Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree (37 page)

Sofia had always been fascinated by London. Having been to the English school of San Andres in Buenos Aires, she had learnt about England’s kings and queens, the beheadings and the hangings, the pageantry and the ceremony that went with the monarchy. Her father had promised to take her one day. Now she would go alone.

‘
Cherie
, what are you going to do in London with a small baby? You cannot bring him up on your own.’

‘I’m not taking him with me,’ she replied, her eyes fixed on the Persian rug beneath her feet. Dominique was unable to hide her shock. Her eyes bulging like a frog’s, she stared at Sofia’s pale face in horror.

‘What are you going to do with him? Leave him with us?’ she stammered angrily, sure that Sofia must be suffering some sort of post-natal depression.

‘No, no, Dominique,’ Sofia responded wearily. ‘I want to give him to a nice, kind family who will look after him as their own. Perhaps a family who have wanted a child for a long time . . . please find such a family, Dominique,’ she pleaded, but her expression was one of resolve.

Sofia was drained of tears. She had no more left to shed. She had reached a drought and her heart was numb. Antoine and Dominique sat her down to try to convince her otherwise. It was raining heavily outside, mirroring her own inner misery. Santiguito slept peacefully in his cot, wrapped in an old shawl of Louis’. Sofia explained that she couldn’t be with this child who reminded her every time she looked at him of Santi and his betrayal. She was too young. She didn’t know how to cope. Her future seemed like a big black hole that she was spinning towards without control. She didn’t want her baby.

Antoine sternly told her that this was a human being she was talking about. She was responsible for him. He wasn’t some toy one could simply give away. Dominique told her gently that she would forget about Santi, that her child would develop a personality of his own and no longer remind her of him. But she didn’t listen. If she left now it wouldn’t hurt so much to be separated from him; he was a mere baby. If she stayed any longer she would never be able to let him go and she
had
to let him go. She was too young to look after him and he couldn’t be part of the new life she felt compelled to begin. She had made up her mind.

Dominique and Antoine spent long hours discussing what Sofia should do while she was out of the house walking Santiguito up and down the lakeside in his pram. Neither of them wanted her to give the child up for adoption; they knew she would regret it for the rest of her life. But Sofia was young and unable to see that far ahead. With her inexperience, how could she have possibly known that those nine months of carrying him and few weeks of loving him would tie him to her in an indestructible bond?

In the hope that by talking to a doctor she might come to her senses, Dominique and Antoine sent her to a psychiatrist. Sofia obliged them by going, but stated very firmly that she wasn’t going to change her mind. The psychiatrist, Dr Baudron, a small man with silver-grey hair smoothed back off his face and a chest that looked to Sofia like that of a fat, happy pigeon, talked to her for hours, making her analyse moment by moment the last year of her life. She

told him everything impassively, as if she were sitting up in the corner of the room on the ceiling, watching herself recount the moments that had led her to his office with the mouth and voice of someone else. After endless, futile talking, Dr Baudron told Dominique that either she was in a state of trauma or she was the most controlled human being he had ever met. He would have liked more time, but his patient had refused to see him any more. Sofia was still in her ship, undeterred by the delay, navigating her way to London.

Once Sofia had managed to convince her cousins that she wasn’t going to change her mind, there were papers to sign and people to see in order to legally give her child up for adoption. Dominique was devastated. She tried to tell Sofia that she would regret it, maybe not now, but later. Sofia didn’t want to know. Dominique had never met anyone more stubborn in her life and for a moment she sympathized with Anna. When she didn’t get her own way Sofia wasn’t quite the angel she had thought she was. She had a violent temper, sulked and then folded her arms in front of her, settling her face with an expressionless veneer that no amount of cajoling could break through. Not only was she stubborn but she was proud. Dominique longed for Sofia to pack her bags and take the child back to Argentina with her; after the initial shock and scandal the storm would abate and they would both be accepted again. But Sofia didn’t want to go back. Ever.

While she waited for the adoption process to be completed the reality of leaving her son grew more intense as each day passed. Now she knew she was leaving she treasured every moment with Santiguito. She could barely look at him without weeping; she knew she would never know him as a grown man, have no input into the shaping of his character or his destiny. She wondered what he would look like as a small child. She held his tiny body against hers and talked to him for hours as if by some miracle he would remember the sound of her voice or the scent of her skin. Yet, in spite of the pain of leaving him she knew she was doing the right thing for both of them.

Reluctantly, Dominique and Antoine gave her some money to help her get started in London. Dominique suggested she stay a few nights in a hotel before finding a flat to rent. The couple took her to the airport to see her onto her flight.

‘What shall I tell Paco?’ Antoine asked gruffly, trying not to show his emotions. He had grown tremendously fond of Sofia, but he couldn’t help resenting her for her ability to be so cold. How she could give up her child was

something he was unable to understand. Delfine and Louis were the best things that had ever happened to him.

‘I don’t know. Tell them I decided to make a new life, but don’t tell them where.’

‘You will go home eventually, won’t you, Sofia?’ asked Dominique, shaking her head sadly. Sofia watched her long, ethnic earrings swing about her neck. She would miss her cousins. She swallowed hard in order to maintain her composure.

There is nothing left for me in Argentina. Mama and Papa cast me away as if I meant nothing to them at all,’ she said, and her voice trembled.

‘We’ve been through all of this before, Sofia. You must forgive them or your bitterness will eat away at you and bring you nothing but unhappiness.’

‘I don’t care,’ she replied.

Dominique took a deep breath and hugged her cousin who had become a daughter to her - though no daughter of hers would ever be this stubborn. ‘If you need anything, anything at all, you can always call. Or come back. We are here for you,
cherie.
We will miss you, Sofia,’ she said and held her tightly and allowed her tears to wash away her makeup.

Thank you. Thank you both.' sobbed Sofia. ‘Oh dear, I didn’t want to cry. I’m such a cry-baby. What’s the matter with me?’ She sniffed and wiped her face with the back of her hand. She promised to keep in touch. She promised to call if she needed anything.

Holding tiny Santiguito for the last time she felt his soft head against her lips and breathed in his warm baby smell. She could barely leave him and almost changed her mind. But she couldn't stay in Geneva, to be reminded every second of her misery. She had to start again. She gazed down into his dear little face and held it there, taking a mental picture to carry with her and remember for always. He returned her gaze, his shiny blue eyes watching her curiously. She knew he would never remember her, he probably couldn’t see her clearly anyway. She would disappear out of his life and he would be ignorant of ever having known her. She pulled herself up and silently willed herself to go forward. Running a finger down Santiguito’s temple she turned, picked up her bag and disappeared through passport control.

Once on the other side she swallowed hard, held her head up and stopped crying. She was starting again, a new life. As Grandpa O’Dwyer always used to say, ‘Life is too short for regrets. Life is what yer make of it, Sofia Melody. It’s

the way yer look at it. A glass is either half empty or half full - it’s all a matter of attitude. A positive mental attitude.’

Santa Catalina
, 1976

Two years had gone by without a word from Sofia. Paco had spoken to Antoine who had explained that she had left without revealing where she was going to stay. Sofia hadn’t wanted them to know where she was, not even which country she was in, but Antoine considered the whole thing wholly out of proportion. So he told Paco that she had simply said she wanted to lay her roots down in London.

Anna was devastated that Sofia had not gone to school in Lausanne as planned and desperately wanted to contact her daughter to beg her to come home. She worried that Sofia might decide never to return. Had she been too harsh? She told herself that the child had needed discipline - that’s what parents were for. What had she expected, a mere pat on the wrist? ‘Don’t do it again, dear.’ No, she had deserved every bit of it. Surely she understood that. But it was all behind her now, it was in the past. Dominique had assured her that Sofia had ‘dealt with her problem’. How could the child hold a grudge for so long? It had all been for the best. She’d thank her one day. But not even to

communicate? Not even a letter, nothing. After all the letters they had written her. Anna felt like a monster. She convinced herself that Sofia was going through an ‘unfortunate’ phase and would eventually return. Of course she would return, Santa Catalina was her home. ‘She’s as stubborn as her grandfather was. A true O’Dwyer,’ Anna lamented to Chiquita. But inside her heart ached with the nagging regularity of someone who knows she has done wrong but cannot admit it, even to herself.

Chiquita had watched Santi grow thin and pale. She worried that his limp was giving him trouble, but he wouldn’t communicate with her. He was there in body but his mind was in another place. Like Anna she hoped that her child would return. Fernando was at university in Buenos Aires, studying engineering. He was also going through a difficult stage. Staying out after curfew, losing his ID card, getting into trouble with the police. There were stories of people being arrested and disappearing. Sinister stories. She worried that he was mixing with irresponsible young socialists who plotted to overthrow the government. ‘Politics isn’t a game, Fernando,’ said his father gruffly. ‘You get into trouble, it’ll cost you your life.’

Fernando rather enjoyed the attention. Finally his parents were noticing him.

He basked in their concern and took to telling exaggerated stories of his exploits. He almost willed himself to get caught by the police so that his parents would be forced to demonstrate how much they cared for him by the effort and energy they put into getting him out. While his father got angry his mother cried with relief that he had returned unharmed. He enjoyed pulling her emotional strings; it made him feel loved. He watched Santi occupy the house like a spectre. He came and went and made very little noise. Fernando hardly noticed him. He lost himself in his studies and grew a beard, so he lost himself in the mirror too. How fortune had turned on him, thought Fernando gleefully, and all because of Sofia. They deserved each other.

Maria had broken down into deep sobs when her mother told her that Sofia had gone to live in London and had left no forwarding address. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she had wailed, but she wouldn’t say why. Her mother had comforted her as best she could, reassuring her that she’d come back eventually. Chiquita felt helpless; all of her children were so unhappy. Only Panchito smiled all the time and seemed content.

In November 1976 Santi was nearly twenty-three years old, but he looked much older. He had finally resigned himself to the fact that Sofia was never

coming back. How the lines of communication could have failed he just didn’t know. They had planned it so carefully. After having waited for her letters in the apartment, he had thought that perhaps his father was taking them from the porter as he left the building for the office every morning, so Santi had taken to getting up early and going through the post at dawn. But still there was no letter from Sofia. Nothing.

Finally he had confronted Anna. At first Chiquita had told Santi to stay out of his aunt’s way. Anna had specifically told her that she didn’t want to see him. So Santi had done as he was told and made sure he didn’t bump into her. But after about two months, when he was maddened by the silence in the mailbag, he strode into her apartment in Buenos Aires and demanded to know where Sofia was.

Anna was sitting with the cook talking through recipes for the following week’s meals, when Loreto appeared at the door to the sitting room, red-faced and trembling, to announce that Senor Santiago was in the hall, demanding to see her. Anna told Loreto to tell him that she wasn’t there, that she had gone out and wouldn’t be back until late, but she returned, apologetically, saying that Senor Santiago wouldn’t go until Senora Anna returned, even if he had to spend the night on the floor. Anna relented, dismissed the cook and told Loreto to bring him in.

When Santi appeared at the door, he looked more like a shadow than a man. His face was black with misery and his eyes livid with fury. He wore a beard and had grown his hair long. He no longer looked handsome but decadent and menacing. In fact, Anna thought he looked more like Fernando, who had always appeared slightly sinister, ever since he had been a boy.

‘Come and sit down.' she said calmly, hiding the tremor in her voice behind a steely veneer of control.