Maya's Notebook: A Novel (11 page)

The three of us competed in a bad behavior contest. We’d established a system of points for offenses we got away with, consisting basically of destroying other people’s property, selling marijuana, ecstasy, LSD, and stolen prescription drugs, spray-painting the school walls, paying with forged checks, and shoplifting. We kept our scores in a notebook, counted them up at the end of the month, and whoever had the most got the prize of a bottle of the strongest and cheapest vodka on the market, KU:L, a Polish vodka that could also be used as paint thinner. My friends boasted of their promiscuity, venereal infections, and abortions, as if they were badges of honor, although in the time we spent together I didn’t see any of that. By comparison, my prudishness was embarrassing, so I hurried to lose my virginity, and did it with Rick Laredo, the dumbest dumbass on the planet.

I’ve gotten used to Manuel
Arias’s habits with a flexibility and courtesy that would surprise my grandma. She still considers me a little shit, a term of reproach or affection, depending on her tone of voice, but it’s almost always the former. She doesn’t know how much I’ve changed, how I’ve turned into a real charmer. “We learn the hard way, and life’s the best teacher,” is another of her sayings, which in my case has turned out to be true.

At seven in the morning Manuel stokes up the fire in the stove to heat the water for the shower and the towels, then
Eduvigis or her daughter Azucena arrives to make us a splendid breakfast of eggs laid by her hens, bread fresh out of her oven, and foamy, warm milk from her cow. The milk has a peculiar odor, which I found a bit gross at first but now love; it smells of stables, of pasture, of fresh dung. Eduvigis wants me to have breakfast in bed “like a señorita”—they still do things like that in Chile in some houses, where they have
nanas
, as they call domestic servants—but I only do that on Sundays, when I sleep in, because Juanito, her grandson, comes and we read in bed with Fahkeen at our feet. We’re halfway through the first
Harry Potter
book.

In the afternoon, once I’ve finished my work with Manuel, I jog into town; people give me strange looks and more than one has asked me where I’m going in such a hurry. I need exercise, or I’ll be a blimp, since I’m eating like I’m making up for all the meals I skipped last year. The Chilota diet has too many carbs, but you don’t see anyone obese around here, probably because of the physical effort everybody’s always expending. You really have to move here. Azucena Corrales is a little overweight for thirteen, but I haven’t managed to convince her to come running with me. She’s too embarrassed—“What will people think?” she says. She leads a very solitary life, because there aren’t many young people in the village, only a few fishermen, half a dozen idle teenagers high on marijuana, and the guy at the Internet café, where the coffee is instant and the Internet is capricious, and where I try to go as little as possible to avoid the temptation of e-mail. The only people on this island who are incommunicado are Doña Lucinda and me: in her case because she’s really old and in
mine because I’m a fugitive. The rest of the villagers have cell phones and access to computers at the Internet café.

I don’t get bored. This surprises me, because I used to get bored so easily I’d even yawn during action movies. I’ve gotten used to empty hours, long days, and spare time. I amuse myself with very little—my work routine with Manuel, Auntie Blanca’s terrible novels, my neighbors on the island, and the kids, who travel in a pack, unsupervised. Juanito Corrales is my favorite. He’s like a doll, with his skinny little body, his big head and black eyes that seem to see everything. People think he’s slow because he never says more than he needs to, but he’s really smart: he realized early on that nobody cares what anyone else says, that’s why he doesn’t bother to speak. I play soccer with the boys, but I haven’t been able to interest the girls, partly because the boys refuse to play with them and partly because they’ve never seen a women’s soccer team here. Auntie Blanca and I have decided this should change; as soon as classes begin in March and we have all the kids captive, we’ll take care of that.

The people in the village
have opened their doors to me, though only in a manner of speaking, since no doors are ever locked. My Spanish has improved quite a bit, so we can have sort of awkward conversations. Chilotes have a strong accent and use words and expressions you don’t find in any grammar textbooks that, according to Manuel, come from old Castilian, because Chiloé was isolated from the
rest of the country for a long time. Chile gained independence from Spain in 1810, but Chiloé waited to join the republic until 1826, making it the last Spanish territory in the southern cone of the Americas.

Manuel had warned me that Chilotes are distrustful, but that hasn’t been my experience; they’ve been really nice to me. They invite me into their homes, we sit by the stove to chat and drink maté, a bitter green herbal tea served in a gourd, which they pass around, everyone sipping through the same
bombilla
, a silver straw with a filter on the bottom. They tell me about their illnesses and the plants’ illnesses, which might be caused by a neighbor’s envy. Several families have fallen out with each other due to gossip or suspicions of witchcraft. I don’t understand how they manage to stay enemies, since there are only about three hundred of us living here in a pretty small area, like hens in a chicken run. No secret can be kept in this community, which is like one big family, divided, resentful, and forced to live together and help each other out when necessary.

We talk about potatoes—there are a hundred varieties or “qualities,” as they call them: red potatoes, purple potatoes, black, white, and yellow ones, round potatoes, long ones, potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes—how you have to plant them when the moon is waning and never on a Sunday, how you have to give thanks to God as you plant and harvest the first one, and how you have to sing to them while they’re sleeping under the earth. Doña Lucinda, who’s 109 years old, as far as anyone can tell, is one of the singers who entices up the crop: “Chilote, take care of your
potato / care for your potato, Chilote / don’t let anyone from away come and take it, Chilote.” They complain about the salmon farms, responsible for lots of damage, and the failings of the government, which makes a lot of promises and hardly ever keeps any of them, but they all agree that Michelle Bachelet is the best president they’ve ever had, even if she is a woman. Nobody’s perfect.

Manuel is far from perfect: he’s gruff, austere, lacks a cozy belly or a poetic vision of the universe and the human heart, like my Popo, but I’ve grown fond of him, I can’t deny it. I like him as much as Fahkeen, even though Manuel never makes the slightest effort to win anyone over. His biggest fault is his obsession with order. This house looks like a military barracks; sometimes I leave my stuff lying around on the floor or dirty dishes in the sink on purpose, to teach him to relax a bit. We don’t fight, at least not literally, but we do have our run-ins. Today, for example, I didn’t have anything to wear, because I forgot to do my laundry, and I grabbed a couple of his things that were drying by the stove. I assumed that since other people can take whatever they feel like from this house, I could borrow something he’s not using.

“The next time you want to wear a pair of my underpants, please do me the favor of asking for them,” he said in a tone of voice I didn’t much like.

“You’re so fussy, Manuel! Anyone would think it’s your only pair,” I answered in a tone that he might not have liked too much either.

“I never take your things, Maya.”

“Because I don’t have anything! Here, take your fucking shorts!”—and I started undoing my pants to give them back
to him, but he stopped me, in terror.

“No, no! Keep them, Maya, you can have them.”

And I, like an idiot, burst into tears. Of course I wasn’t crying about that—who knows why I was crying, maybe because I’m about to get my period or because last night I was remembering my Popo’s death and I’ve been walking around sad all day. My Popo would have hugged me, and two minutes later we’d be laughing together, but Manuel started walking around in circles and kicking the furniture, as if he’d never seen anybody cry before. Finally he had the brilliant idea of making me a Nescafé with condensed milk, which calmed me down a little so we could talk. He asked me to try to understand, that it had been twenty years since he’d lived with a woman, his habits are very deeply ingrained, order is important in a space as small as this house, and cohabitation would be easier if we respected each other’s underwear. Poor man.

“Hey, Manuel, I know a lot of psychology, because I spent more than a year among lunatics and therapists. I’ve been studying your case, and what you’ve got is fear,” I told him.

“Of what?” He smiled.

“I don’t know, but I can find out. Let me explain, this obsession with order and territory is a manifestation of neurosis. Look at the fuss you’ve made over a lousy pair of shorts, when you don’t even blink if a stranger walks in and borrows your stereo. You try to control everything, especially your emotions, in order to feel secure, but any moron can see there’s no such thing as security in this world, Manuel.”

“Ah, I see. Go on—”

“You seem serene and distant, like Siddhartha, but you don’t fool me: I know inside you’re all screwed up. You know who Siddhartha was, right? Buddha.”

“Yes, the Buddha.”

“Don’t laugh. People think you’re wise, that you’ve attained inner peace or some such nonsense. During the day you’re the height of equilibrium and tranquillity, like Siddhartha, but I hear you at night, Manuel. You shout and moan in your sleep. What terrible secret are you hiding?”

Our therapy session got that far and no further. He pulled on his jacket and hat, whistled for Fahkeen to go with him, and went off for a walk or maybe out in the boat or to complain about me to Blanca Schnake. He got back really late. I hate staying alone at night in this house full of bats!

Age, like the clouds, is
imprecise and changeable. Sometimes Manuel looks as old as the years he’s lived, and sometimes, depending on the light and his mood, I can see the young man he once was still hidden under his skin. When he leans over the keyboard in the harsh blue glare of his computer he’s pretty old, but when he captains his motorboat he looks about fifty. At first I used to focus on his wrinkles, the bags under his eyes and the red edges to them, the veins on his hands, stains on his teeth, the chiseled bone structure of his face, his morning cough and throat-clearing, the tired gesture of taking off his glasses and rubbing his
eyes. But now I don’t notice those details anymore, but rather his quiet virility. He’s attractive. I’m sure Blanca Schnake agrees; I’ve seen how she looks at him. I’ve just said Manuel is attractive! Oh my God, he’s older than the pyramids! The wild life I led in Las Vegas turned my brain into a cauliflower. There’s no other explanation!

According to my Nini, the sexiest parts of women are their hips, because they give an idea of reproductive capacity, and in men it’s their arms, because they indicate their capacity for work. Who knows where she dug up that theory, but I have to admit that Manuel’s arms are sexy. They’re not muscular like a young man’s, but they’re firm, with thick wrists and big hands, unexpected in a writer, a sailor’s or bricklayer’s hands, with cracked skin and nails dirty with motor oil, gasoline, firewood, earth. Those hands chop tomatoes and coriander, or skin a fish with great delicacy. I watch him while pretending not to, because he keeps me at a certain distance—I think he’s scared of me—but I’ve examined him behind his back. I’d like to touch his hair, straight and hard like a brush, and sniff that cleft he has at the nape of his neck, that we all have, I guess. What would he smell like? He doesn’t smoke or use cologne, like my Popo, whose fragrance is the first thing I sense when he comes to visit me. Manuel’s clothes smell like mine and like everything in this house: timber, cats, wool, and smoke from the woodstove.

If I try to find out about Manuel’s past or his feelings, he gets defensive, but Auntie Blanca has told me a few things, and I’ve discovered others by doing his filing. He’s a sociologist as well as an anthropologist, whatever the difference might be, and I suppose that explains his contagious
passion for studying the culture of the Chilotes. I like working with him, living in his house, and visiting other islands. I enjoy his company. I’m learning a lot; when I arrived in Chiloé, my head was an empty cavern, and in such a short time it’s beginning to fill up.

Blanca Schnake is also contributing
to my education. Her word is law on this island. She’s more in command than the two carabineros posted here. As a child, Blanca was sent away to a boarding school run by nuns; then she lived for some time in Europe, where she went to teacher’s college. She’s divorced and has two daughters, one in Santiago and the other, who’s married and has two children, in Florida. In the photographs she’s shown me, her daughters look like models, and her grandchildren like cherubs. She was the principal of a high school in Santiago and a few years ago requested a transfer to Chiloé, because she wanted to live in Castro, near her father, but she was assigned to the school on this insignificant little island instead. According to Eduvigis, Blanca had breast cancer and recovered thanks to the healing of a
machi
, but Manuel told me that that was after a double mastectomy and chemotherapy; now she’s in remission. She lives behind the school, in the nicest house in town, renovated and extended, which her father bought for her and paid for outright. On the weekends she goes to see him in Castro.

Don Lionel Schnake is considered an illustrious person in Chiloé and is much beloved for his generosity, which seems inexhaustible. “The more my dad gives away, the better he does with his investments, so I have no qualms about asking him for more,” Blanca told me. In 1971 the Allende government implemented agrarian reform and expropriated the Schnakes’ estate in Osorno and handed it over to the very same agricultural laborers who’d lived on and worked the land for decades. Schnake didn’t waste his energy cultivating hatred or sabotaging the government, like other landowners in his situation, but simply looked around in search of new horizons and opportunities. He felt young enough to start over again. He moved to Chiloé and set up a business supplying seafood to the best restaurants in Santiago. He survived the political and economic upheavals of the times and later the competition from the Japanese fishing boats and the salmon-farming industry. In 1976 the military government returned his land and he turned it over to his sons, who raised it up from the ruin it had been left in, but he stayed in Chiloé, because he’d suffered the first of several heart attacks and decided his salvation would be in adopting the Chilotes’ calm pace of life. “At eighty-five well-lived years of age, my heart works better than a Swiss watch,” Don Lionel—who I met on Sunday, when I went to visit him with Blanca—told me.