They kept me captive at the academy in Oregon until the beginning of June 2008, with another fifty-eight rebellious young people, drug addicts, attempted suicides, anorexics, kids with bipolar disorder, kids who’d been expelled, and others who just didn’t fit in anywhere. I decided to sabotage all attempts at redemption, while planning how to take revenge on my father for placing me in that den of deranged kids, on my Nini for letting him, and on the whole world for turning its back on me. The truth is I ended up there by the decree of the judge who tried the case of the accident. Mike O’Kelly knew her and interceded on my behalf so eloquently that he managed to move her; if not, I would have ended up in an institution, although not in San Quentin State Prison, as my grandma screamed at me during one of her outbursts. She tends to exaggerate. Once she took me to see an atrocious film of the execution of a murderer in San Quentin. “So you can see what happens to people who break the law, Maya. You start off stealing crayons at school and end up in the electric chair,” she warned me on the way out. Since then it had been a family joke, but this time she told me again, and meant it.
Since I was very young and had no prior offenses, the judge, an Asian woman more tedious than a sandbag, said I could choose between a rehabilitation program or a juvenile detention facility, as the driver of the car that had hit me was demanding. When he realized my dad’s insurance was not going to compensate him as splendidly as he’d hoped, the man wanted me punished. The decision wasn’t mine, but my father’s, who made it without asking me. Luckily, the California education system was paying; if not, my family would have had to sell the house to finance my rehabilitation, which cost sixty thousand dollars a year; the parents of some of the inmates arrived for visits in private jets.
My father obeyed the court’s sentence with relief—his daughter was burning his hands like a red-hot coal, and he wanted to be free of me. He took me to Oregon kicking and screaming with three Valiums inside me that did absolutely nothing. They would have needed double that dose to make an impression on someone like me, who could function normally on a cocktail of Vicodin and Mexican mushrooms. He and Susan’s friend dragged me out of the house, put me on a plane, then into a rental car, and drove me from the airport to the therapeutic institution on an interminable highway through forests. I was expecting a straitjacket and electroshocks, but the academy was a friendly collection of wooden buildings in the middle of a park. It didn’t even remotely resemble an asylum for deranged teenagers.
The director received us in her office, accompanied by a bearded young man who turned out to be one of the psychologists. They looked like brother and sister, both with hair the color of burlap tied back in ponytails, faded jeans, gray sweaters, and boots, the uniform of academy staff; that’s how you could tell them apart from the inmates, who wore outlandish outfits. They treated me as if I was a friend who’d come to visit and not like the disheveled and shrill kid who’d been dragged there by two men. “You can call me Angie, and this is Steve. We’re going to help you, Maya. Wait till you see how easy the program is,” the woman exclaimed excitedly. I vomited the walnuts from the plane on her carpet. My dad warned her that nothing was going to be easy with his daughter, but she had my records on her desk and had possibly seen worse cases. “It’s getting dark, and you’ve got a long way to go, Mr. Vidal. It would be best if you said good-bye to your daughter. Don’t worry, Maya’s in good hands,” she told him. He ran to the door, in a rush to leave, but I threw myself on him and hung on his jacket, begging him not to leave me, please, Daddy, please. Angie and Steve held me back without excessive force, while my father and the moai escaped to the highway.
Finally overcome by exhaustion, I stopped struggling and curled up on the floor like a dog. They left me there for a long time while they cleaned up the vomit, and when I stopped sniffling and my hiccups were gone gave me a glass of water. “I have no intention of staying in this loony bin! I’m busting out first chance I get!” I shouted at them with what little voice I had left, but I didn’t put up any resistance when they helped me stand up and took me for a tour. Outside the night was very cold, but inside the building it was warm and comfortable, with long corridors, spacious rooms, high ceilings with exposed beams, big windows with frosted glass, the fragrance of wood, and simplicity. There were no locks or bars. They showed me a covered swimming pool, a gym, and a multipurpose room with armchairs, a pool table, and a big fireplace, where some thick logs were blazing. The inmates were gathered in the dining hall around rustic tables, decorated with little bunches of flowers, a detail that didn’t pass me by, because this wasn’t a good climate for growing flowers. Two short, smiling Mexican women in white aprons were serving behind a buffet table. There was a family atmosphere, relaxed and noisy. The delicious smell of beans and roast meat reached my nostrils, but I refused to eat; I wasn’t planning to mix with this riffraff.
Angie picked up a glass of milk and a plate of cookies and led me to a bedroom, a simple room with four beds, light wooden furniture, and paintings of birds and flowers. The only evidence that someone was sleeping there were family photos on the bedside tables. I shuddered at the thought of the abnormal beings that could live in such tidiness. My suitcase and backpack were on top of one of the beds, open and with signs of having been searched. I was going to tell Angie that I wouldn’t share a room with anybody, but I remembered that at dawn the next day I’d be leaving, and it wasn’t worth the trouble making a commotion over one night.
I took off my pants and shoes and lay down without washing, under the attentive gaze of the director. “I don’t have any track marks or scars from trying to slash my wrists,” I said defiantly, showing her my arms.
“I’m glad, Maya. Sleep well,” answered Angie naturally, left the milk and cookies on the bedside table, and walked out without closing the door behind her.
I devoured the little bedtime snack, wishing I had something more substantial, but I was exhausted and in a few minutes fell into a deep sleep. I woke up as the first light of dawn began to appear between the shutters, hungry and confused. Seeing the silhouettes of the sleeping girls in the other beds, I remembered where I was. I got dressed quickly, grabbed my backpack and coat, and tiptoed out. I crossed the hall, headed for a wide door that looked like it led outside, and found myself in one of those roofed corridors, between two buildings.
The blast of cold air on my face stopped me in my tracks. The sky was orange and the ground covered with a fine layer of snow; the air smelled of pine and wood smoke. A few yards away a family of deer observed me, measuring the danger, their nostrils steaming, tails trembling. Two fawns stood precariously on their thin legs, while the mother watched over them with alert ears. The doe and I looked each other in the eye for an eternal instant, each waiting for the other’s reaction, motionless, until a voice at my back startled us and the deer ran off. “They come to drink water. Raccoons come too, and foxes and bears.”
It was the same bearded man who’d received me the day before, wrapped up in a skier’s parka, with leather boots and a fur-lined hat. “We met yesterday, but I don’t know if you remember. I’m Steve, one of the advisers. It’s almost two hours till breakfast, but I’ve got coffee,” and he started walking without looking back. I followed him automatically to the recreation room, where the pool table was, and waited defensively while he lit the fire with newspaper and then poured out two cups of milky coffee from a thermos. “Last night was our first snowfall,” he commented, fanning the fire with his hat.
Auntie Blanca had to go to Castro urgently, because her father was suffering an alarming tachycardia, brought on by the Beach Bums Contest. Blanca says that the Millalobo is still alive only because he thinks the cemetery will be boring. Those television images could be fatal for a cardiac patient: girls wearing invisible tangas shaking their butts in front of a male horde, who show their enthusiasm by throwing bottles and attacking the cameramen. In the Tavern of the Dead the men panted at the screen, and the women, their arms crossed, spit on the floor.
What would my Nini and her feminist friends have to say about a contest like this! A dyed blonde with a black girl’s butt won, on the Pichilemu beach, wherever that is. “Thanks to that floozy, my dad almost checked out to the other world,” was Blanca’s comment, when she came back from Castro.
I’m in charge of starting up a children’s soccer team—an easy job, since in this country children learn to kick a ball as soon as they can stand up. I already have a first team selected, another in reserve, and a girls’ team, which has provoked a wave of gossip, although nobody has opposed it outright, because they’d have to take it up with Auntie Blanca. We hope our top team will participate in the schools tournament during the national holidays in September. We’ve got several months ahead of us for training, but we can’t do anything without cleats, and since no family on the island has the budget for such a purchase, Blanca and I went to pay a courtesy call on Don Lionel Schnake, now recovered from the impact of the summer asses.
We softened him up with two bottles of the finest licor de oro, which Blanca prepares with a local spirit, sugar, whey, and spices. Then we brought up the idea of how good it was to get children interested in sports, so they stay out of trouble. Don Lionel agreed. From there, once soccer was mentioned, it took no more than another little glass of licor de oro before he’d promised to buy us eleven pairs of soccer cleats in the appropriate sizes. Then we had to explain that we needed eleven for El Caleuche, the boys’ team, eleven for La Pincoya, the girls’ team, and six extra pairs for the substitutes. When he heard the cost of them all, he launched into a tirade about the economic crisis, the salmon farms, unemployment, and how this daughter of his was like a bottomless pit and was going to give him a heart attack, always asking for more, and since when were soccer cleats a priority in this country’s deficient education system.
Finally, he patted his forehead dry, knocked back a fourth glass of licor de oro, and wrote us a check. That very day we ordered the shoes from Santiago and a week later went to pick them up from the bus in Ancud. Auntie Blanca keeps them under lock and key so the children don’t wear them every day, and has decreed that anyone whose feet grow will be cut from the team.
Autumn
April, May
The repairs to the school are finished. People take refuge there in emergencies, because it’s the safest building, aside from the church, that is. The church’s weak wooden structure is held up by God, as was proven in 1960, when the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the world—9.5 on the Richter scale—struck. The sea rose and was on the verge of swallowing the village whole, but the waves stopped at the church door. In the ten minutes of tremors lakes shrank, entire islands disappeared, the earth opened, and train tracks, bridges, and roads collapsed. Chile is prone to catastrophes—floods, droughts, gales, earthquakes, and waves capable of putting a ship in the middle of a town square. People have a resigned philosophy toward these—trials sent by God, they call them—but they get nervous if time goes by without a misfortune. My Nini’s like that, always expecting the sky to fall on her head.
Our school is prepared for nature’s next temper tantrum. It’s the island’s social center: the women’s circle meets there, the crafts group, and Alcoholics Anonymous, which I attended a couple of times because I promised Mike O’Kelly I would, but I was the only woman among four or five men, who wouldn’t dare speak in front of me. I don’t think I need it, having been sober for four months. We watch movies at the school, resolve minor conflicts not important enough to need the carabineros’ intervention, and discuss impending matters, such as sowing and harvest times, the price of potatoes, and seafood. Liliana Treviño gives vaccinations and imparts the fundamentals of hygiene, which the older women find amusing: “Begging your pardon, Señorita Liliana, but how are you going to teach us to cure and medicate?” they say. The women assure her, and rightly so, that pills from a bottle are suspicious, as someone’s getting rich by selling them, and they opt for home remedies, which are free, or tiny homeopathic sachets. At the school they explained the government’s birth control program, which scared several grandmothers, and the carabineros handed out instructions to combat lice in case of an epidemic, as happens every two years. Just the thought of lice makes my scalp itch. I prefer fleas, because they stay on Fahkeen and the cats.
The computers at the school are pre-Columbian, but they’re well maintained, and I use them for everything I might need, except for e-mail. I’ve grown accustomed to living incommunicado. Who am I going to write to when I don’t have any friends? I get news from my Nini and Snow White, who write to Manuel in code, but I’d like to tell them my impressions of this strange exile. Chiloé can’t be imagined: it has to be experienced firsthand.
I stayed at the academy in Oregon, waiting until the cold let up a little before I escaped, but winter had come to stay in those forests, with its crystalline beauty of ice and snow and its skies, sometimes blue and innocent, other times leaden and enraged. When the days got longer, temperatures went up, and outside activities began, I started thinking about running away again, but then they brought the vicuñas, two slender animals with upright ears and the flirtatious eyelashes of a bride, the expensive gift from a grateful father of one of last year’s graduates. Angie put me in charge of the vicuñas, arguing that no one was better qualified than I to take care of these delicate creatures, since I’d grown up with Susan’s dogs. I had to postpone my escape: the vicuñas needed me.
In time I adapted to the schedule of sport, art, and therapy, but I didn’t make any friends, because the system discouraged friendship; at most, we inmates were accomplices in some pranks. I didn’t miss Sarah and Debbie, as if due to the change in atmosphere and circumstances my friends had lost their importance. I envied them, however, and thought of them living their lives without me, just as all of Berkeley High would be, gossiping about that crazy Maya Vidal, an inmate in a loony bin. Maybe another girl had already replaced me in the trio of vampires. In the academy I learned psychological jargon and the way to get around the rules, which weren’t called rules, but agreements. In the first of many agreements I signed with no intention of observing, I committed myself, like the rest of the students, to keep away from alcohol, drugs, violence, and sex. There were no opportunities for the first three, but some kids figured out ways to practice the latter, in spite of the constant scrutiny of the counselors and psychologists. I abstained.
To stay out of trouble it was very important to appear normal, although the definition of normality fluctuated. If you ate too much you were suffering from anxiety; too little, and you were anorexic; if you preferred solitude you were depressive, but any friendship aroused suspicion; if you didn’t participate in an activity, you were sabotaging, and if you participated enthusiastically you were desperate for attention. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” is another of my Nini’s favorite sayings.
The program was based on three concise questions: Who are you? What do you want to do with your life? And how are you going to achieve it? But the therapeutic methods were less clear. A girl who had been raped was made to dance, dressed up as a French maid, in front of the other students; they took a suicidal guy up the forest fire watchtower to see if he’d jump, and another who suffered from claustrophobia was regularly locked in a closet. They submitted us to penances—purification rituals—and collective sessions when we had to act out our traumas in order to overcome them. I refused to act out my grandfather’s death, and the other kids had to do it for me, until the current psychologist declared me cured or incurable, I can’t remember which. In long group therapy sessions we confessed—we shared—memories, dreams, desires, fear, intentions, fantasies, our most intimate secrets. To bare our souls, that was the aim of those marathons. Cell phones were forbidden, the telephone monitored, correspondence, music, books, and movies censored, no e-mail or surprise visitors allowed.
Three months after being sent to the academy, I had my first visit from my family. While my father discussed my progress with Angi
e, I took my grandmother to see the park and meet the vicuñas, who I’d decked out with ribbons on their ears. My Nini had brought a small laminated photo of my Popo, three years or so before he died, with his hat on and his pipe in his hand, smiling at the camera. Mike O’Kelly had taken it at Christmas when I was thirteen. That year I gave my grandfather his lost planet as a present: a little green ball with a hundred numbers marked on it, corresponding to maps and illustrations of what must exist on his planet, according to what we’d devised together. He liked the gift a lot; that’s why he was smiling like a little kid in the photo.
“Your Popo is always with you. Don’t forget that, Maya,” my grandma told me.
“He’s dead, Nini!”
“Yes, but you carry him inside, although you don’t know it yet. At first my grief was so huge, Maya, that I thought I’d lost him forever, but now I can almost see him.”
“You’re not grieving anymore? Lucky you!” I answered in anger.
“I am grieving, but I’ve accepted it. I’m in much better spirits.”
“Congratulations. I’m in worse spirits every day in this asylum of imbeciles. Get me out of here, Nini, before I go completely insane.”
“Don’t be tragic, Maya. This is much nicer than I thought it would be. These people are understanding and kind.”
“Because you’re here visiting!”
“Are you telling me that when we’re not here they treat you badly?”
“They don’t hit us, but they psychologically torture us, Nini. They deprive us of food and sleep, they lower our defenses, then they brainwash us and put things in our heads.”