Surviving Santiago (13 page)

“No good. But I'm free Tuesday again.”

I sigh. Four days. “I'm going to miss you.”

Frankie plays with the end of my ponytail. After a while, he asks, “So what did you do back home when your friends went away?”

“You really want to know?”

Frankie nods. After stepping in front of him so that he blocks me from the window, I squeeze my thumb and index finger together, hold them to my lips, and inhale.

“
Cuete
,” he says.

Max, who's Mexican, calls it
mota
, but it's probably the same thing.

“Do you smoke?” I ask him.

Frankie pulls me closer, like he's going to kiss me again. Instead he whispers, “No, but I might be able to get you some on Tuesday. So you'll think of me when we can't see each other.”

“Cool!” I whisper back.

He touches his finger to my lips. “Don't say anything,
¿cachai?
You can get ten years in jail if they catch you.”

“I'll hide it in my room. Nobody will ever know,” I say. He gives me a final long kiss. When we let go, it
feels like I'm still in his arms, spinning through the dark universe. I unlock the gate, but before going inside, I watch him ride away from the corner and into the night.

C
HAPTER
10

Saturday, June 24: 58 days until I go home

T
wo police cars with flashing green-and-white lights block the intersection. The one-way street is a steep uphill climb, with buildings right next to the street. No way to go around the cops. When I peer through the windshield of Tía Ileana's little car, I imagine the police cars crushing us from above.

“Can we back out of here?”

My aunt presses her lips together. In the weak light of the streetlamps, her lips appear dark against her pale face before everything flashes green. “It's just a roadblock,
amorcita
. They do this all the time.” She slides three cards from her purse and sets them on the dashboard.

For the first time tonight I'm glad Papá stayed back with the other reporters at the building for the new National Congress rather than coming to see the rest of Valparaíso with Tía Ileana and me. He said he had the weekend off, but once again, he lied. My aunt told him the new elected government would still be in charge
next year whether or not he took two hours to show his daughter the city. He didn't change his mind.

My aunt rolls down her window and keeps her hands, fingers outstretched, on the steering wheel. “What are you doing here?” a
carabinero
barks.

“I'm taking my niece around Valparaíso. She's visiting from the United States.”

The cop holds out his hand, palm up. “Documents.”

Tía Ileana hands him the three cards on the dashboard. He shuffles through them. I wonder if he's going to ask me for my documents, too. I don't have a national ID because I've been living in the United States too long, but Tía Ileana made me bring a photocopy of my passport.

After a long minute the
carabinero
returns the documents, slaps the top of Tía Ileana's car, and waves us on. My aunt puts the car in gear and without another word climbs the winding street to the top of the hill.

She stops in a parking area next to an overlook. When I get out of the car and stand next to her in the darkness, I gape at a view that made our encounter with the scary cops worth it. Below us, the lights of the city dot the steep hill all the way down to the harbor. All around us are other hills with lit-up houses and streetlamps along their slopes.

“During the day, you can see the houses painted in a rainbow of colors,” Tía Ileana says. “But the city at night has its own beauty.”

A gust of wind chills me inside my down vest. Ghostly fingers of fog make the lights blurry and cast a white shadow over the black water of the harbor. When the fog recedes, small fishing boats and huge cargo ships appear. From the top of the
cerro
, the piled-up cargo containers that we saw on our way into the city earlier today are as tiny as matchsticks.

I wish I could have seen all the colors of the houses and ridden the cable car to the top of the
cerro
in daylight. But during the day I had to carry Papá's backpack and equipment while he interviewed people for the radio station. Because Valparaíso is built on dozens of hills, everything is steep slopes and staircases, none of which my father can manage easily. And nothing is handicap-accessible.

“I wish Papá could see this,” I tell my aunt. There's someone else who I wish could be here, too. But even though Tía Ileana has met Frankie, I want to pretend that we've created a secret world—just him and me—far away from our families and their troubles. So far, neither my aunt nor my father has said anything about seeing us kiss last week. Maybe it was too dark, or we were too far away from them.

“He had his chance,” Tía Ileana says. “Our grandparents Gaetani lived here when they came over from Italy. Our mother grew up here.” She points toward the black seam in the hill where the cable car runs on hundred-year-old wooden tracks. “Neither Cecilia nor your father
had the patience to wait for the lift. They used to chase each other up the stairs and paths, at least until she started wearing high-heeled shoes to impress the boys.”

“How old was she then?” Perhaps this aunt I never knew was the one most like me.

Tía Ileana touches her cheek. “Younger than you. Around fourteen. But Marcelo never quit. He would meet us at the top, like this.” She crosses her arms across her chest and sticks out her lower lip in an arrogant pout. “Our grandfather said he looked like a little Mussolini.”

“They must have not liked my father very much.”

“He did it to annoy them. Because they were always so serious.” Tía Ileana pats my back, and when I glance at her, she smiles. “I think you inherited your outspokenness from him.”

“Like when I told him off about being prejudiced against lesbians.” I don't want to remind my aunt of his hate, but if you don't talk about it, you can't end it. Besides, I got him good that night. Then I describe how I made Papá pee outside like a dog.

I expect Tía Ileana to laugh but instead she says, “I'm sure it breaks his heart that he will never run up these hills again.”

My old
papá
never took Daniel and me to Valparaíso—my great-grandparents had already died by then—but he used to take us to the big park in Santiago, the Forestal, every Sunday unless it rained. In the morning, before
people arrived from church, we ran among the trees in games of hide-and-seek. Then we ate the empanadas Mamá packed for us, and in the afternoon, the three of us cheered Papá on as he played pick-up
fútbol
. Over the years we got to know most of the other guys, and they all wanted Papá for their teams. He could run almost as fast while dribbling the ball as he could without it, but mainly he could
run
. His team would take the ball all the way to the other team's goal and lose it there, and Papá would show up right away on defense to steal it back. He said he was so good because he had the loudest cheering section, but Mamá once told us he was invited to try out for the national team.
He liked
fútbol
, but he liked writing about it even more
, she said.

I was good, but not that good
, he responded.
You focus on what you do best. And where you're going to help the most.

Tía Ileana continues. “I'm reading this book,
amorcita
, so I can understand him better. I got it in Italian because he doesn't read Italian that well and doesn't have time to try.”

The book Frankie took from the shelf? I sound out the title.
“I sommersi . . .”

“
Los hundidos y los salvados.
What would that be in English?”

“
The Drowned and the Saved
,” I answer.

“Maybe you should read it when you get back to Wisconsin. It's by Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who ended up in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. He writes about
why some people survived the death camps and others didn't.” Her voice breaks. “Two years ago, he committed suicide.” She pauses for a moment. “Do you know who Elie Wiesel is?”

“Yes. We read
Night
in eighth grade.” I remember the part where Eliezer watches his father die from the upper bunk of their concentration camp barracks.

“He said Primo Levi died forty years earlier, at Auschwitz.”

“And you think that's what happened to Papá?”

“He's my baby brother. I want to help him. He needs to accept that he's a different person because of what they did to him in prison, and love the person that he is now.”

“Love?” I don't get it. Love is what Mamá and Evan have for each other. What I want Papá to have for me. And Frankie? I don't know if it's love, but whenever I'm away from him, I can't stop thinking of him and the world of just us.

Anyway, I suppose it would be hard to love yourself if you were drunk all the time, like Papá and Frankie's father.

“Yes,
amorcita
.” My aunt squeezes my hand. “Right now, he hates everything about what happened to him. And he hates his own body, which is probably why he won't take care of himself.”

“Even though he was a hero? And his side won?”

She nods. “He's suffered a lot more than most.”

I wish I knew where my aunt was going with this and what the answers were, because it sounds like Papá is on the drowning side of the book. “So what can I do?” I ask.

“You and Daniel are very important to him.”

“
Daniel
is very important to him. I'm just a girl.”

“And you're a fighter. Keep fighting, keep trying to love him. That's the only way he'll learn.”

“To love himself, right? And love me the way he used to?” Tía Ileana squeezes my hand again, and I smile back at her. Could my love really be strong enough to change everything—not just for Papá but for Frankie, too?

C
HAPTER
11

Tuesday, June 27: 55 days until I go home

I
s that my
abuela
in front of the jewelry store?
¡Carajo!
Even if she and my grandfather refused to come to Mamá and Evan's wedding, I should have visited them already. But I haven't even called. And what would she say if she saw me with a guy in a motorcycle jacket?

I back into a corner of the brand-new mall, near the fancy neighborhood where my mother's parents live, and pull Frankie toward me. Maybe I can hide behind him. Mamá and Evan are getting back to Wisconsin tomorrow, and when Frankie picked me up at the house I told him I still hadn't gotten them anything for their wedding. So he brought me here. I should have asked him to bring me somewhere else. So far, everything's way too expensive anyway.

The wrinkled lady in high-heeled shoes struts in our direction. She carries three different shopping bags—navy, brown, and pink-and-white. But she's not my grandmother.

I exhale. After she's safely past, I ask Frankie if he got the
cuete
.

“No, sorry, couldn't find any.” Frankie puts his arm around my back and gives me a tug. “Don't you know drugs are bad for you?”