All Roads Lead to Austen (18 page)

Pinochet and company forced the elected president to put a bullet in his own head and tortured and killed thousands of Allende's supporters in 1973, among them musician Victor Jara, Chile's Bob Dylan (picture Nixon having Bob Dylan tortured and killed, and you get the idea). Given that thousands more Chileans were kidnapped, tortured, and killed over the next decades, it's hard to see how anybody could call Pinochet anything but a dictator. I'd warned my students, however, not to make assumptions. A considerable percentage of Chileans felt that Pinochet saved their country from becoming another Cuba. Today Chile has a strong, stable economy, and some credit this to Pinochet (while others point out that Chile
always
had a strong, stable economy, in comparison with its neighbors).

Basically, it's best not to discuss the coup unless somebody brings it up. It's a raw, painful subject, one that can surface unexpectedly. The day before the cemetery trip I'd casually mentioned to the doormen how much I enjoyed walking along the banks above the Río Mapocho when, suddenly, Emilio fixed me with a hard stare.

“After the coup, that river is where people went to look for their brothers, their children. Their mothers.” His voice cracked. “The banks were stained with blood because that's where those bastards would throw the people they'd murdered.” He spoke slowly, deliberately, wanting to make sure I understood every word.

I could only nod. Two things were clear: that some terrible, terrible story lay behind this pain and that any response I made would sound trite. Demetrio the Spaniard, seated next to him at the counter, put an arm around his shoulder. After a moment, Emilio gave a short, uncomfortable laugh. “But you're right; it's nice to walk along the river now.”

Standing at Allende's grave with my students, I recalled that exchange as a solemn silence descended among the students, typically so animated and talkative. It was one of those moments that
never
could have happened in the classroom. On the granite wall above the crypt are inscribed the words of Allende's final speech to the Chilean public during the bombardment to wrench him from La Moneda, the Chilean White House. Two of the students slowly sounded the words out in Spanish, touching the stone gently as if reading Braille.

For anyone wondering if Salvador Allende and novelist Isabel Allende are related, they are. He was her cousin, and his overthrow sent her into exile in Venezuela, where she wrote
La
Casa
de
los
Espíritus
(The House of the Spirits), her best-known novel. But most Chileans I asked said, “Her newest novel is better,
Inés del Alma Mía
—Inés of My Soul—about the Spanish settlement of Chile.”

Shortly after our field trip I hunted for
Inés
near the University of Chile, an area Carmen Gloria told me was a used book heaven. In the block closest to the metro stop Universidad de Chile are dozens of small used books stalls, along with an extensive indoor book mall and several independent bookshops. On the right days of the week you can also find a large book fair several blocks south of the metro, near the Parque Almagro.

This sort of book commerce has all but disappeared from the States, a fact that truly makes me sad. A person simply can't earn a living in a major city with a bookstall of the size operated by many people in Santiago. Large chains and Internet businesses are efficient, but for real booklovers, there's nothing to replace the pleasure of browsing used bookshelves and visiting with people who know every title they have for sale. I quickly found
Inés
there at a good price (although, alas, still no Nancy Drew in Spanish).

Austen never wrote historical fiction, but given her complaint that history is “dull, with the men all so good for nothing and hardly any women,” she would have approved of Allende's giving us an important female perspective, although she would have been scandalized by the story itself. Born in Spain in 1507, Inés Suárez sailed to Peru in search of her husband, who had followed Pizarro to the “New World.” By the time she arrived he was dead, but the dashing Pedro de Valdivia was very much alive. They became lovers, despite Valdivia's having a wife in Spain. Inés joined the party of
conquistadores
heading south to claim the territories that would become Chile—if only they could subdue the Mapuche, the indigenous people already living there.

Inés saved Valdivia from attempts by subordinates to hijack the expedition, nursed men in battle, and even donned armor and fought. Eventually Valdivia, now considered the founder of Chile, died gruesomely at the hands of the
Mapuche
whose land he had invaded; Inés married one of his young captains and lived to a ripe old age.

The book dealer who'd sold me Allende's historical novel had it right when he'd handed the volume over with a smile: “If you haven't heard this story before, you're going to love it!”

***

Who knows if Inés and Valdivia were the cause, but Chileans seem to have had an odd spin on marriage and extramarital hanky panky ever since. Affairs don't raise too many eyebrows, perhaps since divorce only became legal in Chile in—I am
not
making this up—2004. Previously, people with enough money and influence could get an annulment, although it's hard to imagine how they did so with a straight face when they had children. To this day average Chileans settle for separation and on-the-side arrangements. Affairs just-for-the-heck-of-it happen, too.

For instance. Every time I spoke with the tall, handsome security guard at the university building, he kept me updated on his wife's extended stay in Spain with their daughter. Late one afternoon he shifted the topic from his wife's absence to my being all alone in Chile, far away from my family—surely I was lonely, too, and surely it would be nice for us to be lonely together, yes?

I'm no expert, but I'd like to think that in the United States, cheating still carries some sense of shame. Don't married American men on the prowl sneak their rings off and fake bachelorhood? In Chileans' defense, they're very up-front about things; the guard had made clear he was off the marriage market. When I turned him down he shrugged and smiled but didn't seem too put out. Thank god, since I'd now have to see him every day I taught.

This little encounter forced me to rethink a decision I'd made only the day before. Don Alberto, the friendly doorman at the apartment, had asked me out to dinner. I usually don't date men in the “old enough to be my father” category, and of course there was Diego. But given our current separation and my uncertainty about the long-distance situation, keeping our options open was only reasonable. And yes, I was lonely. Don Alberto was attractive for his age and had a kindly, patient air. He could be just the man to help me adjust to a new city. In a moment of weakness, I'd agreed to meet Don Alberto that upcoming weekend at a nearby restaurant.

Then in a moment of clarity, after the brush with the amorous security guard, it dawned on me that Don Alberto probably wasn't single. Marriage was the norm in Chile, and newly legal divorce was out of the reach of a doorman's salary.

“There's something I need to know,” I said to Don Alberto the day before our date, as he abandoned his post yet again to walk me to my apartment. “Are you married?”

I watched the painful struggle on his face between “I don't want to lie” and “I don't want to blow this date.” To his credit, honesty won out. “Well, yes. I am. But things with my wife are—”

I gently stopped him. “Thank you for being honest. But I can't go out with you if you're married.” Not only would Jane Austen have approved—if it had happened to her, no doubt she would have written something scathing about him in a letter to Cassandra (a letter Cassandra would then have dutifully burned upon her sister's death). But Austen's good judgment would probably have kept her from getting into this type of situation in the first place. What had possessed me to agree to a date with a man I'd now have to see multiple times every day?

Don Alberto eyed me wistfully for the next week but didn't say a word. Then one morning as I was in the basement loading the dryer, I turned to find him watching me from the doorway.

“Won't you reconsider?” he said without preamble. “Can't we just have coffee, just as friends?”

“Well, if you mean it—just as friends.” Coffee was innocent enough.

“Really?” he said, smiling brightly. “That's wonderful!” Then he grabbed my face with both hands and laid a great big kiss on me, tongue and all.

I shoved him backward, too stunned to speak. Had he been younger, I would have socked him on the jaw. Given that he was married, he probably had kids, and given his age,
they
had kids. I couldn't go around punching somebody's granddad even if he had frenched me, uninvited.

“Forgive me! Forgive me!” he sputtered. “I thought that you—I mean I—” Then he turned and dashed out of the laundry room.

Flabbergasted, I scanned the room for a security camera. God forbid Demetrio the Spaniard and Emilio had witnessed that outrageous scene, me in my “everything's dirty” laundry clothes and early morning bed-head, and Don Alberto acting like a teenager. No camera in sight. At least I was spared that embarrassment.

I decided to debrief the episode with Carmen Gloria. Smart, well read, and endlessly curious about American culture, she was a huge fan of
Sex and the City
and adored girl talk. In my five months in Chile I never once saw her when she wasn't dressed to the nines, looking fabulous.

We met up at Santiago's Central Market. Built at the end of the nineteenth century to shelter the traditional seafood and produce markets, it was eventually converted into shops and restaurants. Santigueños (and clever tourists) flock there for the high-quality food and lively atmosphere.

After we'd caught up on the latest gossip at the university, I shared my Don Alberto story. Carmen Gloria shook her head most of the time I was talking.

“
Puchas!
” she exclaimed when I'd finished. A softening of the ever-popular word “
puta
” (whore), “
puchas
” means anything from “Oh, boy” to “Holy crap!” depending on how you inflect it. “You're pretty dumb for a smart woman,
sabes?
First of all, don't
ever
tell this story to anybody at the university. Promise me.”

“I promise, Carmen Gloria.”

“Good. You can tell me this kind of thing because I'm open-minded, you know.” Suddenly, I got the sense that there was more to this story than I'd realized. I'd been wondering how I'd managed to send the wrong signals, but clearly, it went beyond that.

“Okay,” she continued. “First of all, you can't be friends with Chilean men. Period. Any Chilean man asking you
anywhere
, unless it's strictly work related, is coming on to you. Telling a man you'll have coffee with him means you're giving him the okay to try for more. Second—and here's the real reason you can't tell
anybody
else this story—you're a university professor.”

Since I already knew that, I waited to see where she was heading.

“University professors do
not
date doormen,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze across the table. “I'm not saying this is
right
—I'm just telling you how it is. This Alberto
knows
that university professors don't date doormen, so he naturally assumed that if you were willing to go out with him, it's because you were looking for some
fun
. You know—something
physical
. You're not offended that I'm telling you this, are you,
querida
?”

I wasn't offended, but my sense of order was—this was
Emma
territory, and Chile was supposed to be about
Sense
and
Sensibility
! Class is an issue in all of Austen's novels, but the precise ranking of who is above whom (and how far) and who can be matched with whom is more appropriate for a conversation between Emma and Mr. Elton or Emma and Mr. Knightley. Apparently, if I magically landed in
Emma
, my being a professor means that Robert Martin, the kind farmer who loved Emma's protégé Harriet, would be off limits—except for a roll in the hay.

“I guess I need every bit of help I can get with the Chilean dating scene, Carmen Gloria. So no, I'm not offended!”

She laughed and patted my arm. “What a sweetheart you are! Now let's go walk off some of this big lunch, so that we have room for ice cream at
La
Rosa
!”

***

Blundering into class issues made me decide that it was time to try
Martín Rivas
. In Guatemala, practically everybody I'd spoken to had read José Milla's
Historia
de
un
Pepe
as a student.
Martín Rivas
is the book Chileans tend to remember from school. The author, Alberto Blest Gana, was born in Santiago in 1830 to an Irish father and a Chilean mother, which makes the Father of the Chilean Novel half Irish, just like Bernardo O'Higgins, the Father of Modern Chile.

I could see right away why
Orgullo
y
Prejuicio
brought
Martín Rivas
to mind for Oscar. I wish I had the book in electronic form, to search the number of times the word
orgullo
is used. “
Lo
que
predomina
en
el
Santiago
es
el
orgullo
,” proclaims a major character: “What rules in Santiago is pride.” Martín arrives in the capital seeking help from his father's former business partner. Naturally, the wealthy man has a daughter worth falling in love with, who is pride itself—the lovely Leonor. Every man in Santiago pursues her, but she decides that nothing would be quite so pleasurable as bending poor but proud Martín to her will. When her flirting gives way to real affection for him, she is mortified.