Eva Luna (26 page)

As for me, although I never lacked for men in my life, I was no luckier in love than Mimí. From time to time I succumbed to some passion that rocked me to my bones. When that happened, I did not wait for the man to make the overtures; I took the initiative, hoping each time to recapture the happiness I had known with Riad Halabí—but without success. Once or twice I was rebuffed by men who may have been disconcerted by my assertiveness, and who made a point of ridiculing me to their friends. But I felt free, and I never worried about getting pregnant.

“You should see a doctor,” Mimí insisted.

“Don't worry about it, I'm perfectly healthy. Everything will be all right once I stop dreaming about Zulema.”

Mimí collected porcelain boxes, stuffed animals, dolls, and pillows she embroidered in her spare time. Her kitchen looked like a showcase for kitchen gadgets, and she used them all; although she was a vegetarian and ate like a rabbit, she enjoyed cooking. She considered red meat a deadly poison, another of the many teachings of the Maharishi, whose portrait presided over the living room and whose philosophy guided her life. He was a smiling grandfather with watery eyes, a sage who received divine illumination through mathematics. His calculations had demonstrated that the universe—and, even more, its creatures—were ruled by the power of numbers, principles of cosmogonic knowledge
known from Pythagoras to our day. He was the first, however, to apply the science of numbers to futurology. Once he had been invited by the government to consult on matters of state, and Mimí was among the throng waiting at the airport. Before she watched him disappear into an official limousine, she had been able to touch the hem of his robe.

“Man and woman, there's no difference between them in this theory. They are models, on a reduced scale, of the universe, and therefore every occurrence on the astral plane is accompanied by manifestations at the human level, and each person experiences a relationship with a determined planetary order in accordance with the basic configuration associated with him or her from the day breath is drawn,” Mimí recited in a rush, without taking breath herself. “Do you understand?”

“Perfectly,” I assured her, and from that moment we have never had a problem, because when everything else fails, we communicate in the language of the stars.

NINE

T
he daughters of Burgel and Rupert became pregnant at the same time, suffered together the ills of gestation, grew as roly-poly as a pair of Renaissance nymphs, and, within a few days of each other, gave birth to their firstborn sons. The grandparents breathed a deep sigh of relief when they saw the babies had been born without visible defects, and they celebrated the event with a lavish double christening on which they spent a good part of their savings. The mothers could not, as they secretly may have wished, attribute their sons' paternity to Rolf Carlé. The babies smelled of beeswax; and for more than a year the girls had been deprived of their frolics with Rolf—not for any lack of willingness on their part, but because the husbands had turned out to be much more vigilant than the girls had anticipated and gave them few opportunities to be alone. On each of Rolf's sporadic visits to La Colonia, his aunt and uncle and the two young matrons had pampered him like a baby, while the two candlemakers had danced attendance but had never taken their eyes off him; amorous acrobatics, therefore, were shunted into the background owing to circumstances beyond the control of anyone. From time to time, even so, the three cousins managed to slip into the pine forest or some empty room in the inn and laugh together for a while, remembering the old days.

As the years went by, the two sisters had other children and settled into the role of wife, but they never lost the
freshness that had captivated Rolf Carlé the first time he saw them. The elder was still merry and playful; she had the vocabulary of a sailor and could drink five steins of beer and still walk a straight line. The younger was as delicate and coy as ever, even though she had lost some of the apple-cheeked beauty of adolescence. Both still smelled of cinnamon, clove, vanilla, and lemon, and just remembering that scent could set Rolf's soul on fire—as had happened thousands of kilometers away, when he awakened in the night with the intuition that the girls were also dreaming of him.

Burgel and Rupert were growing old breeding their dogs and challenging the digestion of the tourists with their extraordinary culinary treats; they continued to fight over trifles and love each other wholeheartedly, and generally grew more charming with each new day. Living together through the years had obscured their differences, and they had grown so alike in body and soul that they looked like twins. To entertain the grandchildren, Burgel sometimes pasted on a wooly mustache and put on her husband's clothes, while he donned a rag-stuffed brassière and a woman's skirt—to the children's happy confusion. They had relaxed the rules of the inn, and furtive couples now drove to La Colonia to spend a night at their hotel: Rolf's aunt and uncle knew that love is good for keeping a fine polish on wood, and at their age they themselves did not have the old ardor—in spite of the huge portions of aphrodisiac stew they consumed. They welcomed the lovers with sympathy and without questions about their legal status; they gave them the best rooms and served them succulent breakfasts, grateful that those forbidden larks helped preserve the coffered ceilings and fine furniture.

The political situation had stabilized after the govern
ment suppressed an attempted coup and controlled the military's chronic tendency toward subversion. Oil flowed from the earth in an endless torrent, and prosperity lulled consciences and postponed all difficulties to a hypothetical tomorrow.

Rolf Carlé, meanwhile, had become a roving celebrity. He had filmed several documentaries that won him renown outside the country. He had crossed all the continents, and by now spoke four languages.
Señor
Aravena, who after the fall of the dictatorship had been promoted to the directorship of the national television network, and who was an advocate of dynamic and bold programming, always sent Rolf to the source for the news. He considered Rolf the best cameraman on his team—and secretly Rolf agreed with him. The news services slant the news, Aravena used to say. It's best to witness events with our own eyes. So Carlé filmed catastrophes, wars, kidnappings, trials, coronations, summit meetings, and other events that kept him far from his own country. At times—when he found himself knee-deep in a Vietnam quagmire, or trapped for days in a desert trench, half-dead of thirst, his camera over his shoulder and death at his back—he would remember La Colonia and smile. For him, that storybook village nestled in an obscure mountain range in South America was a safe haven; he was always at peace there. He returned when he felt weighed down by the world's atrocities, to lie beneath the trees and stare at the sky, roll on the ground with his nieces and nephews and the dogs, sit at night in the kitchen while his aunt fussed among the pots and his uncle adjusted the mechanism of a clock. There he gave free rein to his ego, dazzling the family with his adventures. Only with them did he indulge his inclina
tion toward pedantry, because he knew in his heart that he was forgiven beforehand.

The nature of his job had kept him from marrying, and his Aunt Burgel scolded him more insistently with each visit. Now he did not fall in love as easily as he had at twenty, and he had begun to resign himself to the idea of loneliness; he knew it would be difficult for him to find the ideal woman—although he never asked himself whether, in the unlikely event this perfect creature appeared in his life, he would meet her requirements. He had one or two affairs that ended in frustration, a few loyal women friends in different cities who welcomed him with affection when he happened to pass through, and enough conquests to nourish his self-esteem. But he had grown tired of transitory relationships, and now with the first kiss began saying goodbye. He had developed into a sinewy man with taut skin and muscles; his eyes were alert, surrounded by fine lines, and he was tanned and freckled. His experiences at the scene of so many violent events had not hardened him: he was still vulnerable to the emotions of his adolescence. He was moved by tenderness and pursued from time to time by the old nightmares, intermixed, it is true, with happy dreams of rosy thighs and rollicking puppies. He was tenacious, restless, untiring. He smiled often, and his smile was so sincere that he won friends everywhere he went. When he was behind his camera, he forgot about himself, interested only in capturing the image, whatever the risk.

*  *  *

One September afternoon I ran into Huberto Naranjo on a street corner. He was watching, at a distance, a factory for military uniforms located farther down the block. He had
come to the capital for weapons and boots—how can a man exist without boots in the mountains?—and, while in town, to persuade his superiors to change their strategy, because the Army was decimating the guerrilla forces. His beard had been trimmed and his hair cut, and he was wearing city clothes and carrying a small briefcase. He bore no resemblance to the posters offering a reward for the capture of a heavily bearded man in a black beret who stared defiantly at passersby from every wall. The most elemental precaution demanded that even if he came face to face with his own mother, he would walk straight ahead as if he had not seen her. But I took him by surprise, perhaps at a moment his defenses were down. He told me later that when he saw me crossing the street he recognized me immediately by my eyes, although there was little else to identify the girl he had left with La Señora, years ago, to care for as if she were his sister. He grabbed my arm as I passed him. I turned, startled, and he whispered my name. I tried to remember where I had seen him before, but made no connection between that man who looked like a public official—despite his weather-beaten skin—and the teenager with the brilliantined pompadour, the cowboy boots, and the metal-studded belt who had been my girlhood hero and the protagonist of my first amorous fantasies.

Then he committed his second mistake. “I'm Huberto Naranjo . . .”

I held out my hand, the only thing that occurred to me at the moment, and we both grinned. We stood on that corner, amazed, staring at one another; we had more than seven years to tell each other about, but did not know where to begin. I felt a languid warmth in my knees, and my heart was pounding; a long-forgotten passion suddenly swept over me.
I had thought I would love him forever, and in thirty seconds I was in love again. Huberto Naranjo had not been with a woman for a long time. Later I learned that for him the most difficult part of being in the mountains was lack of affection and sex. When he came to the city, he headed for the nearest whorehouse and for a few moments, always too brief, sank into the annihilation of an urgent, raging, and ultimately melancholy sensuality that barely relieved his stored-up hunger without providing any happiness. When he could allow himself the luxury of thinking about himself, he was overwhelmed with a desire to hold a girl in his arms who belonged to him, someone he could possess totally, someone who would wait for him, want only him, be faithful to him. Ignoring all the rules he himself imposed on his guerrillas, he invited me to have a cup of coffee.

I arrived home very late that day, walking on air.

“What happened to you?” asked Mimí, who knew me as well as she knew herself and could guess my moods even from a distance. “Your eyes are brighter than I've ever seen them.”

“I'm in love.”

“Again?”

“This time it's serious. I've been waiting for this man for years.”

“I see. A meeting of twin souls. Who is he?”

“I can't tell you, it's a secret.”

“What do you mean, you can't tell me!” She took my shoulders and shook me, visibly upset. “You've just met this man and he's already coming between us?”

“All right, don't be angry. It's Huberto Naranjo, but you must never mention his name.”

“Naranjo? The one from Calle República? What's all the mystery?”

“I don't know. He told me that even a word could cost him his life.”

“I always knew he would end up in trouble. I knew Huberto Naranjo when he was just a kid. I read his palm and saw his fate in the cards. He's not for you. Listen to what I'm telling you. That one was born to be a bandit or a tycoon—he must be mixed up in smuggling or drugs, or some other dirty business.”

“I forbid you to talk about him like that!”

By the time I ran into Huberto Naranjo, we were living near the Country Club in the best neighborhood in the city, where we had found a small, older house within our means. Mimí's fame was greater than she had ever dreamed of and she had become so beautiful she was almost unreal. The determination that had driven her to change her sex was now dedicated to mastering good manners and acting. She shed all excesses that might be considered vulgar and began to set fashion with her couturier clothes and light-and-shadow maquillage; she improved her vocabulary—saving a few expletives for emergencies—and spent two years studying acting in an actors' workshop and grace in a charm school for beauty queens, where she learned to cross her legs as she got into an automobile, eat an artichoke without smearing her lipstick, and descend a stairway trailing an invisible mink stole. She did not try to hide her sex change, but neither did she speak of it. The sensationalist press exploited that air of mystery, fanning the flames of scandal and slander. Her life had changed dramatically. Now when she walked down the street, people turned to stare at her; schoolgirls crowded around her for her autograph; she had contracts for tele
novelas and stage performances in which she demonstrated a talent that had not been seen since 1917 when El Benefactor had brought Sarah Bernhardt from Paris, ancient, an amputee, but still magnificent. Mimí's appearance on the stage ensured a full house; people poured in from the provinces to see this mythological creature who was said to have a woman's breasts and man's phallus. She was invited to fashion shows, to serve as juror in beauty pageants, to attend charity events. She made her triumphal entry into high society at the Carnival Ball, when the first families added to her cachet by inviting her to the Country Club. On that night Mimí stunned the guests by appearing dressed as a man, wearing an elaborate, fake-emerald-encrusted costume as the king of Thailand, with me on her arm as queen. There were some who remembered having applauded her years before in a sordid cabaret for homosexuals but, rather than damaging her prestige, that merely heightened interest. Mimí knew she would never be accepted among the families of the oligarchy who were, for the moment, seeking her out; she was nothing more than an exotic curiosity to ornament their parties, but entrée to that atmosphere fascinated her, and to justify herself she claimed it was useful to her career as an actress. In this country, she told me whenever I made fun of her fancies, good contacts are all that matter.

Mimí's success had made us financially secure. Now we lived across from a park where nursemaids wheeled their employers' children and chauffeurs walked pedigreed dogs. Before we moved, we had given all the Calle República girls Mimí's collections of stuffed animals and embroidered pillows, and had stored the figurines she had made from
porcelana.
I had made the mistake of teaching her that craft, and for months she spent her free time mixing dough and mod
eling knickknacks. But when the professional she had hired to decorate her new home saw the creations made from Universal Matter, he nearly suffered a heart attack. He begged Mimí to put them away somewhere, and not spoil the plan of his décor; Mimí agreed, because she was attracted to that pleasant, mature man with gray hair and dark eyes. They developed such a sincere friendship that she was convinced she had at last found the mate promised by her horoscope. Astrology never fails, Eva. It's written in my chart that I'm going to find a great love in the second part of my life.

For a long time the decorator played a major role in our lives, changing them in significant ways. Through him we became acquainted with a culture we never knew existed. We learned to choose the right wines—until then we had thought you drank red wine at night and white during the day—to appreciate art, and take an interest in what was happening in the world. We devoted our Sundays to art galleries, museums, theater, film. It was with him I attended my first concert, and the impression was so overpowering I did not sleep for three nights; the music kept resounding inside me, and when finally I could sleep, I dreamed I was a blond wood stringed instrument with mother-of-pearl inlay and ivory pegs. For a long time I never missed a performance of the orchestra. I would sit in a box in the balcony, and when the director lifted his baton and the hall flooded with music, tears of happiness rolled down my cheeks. The decorator had done everything in white—modern furniture with an occasional antique accessory—so different from anything we had seen that for weeks we wandered around the rooms as if we were lost, terrified to move anything because we might forget its exact place, or to sit on an Oriental divan because we might flatten the feather cushions. But, as he had assured
us from the beginning, good taste is an addiction, and we grew to like it and to scorn the trash we had once lived with. One day that delightful man announced he had been hired by a magazine in New York. He packed his suitcases and said goodbye to us with genuine regret, leaving Mimí in a stupor of dejection.