Paula (13 page)

Physicians come from other hospitals to observe you; they have never seen such a complex case of porphyria. You have become an example, and I am afraid you will earn a certain fame in medical textbooks. The illness struck like a thunderbolt, sparing nothing. Your husband is the only one who is at peace; the rest of us are terrified, but even he talks about your death and other, even worse, possibilities.

“Nothing has any meaning without Paula, nothing is worth the effort. Since she closed her eyes, the light has gone from the world,” he says. “God
can't
take her from me, else why did He bring us together? We have so much life ahead of us. This is a cruel test, but we will come out of it. I will never leave her, I will never love anyone else; I will protect her and care for her always. Whatever happens, even if illness or death separates us physically, we are destined to meet again and be together through eternity. I can wait.”

“I'm sure she will recover, Ernesto, but it will be a long convalescence. Be prepared for that. You will take her home, I'm sure. Can't you just imagine that day?”

“I think of it every minute. I will carry her up the three flights of stairs. I will fill the apartment with flowers. . . .”

Nothing frightens him; he thinks of you as his spiritual companion, safe from the vicissitudes of life or death; he is not alarmed by your motionless body or your absent mind; he tells us he is in contact with your soul, that you can hear him, that you have feelings and emotions, that you are not a vegetable as the machines you are connected to attest. Skeptical, the physicians shrug their shoulders, but the nurses are swayed by this obstinate love and sometimes they allow him to visit you out of hours because they know that when he takes your hand the readings on the screens change. Perhaps the intensity of feelings can be measured by the same apparatus that monitors heartbeats.

One day more of waiting, one day less of hope. One day more of silence, one day less of life. Death wanders freely through the hallways, and my task is to distract it, so it cannot find your door.

“How long and puzzling life is, Mama!”

“At least you can write about it to try to understand,” she replied.

Lebanon in the fifties was a flourishing country, the bridge between Europe and the extremely wealthy Arab emirates, a natural crossroads for several cultures, a tower of Babel where dozens of tongues were spoken. All the commerce and banking in the region passed through Beirut; by land came swaying caravans of merchandise, by air, the newest fads from Europe, and by sea, so many ships they had to wait their turn to anchor in the port. Veiled, black-robed women carrying bundles and packages and pulling their children by the hand scurried through the streets, eyes always lowered, while idle men congregated in the cafés. Burros, camels, crowded buses, motorcycles, and cars stopped as one at the traffic lights as shepherds dressed in the same fashion as their biblical ancestors crossed the avenues herding flocks of sheep toward the slaughterhouse. Several times a day the high keening of the muezzin called the faithful to prayer from the minarets of the mosques, chiming with bells from Christian churches. The smart shops of that capital offered the best of the world's goods, but we were more often drawn to the souks, the labyrinths of narrow alleyways lined with countless shops where it was possible to buy anything from fresh eggs to relics of the pharaohs. I can still smell those markets! All the aromas of the planet wafted through those twisting streets, a mélange of exotic vapors, food fried in sheep lard, baklava, garbage and excrement floating in open drains, animal sweat, leather dyes, cloying perfumes of incense and patchouli, coffee freshly boiled with cardamom seeds, spices of the Orient—cinnamon, cumin, pepper, saffron. . . . From the outside, the bazaars seemed insignificant, but each of them stretched inward through a series of roomlike areas with glittering lamps, trays, and amphoras inscribed with intricate calligraphic designs, rugs covering the floor, draped from the walls, and lying in rolls in the corners, furniture of carved wood with ivory, bronze, and mother-of-pearl inlay swamped beneath piles of tablecloths and embroidered
babouches
. Merchants came out to meet their customers and nearly dragged them inside those Ali Baba caves glutted with treasures. They would offer basins filled with rosewater for washing your hands and then serve a black, sugary coffee—the best in the world. Bargaining was an essential component of the transaction; my mother understood that from the first day. Upon hearing the opening price, she would reply with a horrified exclamation, throw up her hands, and start toward the door with a determined step. The seller would seize her arm and haul her back, swearing that this was the first sale of the day, that she was his sister, that she would bring him luck, and that he was therefore prepared to listen to her proposition, even though the object in question was unique and the price more than fair. Impassive, my mother would offer half, while the rest of us rushed for the door, red with embarrassment. The store owner would pound his forehead with his fist, calling on Allah as witness. “Do you want to ruin me, my sister? I have children, I am an honest man. . . .” After three cups of coffee and nearly an hour of haggling, the object would change ownership. The merchant would be smiling with satisfaction and my mother would rejoin us in the street, certain she had acquired a bargain. At times, a couple of shops farther along she would find the same piece for much less than she had paid; that ruined the day but not the temptation to buy again. This was the process she followed during a trip to Damascus when she negotiated the cloth for my wedding dress. I was fourteen and had no relation of any kind with any male except my brothers, my stepfather, and the son of an affluent Lebanese merchant who visited from time to time under the vigilant eye of his parents and mine. He was so rich that he had a chauffeured motor scooter. On the wave of the vogue for Italian Vespas, he pestered his parents until they bought him one; his father did not, however, want to run the risk of losing his firstborn in a crash of some vehicle for suicides, so he hired a chauffeur to drive the boy regally mounted behind. In any case, I was considering the idea of becoming a nun, in order to conceal that I could not snare a husband, and that is what I tried to convey to my mother in the market in Damascus, but she insisted. “Don't be foolish,” she said, “this is the chance of a lifetime.” We left the bazaar with meters and meters of white, silk-embroidered organza, besides several tablecloths for my hope chest and a carved wooden screen that has survived three decades, countless moves, and exile.

Even the incentive of bargains was not enough to make my mother feel comfortable in Lebanon; she had the sensation she was a prisoner in her own skin. Women were not supposed to go out alone because in close quarters a disrespectful hand might dart out and offend them, and if they tried to defend themselves they were met with a chorus of hostile jeers. Only ten minutes from our house was an endless white sand beach and a warm ocean inviting us to cool off during the dog days of August. We had to go as a family, always in a tightly knit group to protect ourselves against other swimmers' busy hands; it was impossible to lie on the sand, that was an open invitation to trouble, and as soon as our heads broke the surface of the water we ran to the refuge of a cabana rented for that purpose. The climate, the cultural differences, the strain of speaking French and mumbling a little Arabic, the juggling act of making ends meet, the absence of friends and family, all overwhelmed my mother.

Lebanon had found a way to live in peace and prosperity despite the religious wars that had torn the region for centuries. During the Suez Canal crisis, however, growing Arab nationalism profoundly divided politicians, and rivalries became irreconcilable. Violent uprisings culminated in July 1958, with the landing of the United States Sixth Fleet. Installed on the third floor of a building located at the confluence of Christian, Muslim, and Druze barrios, we were in a privileged position for observing the skirmishes. Tío Ramón made us place mattresses in front of the windows to stop any stray bullets, and forbade us to watch from the balcony; meanwhile, my mother managed somehow to keep the bathtub filled with water and to obtain fresh supplies of food. During the worst weeks of the crisis, a sunset curfew was imposed; only military personnel were authorized to move through the streets, but in fact that was the hour of a tacit truce when housewives bargained in the black market and men did business. From our forbidden terrace we witnessed ferocious gun battles between opposing groups that lasted most of the day, but at dusk everything stopped as if by enchantment and, under cover of night, furtive figures slipped out to trade with the enemy and mysterious packages passed from hand to hand. We saw prisoners, naked from the waist up and handcuffed to wood poles, flogged in the courtyard of the guard station, and just within our field of vision was the fly-covered corpse of a man with a slit throat who was left in the street for two days to frighten the Druze. We also witnessed the revenge, when two veiled women left a burro with a load of olives and cheeses standing in the street. As expected, the soldiers confiscated the burro and shortly after we heard the explosion that pulverized neighborhood windows and left the barracks courtyard a pool of blood and torn flesh. Even with that violence, I have the impression that the Arabs never truly took the U.S. landing seriously. When their ships sailed into the bay with cannons at the ready, Tío Ramón obtained a pass and took us to see them. There was a huge crowd of curiosity seekers on the docks, waiting to do business with the invaders and get permission to board the aircraft carriers. LSTs like monsters of steel opened their jaws and vomited out landing craft filled with armed-to-the-teeth marines who were greeted with a salvo of applause from the beach, and the minute these bold warriors touched dry land they were surrounded by a raucous mob trying to sell them everything from parasols to hashish and Japanese condoms shaped like brightly colored fish. I can imagine that it wasn't easy for officers to maintain the morale of their troops or to prevent them from fraternizing with the enemy. The next day at the indoor skating rink I had my first contact with the most powerful armed force in the world. I had skated all afternoon among hundreds of uniformed youths with shaved hair and tattooed arms, who were drinking beer and talking in a guttural lingo very different from what Miss St. John had attempted to teach at the British school. I could barely communicate with them, but even if we had spoken the same language, we wouldn't have had much to say to each other. That memorable day, though, I received my first kiss on the lips; it was like biting a frog that smelled of chewing gum, beer, and tobacco. I have no idea which one kissed me, because I couldn't tell him from the others—they all looked alike—but I do remember that from that very moment I decided to explore the matter of kisses. Unfortunately, I had to wait quite a while to pursue my research, because as soon as Tío Ramón discovered that the city was crawling with marines hungry for girls, he redoubled his vigilance and I was confined to the house like a flower of the harem.

It was my good fortune that my school was the only one not to close its doors when the crisis began. My brothers, on the other hand, could not go to class and had to spend months of lethal boredom penned up in the apartment. Miss St. John considered that the war was a vulgar occurrence that had nothing to do with the English, and therefore preferred to ignore it. The street in front of the school was cut into two zones separated by piled-up sandbags protecting the two sets of combatants. In newspaper photos, the men and their weaponry were terrifying, but seen behind their barricades from high atop the building they looked like vacationers on a picnic. Among their sandbags, they listened to the radio, cooked, received visits from wives and children, and whiled away the hours napping or playing cards and checkers. Sometimes they arranged a brief ceasefire in order to go for water or cigarettes. The unflappable Miss St. John jammed the green hat reserved for grand occasions firmly on her head and marched out to confer in her atrocious Arabic with the inconsiderate individuals who were obstructing passage in the street and to ask them to allow the school bus through, while the frightened teachers and few girls still in attendance observed from the roof. I have no idea what arguments she wielded, but the fact is that the vehicle continued to operate, and on time, right to the very end when I was the last student riding. I was careful not to tell at home that other parents had withdrawn their children from the school, and I certainly never mentioned the daily negotiations between the driver and the men on the barricades who allowed us to pass. I attended classes until the establishment was deserted and Miss St. John courteously asked me not to return for a few days—“until this disagreeable incident has been resolved and people return to their senses.” By then the situation had become very violent, and a spokesman for the Lebanese government had advised diplomats to send their families home because their safety could not be guaranteed. After several secret councils, Tío Ramón put my brothers and me on one of the last commercial flights to leave Beirut. The airport was swarming with men scrambling to get out; some tried to take their wives and daughters as a kind of cargo—as they did not consider them whole human beings, they could not understand the need to buy tickets for them. Then, to the alarm of the French stewardess, as soon as we were airborne a woman wrapped head to foot in some dark cloth set up a small kerosene burner in the aisle of the plane to prepare food.

My mother stayed behind in Beirut with Tío Ramón for a few months, until they were transferred to Turkey. In the meantime, the U.S. marines had returned to their carriers and sailed away without a trace, taking with them the corroboration of my first kiss. These were the circumstances of our return to the opposite side of the world and my grandfather's house in Chile. I was fifteen, and it was the second time I had ever been away from my mother—the first was the time she joined Tío Ramón for their romantic tête-à-tête in the north of Chile, the one that consecrated their love affair. I did not know at the time that we were going to be separated for most of the remainder of our lives. I began writing her my first letter on the plane; I have continued to write almost every day over the years, and she has done the same. We stack this correspondence in a basket and at the end of the year tie it with a red ribbon and put it away on a closet shelf; we have collected mountains of pages this way. We have never reread them, but we know that the record of our lives is safeguarded against poor memory.