Portrait in Sepia (36 page)

"We are not allowing her to suffer, Aurora, we are giving her a goodly amount of morphine," Uncle Frederick informed me.

"Have you notified her sons?"

"Yes, I sent them a wireless two months ago, but we have received no answer, and I doubt that their arrival will be opportune. Paulina's time is growing short."

And that was true. Paulina del Valle died silently the next day. Her husband, Dr. Radovic, Severo, Nívea, and I were at her side; her sons appeared much later with their lawyers to fight for the inheritance that no one was disputing. The doctor had removed my grandmother's feeding tube, and Williams put gloves on her because her hands were icy. Her lips turned blue, and she was very pale; her breathing was less and less perceptible, with no sign of distress, and at one point it simply stopped. Radovic took her pulse; a minute passed, maybe two, then he announced that she was gone. There was a gentle quiet in the room; something mysterious was happening. Maybe my grandmother's spirit had left her body and was circling like a confused bird above her body, telling us good-bye. I felt desolate at her parting, an old, old feeling I knew well but could not name or explain until a couple of years later when the mystery of my past finally was clarified and I realized that the death of my grandfather Tao Chi'en, many years before, had plunged me into similar anguish. The wound had been there beneath the surface and now had opened with the same searing pain. The sense of being absolutely alone, an orphan, that I experienced at my grandmother's death was identical to what had gripped me when I was five years old, when Tao Chi'en vanished from my life. I suppose that the old sorrows of my childhood—loss after loss—buried for years in the deepest layers of my memory rose up with their menacing Medusa heads to devour me: my mother dead at my birth, my father unaware of my existence, my maternal grandmother's depositing me in the hands of Paulina del Valle without explanation, and especially, the sudden loss of the person I loved most in the world, my grandfather Tao Chi'en.

Nine years have gone by since that September day when Paulina del Valle died; that and other misfortunes are behind me, and now I can remember my magnificent grandmother with a peaceful heart. She did not disappear into the boundless blackness of absolute death, as it first seemed; part of her stayed behind and is always near me, along with Tao Chi'en, the two very different spirits that accompany me and give me counsel—the first in practical matters, and the second in resolving emotional questions—but when my grandmother stopped breathing on that army cot where she spent her last months, I had no way to know that she would return, and I was overcome with grief. If I were capable of exteriorizing my emotions, I might suffer less, but they get locked inside me, like a huge block of ice, and years can pass before that ice begins to melt. I didn't weep when she died. The silence in the room seemed an error of protocol, because a woman who had lived like Paulina del Valle ought to die operatically, singing, accompanied by an orchestra; instead her farewell was silent, the one discreet thing she did in all her life. The men left the room, and Nívea and I carefully dressed her for her last voyage in the Carmelite habit she had kept hanging in her closet for more than a year, but we couldn't resist the temptation to clothe her first in her best French mauve silk lingerie. When we lifted her body, I realized how slight she had become; all that was left was a brittle skeleton and some loose skin. In silence I thanked her for everything she had done for me; I spoke the words of affection I would never have dared voice if she could hear me. I kissed her beautiful hands, her reptilian eyelids, her noble forehead, and I asked her forgiveness for the tantrums I threw as a child, for having come too late to say good-bye, for the dried lizard I'd spit out in a false attack of coughing, and other heavy-handed jokes she'd had to put up with, while Nívea seized the excuse offered by Paulina del Valle's departure to weep noiselessly for her dead children. After we dressed my grandmother, we sprinkled her with
eau de gardenia
and opened the drapes and windows to let spring blow in, as she would have liked. No mourning gallery, no black clothes, no covering the mirrors; Paulina del Valle had lived like an eccentric empress, and she deserved to be celebrated in September light. Which was what Williams thought, too; he went personally to the market and filled the carriage with fresh flowers to decorate the house.

When relatives and friends arrived—dressed in mourning and with handkerchief in hand—they were scandalized, for they had never seen a wake with bright sunlight, wedding flowers, and no tears. They went off mumbling darkly about plots, and years later there are still people who point me out, convinced that I rejoiced when Paulina del Valle died because I thought I could clamp onto her fortune. I inherited nothing—because her sons quickly sewed that up through their lawyers—but after all, I didn't have to, since my father left me enough to live decently, and I can earn the rest with my work. Despite my grandmother's endless advice and teaching, I never developed her nose for profitable business dealings; I will never be rich, and I'm happy about that. Frederick Williams did not have to fight the lawyers, either, because he was much less interested in money than evil tongues had been whispering for years. Besides, his wife had given him a lot in her lifetime, and he, a cautious man, had put it in a safe place. Paulina's sons could not prove that their mother's marriage to the former butler was illegal, and they had to resign themselves to leaving Uncle Frederick in peace. Neither could they appropriate the vineyards because they were in Severo del Valle's name, in view of which the would-be heirs set their lawyers onto the priests, to see if they could recover the wealth they'd obtained by frightening the sick woman with the cauldrons of hell, but up till now no one has won a case against the Catholic Church, which has God on its side, as everyone knows. In any case there was money to spare, and the sons, various relatives, and even the lawyers have lived on it to the present day.

The one joy during those depressing weeks was the reappearance in our lives of Señorita Matilde Pineda. She read in the newspaper that Paulina del Valle had died, and she worked up her courage and came to the house she'd been thrown out of during the days of the revolution. She arrived with a bouquet of flowers, accompanied by the bookseller Pedro Tey. She had matured during those years, and at first I didn't recognize her; he, on the other hand, was the same small, bald man with heavy satanic eyebrows and burning pupils.

After the cemetery, the masses, the requested novenas, and the distribution of alms and charitable bequests indicated by my deceased grandmother, the dust of the spectacular funeral settled, and Frederick Williams and I found ourselves alone in the empty house. We sat together in the glass gallery to lament my grandmother's absence in private, because neither of us is much for tears, and to remember her in her many glories and her few imperfections.

"What do you plan to do now, Uncle Frederick?" I wanted to now.

"That depends on you, Aurora."

"On me?"

"It has not escaped my attention, dear child, that you seem a bit off your feed," he said, with that subtle way he had of asking a question.

"I've been very sick, and losing my grandmother has made me very sad, Uncle Frederick. That's all, I'm all right, really."

"I regret that you underestimate me, Aurora. I would have to be a very foolish man indeed, or have very little feeling for you, not to have been aware of your state of mind. Tell me what is happening to you, and perhaps I can be of assistance."

"No one can help me, Uncle."

"Put it to the test," he said, "and we shall see."

And then I realized that I had no one else in the world in whom I could confide, and that Frederick Williams had proved to be an excellent counselor, the one person in the family with common sense. I could easily tell him my tragedy. He listened to the end, giving me all his attention, not interrupting once.

"Life is long, Aurora. At this moment everything looks black, but time heals and erases nearly all things. This stage is like walking blindly through a tunnel; it seems to you there is no way out, but I promise there is. Keep going, child."

"What's to become of me, Uncle Frederick?"

"You will have other loves; perhaps you will be blessed with children, or be the finest photographer in the country" he told me.

"I feel so confused, and so alone!"

"You are not alone, Aurora; I am with you now, and I shall be as long as you have need of me."

He persuaded me that I need not go back to my husband, that I could find a dozen excuses to put off my return for years, although I was sure that Diego would not encourage me to come back to Caleufu since it was to his advantage to have me as far away as possible. And as for the gentle, kind Doña Elvira, there was nothing to do but comfort her with faithful correspondence. It was a matter of winning time; my mother-in-law's heart was weak, and according to the doctors' prognosis she would not live much longer. Uncle Frederick assured me that he was in no hurry to leave Chile; I was his only family, and he loved me like a daughter or granddaughter.

"Don't you have anyone in England?" I asked him.

"Not a soul."

"You know there is all kind of gossip about your background; people say you're a ruined nobleman, and my grandmother never denied that."

"Nothing further from the truth, Aurora!" he exclaimed, laughing.

"So you don't have a family coat of arms hidden somewhere?" I laughed, too.

"Look, dear child," he replied.

He took off his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, pulled up his undershirt, and showed me his back. It was crisscrossed with horrendous scars.

"A flogging. A hundred strokes in an Australian penal colony for stealing tobacco. I served five years before I escaped on a raft. I was picked up on the high seas by a Chinese pirate ship, and they worked me like a slave, but as soon as we got within sight of land, I escaped again. So, in one way or another, I finally reached California. My accent is the only thing about me related to British nobility, and I learned that from a true lord, my first employer in California. He also instructed me in the office of being a butler. Paulina del Valle engaged me in 1870, and I have been in her service since that date."

"Did my grandmother know that story, Uncle?" I asked when I got over my surprise and could speak.

"Of course. Paulina found it very amusing that people mistook a convict for an aristocrat."

"Why were you sent to prison?"

"For stealing a horse when I was fifteen. They would have hanged me, but I was fortunate; they commuted my sentence and I ended up in Australia. Have no fear, Aurora, l have never stolen a farthing since; the flogging cured me of that vice, but they could not cure me of my taste for tobacco." He laughed.

So the two of us stayed together. Paulina del Valle's sons sold the mansion on Ejercito Libertador, which today is a girls' school, and auctioned off what little was left in the house. I saved the mythological bed by dismantling it before the heirs arrived and hiding it in the storeroom of Iván Radovic's public hospital, where it stayed until the lawyers tired of digging through corners, looking for the last vestiges of my grandmother's possessions. Frederick Williams and I bought a country house on the outskirts of the city, on a road to the mountains. We have twelve hectares of land bordered by trembling aspen, invaded with fragrant jasmine, and washed by a modest stream, where everything grows unbidden. There Williams breeds dogs and thoroughbred horses and plays croquet and other boring games the English find entertaining. And there I have my winter quarters. The house is past its prime, but it has a certain charm, and space for my darkroom and for the famous Florentine bed, which rises with its polychrome sea creatures in the middle of my room. I sleep there, guarded by the watchful spirit of my grandmother Paulina, who appears in time to take her broom after the black-pajamaed children of my nightmares. Santiago will surely grow toward Estacion Central, the railway depot, and leave us in peace in this bucolic countryside of aspen and hills.

•

Thanks to Uncle Lucky, who blew his good-luck breath onto me when I was born, and to the generous protection of my grandmother and my father, I can say I have a good life. I have the means and the freedom to do what I want; I can devote myself fully to traveling the length of Chile's abrupt geography with my camera around my neck, as I have been doing for the last eight or nine years. People talk behind my back, it's inevitable; several relatives and acquaintances cut me off, and if they see me in the street, they pretend not to know me; they cannot tolerate a woman who left her husband. Those slights do not keep me awake; I don't have to please everyone, only those who truly matter to me, and they are not many. The dismal results of my relationship with Diego Domínguez should have immunized me forever against precipitous and fervent love affairs, but that wasn't how it was. It's true that I went about for several months with a wounded wing, dragging myself day after day with a feeling of absolute defeat, of having played my one card and lost everything. It is also true that I am condemned to being a married woman without a husband, which prevents me from "remaking" my life, as my aunts call it, but this strange condition gives me a lot of confidence. A year after Diego and I were separated, I fell in love again—which means that I have thick skin and heal quickly. My second love was not a gentle friendship that with time turned into a tried-and-true romance, it was simply a passionate impulse that took us both by surprise, and by chance worked out well… that is, it has up till now; who knows how it will be in the future? It was a winter day, one of those days of green, persistent rain, of jagged lightning and heaviness of heart. Paulina del Valle's sons and their lawyers had come again to toss manure by the shovelful, bringing their interminable documents, each with three copies and eleven seals, which I signed without reading. Frederick Williams and I had left the house on Ejercito Libertador and were still living in a hotel because the repairs on the house where we live now weren't finished. Uncle Frederick ran into Iván Radovic, whom we hadn't seen in a long time, and they made a date for the three of us to go see a Spanish light opera company that was on tour through South America. When the day came, however, Uncle Frederick had taken to his bed with a cold, and I found myself waiting alone in the vestibule of the hotel, my hands freezing and my feet aching because my high-buttoned shoes were too tight. There was a waterfall running down the windowpanes, and the wind was shaking the trees like feather dusters. It was a night that did not invite venturing out, and for a moment I envied Uncle Frederick his cold, which allowed him to stay in bed with a good book and cup of hot chocolate; nevertheless, when Iván Radovic walked in, I forgot the weather. He arrived with his overcoat soaked, and when he smiled at me, I realized that he was much more handsome than I remembered. We looked into each other's eyes, and it was as if scales had fallen from them. I think we saw each other for the first time; at least I looked him over earnestly, and I liked what I saw. There was a long silence, a pause which in other circumstances would have been awkward but at that moment seemed a form of dialogue. He helped me on with my cape, and we slowly walked to the door, hesitant, still in our mutual daze. Neither of us wanted to challenge the storm raking the heavens, but neither did we want to go separate ways. A porter ran up with a huge umbrella and offered to see us to the carriage that was waiting at the door, so we went out without a word, unsure what we wanted to do. I had no flash of romantic clairvoyance, no extraordinary presentiment that we were soul mates; I did not visualize the beginnings of a love story, nothing like that; I simply took note of the way my heart was beating, of how hard it was to breathe, of my hot and prickly skin, and of my tremendous desire to touch that man. I fear that there was nothing spiritual about my role in the encounter, only lust, although at that time I was too inexperienced and my vocabulary too limited to put the dictionary name to that excitement. The word is the least of it; what is interesting is that that visceral jolt overcame my shyness, and in the shelter of the carriage, from which there was no easy escape, I took his face in my hands and without thinking twice I kissed him on the mouth, just as years before I had seen Nívea and Severo del Valle kiss, decisively and greedily. It was a simple action, with no turning back. I won't go into details about what followed, because it is easy to imagine, and because if Iván reads these pages, we would have a colossal fight. It must be said, our battles are as memorable as our reconciliations are passionate; this is not a quiet, saccharine love, but what can be said in its favor is that it is steadfast; obstacles do not seem to diminish it, only strengthen it. Marriage is a commonsense affair, something neither of us has much of. The fact we are not married enhances our love. That way each of us can do what we do; we have our own spaces, and when we are about to erupt, there is always the escape of living apart for a few days and then coming back together when we yearn for kisses. With Iván Radovic I have learned to speak up and show my claws. If I found he had betrayed me—may God forbid—as happened with Diego Dominguez, I would not drown myself in tears as I did then, I would kill him without a moment's remorse.