Portrait in Sepia (20 page)

When Nívea came to visit, always pregnant and trailed by one or two nursemaids with children in their arms, Señorita Pineda would abandon the blackboard, and while the nurses looked after the clutch of children we would drink tea, and those two would devote themselves to planning a more just and noble society. Even though Nívea had no surplus time or financial resources, she was the youngest and most active of the ladies in my grandmother's club. Sometimes we would go visit her former professor, Sor Maria Escapulario, who now that she was no longer allowed to exercise her passion for teaching directed a home for aged nuns; her congregation had decided that her progressive ideas were not appropriate for schoolgirls and that she would do less damage caring for doddering old women than sowing rebellion in childish minds. Sor Maria Escapulario made do with a small cell in a crumbling building but her garden was enchanted; she always welcomed us there with gratitude because she longed for intellectual conversation, a nonexistent commodity in the nunnery. We took her the books she had asked for and we had bought for her in the dusty Siglo de Oro bookshop. We would also bring presents of biscuits or some sweet to go with tea, which she prepared over a paraffin burner and served in chipped cups. In winter we would stay inside in her cell, she sitting on the one chair, Nívea and Señorita Pineda on the cot, and I on the floor, but any time the weather allowed we would walk through her magical garden among century-old trees, climbing jasmine, roses, camellias, and a myriad of flowers in marvelous disarray whose many perfumes made my head spin. I never lost a word of those conversations, even though I understood very little; I've never again heard such impassioned discussions. They whispered secrets, shouted with laughter, and talked about everything except religion, out of respect for Señorita Matilde Pineda, who maintained that God was dreamed up by men to control other men and especially women. Sor Maria Escapulario and Nívea were Catholics, but neither seemed fanatic, unlike most of the people around me in those days. In the United States no one talked about religion, while in Chile it was the main topic of after-dinner conversations. My grandmother and Uncle Frederick took me to mass from time to time so we could be seen, because not even Paulina del Valle, with all her audacity and fortune, could give herself the luxury of not attending. Neither her family nor her society would have tolerated it.

"Are you Catholic, Grandmother?" I asked every time I had to postpone a walk or reading a book in order to go to mass.

"Do you think it's possible not to be, in Chile?" she would reply.

"Señorita Pineda doesn't go to mass."

"And look at the price the poor woman's paid. As intelligent as she is, she could be headmistress of a school if she went to mass…"

Against all logic, Frederick Williams adapted very well to the huge del Valle family, and to Chile. He must have had innards of steel, because he was the only one who didn't get parasites from the drinking water and who could eat several empanadas without having his stomach burst into flames. No Chilean we knew, except Severo del Valle and Don Jose Francisco Vergara, spoke English; the second tongue of educated people was French, despite the large numbers of British in the port of Valparaiso, so that Williams had no choice but to learn Spanish. Señorita Pineda gave him lessons, and after a few months he could make himself understood in a functional but badly mangled Spanish and could read the newspapers and carry on a social life in the Club de la Union, where he often played bridge with Patrick Egon, the North American diplomat in charge of the legation. My grandmother saw to it that he was accepted in the club, hinting of aristocratic origins in the English court, which no one took the trouble to check because titles of nobility had been abolished since independence, and, besides, you had only to look at the man to believe. By definition, the members of the Club de la Union belonged to "well-known families," and were "men of position"—women were not allowed past the door—and had the identity of Frederick Williams been discovered, any of those fine gentlemen would have challenged him to a duel out of shame for having been tricked by a former California butler transformed into the most refined, elegant, and cultivated club member, best bridge player, and irrefutably one of the wealthiest men in town. Williams kept up with the business world in order to counsel my grandmother Paulina, and with politics, a compulsory theme of social conversation. He declared himself an avowed conservative, like almost everyone in our family, and lamented the fact that in Chile there was no monarchy as there was in Great Britain, because to him democracy seemed vulgar and not very efficient. In the inescapable Sunday dinners in my grandmother's home, he argued with Nívea and Severo, the only liberals in the clan. Their ideas were incompatible, but the three admired one another, and I believe that secretly they mocked the other members of the primitive del Valle tribe. On the rare occasions when we were with Don Jose Francisco Vergara, with whom he could have spoken English, Frederick Williams kept a respectful distance; given his intellectual superiority, Vergara was the one person who intimidated my uncle, and possibly the only one who would have immediately detected his status as a former servant. I suppose that many people wondered who I was and why Paulina had adopted me, but no one mentioned that to me. At those Sunday family dinners there were twenty or so cousins of various ages, and not one ever asked me about my parents; to accept me, it was enough to know I had the same last name.

•

It was more difficult for my grandmother to adapt in Chile than for her husband, even though her name and fortune opened all doors to her. She was suffocated by the pettiness and prudery, and missed her former freedom. It was not for nothing that she had lived more than thirty years in California, but as soon as she opened the doors to her mansion she became the leader of social life in Santiago, calling on her great style and common sense, knowing all too well how the wealthy are despised in Chile, especially if they put on airs. None of the liveried lackeys she had in San Francisco, only discreet maids in black dresses and white aprons; no spending a fortune on pharaonic soirees, only modest, family-style parties, so she could not be accused of being a social climber or a nouveau riche, the worst insult possible. She did have at her disposal, of course, her opulent carriages, her enviable horses, and her private box in the Teatro Municipal, with a little buffet area where she served ices and champagne to her guests. Despite her years and her pounds, Paulina del Valle set fashions, because she had just returned from Europe and it was assumed that she was au courant with modern styles and events. In that austere and low-key society, she set herself up as the beacon of foreign influences, the one lady in her circle who spoke English, received magazines and books from New York and Paris, ordered fabrics and shoes and hats directly from London, and smoked in public the same slim Egyptian cigarettes as her son Matias. She bought art and at her table served food no one had ever seen, because even the most parvenu families still ate like the unpolished captains of the Conquest: soup, stew, roast meat, beans, and heavy colonial desserts. The first time my grandmother served foie gras and an assortment of cheeses imported from France, only the men who had been in Europe were able to eat them. When one lady smelled the camemberts and port-saluts, she was so nauseated she had to run to the bathroom and vomit. My grandmother's house was a gathering place for artists and young writers of both sexes, who met to show off works generally within the broad frame of classicism. Unless a person was white and had a good name, he or she had to have unusual talent to be accepted; in that regard Paulina was no different from the rest of Chile's high society. In Santiago, intellectuals gathered in cafes and clubs, and only men were included, based on the belief that women were better off stirring the soup than writing verses. My grandmother's initiative in including female artists in her salon was a novelty that bordered on the amoral.

My life changed in that mansion on Ejercito Libertador. For the first time since the death of my grandfather Tao Chi'en, I had a sense of stability, of living somewhere that didn't move and didn't change, a kind of fortress with its foundations deep in solid ground. I took over the entire house; there wasn't a cranny I hadn't explored or a corner I hadn't claimed, including the rooftop, where I passed hours watching the doves, and the servants' quarters, even though I was forbidden to go there. The enormous grounds stretched between two streets and had two entrances, the main one on Calle Ejército Libertador and the servants' entrance on the street behind; there were dozens of sitting rooms, bedrooms, gardens, terraces, hiding places, attics, and staircases. One salon was red, another blue, and a third, used only on grand occasions, was gold, and there was a marvelous glassed-in gallery where the family spent a lot of time among huge Chinese flowerpots, ferns, and caged canaries. In the main dining room there were a Pompeian fresco that ran around all four walls, a number of sideboards filled with collections of china and silver, a crystal teardrop chandelier, and a large window embellished with a perpetually playing Moorish mosaic fountain.

Once my grandmother decided not to send me to school and my classes with Señorita Pineda became routine, I was very happy. Every time I asked a question, that magnificent teacher, instead of giving the answer, showed me how to find it. She taught me to organize my thoughts, to do research, to read and listen, to seek alternatives, to resolve old problems with new solutions, to argue logically. Above all, she taught me not to believe anything blindly, to doubt, and to question even what seemed irrefutably true, such as man's superiority over woman, or one race or social class over another. These were subversive ideas in a patriarchal country in which Indians were never mentioned and you had to descend only one rung in the hierarchy of social classes to disappear from collective memory. She was the first female intellectual I met in my life. Nívea, for all her intelligence and education, could not match my teacher. With her intuition and enormous generosity of spirit, Nívea was half a century ahead of her time, but she never posed as an intellectual, not even in my grandmother's famous gatherings, where she stood out with her passionate speeches on suffrage and her theological doubts. In appearance, Señorita Pineda could not have been more Chilean, that mixture of Spanish and Indian that produces short, broad-hipped women with dark eyes and hair, high cheekbones, and a heavy way of walking, as if they were nailed to the ground. Her mind was unusual for her time and situation. She came from a vigorous family in the south; her father worked for the railroad, and of her eight brothers and sisters she was the only one to finish her studies. She was a disciple and friend of Don Pedro Tey, the owner of the Siglo de Oro bookstore, a Catalan gruff in behavior but softhearted, who guided her reading and lent or gave her books because she couldn't afford them. In any exchange of opinions, however banal, Tey would take the opposite side. I heard him assure her, for example, that South Americans are macaques with a tendency toward extravagance, overindulgence, and laziness, but the minute Señorita Pineda agreed, he would immediately change over and add that at least they were better than his Spanish compatriots, who were always irritable and would fight a duel at the drop of a hat. Although it was impossible for them to agree about anything, they got along very well. Don Pedro Tey must have been at least twenty years older than my teacher, but when they began to talk, the difference in ages evaporated: he grew younger in his enthusiasm and she older in presence and maturity.

Within a period of ten years Severo and Nívea del Valle had six children, and would go on procreating until they had fifteen. I have known Nívea for over twenty years, and have never seen her without a baby in her arms; her fertility would have been a curse if she hadn't loved children so much. "I would give anything to have you teach my children!" Nívea would sigh when she met Señorita Matilde Pineda. "But there are so many of them, Señora Nívea, and I have my hands full with Aurora," my teacher would reply. Severo had become a well-known lawyer, one of the youngest pillars of society and a conspicuous member of the Liberal parry. He didn't agree with many points of the politics of the president, also a Liberal, and since he was incapable of hiding his criticisms, he was never called on to serve in the government. His opinions would soon lead him to form a dissident group that went over to the opposition when the Civil War broke out, as did Matilde Pineda and her friend from the Siglo de Oro bookshop. My uncle Severo favored me among his dozens of nieces and nephews; he called me his "adopted daughter" and told me that he had given me the del Valle name, but each time I asked if he knew who my real father was, he would answer with an evasive, "Let's just pretend that I am." The subject gave my grandmother a headache, and if I bedeviled Nívea she would tell me to talk to Severo. It was a vicious circle.

"Grandmother, I can't live with so much mystery," I once told Paulina del Valle.

"Why not? People who have hellish upbringings are always more creative," she answered.

"Or end up crazy," I suggested.

"Among the del Valles, Aurora, there are no out-and-out crazies, only eccentrics, as in any respectable family," she assured me.

Señorita Matilde Pineda swore to me that she knew nothing of my origins, and added that there was nothing to worry about, because it doesn't matter where you come from in this life, only where you're going, but when she taught me Mendel's genetic theories she had to admit that there are good reasons to find out who our ancestors are. What if my father were a madman who went around slitting women's throats?

•

The revolution began the same day I reached puberty. I woke up with my nightgown stained with something that looked like chocolate. I hid in the bathroom, embarrassed, to wash myself off; then discovered I hadn't soiled myself after all, I had blood between my legs. I shot off, terrified, to tell my grandmother about it and for once didn't find her in her huge imperial bed, something unheard of in a person who never got up until noon. I ran downstairs, followed by a madly barking Caramelo, burst like a spooked horse into the library, and found myself face to face with Severo and Paulina del Valle: he dressed for a journey and she wearing the purple satin bathrobe that made her look like a bishop during Holy Week.