Beyond the Ties of Blood (44 page)

Sara and Eugenia were sitting on the couch that had become Eugenia's regular bed. The pillow and blankets were neatly tucked away in a corner. Although the school year had begun that week, there had been no word from Foreign Relations about either citizenship petition, so Laura still could not go to school. She insisted on going to the Committee every day and working on her own, staying until Joaquín came over after classes let out. Then the two of them spent the afternoon and early evening together, and Laura often did not come back until after dinner. When her mother asked where she had been or what she had done, she said she was tired and went to her room to listen to music. In the morning over breakfast she answered all questions with monosyllables, and she dreamed the same dream every night.

“I don't know what else to do,” Eugenia said. “I've tried to persuade her to see a therapist, or even just to write in a journal, but every time I bring it up she cuts off the conversation. And the bags under her eyes are getting deeper and deeper, and she's spending more and more time with that boy Joaquín. Do you think they're doing drugs, or …”

“I wouldn't think they're doing drugs,” Sara answered. “I know the boy's mother, and she is a caring and upright person. But Joaquín lost his father in the repression, too, you know, and his mother spent a good part of her life looking for him. So who knows how that affected the boy? Still,
hija
, and I don't mean to scare you with this, but perhaps our first concern should be whether or not they're having sex. After all, she's sixteen, you know, and he's seventeen. And they've been spending quite a bit of time together unsupervised.”

“I've thought of that, too,” Eugenia said, “but what can I do? If she won't even talk to me about her nightmare, what will she say if I ask about birth control?”

“Ay,
hija
,” Sara said. “Being a parent is never easy. I remember how much I worried about Manuel when he rebelled, how powerless I felt. I'm sure your mama felt the same way.”

“You're right,” Eugenia said. “Now I can see my mother in a completely different light. But I'm worried sick. Every time Laura settles down somewhere, it seems I end up moving her again. Right now, with the uncertainty about school, who knows where we'll end up? I'm not sure how much more she can take. And she refuses to talk about anything with me. Do you think she could be in some kind of danger, and I would never know?”

“Maybe there's something else we can do,” Sara said suddenly. “I was a couple of years younger than Laura when I had a horrible experience in school. It doesn't matter anymore what it was, but I felt like my world had broken in two. The only one who understood was Tonia. She was living with us at the time. I don't think I ever told her what happened. She just knew, somehow, what to do.

“This was before she became a
machi
. Later she could take a person's urine and read their whole story in it. It's like an X-ray of a person's life, she told me. But even then, when we were girls, she could see things that others couldn't. It's true that the coup turned her world inside out and she stopped working as a
machi
. But she really loves Laura and might be willing to help. There's no harm in asking, and Laura might feel more comfortable talking with her, as Tonia has a distance from Laura that neither you nor I have. I know she's going to be working at the Committee tomorrow. If you go in the late afternoon, you can talk with her alone once Laura and Joaquín leave.”

Tonia opened the door to the Committee's office before Eugenia knocked. This had happened several times before, that Tonia knew something before it had actually happened. When Eugenia had shared her surprise with Sara, the older woman smiled. “I know just how you feel,” she said. “Even though I've known Tonia since we were ten years old, it still took some getting used to when we reconnected here in Santiago. But she's a
machi
, and they read the world differently.”

Eugenia wondered now, as she entered the coolness of the old office and followed Tonia down the hall to the sitting room, if this ability to read the world had declined at all when the older woman had stopped practicing her craft. She didn't know much about what had happened to Tonia, just that it had something to do with the coup and her disappeared son. And now Eugenia was about to ask her to come out of retirement.

“Do you want some
mate
?” Tonia asked as she pointed to an armchair close to the open window. “I have some water on the stove.” Eugenia nodded.

As she sat waiting for Tonia to return, she looked around the room. Through the door to her left she could see the main desk in the receiving area. Boxes of files were stacked everywhere. No matter how much work people did, they just kept piling up. And it would only get worse, now that the school year had started and Joaquín had gone back to classes.

“I put some sugar in when I pressed down the
mate
leaves, but let me know if it needs more.” Tonia strode back into the room carrying two gourds, their silver inlays and silver sipping straws gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. She handed one to Eugenia, who sipped from it and nodded that the sweetness was fine. Tonia sat down in another chair facing Eugenia.

“Sara told me you needed my help,” she said.

Eugenia took another long sip of
mate
before she answered. She'd learned over the past few months that the best way to deal with Tonia was to get straight to the point, but it still surprised her in a country where everyone else seemed to prefer an indirect approach.

“That's right, Tonia. It's Laurita. We're worried sick about her.”

“What's wrong with that beautiful young girl of yours? She and Joaquín seem very happy working together.” Since the beginning, when Tonia had given Laura the
copihue
earrings, the two had developed a deep mutual bond. Laura basked in the old woman's acceptance, and glowed when Tonia told her once that she looked like a Mapuche beauty queen.

“Well, I don't know what's wrong, and she refuses to talk about it.”

“What worries you?”

“She's having nightmares. She insists she doesn't remember them when she wakes up, but from watching her I'd say it's the same one, or at least a similar one, every night. It's been going on for weeks, and she seems less and less willing to talk with me. There are huge circles under her eyes, and the only thing she looks forward to is seeing Joaquín. She's coming home late, and refuses to tell me where she's been. I just don't know what to do anymore, I …” Eugenia's voice broke.

“Well,
hija
, this way of acting, this rebellion, keeping secrets, many young people go through it, no? What makes you think it's more than this?”

“I know that rebellion is common at her age, and I remember doing a lot of things behind my mother's back, too. But Laura's been through a lot. She's worried we might have to go back to Boston, because we can't get her into school until her citizenship comes through, and I haven't been able to find work. She feels settled here, a lot more than I do, to be frank. And I'm worried that, with all this insecurity, she might do something truly irreversible, and because she won't talk to me, I won't be able to help her before it's too late.”

“Like what, for example?”

“Take drugs … get pregnant … run away …”

Tonia stood up and went into the kitchen, returning with the kettle to refresh their
mate
.

“There really isn't much we can do to prevent this,” she said. “It's the way of this generation. I see it around me everywhere. They're angry, they don't know what to believe in, and they think we let them down.”

“But the nightmare, Tonia. It's taking so much out of her. How much more can her body resist?”

“Does she talk during her dreams? Can you understand what she says?”

“All she ever says when she's asleep is no, no, no. Which is pretty much all she says when she's awake these days. But one thing I can tell you is that her dreams seem to have a common structure. She starts out moaning, then she roars, then it goes back to moans, whines, and finally whispers.”

Tonia sat forward in her chair. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the dreams?”

Eugenia thought for a moment. “No,” she finally said. “I don't think so.”

“Are you sure? Maybe something about how she looks?”

“Now that you mention it, her hair gets flat with sweat. And when I get close,
tía
, I can see her eyes are open. And the strangest thing, her eyes get so dark they have no pupils.”

Eugenia didn't know exactly how to ask for help, and surprisingly Tonia stopped being direct. For a while both women hid behind the ritual of
mate
, Tonia offering more water and sugar, then quizzing Eugenia about the strength of the tea. Did it need more leaves?

“So
doña
Sara thought you might have some advice,” Eugenia finally said.

“How so?”

“Well, she said you used to specialize in cases that were hard to understand.”

“That was before. In my youth.” Tonia stood up and walked to the window, staring at the street below. A silence settled over them, and Eugenia felt a chill go through her. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a vain effort to warm them.

“
Tía
Tonia, I know that you stopped working as a
machi
with the coup.
Doña
Sara told me.”

Tonia's shoulders hunched forward. When she spoke, her voice sounded muffled. “That's why I can't help you.”

“What?”

“I couldn't save my Renato. That's why I can't help you.”

“But I don't understand, I—”

Tonia turned to face Eugenia. “
Kuku
Fresia, my grandmother, became a
machi
after she was hit by lightning as a child,” she said. “But then Chilean soldiers burned down her village and turned her people's lives upside down. There was nothing she could do but bury them and walk on their bones, so she died of grief.” Tonia walked over to Eugenia's chair and leaned down with her hands on the armrests, her face inches away. “When Chilean soldiers came to our village with the coup,
m'hijita
, there was nothing I could do but watch the young people die. For weeks I heard their spirits moan along the river.” She stood up and turned around again, her back slightly stooped as she resumed staring out the window. “The broken gourd,” she whispered. “My Renato … I couldn't read the signs.”

Eugenia went to stand beside the older woman. The roar of rush-hour traffic rose up from the street. A man with an accordion and a trained monkey was setting up for business on the corner right below.

“
Tía
,” Eugenia said, grabbing her arm. “Forgive me. But as one mother to another, I beg you. Please.” The old woman refused to look up. Eugenia continued. “I know you love her,
tía
, and I'm not asking for much, not really. I'll even keep it a secret if you wish. But
doña
Sara said you could read a person's urine. No one else needs to know, especially not Laura. I can find a way to collect it at night, when she gets up to go to the bathroom. I have a special pan I just bought at the medical supply store, it'll fit under the toilet seat and she won't notice it in the dark. Just this once, please. I could never forgive myself if something happened and I hadn't …”

Tonia looked up at last, a glimmering mist in her honey-colored eyes. “I know what you mean,” she sighed. “I didn't, and I haven't.”

“Does this mean that you will—”

“Just this once. Put the pan in your bathroom tonight. In the hospitals they tell you to put the pee in the refrigerator after you collect it, but don't do this. I need it to be warm. Not warm from the body anymore, but just natural, at room temperature. I'll come by the house tomorrow morning. Once Laura arrives here I will say I have an errand, and I will come up to the house.”

Eugenia let go of Tonia's arm and the two women stood there, next to the window, their eyes holding them together. For just a moment, in a lull of traffic and when the accordion grinder was taking a rest, a single swallow began chirping.

“Just put it in a clean glass jar,” Tonia said, “so I can place it up against the light.”