I know you resent Sergio and the other guys from the Catholic University, but I'm not part of their group,” she said, smarting a bit from his remark about the chauffeur.

“I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way; it was a lame attempt at a joke. It's just that … it's like I'm onstage and the script in my hand is for a different play.” He walked back to his chair and sat down. When he looked at her, his grey eyes dared her to leave and begged her to stay, all at the same time.

“I have no idea what comes next, either,” she said.

“Okay, let's just worry about right now. Are you hungry? Do you want some wine?”

He ordered steak-and-avocado sandwiches and a bottle of Santa Rita Cabernet. “The phone book had five whole pages of Aldunates,” he said. “I didn't know what I was going to do if I got to the end and hadn't found you.” He reached out and covered her hand with one of his. With his other hand he took out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one. When she said no, he shook one free for himself, and then had to use both hands to strike the match.

Their sandwiches came, warm juicy steaks with freshly mashed and salted avocado. He put out his cigarette and they ate in silence. They were well into their second glass of wine before she spoke again.

“It's official now, me and Sergio broke up. Mama's really shaken up about it.”

He took another swallow of wine, and it ended in a cough. “How's that?”

“Well, the two days after, you know … well, Sergio called, I forget, maybe a total of eight times. Each time my mother tried to get me to pick up. He was so sorry, she said, all that kind of stuff. But I said no. I guess by the time I'd refused to pick up for two days running, he decided there was nothing to lose. He told Mama he'd gotten angry because you were trying to pick me up.”

“And?”

“I denied it. But his calls stopped then. So I guess it's official.”

They ate for a while, and then Manuel put down his knife and fork. “My chauffeur comment, I—”

“Forget it. You don't have to explain.”

“But I want to. The thing is—”

“I know exactly what you're going to say and …”

“No you don't! My family had one in Temuco, and—”

“What?”

“There, you see? You didn't know. After my father made a lot of money in the baking business and we moved into this fancy house, they put me in a horrible private school and kept sending their new chauffeur to pick me up, and—”