Paula

  Even with such grave problems, the people continued to celebrate their victory, and when parliamentary elections were held in March, the Popular Unity increased its percentage of the vote. The Right realized then that tons of twisted nails on highways and the absence of poultry in the markets would not be enough to topple the Socialist government, and that realization drove them to the last phase of the conspiracy. From that moment, rumors began to circulate of a military coup. Most people had no idea what that meant; we had heard that in other countries on our continent soldiers seized power with boring regularity, and we boasted that nothing like that would ever happen in Chile: we had a solid democracy and we were not one of those Central American banana republics, or Argentina, where for fifty years every civilian government had been ended by a military takeover. We considered ourselves the Swiss of the continent. The chief of the armed forces, General Prats, advocated respecting the constitution and permitting Allende to serve out his term peacefully, but in June a faction of the army rebelled and rolled out into the streets in tanks. Prats tried to impose discipline, but by then the genie was out of the bottle. The parliament declared the government of the Popular Unity illegal, and the generals demanded the ouster of their commander in chief, although instead of showing their own faces they sent their wives to demonstrate in front of Prats’s house in an embarrassing public spectacle. The general was forced to resign, and the president appointed Augusto Pinochet in his place, an obscure career officer whom no one had ever heard of until then but who was a very close friend of Prats, and who swore to remain loyal to the democracy. The country seemed nearly out of control, and Salvador Allende announced a plebiscite that would allow the voters to decide whether he should continue governing or resign and call new elections: the date was set for September 11. The example of the wives of the military acting in their husbands’ stead was quickly imitated. My father-in-law, like many other men, sent Granny to the Military Academy to throw corn at the cadets, to see if they could stop behaving like hens and go out and defend their nation as they were sworn to do. He was so enthusiastic about the possibility of overturning socialism once and for all that he himself beat stewpans in his patio to back the neighbor women protesting in the street. Like most Chileans, he thought that the military respected the rule of law and would remove Allende from the presidency, restore order to a calamitous situation, rid the country of leftists and rebels, and immediately call a new election—and then, if everything turned out well, the pendulum would swing in the opposite direction and we would again have a conservative president. “Don’t get your hopes up, even in the best of cases, we’ll get a Christian Democrat,” I warned him, knowing that his hatred of that party was greater than what he felt for the Communists. The idea that soldiers would not release the reins of power never occurred to my father-in-law, or anyone else—except those in on the secret of the conspiracy.

  Celia and Nicolás have asked me to come home to California for the arrival of their baby in May. They want me to take part in the birth of my granddaughter; they say that after so many months of being exposed to death, pain, farewells, and tears, it will be a celebration to welcome this infant as her head thrusts into life. If the visions I have had in dreams come true, as they have at other times, she will be a dark-haired, likable little girl, with a will of her own. You must get better soon, Paula, so you can go home with me and be Andrea’s godmother. Oh, Paula, why do I say things like that? You won’t be able to do anything for a long time, we have years of patience and hard work and organization ahead. You will have to do the most difficult part, but I will be at your side to help you; you will not want for anything, you will be surrounded by peace and comfort, we will help you get well. I have been told that rehabilitation is very slow, and you may need it for the rest of your life, but it can work miracles. The porphyria specialist maintains that you will recover completely, but the neurologist has ordered a battery of examinations, which were begun yesterday. They have already done a very painful one to test your peripheral nerves. They rolled you through the maze of the hospital to another wing of the building; there they pricked your arms and legs with needles and then used electric stimuli to measure your reactions. We went through it together, you in the clouds of unconsciousness and I thinking of all the men and women and children in Chile who were tortured in a very similar way with electric prods. Each time the charge entered your body, I felt it in mine, exacerbated by terror. I tried to relax and breathe with you, at your rhythm, imitating what Celia and Nicolás do together in the natural childbirth classes; pain is inevitable in this life, but they say that it is almost always bearable if we do not put up resistance or add fear and anguish.

  Celia had her first baby in Caracas, comatose with drugs and all alone because her husband was not allowed in the delivery room. The star of the event was neither she nor the baby, but the doctor, a high priest, masked and robed in white, who decided how and when he would officiate over these rites—he induced the birth on a convenient day of his calendar because he wanted to go to the beach for the weekend. That is also how it was when my children were born more than twenty years ago, apparently procedures have changed very little. Some months ago I took Celia for a walk in the forest and there among the tall sequoias and murmuring streams I delivered a sermon about the ancient art of midwives, natural childbirth, and the right to live to the fullest that unique experience in which the mother embodies the female life force in the universe. She listened quietly to my disquisition, from time to time casting an eloquent glance out of the corner of her eye: she judges me by my long dresses and the cushion for meditating I carry in my car, and believes I have become a New Age zealot. Before she met Nicolás, she belonged to a Catholic organization of the reactionary right; she was not permitted to smoke or wear trousers, what she read and what she saw at the movies was censored, contact with the opposite sex was reduced to a minimum, and every instant of her existence was regulated. In that sect, men must sleep on a board once a week to forestall carnal temptation, but women have their board every night, supposedly because of their more licentious nature. Celia learned to flagellate herself and wear a cilice with metal barbs made by La Candelaria nuns, disciplining herself out of love for her Creator and paying for sins, her own and those of others. Three years ago we could find little in common, grounded as she was in contempt for leftists, homosexuals, artists, and people of different races and social condition, but what saved us was a mutual empathy that overcame all these barriers. San Francisco took care of the rest. One by one her prejudices fell away, the hairshirt and scourge became part of the family lore, she undertook a reading program on politics and history and along the way turned her ideas inside out, she met homosexuals and recognized that they are not the devil incarnate, as she had been told, and she also came to accept my artist friends, even though some wear nose rings and green Mohawks. The racism went in less than a week’s time, as soon as she learned that in the United States we are not whites but Hispanics, and occupy the lowest rung of the social ladder. I never try to force my ideas on her, because she is a ferocious lioness who would not put up with proselytizing, she merely follows the paths indicated by her instinct and intelligence, but that day in the redwood forest I couldn’t help myself, and dusted off the best of the oratorical tricks I had learned from Tío Ramón with the hope of convincing her we should seek other less clinical and more humane methods for the upcoming birth. When we got back home we found Nicolás waiting at the door. “Tell your mother to explain all that stuff about the music of the universe to you,” this irreverent daughter-in-law said in passing to her husband, and ever since, we have referred to Andrea’s birth as The Music of the Universe. In spite of her early skepticism, she and Nicolás accepted my suggestion and now are planning to give birth like Indians. Later I will have to convince you to do the same, Paula. You are the star of this illness, you must give birth to your own health, fearlessly and with great fortitude. Perhaps this is a creative opportunity equivalent to Celia?
??s having a baby: you can be born into a new life through pain . . . cross a threshold . . . grow.

  Yesterday, Ernesto and I were alone in a hospital elevator when a nondescript woman got on, one of those beings with no outstanding features, rather ageless and bland, a shadow. After a few seconds I realized that my son-in-law had turned white; his eyes were squeezed shut and he was gasping for breath, leaning against the elevator wall to keep from falling. I stepped toward him to help, and at that instant the elevator stopped and the woman got off. We should have ourselves, but Ernesto held me back, and the door closed. And then I smelled your perfume, Paula, as clear and jolting as a scream, and understood your husband’s reaction. I pushed a button to stop the car and we hung suspended between two floors, breathing the last traces of the scent we knew so well, as tears coursed down Ernesto’s face. I don’t know how long we were there before we heard yelling and pounding from below; I pressed a different button and we began to descend. We nearly fell out the door, Ernesto stumbling and I supporting him, before the quizzical stares of the people in the corridor. We went to the cafeteria and sat down, still trembling, before cups of hot chocolate.

  “I’m half crazy,” Ernesto told me. “I can’t concentrate on my work. I see numbers on the computer screen and they look like Chinese; people talk to me and I don’t answer; I’m so distracted that I don’t know how they put up with me in the office, I’m making colossal errors. Paula feels so far away! If you only knew how much I love her and need her. . . . Life has no color without her, everything is gray. I live hoping the telephone will ring and it will be you and in an excited voice you tell me that Paula has awakened and is asking for me. When that moment comes I will be as happy as the day we met and instantly fell in love.”

  “You need to get this out of your system, Ernesto; the torment is too much to bear, you need to burn off some energy.”

  “I run, I lift weights, I practice my aikido. . . . Nothing helps. My love is like ice and fire.”

  “Forgive me for being so personal, but have you thought about taking some girl out . . . ?”

  “I can’t believe this is Paula’s mother talking, Isabel! No, I can’t touch another woman, I don’t want anyone else. Without Paula, my life has no meaning. What does God want of me? Why is He torturing me like this? We made so many plans. . . . We talked about growing old together and making love until we were ninety, about all the places we would go, how we would be the center of a large family and our house would always be open to friends. Did you know that Paula wanted to found a home for the elderly poor? She wanted to devote to other old people all the care she wasn’t able to give Granny.”

  “This is the worst thing that will ever happen to the two of you, Ernesto, but you will come through it.”

  “I’m just so tired. . . .”

  One of the professors just came through here with a group of medical students. He doesn’t know me, and because of my white gown and shoes I was able to stay while they examined you. I needed all the composure I learned with such difficulty in my school in Lebanon to maintain a neutral expression while they manipulated you so disrespectfully—as if you were already a cadaver—and talked about your case as if you couldn’t hear. What they said was that, normally, recovery occurs in the first six months and you have been here four, that you are not going to evolve much more, that it is possible you will be in this state for years, that they cannot devote a hospital bed to an incurable patient, and that they will send you to an institution—I suppose they were referring to an asylum or a hospice. Don’t believe any of it, Paula. If you understand what you hear, please forget all that. I will never abandon you; from here you will go to a rehabilitation clinic, and then home; I’m not going to let them go on tormenting you with electric needles and lapidary prognoses. Enough. Nor is it true there is no change in your condition; they don’t see it because they’re never here, but we who are always with you can chart your progress. Ernesto is sure you recognize him; he sits beside you, tries to get you to look at him, talks to you in a low voice, and I see how your expression changes. You are calmer, and sometimes you seem affected, you cry and move your lips as if you wanted to say something, or barely lift a hand, as if you wanted to caress him. The doctors don’t believe that but they don’t take time to observe you, all they see is a paralyzed and spastic woman who doesn’t even blink when they yell her name. Despite the alarming slowness of this process, I know that little by little you are crawling out of the abyss where you have been lost for several months, and that one of these days you will connect with the present. I repeat that over and over, but sometimes I lose hope. Ernesto came upon me one day on the terrace, in deep thought.

  “But think, carefully, what is the worst thing that can happen?”

  “Not death, Ernesto, but for Paula to stay as she is.”

  “And do you think we will love her any less?”

  As always, your husband is right. We are not going to love you less, only more; we’ll get organized, we’ll set up a hospital in our house, and when I’m not there your husband will take care of you, or your brother, or my grandchildren, we’ll see, just don’t worry, Paula.

  At night when I reach the hotel I sink into the quiet and silence that is so indispensable for reconstituting the energy I use up in the noisy hospital. Many people visit the ward in the evening; it’s hot and crowded, and some even have the nerve to smoke, without a thought for suffocating the patients. My hotel room has become a blessed refuge where I can order my thoughts, and write. Willie and Celia call me every day from California and my mother writes often, I have good company. If I could rest, I would feel stronger, but I sleep in fits and starts and often my torturous dreams are more vivid than reality. I wake a thousand times during the night, assaulted by nightmares and memories.

  On September 11, 1973, at dawn, the navy rebelled, followed almost immediately by the army, the air corps, and finally the corps of carabineros, the Chilean police. Salvador Allende was instantly notified; he hurriedly dressed, said goodbye to his wife, and went to his office, prepared to live out his oath: “They will not take me alive from La Moneda.” His daughters Isabel and a pregnant Tati rushed along with their father. The bad news spread like lightning, and ministers, secretaries, staff, trusted doctors, some newspapermen, and friends all came to the Palacio de La Moneda, a small multitude wandering through the rooms without knowing what to do, shaping battle plans and barricading doors with furniture according to confusing instructions from the president’s bodyguards. Urgent voices suggested that the hour had come to call out the people in a huge manifestation in support of the government, but Allende realized that such a summons would result in thousands of deaths. In the meantime, he tried to dissuade the rebels through messengers and telephone calls, because none of their generals dared confront him in person. Then Allende’s bodyguards received orders from their superiors to withdraw, because the police had joined in the coup; the president let them go but demanded they surrender their weapons. Now the Palacio was unguarded and the great wood doors with wrought-iron studs were closed from inside. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., Allende became aware that all his political skill would not be sufficient to change the tragic course of the day; the fact was that the band of loyalists locked inside the venerable colonial building were alone: no one would come to their rescue, the people were unarmed and without leaders. Allende ordered the women to leave, and his guards distributed weapons among the men, but very few knew how to use them. The news had reached Tío Ramón in the embassy in Buenos Aires, and he managed to speak by telephone with the president. Allende bid his old friend farewell: “I shall not resign, I shall leave La Moneda only when my term is ended, as president, or when the people demand it—or dead.” As they spoke, military units throughout the nation were falling one by one into the hands of the instigators of the coup, and in those same barracks the purge was begun against any who remained faithful to the constitution: the first people shot that day were wearing uniforms. El Palacio was surro
unded by soldiers and tanks; isolated shots were heard, and then a heavy shelling that penetrated the thick, centuries-old walls and set fire to furniture and drapes on the first floor. A helmeted Allende went out onto the balcony with a gun and fired off a couple of shots, but someone convinced him that exposing himself in that way was madness, and forced him to come back inside. A brief truce was arranged to remove the women, and at that time the president asked everyone to leave him and surrender, but few did so; the majority dug in on the second floor, as he embraced the six women still by his side and told them goodbye. His daughters did not want to leave him, but by then the outcome was clear and by their father’s orders they were forcibly taken from the building. In all the confusion, they walked down the street without being stopped until an automobile picked them up and drove them to a safe haven. Tati never recovered from the pain of that separation and the death of her father, the man she loved most in life, and three years later, in exile in Cuba, she left her children in a friend’s care and, without telling anyone goodbye, shot herself. The generals, who had not foreseen any resistance, did not know what to do; they did not want to make Allende a hero, so they offered him a plane and safe transport for him and his family. “You have misjudged me, traitors,” was his reply. They then announced an aerial bombardment. Time was short. For the last time, the president spoke to the people by means of the one radio station not in the hands of the mutinous military. His voice was deliberate and firm, his words so determined that his farewell did not resemble the last breath of a man about to die, but the dignified salute of a man taking his permanent place in history.