Portrait in Sepia (24 page)

"They killed unarmed men, brutally, like animals. What would you expect, we're a bloodthirsty country." Nívea, much more angry than sad, proceeded to point out that up to this point in the century we'd had five wars. We Chileans, she said, seem inoffensive, and we have a reputation for being timid. We even speak with saccharine politeness—"Would you be so kind, please, as to get me a little water, if it's no bother"—but at the first opportunity we turn into cannibals. You would have to know where we came from to understand our cruel streak, she said; our ancestors were the fiercest and cruelest Spanish conquistadors, the only ones who stuck it out as far as Chile, on foot, their armor red hot in the desert sun, conquering the worst obstacles of nature. They mixed with the Araucans, as fierce as they, the one people on the continent who were never subjugated. The Indians ate their prisoners, and their chieftains, the toquis, wore ceremonial masks fashioned from the dried skins of their oppressors, preferably those with beard and mustache because they themselves had no facial hair. That was how they avenged themselves on the whites, who in turn burned Indians alive, ran pikes up their anuses, cut off their arms, and tore out their eyes. "Enough! I forbid any more talk of such barbarity in front of my granddaughter," my grandmother interrupted.

•

The slaughter of the young conspirators was the spark that ignited the final battles of the civil war. In the days that followed, the revolutionaries put ashore an army of nine thousand men, backed by naval artillery, that advanced toward the port of Valparaiso at full tilt and in apparent disarray, like a horde of Huns, but there was a very clear plan in that chaos: within a few hours they had crushed their enemies. The government reserves lost three of every ten men. The revolutionary army occupied Valparaiso and from there moved quickly to take over Santiago and the rest of the country. In the meantime the president was directing the war from his office by telegraph and telephone, but the reports that came through to him were inaccurate and his orders were lost in the ether because most of the telephone operators belonged to the revolutionary faction. The president heard the news of the defeat at dinnertime. He finished his meal, showing no emotion, then ordered his family to take refuge in the North American embassy, picked up his muffler, his overcoat, and his hat, and, accompanied by a friend, walked to the Argentine legation only a few blocks from the presidential palace. One of the opponents of his government had been given asylum there and they nearly met at the door: one entering, defeated, and the other leaving, triumphant. The persecutor had become the persecuted.

The revolutionaries marched on the capital amid the acclaim of the very citizenry that months before had applauded the government troops. Within a few hours the residents of Santiago had poured out into the streets with red ribbons tied to their arms, most to celebrate but some to hide, fearing the worst from the soldiers and stirred-up crowds. The new authorities put out a call to cooperate in orderly and peaceful fashion, which the mobs interpreted in their own way. They formed gangs with a leader at the head that ran around the city with lists of houses to be sacked, each identified on a map with a precise address. It was said later that the lists were drawn up with malevolence and vengeful spirit by certain ladies in high society. That may be, but it is clear to me that Paulina del Valle and Nívea were not capable of such baseness, despite their hatred for the overthrown government. Just the opposite—they hid a couple of families in their house while the popular furor cooled and the boring calm of the days before the revolution returned—something we all badly missed. The sacking of Santiago was a methodical, even entertaining action—seen from a distance, naturally. Ahead of the "commission," a euphemism for the gangs, went the leader ringing a little bell and giving orders: "You can steal here, boys, but don't break anything."

"Save the documents for me here, and then burn the house."

"Here you can take anything you want and then smash the rest." The "commission" respectfully followed instructions, and if the owners were present they would greet them politely and then proceed to the sacking with boisterous abandon, like children at a party. They opened desks, removed private papers and documents, which they handed to their leader, then hacked furniture to bits, carried off what they liked, and finally sprinkled the walls with paraffin and set fire to them. From the room he occupied in the Argentine legation, the deposed president Balmaceda heard the roars from the people in the streets. After writing his political testament, and fearing that his family would pay the price for hatred toward him, he shot himself in the temple. The maid who took in his dinner that night was the last to see him alive. At eight in the morning he was found on his bed, properly dressed, his head resting on the bloody pillow. That bullet immediately converted him into a martyr, and in future years he would come to be the symbol of freedom and democracy, respected by even his most ferocious enemies. As my grandmother said, Chile is a country with a bad memory—in the few months of the revolution, more Chileans had died than during the four years of the War of the Pacific.

Severo del Valle showed up in the midst of that chaos, bearded and caked with mud, looking for his wife, whom he hadn't seen since January. He had a major surprise in store to find her with two more children; in the tumult of the revolution she had forgotten to tell him before he left that she was pregnant. The twins had begun to fill out, and in a couple of weeks had taken on a more or less human appearance; they were no longer the wrinkled, bluish little shrews they'd been at birth. Nívea threw her arms around her husband's neck, and that was the first time in my life I had witnessed a long mouth-to-mouth kiss. My grandmother, befuddled, tried to distract me, but to no avail, and I still remember the enormous impact that kiss had on me; it marked the beginning of the volcanic transformation of adolescence. Within a few months I had become a stranger; I couldn't recognize the self-absorbed girl I was turning into. I saw myself trapped in a rebellious and demanding body that was growing and affirming itself, suffering and palpitating. It seemed to me that I was nothing but an extension of my uterus, that cavern I imagined as a bloody hollow in which humors fermented and terrible and unknown flora were developing. I couldn't forget the hallucinatory, candlelit scene of a squatting Nívea giving birth to her babies, of her gargantuan belly studded with a protruding umbilicus, her thin arms clutching the ropes that hung from the ceiling. I would burst into tears without any apparent cause, and I suffered fits of uncontrollable anger, or woke so exhausted I couldn't get out of bed. The dreams of the children in black pajamas returned with greater intensity and frequency; I also dreamed of a gentle man who smelled of the sea, who held me in his arms. I would wake up clinging to my pillow, wishing desperately that someone would kiss me the way Severo del Valle had kissed his wife. I was melting with heat outside and freezing inside; I couldn't settle down enough to read or study but would run through the garden, whirling like someone possessed to keep from howling. I walked into the pond fully clothed, wading through water lilies and frightening the goldfish, my grandmother's pride and joy. Soon I discovered the most sensitive points of my body, and would hide and fondle myself, not understanding why what was supposed to be a sin was so calming. I am going mad, I concluded, terrified, like so many girls who end up being hysterical, but I didn't dare talk about it with my grandmother. Paulina del Valle was also changing; while my body was flowering, hers was drying up, beset by mysterious ills she didn't discuss with anyone, not even her doctor, faithful to her theory that all that was needed to hold decrepitude at bay was to keep going and not make old lady noises. Her weight was a torment, she had varicose veins in her legs, her bones ached, she was short of breath, and her urine came in dribbles, mysteries I divined through small signs but that she held in strictest secrecy. Señorita Matilde Pineda would have helped me greatly during the trials of adolescence, but she had vanished from my life, cast out by my grandmother. Nívea had gone off with her husband, children, and nursemaids, as carefree and happy as when she had arrived, leaving a tremendous void in the house. There were too many rooms and not enough noise; without her and the children, my grandmother's mansion turned into a mausoleum.

Santiago celebrated the fall of the government with an interminable series of parades, parties, cotillions, and banquets; my grandmother, not to be left behind, again opened up the house and tried to resume her social life and soirees, but there was something in the air that the month of September, with its splendid springtime, could not affect. The thousands of deaths, the treachery and sackings, weighed on the souls of both winners and losers. We were all ashamed: the civil war had been an orgy of blood.

•

That was a strange period in my life; my body changed, my soul expanded, and I began to wonder seriously who I was and where I came from. The catalyst was the arrival of Matias Rodríguez de Santa Cruz, my father—although I didn't yet know he was my father. I welcomed him as the Uncle Matias I had met several years earlier in Europe. Even then I thought he had seemed fragile, but when I saw him again I didn't recognize him; he was little more than a starving bird perched in his invalid's wheelchair. He was escorted by a beautiful, mature, opulent, milky-skinned woman dressed simply in mustard-colored poplin with a faded shawl over her shoulders; her most notable feature was an untamed mat of curls, tangled and gray, held at the neck by a thin ribbon. She looked like an ancient, exiled Scandinavian queen; it took no effort to imagine her at the stern of a Viking ship sailing among icebergs.

Paulina del Valle had received a telegram announcing that her eldest son would be landing in Valparaiso, and immediately put into action a plan to go to the port with me, Uncle Frederick, and the rest of her usual train. We went to meet him in a special car the English railroad manager had placed at our disposal. It was trimmed in varnished wood with fittings of polished brass; the seats were oxblood velvet, and we were attended by two uniformed employees who treated us as if we were royalty. We booked rooms in a hotel facing the sea, and waited for the ship, which was due the next day. When we presented ourselves at the dock, we were as elegant as if we were going to a wedding. I can say that with confidence since I have a photograph taken in the plaza a little before the boat docked. Paulina del Valle is in light-colored silk, all draped and beruffled and wearing rows of pearls; her monumental broad-brimmed hat is crowned with feathers cascading downward like a waterfall, and she is holding an open parasol to protect her from the sun. Her husband, Frederick Williams, is splendid in a black suit, top hat, and cane. I am all in white with an organdy bow in my hair; I look like a birthday present. They lowered the ship's gangplank, and the captain personally invited us to come aboard, escorting us with great ceremony to the stateroom of Don Matias Rodríguez de Santa Cruz.

The last thing my grandmother expected was to run smack into Amanda Lowell. The nasty shock nearly killed her; the presence of her former rival impressed her much more than the pitiful appearance of her son. Of course in those days I didn't have enough information to interpret my grandmother's reaction; I thought she'd been overcome by the heat. The phlegmatic Frederick Williams, on the other hand, didn't turn a hair when he saw La Lowell; he greeted her with a brief but pleasant bow and then concentrated on getting my grandmother comfortable in a chair and getting water for her, while Matias observed the scene with evident amusement.

"Wh-what is this woman doing here!" my grandmother stammered once she could get her breath.

"I imagine you would like to have a family powwow, I'll go for a stroll," said the Viking queen, and exited with her dignity intact.

"Miss Lowell is my friend; let's say she is my only friend, Mother. She has accompanied me to here—without her I could not have traveled. It was she who insisted on my return to Chile, thinking it for me is better to die
en famille
than stretched out in some hospital in Paris," said Matias in an obscure Spanish and with a strange French-English accent.

Then Paulina del Valle looked at her son for the first time, and realized that he was nothing but a skeleton covered with skin like a snake's; his glassy eyes were sunken in their sockets, his cheeks so papery you could see his teeth through the skin. He was propped up in a chair, supported by cushions, his legs covered by a shawl. He looked like a wild, sad little old man, though in fact he couldn't have been more than forty.

"My God, Matias, what's happened to you?" asked my grandmother, horrified.

"Nothing that can be cured, Mother. You understand,
n'est-ce pas,
that I must have reasons very powerful for returning here."

"That woman—"

"I know the whole
histoire
about Amanda Lowell and my father. It happened thirty years ago on the other side of the world. Can you not forget your resentment? By now we are all at an age to shed futile emotions and keep only those that help us live. Tolerance is one of them, Mother. I owe much to Miss Lowell,
beaucoup
! She is my companion for more than fifteen years."

"Companion? What does that mean?"

"What you hear: companion. She is not my nurse, she is not my wife, and no longer she is my lover. She accompanies me in
mes voyages,
in my life, and now, as you can see, she accompanies me at my death."

"Don't talk like that! You're not going to die, son. We're going to give you the proper care, and soon you'll be good as new," Paulina del Valle assured him, but her voice broke, and she couldn't go on.