Maya's Notebook: A Novel (48 page)

According to Manuel, the whole town took charge of muddling clues and throwing dirt over the accident to protect the boys and me from any suspicion. It wouldn’t be the first time that given the choice between the stark truth, which in certain cases does nobody any favors, and a discreet silence that might help their own, people opt for the second.

Alone with Manuel Arias, I
told him my version of events,
including the hand-to-hand combat with Arana and how I don’t remember anything about falling over the precipice together; it seems to me that we were quite far away from the edge. I’ve gone through that scene a thousand times in my head without understanding how it happened. After knocking me out, Arana might have concluded that I didn’t have the plates and that he should get rid of me, because I knew too much. Perhaps he decided to throw me over the cliff, but I’m not light, and maybe he lost his balance in the effort, or maybe Fahkeen attacked him from behind and he fell with me. The kick must have stunned the dog for a few minutes, but we know he soon recovered, because the boys were guided by his barks. Without Arana’s body, which might have given some clues, or the help of the boys, who seem determined to keep quiet, there’s no way to answer these questions. I don’t understand how the sea could have taken only him if we were both in the same place, but it could be that I don’t know the power of the marine currents in Chiloé.

“You don’t think the boys had something to do with this, do you, Manuel?”

“What?”

“They could have dragged Arana’s body to the water, so the tide would carry it out to sea.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because maybe they pushed him over the edge of the cliff when they saw he was trying to kill me.”

“Get that idea out of your head, Maya, and don’t ever say that again, not even in jest—you could ruin Juanito’s and Pedro’s lives,” he warned me. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course not, Manuel, but it would be good to know
the truth.”

“The truth is that your Popo saved you from Arana and from landing on the rocks. That’s the explanation. Now don’t ask any more questions.”

They’ve spent several days searching for the body under orders of the Naval High Command and the port authorities. They brought helicopters, sent out boats, and threw down nets, and two scuba divers swam down to the bottom of the sea. They didn’t find the dead man, but they rescued a motorcycle from 1930, encrusted with mollusks, like a Surrealist sculpture, which will be the most valuable piece in our island’s museum. Humilde Garay has covered the coastline inch by inch with Livingston without finding any sign of the unfortunate tourist. He is assumed to have been a certain Donald Richards, because an American registered for two nights under that name at the Galeón Azul hotel in Ancud, slept there one night, and then disappeared. In light of the fact that he didn’t come back, the manager of the hotel, who had read about the accident in the local newspaper, supposed it could be the same person and advised the carabineros. In his suitcase they found clothing, a Canon camera lens, and the passport of a Donald Richards, issued in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2009, looking brand-new, with a single international stamp, entry to Chile on December 4, the day before the accident. According to the form he filled in when landing in the country, the reason for the trip was tourism. This Richards arrived in Santiago, flew to Puerto Montt the same day, slept one night in the hotel in Ancud, and planned to leave the next morning; an inexplicable itinerary—no one travels from California to Chiloé to stay for thirty-eight hours.

The passport confirms my theory that Arana was under investigation by the Las Vegas Police Department and couldn’t leave the United States under his real name. Acquiring a fake passport would have been very easy for him. Nobody from the American consulate came to the island to have a look; they were seemingly satisfied by the carabineros’ official report. If they took the trouble to look for the deceased man’s family to notify them, they surely would not have found anyone; among the three hundred million inhabitants of the United States, there must be thousands of Richardses. There is no visible connection between Arana and me.

I was in the hospital until Friday and on Saturday, the twelfth, they took me to Don Lionel Schnake’s house, where I was received like a returning war hero. I was pretty smashed up, with twenty-three stitches in my scalp, and had to stay on my back, without a pillow and in semidarkness, because of the concussion. In the operating room they’d shaved half my head so they could sew me up; apparently it’s my destiny to be bald. Since the last shave in September, I’d grown more than an inch of hair and discovered that my natural color is as yellow as my grandma’s Volkswagen. My face is still very swollen, but I’ve seen the Millalobo’s dentist, a woman with a German surname, a distant relative of the Schnakes. (Is there anyone in this country who’s not related to the Schnakes?) The dentist said she could replace my teeth. She thought they’d probably be better than the originals and offered to whiten the rest of them for free out of deference to the Millalobo, who had helped her get a bank loan. Favors cannoning off each other, and I’m the beneficiary.

By doctor’s orders I was supposed to lie down and be left in peace, but there was a constant parade of visitors. The beautiful witches from the
ruca
came, one of them with her baby, along with the entire Schnake family, friends of Manuel’s, friends of Blanca’s, Liliana Treviño and her beau, Dr. Pedraza, lots of people from the island, my soccer team, and Father Luciano Lyon. “I brought you extreme unction for the dying,
gringuita
,” he said, laughing, and handed me a box of chocolates. He elucidated that the sacrament is now called unction for the sick, and you don’t have to be in your death throes to receive it. All in all, not terribly restful.

That Sunday I followed the presidential election from my bed, with the Millalobo sitting at my feet, overexcited and a bit unsteady, because his candidate, Sebastián Piñera, the conservative multimillionaire, might win. To celebrate, he drank a whole bottle of champagne by himself. He offered me a glass, and I took the opportunity to tell him that I can’t drink because I’m an alcoholic. “How unfortunate,
gringuita
! That’s worse than being a vegetarian,” he exclaimed. None of the candidates got enough votes, and there will have to be a second round in January, but Millalobo assures me that his friend is going to win. His explanations of politics are somewhat confusing for me: he admires the socialist president Michelle Bachelet because she has run an excellent government and she’s a very fine woman, but he detests the center-left parties, who have been in power for twenty years, and now it’s the right’s turn, according to him. Also, the new president is his friend, and that’s very important in Chile, where everything is arranged through connections and relations. The result of the voting has demoralized Manuel,
among other reasons because Piñera made his fortune under the shelter of the Pinochet dictatorship, but according to Blanca things won’t change too much. This is the most prosperous and stable country in Latin America, and the new president would have to be very dim-witted to start innovating. You can find a lot of faults with Piñera, but a dimwit he’s not; he’s remarkably astute.

Manuel phoned my grandma and my dad to tell them about my accident, without alarming them with gruesome details about my state of health, and they decided to come and spend Christmas with us. My Nini has postponed a reencounter with her country for too long and my dad barely remembers it. It’s time they came. They could talk to Manuel without the complications of keys and codes, since with the death of Arana, the danger has disappeared. I no longer have to hide, and I can go home as soon as I can stand up on my own legs. I’m free.

A year ago, my family
was composed of one dead person—my Popo—and three living ones—my grandma, my dad, and Mike O’Kelly. Now I have a whole tribe, though we’re a bit scattered. That’s what I came to realize during the unforgettable Christmas we’ve just spent in the doorless house of Gualtecas cypress. It was my fifth day back on our island after spending a week recuperating at the
Millalobo’s. My Nini and my dad had arrived the previous day with four suitcases. I’d asked them to bring books, two soccer balls and some teaching materials for the school, DVDs of the Harry Potter movies and other presents for Juanito and Pedro, and a PC for Manuel. I promised I’d pay them back in the future somehow. They expected to stay in a hotel, as if we were in Paris; the only room available on this island is an insalubrious room upstairs from one of the fish shops. So my Nini and I slept in Manuel’s bed, my dad in mine, and Manuel went to Blanca’s place. With the pretext of the accident and having to rest, they didn’t let me do anything, pampering me like a
guagua
, as Chileans call babies before they’re potty-trained. I still look awful, with purple eyes, a nose like an eggplant, and an enormous dressing on my skull, as well as my broken toes and bruises all over my body that are starting to turn green, but I have some provisional teeth.

On the plane, my Nini told her son the truth about Manuel Arias. Since he was strapped in by his seat belt, my dad couldn’t make a big scene, but I don’t think he’ll forgive his mother too easily for forty-four years of deception. Manuel and my dad’s meeting was civilized: they shook hands, then shyly and clumsily embraced, no long-winded explanations. What could they say? They’ll have to get to know each other over the days we’ll be spending together and, if there’s an affinity, cultivate a friendship to the extent the distance from Berkeley to Chiloé—about the same as a trip to the moon—allows. Seeing them together, I noticed the resemblance. In thirty years my father will be a handsome old man, like Manuel.

My Nini’s reunion with Manuel, her former lover, wasn’t
worth writing about either: a couple of lukewarm kisses on each cheek, the way Chileans normally greet each other, that was it. Blanca Schnake kept her eye on them, though I’d already disclosed that my grandmother is awfully flighty and has probably forgotten all about her fevered love for Manuel Arias.

Blanca and Manuel made Christmas dinner—lamb, absolutely no salmon—and my Nini decorated the house in her kitsch style, with Christmas lights and little paper flags left over from the Fiestas Patrias. We missed Mike O’Kelly a lot; he’s spent every Christmas since he and my Nini met with my family. At the table we interrupted and shouted each other down in our haste to tell everything that had happened to us. We laughed a lot, and the good humor went so far as to drink a toast to Daniel Goodrich. My Nini thinks that as soon as my hair grows back, I should go study at Seattle University; that way I could lasso the slippery backpacker. But Manuel and Blanca were horrified at the idea. They think I have a lot of things to resolve before diving into love again. “That’s true, but I think about Daniel all the time,” I told them, and almost burst into tears. “You’ll get over it, Maya. Lovers are forgotten in the blink of an eye,” said my Nini. Manuel choked on a piece of lamb, and the rest of us froze with our forks in the air.

When we were having coffee I asked about Adam Trevor’s printing plates, which had almost cost me my life. Just as I suspected, my Nini has them. I knew she’d never throw them into the sea, much less now during this worldwide economic crisis threatening to sink us all into poverty. If my depraved grandma doesn’t start printing money herself or sell the plates to some criminals, she’ll leave them to
me in her will, along with my Popo’s pipe.

ISABEL ALLENDE
is the author of ten novels, translated into more than twenty-seven languages, including the
New York Times
bestsellers
Ines of My Soul
,
Portrait in Sepia
, and
Daughter of Fortune
. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

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The House of the Spirits

Of Love and Shadows

Eva Luna

The Stories of Eva Luna

The Infinite Plan

Paula

Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses

Daughter of Fortune

Portrait in Sepia

My Invented Country

Zorro

Ines of My Soul

The Sum of Our Days

Island Beneath the Sea

THE JAGUAR AND EAGLE TRILOGY

City of the Beasts

Kingdom of the Golden Dragon

Forest of the Pygmies

Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

Front cover photograph © Rekha Garton/Getty Images

MAYA’S NOTEBOOK.
Copyright © 2013 by Isabel Allende. English-language translation copyright © 2013 Isabel Allende. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Originally published in Spanish as
El Cuaderno de Maya
in Spain in 2011 by Random House Mondadori.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN: 978-0-06-210562-2 (Hardcover)

EPub Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN 9780062105646

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