Beyond the Ties of Blood (22 page)

“I grew up an only child. Whenever there was conflict, I was the only one who stood there and took it, or dished it out sometimes. The big arguments were always my mom and me. We haven't seen each other since I came to Santiago. I write her now and then, and she writes me back, but I don't know when, if ever, we'll get past it. At least you,
compañeras
, can run interference for each other. That's the point of having a brother or a sister, it seems to me. And it's easier for me to see it, maybe, because I never had anyone.”

September 11, 1973

Irene didn't know what woke her at first. The room was still dark, though she could see threads of light through the slats in the venetian blinds. Turning on her side, she saw the numbers glowing on the clock. A few minutes after eleven. Oh, yes. Tuesday. She and Gabriela had stayed in the lab until close to three in the morning. Turning onto her back, she stretched slightly. This was definitely the nicest morning of the week, when they were able to drink coffee in bed, get up when they wanted, and relax over a late lunch.

She turned in the other direction and found Gabriela's back, the skin so soft. Irene allowed her hand to linger, tracing the tight curve along the side, over the small mole parallel with the ribs, down to the waist. She nuzzled Gabriela's shoulder, taking in the musky fragrance of sandalwood and tobacco. It was still so new to her, this deep connection, this predictable familiarity. Every morning reaching out, just in case. And every morning thinking, good. She's still here.

But there was something different. Silence. Eleven o'clock in the morning, their apartment overlooking the main avenue downtown. Even though they were on the fifth floor, by this point on a weekday morning there was at least the muffled sound of traffic on the street below. Was it the silence that had awakened her?

And then she heard it, the sibilant scream of jet engines. So close to downtown? She jumped up and, pulling on her bathrobe, went running out to the living room balcony in time to see the next Hawker buzzing by, so close she could almost touch it. Immediately a loud boom, and a cloud of smoke rose a few blocks away. And she knew. After all the waiting, the denial that it could happen in Chile, the pressure from right-wing parties, the military was overthrowing Allende. They were bombing the Moneda.

She ran back into the bedroom and turned on the radio. Though she kept moving the dial, all she could find was military music. Gabriela stirred.

“What's going on, Nenita, let me sleep, okay, I—” Suddenly she was wide awake. “What in the hell?”

“It's happening, it's finally happening. They're bombing the presidential palace, the jets are coming in right over our building.”

At that instant, Irene's constant moving of the radio dial paid off. It was Allende's voice. “Surely this will be the last time I will address you …” Irene turned on the bedside lamp. The two women sat on their bed, holding hands, then putting their arms around each other, as they listened to their president say good-bye through the crackling static and the occasional screech and boom until, finally, he was done.

They sat quietly, each feeling the other's tears on her neck. For several months now, street fights between Allende's supporters and the increasingly confident right wing had become a daily routine. Then, a few weeks before, organized women of the Right had roamed through the city, scattering chicken feed at the doors of all the top Army generals, symbolically taunting them to take action against the government. Days later, the commander-in-chief of the army, the last holdout known for his democratic leanings, had resigned.

After a few more jets shrieked down over their building, delivering their murderous message a few blocks away, an eerie silence settled over downtown Santiago. No cars or buses, no voices seeping in from the street. Then Gabriela tensed and sat up straight.

“Ay! Papa! I have to call home! He had orders from the union!”

“Gabita, the phones won't be working.”

“Have to try! Maybe I'll be lucky …” Her voice faded away as she ran into the living room to pick up the phone. Then, after a few seconds: “Hello, Mamita, it's—yes, we heard him. And Papa? Oh, no, and when did he—do you think you'll—yes, we'll be here. No, when he finished we—yes, you're right, we'll put on one of the other stations, at least we'll—yes. And Mamita? If you hear anything, anything at all about Papa, you call right away. Promise? Yes,
mi amor
, me too. I'll tell her.”

When Gabriela got back to the bedroom she collapsed against Irene.

“Where'd he go?”

“Just as I thought, he went to union headquarters. He left hours ago. Mamita was beside herself! At least she has sense enough to know there's no point to going out looking for him.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“You heard me. There's really nothing we can do right now.”

“So I guess all we can do is wait.”

“That's right, Nenita. But what about Eugenia and Manuel? And your mother?”

“At their new place where they had to move last week, they don't have a phone. So I think it's best to wait and see what they're saying on the radio. Depends on whether they let us out on the streets, plus I don't want to lead any spies directly to Manuel. I guess I really don't know what to do. As for Mamita, I'm sure she'll be fine, since this is what she's been wanting all along. But I'll give her a call since the phones are working, just to make sure.”

After Irene got through to
doña
Isabel and made sure everything was fine, there was really nothing else they could do. On the radio, everyone was being ordered to stay home. Anyone on the street would be considered a subversive, the announcers insisted. After three o'clock in the afternoon, they would be shot on sight. Luckily, they had just done some grocery shopping a couple of days before.

They showered and dressed, then made some coffee. They raised all the blinds in the apartment and spent time on the balcony, looking out at the smoke that hung, shroud-like, over the presidential palace. The mist settled grey and heavy upon the street, its humidity gathering like tears on the sidewalks. Even after the fog dispersed, the plumes spreading out from the palace, rancid with electric smoke, obscured the sun and made it hard to breathe. Every now and then a jeep full of soldiers zoomed down the avenue, and occasionally they heard gunfire, shouts, or screams. Radio and television spewed military music, punctuated by orders of the day. Occasionally lists of names were read, people who were supposed to give themselves up immediately to the authorities. There was no sunset that day, only a sudden falling from ash to black.

Sometime after dark, when they had forced themselves to sit down and eat a little bread and cheese and were finishing a bottle of red wine left over from the weekend, the phone rang. Gabriela answered.

“Mamita? What—oh, thank God! When did he—yes, all right. No, of course not. And Mamita, please, just listen a moment. Yes. He shouldn't step out anymore now, okay? What? You're right, it's hard to believe that Papa would ever say anything like that. But I think he's right, Mamita, and I think maybe you should think about joining him. Yes. Well, at least it's something to think about. And don't worry, me and Nenita, we'll talk to Dr. McKinley and see what he says. Yes. I'll call you back when I have some news. I'm not sure, but probably not before tomorrow afternoon.”

“Sounds like good news,” Irene said when Gabriela came back into the kitchen.

“Papi walked in half an hour ago. He got to about two blocks from union headquarters and saw a military truck speeding off in the other direction. There were people in the back, with soldiers guarding them. He got the message and ducked into a side street. He's been hiding in the shadows since then. I can't believe how lucky he was.”

“What was that about talking to McKinley?”

“Seems Papi's had enough. He doesn't want to live in a country where soldiers can do what he saw in the streets today. He says he wants to get out. I said we'd talk to Dr. McKinley about the Canadian embassy.”

As soon as the curfew lifted, Irene and Gabriela went to the lab. Dr. McKinley was talking excitedly on the phone. After he hung up, he came over to them, giving them each a hug.

“Am I glad to see you're all right,” he said in his slightly accented Spanish. “The phones have been ringing off the hooks. Because I'm Canadian, everyone thinks I can help them get out of the country. I was worried that all the experiments would fail due to lack of attention.”

Gabriela looked down at her hands, smiling ruefully. “I should have known,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Dr. McKinley, my papa … he was in a union, you know? He tried to get there yesterday, but thankfully turned back in time. He's at home now, and when my mama called yesterday, well … they were hoping you could help get him into the Canadian embassy. But I can see now that—”

“Wait a minute,
hija
.” Dr. McKinley's voice turned deeper, more determined. He put his large, beefy hand on her shoulder. “Of course I'll help your papa. I do have contacts in the embassy, and I am helping people. My God, I can't believe even the few things I've seen right around here, just looking out the windows! But I hope you understand that it's easier right now to get foreigners out than Chileans. He'll have to wait his turn and, by the way, we have to be very careful what we say when we talk on the phone, all right?”

The phone began ringing again, and as he went to answer it he spoke to them over his shoulder. “Could you just check that the experiments are all right? Between that and the phones, I think we will have our work cut out for us over the next few days!”

By the end of the week they had worked out a routine. In the mornings, while one of them tended the experiments, the other one would help Dr. McKinley make phone calls to his contacts in the Canadian embassy. The lines were so busy that it took hours to get through, and someone had to be constantly redialing the numbers. There were so many people seeking asylum that even when they got through, they would have to wait, sometimes several days, for Dr. McKinley's friend to call back and tell them, in code, what to do next.

In the afternoons, before the curfew began, Gabriela would go home to her family and check on her father. She tried to assure her increasingly anxious parents that yes, they were in the asylum queue, and would be notified when their turn came. Irene would drop by her mother's house. One day, when she arrived for tea, her mother told her that Eugenia had called.

“Where is she?” Irene asked. “Is she safe?”

“Ay, Nenita, who knows. I knew, of course, that before the military takeover she was living with someone. I always suspected the worst. And now it's been confirmed.”

“And how's that?”

“Well, she said she's fine. I'm glad about that, of course. But she said she couldn't come home now, that she had to help a friend. It's her boyfriend, right? He must be running from the police. Do you know this boy?”

Irene refilled her cup of tea. “I've met him. Don't make him out to be a criminal, because he's not. Now, with what's going on, who knows what the Army is doing to people!”

“Don't start with that, my dear, because I won't have it. Whatever they're doing, it must be for good reason. Things were completely out of hand here by the end, so don't try to justify—”

“Did Chenyita say where she was living?”

“Are you kidding? I was lucky to hear from her at all! How did this happen to her? She'd always been such a good girl … I just don't understand what's happening in this country.”

For several days after that, Irene wondered if she should go by the room she knew they'd rented a few days before the coup, just to see if they were all right, to make sure everything looked normal. On the second-week anniversary of the coup, after finishing at the lab, she finally decided she would.

She got off the bus at a stop two blocks further up from the gas station where their room was located. It was about three in the afternoon. She sat down on a bench at the stop for a few minutes, trying to figure out her plan. Then she saw Eugenia walking toward the gas station, carrying what looked like a bag of food. Of course. They had mentioned they really didn't have a kitchen. She got up quickly and crossed the street.

“Chenyita,” she said softly, falling into step with her on the block before the gas station.

“Oh! Nenita!” Her sister jumped, then seemed to want to hug her, but managed to control herself and keep walking. “I'm sorry,” she said, looking straight ahead. “I can't call attention to myself.”

“Wait a minute,” Irene said, “just stop walking for a minute. Are you all right?”

Eugenia stopped at the corner of her block and stood, looking back and forth across the street, as if she were trying to decide whether or not to cross. “Yes,” she said. “At least for the moment. Manuel's holed up in the room. Some of his
compañeros
have already been taken, according to the tabloids, but he may be lucky. You know when he broke his cheekbone? The distance he took from the group then may have helped him. At least we're hoping it will.”