Beyond the Ties of Blood (51 page)

One night, as I was covering embers in the hearth for the next day's fire, I heard a scratch at the door. “Natito,” I breathed. Renato was so skinny that his shirt hung like a cape upon his back. Pieces of shoe dangled from his feet. The dirt was caked on every part of him that showed. I uncovered the embers and placed on them the driest log I had, then ran to wake Florindo. Together we filled a metal tub with hot water. After putting a pot of soup to warm, I left to find an egg or two under my large red hen, while Florindo helped Natito into the tub and washed his back, murmuring over each bruise, then drying him in the warmth of the hearth.

Once he had clean clothes on plus Florindo's best boots, had eaten a few bites of egg and drunk some warm soup, Natito looked up. I could almost see the bones beneath the skin along his cheeks. His voice was like the whisper of a quiet breeze at dawn. “They're closing in,” he said. “They're not more than a step or two behind. I can't stay the night, but maybe if you wake me in an hour or two …”

I sat for a long time, watching him by the fire's eerie glow. A gust of wind startled him awake, and he sat up. “Some
mate
?” I asked. He nodded. The kettle must have still been warm, or else it had less water than I thought, because it boiled while I was still pressing the
mate
leaves into the bottom of the gourd. I took it from the fire to let it cool a bit. “It's no good if it boils,” I said. But he was in a hurry, and afraid, and somehow I believed it had cooled enough. But I was wrong. As I poured, the gourd broke clean in two.

On countless days and nights since then, I've wondered what I could have done. The gourd had broken, that was clear, a jagged gash next to my hearth, at the very center of our world. What did it mean? The mate leaves had dribbled out with the water, no pattern left to read. Renato knew. “Mama Tonia, I can't wait,” he said. He hugged me quickly and ran out.

Could I have hid him in the back, behind the bales of hay? Or maybe in the swamp between the reeds, among those crannies only
machis
know? My mind moved slow, too slow. And then the drumming steps beside the house, a blow, breath rushing out, a shot. Through a crack in the door I saw Renato's spirit steam up into the sky, toward the shore, seeking the river of tears. They took his body, dragged it up the path toward the road. But I knew his spirit would be back. It hadn't been his time to die.

I took some comfort in the fact his soul was near, but though I told Florindo, it was no use. He couldn't hear. I dreamed Natito every night. “He passed right by two hours ago,” I'd say. But Florindo just sat by the fire, each day a little thinner, a bit more stooped. I knew exactly what was happening, although I sneaked a bit of urine to be sure. He was dying of a broken heart. Not even
machis
have a cure for that.

Those were the darkest months, when fear and grief sank into all the corners of the house. People stopped coming, because they knew a house like that can hold no cures. The clouds and fog hung low, close to the roof, an endless dusk. I dreamed Renato constantly. Then finally, one night, he came to me the way he'd been before the olive-colored scourge. His almond eyes shone large and bright. “Papa Floro is ready,” he said. “His time has come, and you must help him reach the other side.”

When I awoke, my Florindo was already getting cold. I closed his eyes, washed him, and put on his newest clothes. I wrapped him in a woven blanket and carried him up the path. He'd shrunk so small from grief, he weighed less than a baby calf. By the time I got to the cemetery, the word had spread, and neighbors flocked to help me dig the grave. People say that weeping is a woman's job, and that our sobs push our loved ones down the river of tears and into the next world. If that's true, Florindo must have made it all the way in just one night. When dawn broke the next day, I sat by the hearth and resolved that I, too, would die of grief.

But Renato wouldn't let me. He came to me each night in dreams. “Sit up, Mama Tonia,” he'd say, and shake me by the arm. “You can't give up just yet. Papa Floro's fine, just fine. But I can't stay with him, you know, until the circle closes for me, too. I need your help.”

What could I do? I chose not to have children because I didn't want them to suffer as I did when I became a
machi
. I'd dreamed a combination of plants that, if you crushed them and mixed them in a paste, they closed your womb. But it had done no good. Natito was beyond the ties of blood. How could I help him rest in peace?

When the new moon was rising in the summer sky, a young Mapuche girl from the city knocked at my door. Her hair was short, and she wore jeans and a sweater. But she stood respectfully until I asked her in.

“
Señora
Antonia,” she said after we sat down. “I'm with the new Mapuche organization, in Temuco. Some of our brothers and sisters who worked to help the poor under the previous government disappeared and are still missing. Our group helps their families request investigations through the Catholic Church in Santiago. I believe that one of them, Renato Painemal, was your son?”

I searched for words and found none. She took a magazine from her bag. “This magazine is called
Solidarity
,” she said, “and it's put out by the Catholic Church. The story on the cover is about a mass grave of peasants that was just found near a mine in Lonquén. It's only the beginning, because we must learn what has happened to all the disappeared. The relatives must know the truth.”

I took the magazine from her hands. I struggled to read the words, rusty from lack of practice. Then I turned the pages, looking at the pictures. Suddenly my eyes locked on a woman, her mouth open as if yelling, with a photograph hanging like a necklace on her chest. I knew her, but I couldn't place her.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“She's Sara Weisz de Bronstein, one of the founders of the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared.”

“Who is the young man in the picture around her neck?”

“It's her son,
doña
Antonia. All members of the Committee carry pictures of their disappeared loved ones.”

“Is there somewhere I can find her?”

“The organization has an office in Santiago, in the Archdiocese. It's easy to find. We can help you buy a ticket.”

I was on the next bus. The next morning, bleary from lack of sleep and disoriented from the traffic, smog, and noise, I somehow made it to the center of town. Asking almost everyone I saw, my rumpled, strange appearance reflected in their eyes, I finally found the street and the large old house. Opening the door, I ran up the stairs to the second floor and saw a brass sign with the Committee's name on it. I knocked, and Sara opened the door. She didn't recognize me.

“Yes?”

“Sara Weisz?” Her eyes darkened with surprise, and fear.

“Who wants to know?”

“Sara, it's me, Antonia Painemal. Tonia. Remember me?” First a blank look, then a flood of memory in the shape of tears.

“Tonia? From Temuco?”

“Sara, I saw you in this magazine.” I held it up. “The picture, it's your son, isn't it? I lost my Renato, too. Remember when you were hurting? Back when we were girls? And I would rub your back to help you sleep? Sara, I need your help now. Please. I must help my Renato rest in peace.”

She hugged me then. Her hands felt good along my back.

Eugenia got up early and took a shower. By the time she got dressed and collected all her toiletries from the bathroom, the sun was just beginning to redden the sky. She stood out on the balcony for a moment. Along the street below, a solitary garbage truck had begun its rounds, metallic crushing noises punctuated every now and then by the human yet unintelligible shouts of the workers. She stepped back into her room and, as she finished the last of her packing, thought back to the events of the past weeks.

At first she thought she might persuade her mother to come back to Boston with her. As her own plans had developed, Eugenia was on the phone several times with Irene. Her sister's warm voice helped calm the storm of uncertainty that surrounded her. Now that Laura would no longer be with her, Irene and Amanda had suggested, and there was no need to live in a good school district, there was plenty of room in their big house for both Eugenia and
doña
Isabel. The third floor, used mainly for storage, had its own bathroom and a separate staircase that led outside. It could be refurbished into a small apartment, and if
doña
Isabel joined them the two bedrooms up there would provide a measure of privacy. At first
doña
Isabel seemed to like the idea of living with her two daughters. But then she backed away. She was not ready to move to a different country, she said.

Eugenia had been saddened by her mother's decision. After the public apology she had offered her at the dedication ceremony, they had become much closer over the past couple of months. Going back to seeing her mother once a year, only on vacations, was not going to be easy. But going back to Irene and to Boston, to what would now be a tenure-track position, was exciting. And Irene had suggested that, with the powerful stories it contained, there might be publishers interested in reading her manuscript.

Eugenia suspected that her mother's change of heart had something to do with Laura. As she transcribed the tapes for her mother's dissertation, Laura also began coming over for tea. At first it was only occasionally, but then it had become a regular Friday-afternoon event. She came over in her uniform, straight from the school near Joaquín and Marcela's apartment. She was doing fine, she reported, though it was hard to make up a whole year in six months.

One Friday, Eugenia and Laura went walking next to the Mapocho River, the late-afternoon sunlight on their faces as they turned west toward downtown. At one point Eugenia tried to explain why she was leaving. Laura waved the subject off and took her mother's hand in hers. They sat down on a bench near a bridge, their hands still locked together. Listening to Laura talk about her plans, Eugenia began to understand. Displaced by exile, Eugenia had longed for home, but her daughter had grown up with no roots to call her own. Now, surrounded by family and enveloped in Joaquín's love, Laura belonged. By returning to the United States, Eugenia realized, she might finally set her daughter free.

As the date of Eugenia's departure approached, Laura offered to come and spend the last weekend with her and
doña
Isabel. They took walks in the afternoons and played canasta late into the night. It had been hard to let her leave the day before, but she needed to get back and study for a big test.

“Promise me something, Mamita,” she said as she gave her mother a final hug good-bye. “When you finish packing the big bag you have in your closet, but not before, take a look in the left-hand corner.”

With difficulty she had followed her daughter's instructions. Now, as the rising sun lit the room in shades of gold, she was done. Reaching along the left-hand side of the suitcase, underneath her carefully stacked slacks and under her softest, most worn-in jeans, she found, cuddled in a corner, Paco the velvet porcupine. An envelope was tied around his neck with a pink ribbon. Inside she found a note written in her daughter's bold, loping hand. “He's always protected me and kept me safe,” it read. “Now he can do the same for you. Love, LBA.”

Swiping at her eyes with both hands, Eugenia stepped out onto the balcony once again. She took a deep breath. The sun was struggling to be seen behind the thick bank of clouds that blocked her view of the mountains to the east. She thought about her mother,
doña
Sara, Tonia. The trauma of losing their children had marked their lives every day. Even Irene, who did not have children of her own, still carried the scar of losing Gabriela. Having finally made peace with her mother, Eugenia could see how lucky they were to have a second chance. But for a moment she felt envious. With Laura staying in Chile,
doña
Isabel and
doña
Sara would have the Friday teas and the Sunday barbecues that would now be lost to her despite the annual family reunions. This, she realized, was the enduring wound of exile, a gash between herself and her family that no amount of time or healing would ever entirely repair.

She watched as the sun finally won its battle with the clouds, and only timid wisps of cotton remained along the edges of a deep blue sky. The day promised a transparent clarity that spoke of jasmine blossoms. Walking back into the room, she closed the suitcase.

“Rosa,” she called. “Can you phone a taxi, please? I think I'm ready to go to the airport.”

It's been nine years since I resolved to take my passion for fiction writing seriously and signed up for my first summer writing festival at the University of Iowa. For the following four summers, I was blessed by the mentorship of Lan Samantha Chang, who helped me remember that I did know how to read and write fiction; Rick Hillis, who suggested that I was perhaps writing a novel rather than short stories; and Lon Otto, who first provided me with what he called “the novelist's toolkit,” and then had the courage and clarity to tell me when I needed to stop taking courses and just write. The fifth summer of my journey, with a completed novel manuscript in hand, I attended a master class at the Nebraska Writers' Conference taught by Curtis Sittenfeld, where in addition to her excellent advice I benefited from the comments of my classmates Judy Crotchett, Dan Gearino, Peter Obourn, Luan Pitsch, and Lee Parks. Curtis has been more than a teacher. Her ongoing mentorship, encouragement, and sage advice have been invaluable.