My Invented Country (21 page)

I wrote my first book by letting my fingers run over the typewriter keys, just as I am writing this, without a plan. I needed very little research because I had it all inside, not in my head but in that place in my chest where I felt a perpetual knot. I told about Santiago in the time of my grandfather's youth, just as if I'd been born then; I knew exactly how a gas lamp was lit before electricity was installed in the city, just as I knew the fate of hundreds of prisoners in Chile during that same period. I wrote in a trance, as if someone was dictating to me, and I have always attributed that favor to the ghost of my grandmother, who was whispering into my ear. Only one other time have I been gifted with a book dictated from that other dimension, and that was when I wrote my memoir
Paula
in 1993. I have no doubt that in writing that book I received help from the benign spirit of my daughter. Who, really, are these and the other spirits who live with me? I haven't seen them floating around the hallways of my home, wrapped in white sheets, nothing as interesting as that. They are simply memories that come to me and that from being caressed so often gradually acquire flesh. That happens with people, and also with Chile, that mythic country that from being missed so profoundly has replaced the real country. That country inside my head, as my grandchildren describe it, is a stage
on which I place and remove objects, characters, and situations at my whim. Only the landscape remains true and immutable; I am not a foreigner to the majestic landscape of Chile. My tendency to transform reality, to invent memory, disturbs me, I have no idea how far it may lead me. Does the same thing happen with people? If, for example, I saw my grandparents or my daughter for an instant, would I recognize them? Probably not, because in looking so hard for a way to keep them alive, remembering them in the most minimal details, I have been changing them, adorning them with qualities they may not have had. I have given them a destiny much more complex than the ones they lived. In any case, I have been very lucky because that letter to my dying grandfather saved me from desperation. Thanks to it, I found a voice and a way to overcome oblivion, which is the curse of vagabonds like me. Before me opened the road-of-no-return of literature, which I have stumbled down the last twenty years, and which I hope to follow as long as my patient readers will put up with me.

Although that first novel gave me a fictitious country, I never stopped loving the other one, the one I had left behind. The military government was solidly entrenched in Chile, and Pinochet was ruling with absolute power. The economic policy of the Chicago Boys, as Milton Friedman's disciples were known, had been imposed by force; it could not have been done any other way. Entrepreneurs were enjoying enormous privileges, while workers had lost most of their rights. Those of us who had left thought that the dictatorship would remain in power for some time, but in truth a valiant opposi
tion was growing inside the country, one that finally would lead to restoring the toppled democracy. In order to do that it would be necessary to set aside the many party squabbles and join together in the Concertación coalition . . . but that would be seven years later. In 1981 few could imagine that possibility.

Up until then my life in Caracas, where we had lived for ten years, had gone by in complete anonymity, but books attract a little bit of attention. Finally I resigned from the school where I was working and dived into the uncertainty of literature. I had another novel in mind, this one situated somewhere in the Caribbean; I thought I was through with Chile and that it was time to write about the land that gradually was becoming my adopted country. Before I began writing
Eva Luna,
I had to do a lot of research. To describe the odor of a mango or shape of a palm, I had to go to the market to smell the fruit and to the plaza to look at the trees, which hadn't been the case with a Chilean peach or willow tree. I have Chile so deep inside me that I think I know it backward and forward, but when I write about a different place, I have to study it.

In Venezuela, a splendid land of assertive men and beautiful women, I was liberated at last from the discipline of English schools, the rigor of my grandfather, Chilean modesty, and the last vestiges of that formality in which, the good daughter of diplomats, I had been brought up. For the
first time I felt comfortable in my body and stopped worrying about what others thought of me. In the meantime my marriage had deteriorated beyond repair, and once our children left the nest to go to the university there was no further reason to stay together. My husband and I were amicably divorced. We were so relieved by this decision that as we said good-bye we bowed reverential Japanese bows for several minutes. I was forty-five years old, but I didn't look bad for my age—at least that's what I thought until my mother, always an optimist, warned me that I was going to spend the rest of my life alone. Nevertheless, three months later, during a long promotion tour in the United States, I met William Gordon, the man who was written in my destiny, as my clairvoyant grandmother would say.

B
efore you ask me why a leftist with my surname chose to live in the Yankee empire, I will tell you that it wasn't by plan, not by any stretch of the imagination. Like almost all the major milestones in my life, it happened by chance. If Willie had been in New Guinea, most probably I would be there now, dressed in feathers. I suppose there are people who do plan their lives, but I stopped doing that a
long time ago because my blueprints never get used. About every ten years I take a look back and can see the map of my journey—well, that is if it can be called a map, it looks more like a plateful of noodles. If you live long enough to review the past, it's obvious that all we do is walk in circles. The idea of settling in the United States never crossed my mind; I believed that the CIA had incited the military coup in Chile for the sole purpose of ruining my life. Over the years I have become more modest. I had only one reason to become just one more among the millions of immigrants pursuing the American Dream: lust at first sight.

Willie had two divorces behind him and a string of affairs that he can barely remember. He had been single for eight years, his life was a disaster, and he was still waiting for the tall blonde of his dreams when I came along. He had barely looked down and separated me from the design on the carpet, when I informed him that in my youth I had been a tall blonde; that was what caught his attention. What about him attracted me? I could tell that he was a strong person, the kind who may fall to his knees but who gets right back up on his feet. He was different from the average Chilean: he didn't complain, he didn't blame others for his problems, he accepted his karma, he wasn't looking for a mother, and it was obvious he didn't need a geisha to bring him breakfast in bed or to lay out his clothes for the next day. I could see that he didn't belong to the school of the stoics, like my grandfather, it was too obvious that he enjoyed his life, but he did have the same stoic stability. Besides that, he'd traveled a lot; which is always seductive to us Chileans, who are basically insular people. At twenty
he'd gone around the world, hitchhiking and sleeping in cemeteries. (He explained to me that they're very safe, no one goes there at night.) He had been exposed to different cultures, he was broad-minded, and he was tolerant and curious. He also spoke good Spanish—with the accent of a Mexican bandit—and he had tattoos. In Chile, only criminals sport tattoos, so I thought he was really sexy. He could order dinner in French, Italian, and Portuguese, and he knew how to mumble a few words in Russian, Tagalog, Japanese, Mandarin, Swahili, and Farsi. Years later I discovered that he invented them, but by then it was too late. To top it all off, he could speak English as well as any North American manages to master the language of Shakespeare.

We found a way to be together for two days, and then I had to continue my tour, but at the end I decided to return to San Francisco for a week to see whether I could get him out of my head or whether lust had turned into love. This is a very Chilean way to behave; any of my female compatriots would have done the same. We Chilean women are ferociously decisive in two things: in defending our cubs and in trapping a man. We have a strongly developed nesting instinct; an adventure isn't enough for us, we want to form a household and if possible, have children. Imagine! When I arrived at his house, uninvited, Willie, in a panic, tried to make his escape, but he wasn't really a serious opponent for me. I took one running leap and was on him like a prizefighter. Finally he agreed, gritting his teeth, that I was the closest thing to a tall blonde he was ever going to get, and we got married. That was 1987.

To be near Willie, I was ready to give up a lot, but not my
children or my writing, so as soon as I got my residence papers I began the process of moving Paula and Nicolàs to California. I had quickly become enamored of San Francisco, a happy, tolerant, open, and cosmopolitan city—and so different from Santiago! My new home was founded by adventurers, prostitutes, merchants, and preachers, all of whom flocked there in 1849, drawn by the Gold Rush. I wanted to write about that intriguing period of greed, violence, heroism, and conquest, perfect material for a novel. In the mid-nineteenth century the surest route to California from the east coast of the United States, or from Europe, went right by Chile. Ships had to sail through the Strait of Magellan or around Cape Horn. Those were dangerous odysseys, but worse was crossing the North American continent in a wagon or slogging through the malaria-infected jungles of the Isthmus of Panama. Chileans learned of the discovery of gold before the news spread in the United States, and they came en masse: they had a long tradition of mining and they liked an adventure. We have a name for our compulsion for following where a road leads, we say that we're
patiperros,
because we roam like yappy little strays sniffing a trail, with no fixed direction. We need escape, but as soon as we cross the cordillera we begin to miss home, and always come back. We're good travelers and terrible emigrants: nostalgia is always nipping at our heels.

Willie's family, and Willie's life, were chaotic, but instead of running away, as any reasonable person would do, I rushed
him “straight on, in the name of Chile,” like the war cry of the soldiers who took the Arica promontory in the nineteenth century. I was determined to win my place in California and in the heart of that man, cost what it may. In the United States, everyone, with the exception of the Indians, descends from someone who came from somewhere else; there was nothing special about my case. The twentieth century was the century of immigrants and refugees; the world had never seen so many humans fleeing violence or poverty abandon their place of origin to start a new life in a new land. My family and I are part of that diaspora; it isn't as bad as it sounds. I knew that I would never assimilate completely, I was too old to melt in that famous Yankee pot. I look like a Chilean, I dream, cook, make love, and write in Spanish, and most of my books have a pronounced Latin American flavor. I was convinced that I would never be a Californian, but I wouldn't pretend to be one either; all I aspired to was to earn a driver's license and learn enough English to order food in a restaurant. I didn't dream I would get much more.

I've had to work several years to adapt to California, but the process has been entertaining. Writing a book about Willie's life,
The Infinite Plan,
helped a lot because it forced me to travel across the state and study its history. I remember how offended I was at first by the gringos' direct manner of speaking—until I realized that most of them are considerate and courteous. I couldn't believe what hedonists they were, until I caught the fever and ended up soaking in a Jacuzzi surrounded by aromatic candles (meanwhile
my grandfather is whirling in his grave at such wantonness). I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent others to keep from boring the psychologist. I have adapted to the rhythm of this extraordinary place; I have favorite spots where I spend time leafing through books and walking and talking with friends; I like my routines, the seasons of the years, the huge oaks around my house, the scent of my cup of tea, the long nocturnal lament of the siren that warns ships of fog in the bay. I eagerly await the Thanksgiving turkey and the kitschy splendor of Christmas. I even take part in the obligatory Fourth of July picnic. And by the way, that picnic, like everything else in this land, is a model of efficiency: you drive at top speed, set up in a previously reserved space, spread out the baskets, bolt your food, kick the ball, and rush home to avoid the traffic. In Chile, a similar project would take three days.

The North Americans' sense of time is very special. They are short on patience. Everything must be quick, including food and sex, which the rest of the world treats ceremoniously. Gringos invented two terms that are untranslatable into most languages: “snack” and “quickie,” to refer to eating standing up and loving on the run . . . that, too, sometimes standing up. The most popular books are manuals: how to become a millionaire in ten easy lessons, how to lose fifteen pounds a week, how to recover from your divorce, and so on. People always go around looking for shortcuts and ways to
escape anything they consider unpleasant: ugliness, old age, weight, illness, poverty, and failure in any of its aspects.

This country's fascination with violence never ceases to shock me. It can be said that I have lived in interesting circumstances, I've seen revolutions, war, and urban crime, not to mention the brutalities of the military coup in Chile. Our home in Caracas was broken into seventeen times; almost everything we had was stolen, from a can opener to three cars, two from the street and the third after the thieves completely ripped off our garage door. At least none of them had bad intentions; one even left a note of thanks stuck to the refrigerator door. Compared to other places on earth, where a child can step on a mine on his way to school and lose two legs, the United States is safe as a convent, but the culture is addicted to violence. Proof of that is to be found in its sports, its games, its art, and, certainly not least, its films, which are bloodcurdling. North Americans don't want violence in their lives, but they need to experience it indirectly. They are enchanted by war, as long as it's not on their turf.