Of Love and Shadows (12 page)

“Be careful, Papa,” they begged when they learned of the slogans attacking the military Junta he had thrown from the balconies of the Post Office Building.

“I'm too old to go around with my tail tucked between my legs,” the Professor replied impassively.

“If anything happens to you, I will stick my head in the oven and die of asphyxiation,” Hilda warned him, without raising her voice or lowering her soup spoon. Her husband suspected she would do exactly as she said, and was motivated to be a little more cautious—but never cautious enough.

As for Hilda, she used a unique method to resist the dictatorship. Her opposition was concentrated specifically against the General, who, according to her, was possessed by Satan and was the very incarnation of evil. She thought it possible to defeat him through systematic prayer and faith in her cause. Toward this goal, she attended mystic evening sessions twice a week. There she met with a constantly growing group of pious souls who were steadfast in their intent to put an end to the tyranny. It was a national movement, a chain of prayer. On the appointed day, at the same hour, the faithful gathered in every city in the land, in isolated towns, in villages bypassed by progress, in prisons, and even on ships on the high seas, to concentrate a tremendous spiritual effort. Energy thus channeled would result in the deafening collapse of the General and his followers. José disagreed with that dangerous and theologically unsound madness, but Francisco did not discount the possibility that this most original system might have positive results; after all, the power of suggestion works marvels, and if the General learned of the formidable weapon directed toward his elimination, he might suffer a heart attack and pass on to a worse life. Francisco compared his mother's activity to the strange events in the house of the Ranquileos, and concluded that in times of repression inventive solutions emerge to combat the toughest problems.

“Forget your prayers, Hilda, and devote yourself to voodoo—it has a more scientific basis,” joked Professor Leal.

Her family teased her so unmercifully that Hilda began going to her meetings in tennis shoes and slacks, hiding her prayer book under her sweater. She told them she was going out to jog in the park, and continued serenely in her laborious task of toppling authority with a rosary.

At the Leals' table, Irene clung to her host's every word, fascinated by the sonorous Spanish accent that many years in America had not softened. As she witnessed his passionate gestures, his shining eyes, the fervor of his convictions, she felt she had been transported into the last century, to a dark cellar where anarchists were preparing a rudimentary bomb to place in the way of a royal carriage. Meanwhile, Francisco and José were discussing the case of the raped, mute child, while Hilda and her daughter-in-law occupied themselves with the meal and the children. Javier ate very little, and took no part in the conversation. He had been out of work for more than a year, and those months had changed him; he had become a somber prisoner of his own anguish. The family had become accustomed to his long silences, to the stubble of beard, to his eyes empty of curiosity; they had stopped harrying him with signs of sympathy and concern that he, in turn, rejected. Only Hilda persisted in her solicitude, every so often asking, What are you thinking, son?

Finally, Francisco was able to interrupt his father's monologue to tell the family about the scene at Los Riscos when Evangelina had shaken the officer like a feather duster. Hilda's opinion was that to do something like that you had to have God's protection—or the Devil's, but Professor Leal maintained that the girl was merely the abnormal product of a society gone mad: poverty, the concept of sin, repressed sexual desire, and isolation had provoked her sickness. Irene laughed, convinced that the only one who had correctly diagnosed the case was Mamita Encarnación, and that the most practical solution would be to find a mate for the girl and let them loose in the bushes like rabbits. José agreed, and when the children began to ask about rabbits, Hilda turned everyone's attention to dessert, the first apricots of the season, boasting that no country in the world grew such savory fruit. This was the only form of nationalism the Leals tolerated, and the Professor lost no time in making that fact clear.

“People must live in a united world where all man's races, tongues, customs, and dreams are one. Nationalism is an insult to reason. It doesn't benefit people in any way. It merely serves as an excuse for committing the most outrageous abuses.”

“But what does that have to do with these apricots?” asked Irene, completely lost by the direction of the conversation.

Everyone laughed. Any subject could lead to an ideological manifesto, but fortunately the Leals had not lost their ability to laugh at themselves. After dessert, they enjoyed an aromatic coffee Irene had brought. At the end of the meal, she reminded Francisco of the hog-butchering to be held at the Ranquileos' the following day. She told them all goodbye, leaving in her wake a good humor that enveloped everyone except the taciturn Javier, so sunk in his depression and knots that he had not even noticed her existence.

“Marry her, Francisco.”

“She already has a fiancé, Mama.”

“I'm sure you're much better,” Hilda replied, incapable of objective judgments where her sons were concerned.

*  *  *

When he and Captain Gustavo Morante met, Francisco was already so much in love with Irene that he scarcely tried to conceal his dislike. In those days not even he recognized his intense feelings as love, and when he thought of Irene it was in terms of pure friendship. From their first meeting, he and Morante politely detested each other—one feeling the intellectual's scorn for the military, the other the reverse sentiment. The officer acknowledged Francisco with a brief nod, not offering his hand, and Francisco noted the haughty tone that immediately established distance between them but mellowed when he spoke to his fiancée. There was no other woman for the Captain. Long ago, he had marked her for his companion, investing her with every virtue. To his mind, his brief affairs, the adventures of a day—inevitable during the long periods of separation when his profession kept him away from home—had no meaning. No other relationship left a residue in his spirit, or a recollection in his flesh. He had loved Irene forever, even when they were children playing in their grandparents' house, awakening together to the first restiveness of puberty. Francisco Leal trembled when he thought of the games the children had played.

It was Morante's custom to refer to women as ladies, clearly establishing the difference between these ethereal creatures and the rough masculine world. In his social behavior, his manners were rather ceremonious, verging on ostentation, in contrast to his rough-and-ready manner with his comrades-in-arms. He looked every inch the swimming champion that he was. The only time the typewriters in the fifth-floor editorial offices ever fell silent was the day he appeared looking for Irene. Tan, muscular, proud, he embodied the very essence of a warrior. The women reporters, the layout editors, the usually impassive models, Mario's assistants—all looked up from their work and froze as he entered. He strode forward, unsmiling, and with him marched the great soldiers of all times: Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, along with the celluloid hosts from war films. The air thickened into a deep, concentrated, and melting sigh. That was the first time Francisco had seen him and, in spite of himself, he was impressed by the Captain's compelling presence. Francisco was suddenly filled with a malaise that he attributed to his antipathy for the military, not realizing that what he was experiencing was vulgar jealousy. Normally he would have disguised his feelings, as he was uncomfortable in the presence of petty emotions. He could not, however, resist the temptation to sow the seeds of uneasiness in Irene's mind, and through the succeeding months he often expressed his opinion about the catastrophic state of the nation since the armed forces had come out of their barracks to usurp power. Irene justified the coup, using arguments she had heard from her fiancé. Francisco rebutted them, alleging that the dictatorship had not resolved a single problem; instead, it had aggravated existing problems and created new ones, and government repression was the only reason the truth was not known. A hermetic seal capped reality, and an atrocious brew was fermenting beneath it, building up so much pressure that when the lid blew there would not be enough weapons or soldiers to contain it. Irene listened absentmindedly. Her difficulties with Gustavo were of a different order. She was sure she could never be a model wife for a high-ranking officer, not even if she turned herself inside out like a sock. She suspected that if they had not known each other since childhood, she would never have fallen in love with Gustavo; possibly they would never have met, because the military lived in closed circles, and preferred to marry the daughters of their superior officers or the sisters of their comrades, girls educated to be innocent sweethearts and faithful wives—although things did not always work out that way. It was not for nothing that the men were sworn to warn a comrade if his wife was deceiving him, forcing him to take measures before he was reported to the High Command and his career was ruined by an adulterous wife. Irene thought this was a monstrous custom. At first, Gustavo had argued that it was impossible to measure men and women by the same rule, not only with regard to Army morality, but that of any decent family, because undeniable biological differences do exist, as well as a historical and religious tradition that no women's liberation movement would ever erase. A single standard, he said, could result in great harm to society. But Gustavo prided himself on not being a chauvinist like the majority of his friends. His relationship with Irene, and a year of seclusion at the South Pole refining his ideas and softening some of the harsh edges of his character, had convinced him of the injustice of the double standard. He offered Irene the honest alternative: he would be faithful, for he considered that sexual freedom for both of them was a preposterous idea invented by Scandinavians. As severe with himself as he was with others, adamant once he had given his word, madly in love, and normally exhausted by physical exercise, he fulfilled his part of the bargain under ordinary circumstances. During prolonged separations, calling on his self-control, he struggled against his appetites, captive to a promise. He suffered morally when he yielded to temptation. He was unable to live for long periods in celibacy, but his heart remained untouched, a tribute to his eternal sweetheart.

To Gustavo Morante, the Army was an absorbing vocation. He had chosen it as a career because he was fascinated by the rigorousness of the life and the security of a stable future, and because he had a taste for command as well as a family tradition. His father and grandfather had been generals before him. At twenty-one he had distinguished himself as the best student in his class, and was a fencing and swimming champion. He chose to enter the artillery, and there fulfilled his desire to command troops and train recruits. When Francisco Leal met Morante, he had just returned from the Antarctic, twelve months of isolation beneath immutable skies—the horizon a leaden dome lighted by a pale sun during six nightless months, followed by a half year of perennial darkness. Once a week, for only fifteen minutes, he was able to communicate with Irene by radio; sick with jealousy and loneliness, he used the time to inquire into every detail of what she was doing. The High Command had selected him from among many candidates for his strength of character and physical conditioning, and he lived in that vast desolate territory with seven other men. He survived storms that raised black waves as high as mountains while defending their most precious treasures: the Eskimo dogs and stores of fuel. At thirty degrees below zero, he moved mechanically to combat the sidereal cold and incurable longing, with his only—his sacred—mission to keep the nation's flag waving above that godforsaken outpost. He tried not to think about Irene, but neither exhaustion, nor ice, nor the corpsman's pills to outwit lust succeeded in erasing her warm memory from his heart. He occupied himself during the summer months by hunting seals to be stored in the snow for winter, and he cheated the hours while verifying meteorological observations: measuring tides and wind velocity, octaves of clouds, temperatures, and humidity; forecasting storms; sending up balloons to divine nature's intentions through trigonometric calculations. He had moments of euphoria and moments of depression, but never fell into the vices of panic and disillusion. Isolation and exposure to that proud icy land tempered his character and his mind, making him more reflective. He devoted himself to books on history, adding a new dimension to his thought. When he was overcome with love, he wrote letters to Irene in a style as diaphanous as the white landscape around him, but he never mailed them since the only means of transport was the ship that would come to pick them up at the end of the year. When finally he returned, he was slimmer, his hands were calloused and his skin burned almost black from the reverberating snow, and he was mad with worry. He brought with him two hundred and ninety sealed envelopes numbered in strict chronological order that he placed in the lap of his fiancée, whom he found inattentive and volatile, more interested in her work than in alleviating her lover's amorous impatience, and not at all inclined to read that pouch of out-of-date correspondence. At any rate, they went away for a few days to a discreet resort where they lived in unbridled passion, and the Captain made up for the time he had lost during so many months of enforced celibacy. The whole purpose of his absence had been to save enough money to marry Irene, because in those inhospitable regions he had earned six times the normal salary for his rank. He was driven by the desire to offer Irene her own house, modern furniture, household appliances, a car, and a comfortable income. It made no difference that she evinced no interest in such things and had suggested that, instead of wedding, they have a trial marriage to see whether the sum of their affinities was greater than that of their differences. Morante had no intention of undertaking an experiment that would prejudice his career. A solid family life was an important qualification for promotion to the rank of major. Furthermore, in the armed forces, after a certain age, a bachelor was looked on with suspicion. In the meanwhile, Beatriz Alcántara, ignoring her daughter's vacillation, was feverishly preparing for the wedding. She searched the shops for hand-painted English china with bird motifs, embroidered Dutch table linens, French silk lingerie, and other luxury items for her only daughter's trousseau and hope chest. Who will iron these things once I'm married, Mama? Irene wailed when she saw the Belgian laces, Japanese silks, Irish linens, Scottish wools, and other ineffable fabrics imported from the four corners of the globe.