Portrait in Sepia (10 page)

•

Severo del Valle knew nothing about what had happened that day, or the events that followed, until three months later. In April 1879 Chile declared war on her neighbors, Peru and Bolivia, in a dispute over land, nitrates, and pride. The War of the Pacific had begun. When the news reached San Francisco, Severo went to his aunt and uncle to notify them that he was leaving to join the fight.

"Didn't we agree that you were never going near a barracks again?" his aunt Paulina reminded him.

"This is different—my country is in danger."

"You're a civilian."

"I'm a sergeant in the reserves," he corrected.

"The war will be over before you can get to Chile. Let's see what the newspapers have to say, and what your family thinks. Don't rush into this," his aunt counseled.

"It is my duty." Severo was thinking about his grandfather, the patriarch Agustin del Valle, who had recently died, shrunken to the size of a chimpanzee but with his bad disposition intact.

"Your duty is here, with me. The war is good for business. This is the moment to speculate in sugar," Paulina argued.

"Sugar?"

"None of those three countries produces it, and in times of trouble people eat more sweets."

"How do you know that, Aunt?"

"Personal experience, my boy."

Severo left to pack his suitcases, though he would not leave on the ship that sailed for the south days later, as he had planned, but at the end of October. That same night he packed his aunt told him they were expecting a strange visit and she wanted him to be present because her husband was on a trip and the matter might require the counsel of a lawyer. At seven that evening Williams, with the air of disdain he adopted when obliged to serve people of inferior social rank, showed in a tall, gray-haired Chinese man dressed in Severo black and a small woman with a youthful and inoffensive appearance, but haughty as Williams himself. Tao Chi'en and Eliza Sommers found themselves in the wild game salon, as it was called, surrounded by lions, elephants, and other African beasts staring down at them from their gilded frames. Paulina frequently saw Eliza at her pastry shop but she had never come across her anywhere else; they belonged to separate worlds. Nor did she know the Celestial who, to judge by the way he was holding Eliza's arm, must be her husband or her lover. Paulina felt ridiculous in her forty-five-room palace, dressed in black silk and dripping with diamonds, facing that modest couple who greeted her with simplicity, maintaining their distance. She noticed that her son Matias acknowledged them nervously with only a nod, without offering his hand, and took a seat apart from the group behind a jacaranda wood desk, apparently absorbed in cleaning his pipe. Severo del Valle hadn't a glimmer of doubt as to why Lynn Sommers's parents were in the house, and he wished he were a thousand leagues away. Intrigued, on her guard, Paulina did not waste time by offering them something to drink but gestured to Williams to retire and close the doors. "What can I do for you?" she asked. Then Tao Chi'en began to explain, with no change of expression, that his daughter Lynn was pregnant, that the author of that offense was Matias, and that he expected the only possible restitution. For once in her life, the del Valle matriarch lost her tongue. She sat stunned, gasping like a beached whale, and when finally she got her voice back, it was to squawk like a crow.

"Mother, I have no connection with these people. I do not know them, and I do not know what they are talking about," said Matias from the desk, carved ivory pipe in hand.

"Lynn has told us everything," Eliza interrupted, getting to her feet, her voice quivering but holding back the tears.

"If it's money you want—" Matias began, but his mother cut him off with a ferocious glare.

"You must forgive us," Paulina said, speaking to Tao Chi'en and Eliza Sommers. "My son is as surprised as I am. I'm sure we can work this out in a decent way, whatever's right."

"Lynn wishes to marry, of course. She has told us that you two are in love," said Tao Chi'en, also standing by now, speaking to Matias, who responded with a curt laugh that sounded like a dog barking.

"You seem like respectable people," said Matias. "Nonetheless, your daughter is not, as any of my friends can attest. I don't know which of them is responsible for your unhappy circumstance, but certainly I am not."

Eliza Sommers had completely lost her color. She was as pale as plaster and trembling so hard she seemed about to fall. Tao Chi'en took her firmly by the arm and, supporting her as he would an invalid, led her toward the door. Severo del Valle thought he would die of anguish and shame, as if he were the one responsible for what had happened. He hurried to open the door for them and accompanied them outside, where a hired carriage was waiting. He could not think of anything to say to them. He returned to the salon in time to hear the end of an argument.

"I will not tolerate having bastards of my blood strewn about the landscape!" Paulina screamed.

"Define your loyalties, Mother. Whom are you going to believe, your own son or a pastry shop owner and a Chinaman?" Matias fired back, slamming the door as he left.

That night Severo del Valle confronted Matias. He had enough information to be able to deduce events and he intended to disarm his cousin through tenacious questioning, but that wasn't necessary; Matias immediately told him everything. He felt trapped in an absurd situation for which he was not responsible, he said. Lynn Sommers had pursued him and handed herself to him on a tray. He never really intended to seduce her—the bet had been nothing but bombast. For two months he had been trying to wean her away without destroying her. He was afraid she would do something foolish; she was one of those hysterical young girls capable of throwing herself into the sea for love, he explained. He admitted that Lynn was little more than a child and that she had come to his arms a virgin, her head filled with sugary poems and completely ignorant of the rudiments of sex, but he repeated that he had no obligation to her, and that he had never mentioned the word
love
to her, much less
marriage.
Girls like her always brought complications, he added, which was why he avoided them like the plague. He had never imagined that his brief meeting with Lynn would have such consequences. They had been together a handful of times, he said, and he had recommended that afterward she douche with vinegar and mustard; how could he know that she was so astoundingly fertile? In any case, he was willing to pay the expenses of the baby, the money was the least of it, but he did not plan to give the child his name because there was no proof it was his. "I will not marry now, or ever, Severo. Do you know anyone with less vocation for bourgeois life than I?" he concluded.

One week later, Severo del Valle went to the clinic of Tao Chi'en, after having mulled for hours the scabrous mission his cousin had assigned him. The
zhong-yi
had attended his last patient for the day, and he received Severo alone in the small waiting room of his office on the first floor. He listened impassively to Severo's offer.

"Lynn does not need money, that is why she has parents," he said, reflecting no emotion. "In any case, I appreciate your concern, Mr. del Valle."

"How is Miss Sommers?" asked Severo, humiliated by the other man's dignity.

"My daughter still believes there has been a misunderstanding. She is sure that soon Mr. Rodríguez de Santa Cruz will come to ask her to marry him, and out of love, not duty."

"Mr. Chi'en, I can't tell you what I would give to change these circumstances. The truth is that my cousin is not in good health, he cannot marry. I regret it more than I can say," murmured Severo del Valle.

"We regret it much more. Lynn is merely a diversion for your cousin. To Lynn, he is her life," Tao Chi'en said softly.

"I would like to explain to your daughter, Mr. Chi'en. May I see her, please?"

"I must ask Lynn. At the moment she does not want to see anyone, but I will let you know if she changes her mind," the
zhong-yi
replied, walking Severo to the door.

•

Severo del Valle waited three weeks without news of Lynn, until he couldn't contain his impatience any longer and went to the tea shop to ask Eliza Sommers to allow him to speak with her daughter. He expected to be met with unyielding resistance, but Eliza, enveloped in her aroma of sugar and vanilla, received him with the same serenity Tao Chi'en had shown when he spoke with him. At first Eliza had blamed herself for what happened: she had been careless, she hadn't been capable of protecting her daughter, and now the girl's life was ruined. She wept in her husband's arms until he reminded her that when she was sixteen she had suffered a similar experience: the same excessive love, abandonment by her lover, pregnancy, terror. The difference was that Lynn was not alone; she would not have to run away from home and sail half the length of the hemisphere in the hold of a ship to follow an unworthy man, as Eliza had done. Lynn had come to her parents, and it was their great good fortune that they were able to help her, Tao Chi'en had said. In China or in Chile, their daughter would be lost, society would have no forgiveness, but in California, a land without tradition, there was room for everyone. The
zhong-yi
gathered his small family together and told them that the baby was a gift from heaven and that they should await it with joy; tears were bad for karma, they harmed the creature in the mother's womb and marked it for a life of uncertainty. This infant boy or girl would be welcome. Its uncle Lucky, and he himself, its grandfather, would be worthy substitutes for the absent father. And as for Lynn's thwarted love, well, they would think about that later. He seemed so enthusiastic about the prospect of being a grandfather that Eliza was embarrassed about her prudish concerns; she dried her tears and never again blamed herself. If to Tao Chi'en the compassion he felt for his daughter counted more than family honor, the same should be true for her, she decided; her duty was to protect Lynn and nothing else mattered. That was what she calmly told Severo del Valle that day in the tearoom. She did not understand the Chilean's reasons for insisting on speaking with her daughter, but she interceded in his behalf, and finally Lynn agreed to see him. She barely remembered him, but she welcomed him with the hope that he was there as an emissary of Matias.

During the months that followed, Severo del Valle's visits to the home of the Chi'ens became a habit. He would come at nightfall, when he was through work, tie his horse in front of the house, and appear, hat in one hand and some gift in the other, until gradually Lynn's room filled with toys and baby clothes. Tao Chi'en taught him to play mahjongg, and they spent hours with Eliza and Lynn moving the beautiful ivory tiles. Lucky didn't join them because to him it seemed a waste of time to play without betting. In contrast, Tao Chi'en played only in the bosom of his family, because in his youth he had sworn never to play for money and he was sure that if he broke that vow he would bring down some misfortune. The Chi'ens became so accustomed to Severo's presence that when he was late they would consult the clock, worried. Eliza Sommers took advantage of his visits to practice her Spanish and remember Chile, that far-off country she still thought of as her homeland but had not set foot in for more than thirty years. They discussed the details of the war, and political changes. After several decades of conservative governments the liberals had triumphed and the struggle to break the hold of the clergy and enact reforms had divided every Chilean family. Most men, however Catholic they might be, were eager to modernize the country, but the women, who were much more religious, turned against their fathers and husbands to defend the Church. As Nívea explained in her letters, no matter how liberal the government, the fate of the poor had not changed, and she added that, as they had forever, upper-class women and the clergy were pulling the strings of power. Separating church and state was no doubt a great step forward, the girl wrote behind the backs of the del Valle clan, which did not tolerate such ideas, but it was still the same families who controlled everything. "Let's start another political party, Severo, one that seeks justice and equality," she proposed, fired by her clandestine conversations with Sor Maria Escapulario.

In the south of the continent the War of the Pacific raged on, increasingly brutal, while Chilean armies prepared to begin the campaign in the desert of the north, a territory as wild and inhospitable as the moon, where supplying the troops turned out to be a titanic task. The only way to transport soldiers to the places where the battles would be fought was by sea, but the Peruvian navy was not going to permit that. Severo del Valle thought that the war was being won by Chile, whose organization and ferocity seemed unbeatable. It was not just weapons and warlike character that determined the result of a conflict, Severo explained to Eliza Sommers, but the example of a handful of heroic men that could inflame the soul of a nation.

"I believe that the war was decided in May, señora, in a naval battle just outside the port of Iquique. There an obsolete Chilean frigate held out against a far superior Peruvian force. Arturo Prat was in command, a young, very religious, and rather timid captain who never took part in the revels and escapades of military life and who had distinguished himself so little that his superiors had no confidence in his valor. That day, however, he was converted into the hero who galvanized the spirits of all Chileans."

Eliza knew the details; she had read them in an out-of-date copy of the
Times
of London, in which the episode was described as "one of the most glorious combats that has ever taken place. An antiquated wood ship, on the edge of being unseaworthy, bore up for three and a half hours under bombardment from land and a powerful armor-clad ship, and went down with its banner proudly flying." The Peruvian vessel, under the command of Admiral Miguel Grau, a hero of his own nation, set a direct course for the Chilean frigate, piercing her with its ram, at which point Captain Prat leapt onto the attacking ship, followed by one of his men. Both died minutes later, shot on the enemy deck. With the second ramming, several more men leapt onto the Peruvian vessel, emulating their captain, and they too were riddled with bullets. Three-quarters of the crew died before the frigate was sunk. Such unimagined heroism transmitted courage to their compatriots and so impressed their enemies that Admiral Grau repeated with amazement, "How those Chileans fight!"