Portrait in Sepia (22 page)

"Because of that machine we have in the back room?" I asked.

"What machine?" my grandmother cried.

"No machine—" I began, remembering the secret pact, but Paulina del Valle did not let me go on, she took me by one ear and shook me with unusual ferocity.

"What machine, I asked you, you devil's seed!" she screamed.

"I say, Paulina. Leave the child alone. She bears no responsibility in this…ahem… matter. A printing press," said Frederick Williams.

"A printing press? Here? In my house?" my grandmother bawled.

"I'm afraid so, Aunt," murmured Nívea.

"Shit! What will we do now!" And the matriarch fell back into her chair with her head in her hands, muttering that her own family had betrayed her, that we were going to pay the price for such incomparable idiocy, that we were imbeciles, that she had taken Nívea in with open arms and look how she repaid her, that maybe Frederick didn't know that this could cost them their skins, that we weren't in England or in California, that he was going to learn how things were in Chile, and that she didn't want to see Señorita Pineda ever again in her lifetime, and she forbade her to set foot in her house or speak one word to her granddaughter.

Frederick Williams ordered the carriage and announced that he was off to "resolve the problem," which far from calming my grandmother only increased her panic. Señorita Matilde Pineda gave me a good-bye wave and left, and I would not see her again until years later. Williams went directly to the North American legation and asked to speak with Mr. Patrick Egon, his friend and bridge partner, at that hour hosting an official banquet with other members of the diplomatic corps. Egon supported the government, but he was also deeply democratic, like nearly all North Americans, and he detested Godoy's methods. He listened in private to what Frederick Williams had to say and immediately set into motion a plan to speak with the minister of the interior, who received him that same night but explained that it was not in his power to intercede for the prisoner. He was able, nevertheless, to arrange a meeting with the president early the next day. That was the longest night ever lived in my grandmother's house. No one went to bed. I spent the night curled up with Caramelo in a chair in the hall while maids and servants with suitcases and trunks, nursemaids and wet nurses with Nívea's children asleep in their arms, and kitchen maids with baskets of foodstuffs all raced back and forth. Even a pair of bird cages with my grandmother's favorite birds ended up in the carriages. Williams and the gardener, a man who could be trusted, dismantled the printing press, buried the pieces at the back of the third patio, and burned all compromising papers. By dawn, two family carriages escorted by four armed servants on horseback were ready to drive us out of Santiago. The rest of the household personnel had been sent to take refuge in the nearest church, where other coaches would pick them up a little later. Frederick Williams did not want to come with us.

"I am the one who has brought this upon our heads," he said, "and I shall stay here to guard the house."

"Your life is much more valuable than this house and everything else I own. Please, come with us," Paulina del Valle implored him.

"They will not dare lay a hand on me—I am a British citizen."

"Don't be naive, Frederick. Believe me, no one is safe in these times."

But there was no way to convince him. He kissed me on both cheeks, held my grandmother's hands in his for a long time, and said good-bye to Nívea, who was breathing like a conger eel out of water, whether from fear or simply her advanced pregnancy I have no way of knowing. We left as a timid sun began to light the snowy peaks of the cordillera; the rain had stopped and the skies were clear, but a cold wind was whistling through crevices in the carriage. My grandmother held me tight in her lap, wrapped in her fox cape, the same one Caramelo had ravaged in a fit of lust. Her mouth was tight with anger and fear, but she had not forgotten her baskets of food, and we were barely out of Santiago on the road south before she opened them and unearthed roast chickens, hard-boiled eggs, pastries, cheeses, breads, wine, and barley water, enough to last the entire trip.

The del Valle aunts and uncles, who had fled to the country when the uprising began in January, welcomed us with delight because we were interrupting seven months of numbing boredom, and we brought news. That news was far from good, but it was worse not to have any at all. I got reacquainted with my cousins, and those days that were so nerve-racking for the adults were like a vacation for the children. We had our fill of fresh milk, fresh cheese, and preserves put up during the summer, we rode horses, splashed in the mud when it rained, played in the stables and garrets, put on plays, and organized a chorus that was quite dismal, since none of us had any musical aptitude. The poplar-bordered road to the house curved through a lush valley where there were few traces of the plow and the pastures seemed abandoned. From time to time we saw rows of dry, scrawny sticks my grandmother said were grapevines. If we passed some campesino along the road, he swept off his straw hat and with his eyes to the ground greeted his
patrones
. "Your Mercy," he would say to us. My grandmother was tired and bad-humored when she arrived, but after a few days she opened her parasol and with Caramelo at her heels walked around the property with great curiosity. I saw her examine the twisted sticks of the vines and pick up handfuls of dirt, which she poured into mysterious little bags. The U-shaped, adobe, red-tiled house was heavy-looking and solid, without a trace of elegance but with the enchantment of walls that have witnessed a long history. In summer it was a paradise of trees gravid with sweet fruit, of the fragrance of flowers, the chatter of excited birds, and buzz of diligent bees, but in winter beneath the chill drizzle and lowering skies it resembled a grumpy old lady. The day began very early and ended at sunset, the hour when we gathered in large rooms badly lighted by candles and kerosene lamps. It was cold, but we would sit about round tables covered with a heavy cloth beneath which the servants set braziers of coals to keep our feet warm. We drank red wine mulled with sugar, orange peel, and cinnamon, the only way it could be swallowed. The del Valle uncles produced that crude wine for family consumption, but my grandmother maintained that it was better suited for removing paint than for trickling down human gullets. Every working estate worth its name cultivated grapes and made its own wine, some better than others, but that one was particularly harsh. Spiders wove their delicate lace on the coffered ceiling, and mice scampered around with tranquil hearts because the house cats couldn't climb that high. The whitewashed or indigo blue walls were bare of ornament, but carvings of saints and images of the crucified Christ were everywhere. At the front door was a figure of the Virgin Mary, with wood head, hands, and feet, blue glass eyes, and human hair. She was always honored with fresh flowers and a lighted votive, and we all crossed ourselves as we passed by; no one came or went without greeting the Madonna. Once a week the virgin's clothing was changed; there was a wardrobe filled with Renaissance gowns, and for processions she was robed in jewels and an ermine cape that had seen better days. We ate four times a day in long ceremonies that were never really concluded before the next began, so that my grandmother got up from the table only to sleep and go to the chapel. At seven in the morning we attended mass and Communion conducted by Father Teodoro Riesco, who lived with my aunts and uncles, a rather ancient priest who had the virtue of tolerance: in his eyes no sin was unpardonable, with the exception of Judas's betrayal. Even the horrible Godoy, according to Father Riesco, would find consolation in the bosom of the Lord. "Not that, Father," Nívea would protest. "Look, if Godoy can be forgiven, I would rather pack up all my children and go to hell with Judas." After sunset the family joined with the children, servants, and peons of the estate for prayers. Everyone would pick up a lighted candle and then march in a line to the rustic chapel on the extreme south end of the house. I came to like those daily rites that marked the calendar, seasons, and lives; I enjoyed arranging the altar flowers and cleaning the gold ciboria. The sacred words were poetry:

I am not moved, my God, to love you
because of promises of heaven yet to come,
nor by threat of a hell I fear so greatly
that it alone prevents me from offending you.

You move me, Lord; I am moved
when I see you mocked, and nailed to a Cross,
moved when I see the wounds of your body,
moved by jeers heaped upon you, by your death.

Moved finally, by your love, so greatly
that even if there mere no heaven, I would love you
and though there were no hell, I would fear you.

You do not have to give me reason to love you,
because even if I did not hope for what I hope
I would still love you as I love you.

I think that my grandmother's tough heart melted a little, because after that stay in the country she gradually drew closer to religion; she began going to church by choice and not just to be seen, she stopped cursing the clergy out of habit, as she always had, and when we went back to Santiago she ordered the construction of a beautiful chapel with stained-glass windows at her home on Calle Ejercito Libertador, where she prayed in her own way. She was not comfortable with Catholicism, so she adapted it to her measure. After nightly prayers we would go back with our candles to the large sitting room to have
cafe con leche
while the women knit or embroidered and we children listened, terrified, to the ghost stories our uncles told us. Nothing was as fearsome to us as the
inbunche,
an evil creature from Indian mythology. They told us that the Indians stole newborn babies to turn them into
inbunches;
they stitched up their eyelids and anuses, raised them in caves, fed them blood, broke their legs, turned their head backward, and inserted one arm under the skin of their back, and in that way obtained a variety of supernatural powers. Terrified that we would become food for an
inbunche,
we children never stuck our noses outdoors after sunset, and some of us, I for one, slept with our head under the covers, tormented by spine-chilling nightmares. "What a superstitious ninny you are, Aurora! There isn't any such thing as an
inbunche.
Do you think a baby could survive all those tortures?" My grandmother tried to reason with me, but there was no argument that could stop my teeth from chattering.

•

Since she was always pregnant, Nívea never relied on counting days but calculated instead the proximity of the coming delivery by the number of times she used the chamber pot. When for two nights in a row she got up thirteen times, she announced at breakfast that it was time to send for a doctor, and in fact her contractions began that same day. There were no doctors in that area, so someone suggested they go get the midwife in the nearest village. She turned out to be a
meica,
a Mapuche Indian of indeterminate years, the same brown color from head to toe: skin, braids, even her vegetal dyed clothes. She arrived on horseback, carrying a bag of plants, oils, and medicinal syrups and wrapped in a mantle pinned at the breast with an enormous silver brooch made from antique colonial coins. My aunts were slightly alarmed, since the
meica
seemed only recently emerged from the deepest reaches of Araucania, but Nívea welcomed her without any sign of mistrust: she had no fear of what lay ahead because she had done it six times before. The Indian woman spoke very little Spanish, but she seemed to know her craft, and once she took off her mantle we could see she was clean. According to tradition, only women who had conceived could go into the room where a woman was in labor, so the young women and children went to the other end of the house and the men gathered in the billiards room with their cues to play and drink and smoke. Nívea was taken to the main bedroom, accompanied by the Indian and a few of the older women of the family, who took turns praying and helping. Two black hens were stewed to prepare a strong broth that would bolster the mother's strength before and after giving birth, and borage tea was brewed to be given should there be any crisis in breathing or heart distress. My curiosity was stronger than my grandmother's threat to give me a whipping if she caught me anywhere near Nívea, and I slipped through the back rooms to spy. I saw the maids going by with white cloths and basins of warm water and oil of chamomile for massaging the abdomen, also blankets and charcoal for the braziers, because nothing was more feared than a
partum chill,
or cold shivers during the birth. I could hear the uninterrupted murmur of women talking and laughing. It didn't seem to me that there was any atmosphere of anguish or suffering on the other side of that door; just the opposite, it sounded like people having a good time. Since I couldn't see anything from my hiding place, and the ghostly breath of the hallways raised the hair on the back of my neck, I soon grew bored and went off to play with my cousins, but later, as night fell and the family had gathered in the chapel, I sneaked back. By then the voices had stilled and I could clearly hear Nívea's emphatic moans, the murmur of prayers, and sound of rain on the roof tiles. I was crouched in a corner of the hall, trembling with terror since I was sure that Indians might come to steal Nívea's baby. And what if the
meica
was one of the witches who made
inbunches
of newborn babies? Why hadn't Nívea thought about that frightening possibility? I was about to run back to the chapel, where there was light and people, but just that moment one of the women came out to look for something; she left the door half open, and I had a clear view of what was happening in the room. No one saw me because the hall was in darkness; in contrast, the room was bright with the glow of two tallow lamps and a multitude of candles. Three braziers in the corners kept the air much warmer than it was in the rest of the house, and a large pot in which eucalyptus leaves were simmering filled the air with the fresh scent of the forest. Nívea, dressed in a short nightgown, a sweater, and heavy wool socks, was squatting over a blanket, clinging with both hands to two thick ropes hanging from the beams of the ceiling and supported from behind by the
meica,
who was quietly whispering words in another language. Her huge, blue-veined belly looked monstrous in the flickering light of the candles, as if it were separate from her body, not even human. Nívea, bathed in sweat, was straining; her hair was stuck to her forehead, her eyes were closed and circled in purple, her lips swollen. One of my aunts was on her knees praying beside a table that held a small statue of San Ramon Nonato, the patron saint of women in labor, the one saint who had not been born in a normal way but taken through a slit in his mother's belly. Another aunt was standing beside the Indian woman with a basin of warm water and stack of clean cloths. There was a brief pause in which Nívea sucked in air and the
meica
moved in front of her to massage her abdomen with her strong hands, as if accommodating the child inside. Suddenly a stream of bloody liquid soaked the blanket. The
meica
caught it up with a rag that also was immediately blood-soaked, then another and another. "
Bendición, bendición, bendición
," I heard the Indian say in Spanish. Nívea grabbed the ropes and pushed so hard that the tendons in her neck and veins at her temples seemed about to burst. A mute bellow formed on her lips, and then something appeared between her legs, something the
meica
grasped gently and held for an instant, until Nívea gasped, pushed again, and the baby fully emerged. I thought I was going to faint with fright and revulsion. I retreated, reeling down the long and sinister hallway.