She imagined him tall and slender, smelling of sandalwood and spruce. She envisioned herself coming to him in a dress made from the silvery leaves of birch bark, her hair brushed loose, and her ankles wrapped in vines.
She told no one of her secret, trusting no one with the knowledge of her plan. She would wait until her classmates had all fallen asleep and the sisters had made their rounds, and then she would go to him. This man who wrote her poems and stuffed them within hollowed-out oranges. This man who claimed to love her from afar.
The prospect of this rendezvous thrilled rather than frightened Salomé. And thus she went through the motions of her afternoon, anxiously awaiting their meeting, wondering if he would be as beautiful as the words he wrote to her each day.
She went to bed with the other girls, washing her face and braiding her hair. She knelt by her bedside and said her prayers. Through the large convent windows, she could see the moon and she wondered, as she lay there swaddled in linen, if he had already begun his journey to her. To meet her under the constellations she had memorized by heart.
An hour later, upon hearing the constant sounds of sleep emanating from her classmates, and the last footsteps of the nuns in the rooms above, Salomé began to make her preparations.
She unbuttoned her nightgown and unbraided and fluffed her hair. Careful not to make a sound, she unrolled from underneath her pillow her favorite lavender dress, the one with a square neckline and Empire waist, the fabric light as a veil.
She bit her lips to give them color, moistened her lashes with fingers dipped in her bedside water, and smoothed back her curls. If she heard the slightest stirring, she froze her motion; even her breath she kept contained within. Only after she was absolutely certain that no one would hear her, did she make her way out of the bed.
She placed her bare feet on the floor (as sandals would make too much noise) and escaped out the window, gripping the trellis like a salamander, winding down into the garden across the cloister and past the orchard. Passing a handful of freshly fallen oranges, glowing like tiny lanterns in the warm, satin light of the moon.
He waited for her in a field a short distance away. He stood there alone, his features sharp as a sparrow’s, his white suit offsetting his jet-black hair. He could not believe that she had actually come to him. She a vision, with her hair brushed loose and her lavender dress billowing behind.
He brought the oranges as he had promised and placed them on the grass in a mad attempt to align them with the stars.
He seemed almost too embarrassed to look at her. The curve of her body melting with the fluidity of the dress. Her skin beaded with pearls.
He wanted to fall to the ground and kiss her naked toes. Long and rounded at the tips, with fine, naturally pink nails neatly manicured around the edges. Her ankles were thin and tapered. The wet grass clung to her calves like seaweed. She, like a canvas, white and smooth.
He knelt on the ground and reached to kiss her hand. She smiled, her head filled with the frenzy of butterfly wings, as if they were fluttering inside her, pressing their edges against her skin.
He told her then and there, repeating it like one of his many poems, that he loved her. That he had watched her for an eternity, that he had loved her since the beginning of time.
She thought he looked far more nervous and vulnerable than she had expected. A boy of nineteen, no more than two years older than she. But he was so handsome. A tall, magnificent figure cut in white linen, whose terra-cotta hands were large and strong, whose movements were elegant and well-mannered, and whose face radiated the sublime light of pure adoration. He beamed, quite simply, with love.
The silver light flattered him, casting shadows over his smooth face. With two black eyes that appeared trimmed in sienna, she imagined they were two large cherries, warm and delicious, ripening in the night.
“You’ve come,” he said as if to remind himself that she truly was there before him.
“How could I have resisted?”
He watched her carefully. He studied how, when she spoke, the top of her lip curled upward, how her brows furrowed when she waited for his reply.
“Promise me you’ll visit every evening. I never want to know a night without you.”
His intensity beguiled her.
“I promise.”
Every evening thereafter, Salomé sneaked out of the cloister to meet Octavio under the stars, where he would ask permission to hold her, to stroke her hair and then her warmest areas below. She brought him small gifts made by hand, his favorite being a silk pouch she had embroidered with their names. “It is for you to store your poems,” she whispered to him. And from that evening on, he carried it with him, no matter where he was, and when they were together, he would withdraw one or two poems and read them to her aloud.
He followed Salomé when she returned home for vacation, for one night apart from her was too difficult a burden to bear. He saved up his money for the train fare and kept the piece of paper on which she had scrolled her family’s address close to his breast.
Her parents’ home was not far from Santiago’s center, and one week before, Salomé had carefully drawn her lover a map. “My bedroom is on the ground floor, my parents’ in the room above,” she said, her finger tracing in the sand. “But we must be careful not to be discovered by my parents,” she forewarned him. “Octavio—you must promise to take care.”
The following week, as she rested in her childhood bed, she turned off her bedroom light—the sign that she now waited for him. And so, with bated breath, Octavio went to her. He climbed past the bushes, pulled up the cuffs of his trousers, and tiptoed through the patch of grass.
He saw her silhouette before he saw her completely. The moonlight illuminating her in a soft haze of white. Her body veiled in crisp linen, her black hair swept loose. To him, she had never been more beautiful.
He climbed through the window and fell into her arms. He kissed her neck and her eyelids, her mouth, and her breasts. He wanted to devour her, his flower, his orange gatherer, his love. But she held him as if he were a child, in the basket of her arms. She drew him into her bed, quietly, softly; the only sound uttered from her were her small, delicate breaths.
In her childhood bed, she wrapped him in muslin sheets scented with verbena, encasing their steadfast embrace. And she held him as she had learned over the months, her gestures like a dance, her movements motivated by love. And he came to her with soft moans, her breast a pillow for his sleeping head.
Had she too been asleep, she would have not heard her father’s footsteps descending the stairs.
“Salomé,” he called to her.
Quickly, she pushed Octavio deep into the blankets below.
As a child, Salomé had always felt secure when her father came to check up on her in the middle of the night. She had always smiled when she saw her father, tall and slender peering out from the small window above her door, looking straight into her bed to make sure she was secure.
But in this moment she dreaded it.
She heard his footsteps come closer, saw the tuft of his gray hair bobbing close to the door. In the windowpane, she saw his eyes, darting into her bedroom and scouting out her bed.
“Good night, my darling,” he whispered through the door. His head arched like a crane as she saw his gaze through the door’s top window. “Just making sure you are all right.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said softly, pushing Octavio farther down into the tangled covers below.
She waited until she heard her father’s footsteps winding to the second floor. Then she retrieved her crouching love. And with her shutters flung open, they held each other until morning came. He knew he had to leave before her parents awakened. So, regretfully, he kissed her on the forehead and promised to return the following night.
Upon her return to school, their love affair continued. Every evening, she stuffed her bed with her uniform and spare pillow, molding the material to create an effigy of her form, and stole away to be with him. Months la
ter, when the orange trees were in bloom, the branches heavy with flowers, she told Octavio that she suspected that she was with child. He was not angry, as she had feared, but rather rejoiced at the news. Months before he had vowed to marry her, to gain permission for her hand. He did not fear the wrath of her father or her wizened grandfather. He swore that he would go to the ancient hacienda, where the family spent their summer, or to her home in Santiago. He would go anywhere and demand her for his wife.
Now, as she was pregnant with his child, they would have no other choice.
Her family, whatever they felt about him, would have to concede.
Five
LAS VERTIENTES, CHILE
DECEMBER 1965
Before they told her parents, Salomé hid her pregnancy from view. She bound her stomach with torn pieces of silk and switched uniforms with a girl who was two sizes larger than she. She ate little to ensure that the child did not grow so fast and made sure that she came to her classes always prepared. However, dark circles began to appear underneath her eyes. Her breasts swelled and her feet began to retain water, making it difficult to squeeze into her shoes.
“We must tell my parents before the nuns do,” Salomé insisted.
“I will tell them that we were already planning to wed,” he replied.
He placed his hand on her stomach and wondered whom the child might resemble. Should it be a girl, he imagined her beautiful like her mother, with those long, marquise eyes and full, ripe mouth. They would call her Blanca, as she would be the symbol of their love. White and pure.
Should they be blessed with a son, he hoped he would be strong and truthful. That he would grow into a man who could shoulder responsibility, who, in times of struggle, could survive. They would call him Rafael, because Salomé thought the name magical and divine. “In ancient Hebrew,” Salomé whispered to her betrothed, “it means ‘God heals all.’ ”
Traveling to meet his future in-laws, Octavio tried to hide his nervousness. He realized that his background was inferior to that of the woman he loved. His father had worked in the same store since he was seventeen, and although he had been promoted several times, the family lived modestly and simply. Their house was far smaller than Salomé’s. He had shared a bedroom with his two elder brothers and his parents had slept on the floor, in a tiny room adjacent to the kitchen. He was the child of working-class parents and had disappointed them greatly when, as the first child to attend university, he chose to major in literature rather than a more practical field such as medicine or law.
But then again, he had never been practical. He had buried his head in books since the time he’d learned to read; a perpetual daydreamer, he was absentminded of his chores and considered by his family not to be grounded in the real world.
Since the age of twelve he had known he could never have a life like his father’s. A man who traveled to the same wooden storefront, selling hardware to the same people in the same small town, day after day, year after year. So the boy studied hard and earned himself a scholarship; his only way out. At school, he found not only poetry but now, even more importantly, love.
He did not want Salomé to think that he was intimidated by the prospect of meeting her father. Inside, however, he was trembling. Salomé’s father would be the first doctor, aside from the man who had treated him as a child, that he had ever met. He knew that he had no title, no job, and no money of his own. But he had love. He naively believed that would be enough.
Her parents were far from pleased when Salomé returned home from school, three months pregnant, and Octavio in tow. The beautiful daughter they had sent off to a convent had returned home very much the bohemian. Her hair was long and wild, no longer in the tight braids she had maintained since she was a little girl. Her bosom was full and peeking out from her uniform blouse, and there was the small bulge of her burgeoning stomach. She was only eighteen.
“We’re in love, Papa,” she insisted. Her father stood before her, tall and slender as a baton. He gazed upon her with stony eyes, unable to fathom that his beloved daughter was carrying a child.
Don Fernando had always nurtured high hopes for his only daughter. He had always believed that his spirited and brilliant child would marry a man who matched her. Now he stood before his prized jewel, unable to fathom that she could be in love with this penniless, jobless student.
“I love your daughter, Dr. Herrera,” Octavio said in a practiced voice that veiled his nervousness. “There is nothing I would like more in this world than to have her as my wife.”
“How old are you, may I ask?”
“Twenty years, sir.”
“Have you a job?”
“No, sir, I am a student of literature at the university in Concepción.”
Don Fernando did not find the irony of what the young Octavio had just said the least bit amusing. “And how will you support a wife and child on a student’s allowance?”
“We will manage, sir. I have always worked hard. I received one of the university’s few scholarships—”
Don Fernando cut the young man off. “You think you can exist on such a pittance for long?”
Tiny beads of perspiration were beginning to form on Octavio’s forehead. He wanted to reach for his handkerchief, but feared revealing the extent of his nervousness.
“Love must come before money,” Octavio said with a strong voice. He desperately wanted Salomé to think him brave and not cowardly in front of her father. “I realize that your daughter and I come from different backgrounds, but I love her. I am devoted to her. I will dedicate my life to making her happy. I would hope that you would see that I am an intelligent person who has worked to better himself through education and has the sincerest of intentions—”
“What I see,” Don Fernando interjected, his voice bordering on a boom, “is that you are a man who has defiled my daughter, filled her head with nonsensical poetic notions, and that you are a ridiculous student who has absolutely no idea how the world works!”
Doña Olivia was standing next to her husband, her face frozen with disbelief. How, she wondered, could her daughter have returned to them this way? She felt wounded that her daughter had not confided in her. She tried to hide her true feelings that, perhaps, her initial instinct had been right. They should never have sent her to a school so far away from home.
By speaking, Doña Olivia hoped to restore some sense of calm to the situation. “Don Octavio,” she said quietly, “how are we to know that your love for our daughter is sincere?”
Octavio turned from the stern gaze of Salomé’s parents and looked deeply into the eyes of his beloved.
“She is whom I rise for each morning, whom I think of when I hear songs of love. I have never known such sweetness before, never dreamt that I could find a creature that could captivate both my mind and my soul. Grant me permission to be her husband and I will cherish the title. I will protect her. I will always see that she is safe, that she is loved, and that her life is full of wonder and joy.”
Doña Olivia was moved by the young boy who stood before her, but her husband was clearly not.
“I am a fifty-three-year-old man and I know that providing food and a roof over your family’s head requires more than just love.”
“Papa…” Salomé interrupted.
“No, it’s all right,” Octavio reassured her, as he slipped his hand into hers. He was trying to appear strong, though clearly Don Fernando intimidated him. He had little to impress the old man with. He knew that after he completed his degree from the university, he would have limited career opportunities. He could be a teacher or perhaps a journalist, but neither would provide her with the childhood luxuries she had been accustomed to.
Yet, somehow, Octavio believed it would all work out. Perhaps because he had always been something of a dreamer. Perhaps it was his innate belief that life and love were intended to have a happy ending. So, he stood there and gazed into his future father-in-law’s disapproving eyes and said with his most inspired vo
ice, “Let us have an agreement, Dr. Herrera. Allow me to marry your daughter before her belly gets so big that a church wedding will not be possible and I will vow that, by the time the child is born, I will have a job that will ensure your daughter and grandchild of the life they deserve.”
Don Fernando remained skeptical of the young man, but in the end, fearing the disgrace of an unmarried, pregnant daughter, he reluctantly agreed.
Six
MIKKELI, FINLAND
JANUARY 1942
They chose her because she was the youngest and she could not yet form complete sentences. A little blond girl incapable of asking for an explanation.
Still, it was difficult for them. The most difficult thing they would ever have to do.
Kaija, their first and only daughter, had been born in the snow. Beyond the dark forests and the frozen lakes, under a patch of blue-white sky.
The day of her birth had begun much like any other. Sirka had risen early, her round belly camouflaged by a long flannel dress and wool sweater, her pale blond hair swept into a loose bun. She had been mindful not to wake her husband, Toivo, who slept soundly, his red beard spilling majestically over the white sheets she had embroidered the month before they were wed.
In the adjacent room, their three sons divided themselves between two beds that Sirka had carefully arranged to ensure they would be close to the hearth. She had knitted woolen slippers for them from coarse, unbleached yarn and given them the blanket from her own, sparse bed.
Today, they planned to go skating. They would pile on their sweaters, slip into their worn boots made from reindeer skin, and allow their mother to rub their cheeks with cod-liver oil, as they prepared to go to the lake three kilometers away.
But for now, except for Sirka, the small house nestled in the dark forest did not yet stir. She stood for a moment and looked over her sons. In their slumber, they had returned to the way she remembered them as infants. Their mouths half-open, their cheeks flushed and smooth. Inside her womb, the child also slept peacefully. Sirka rested her hands on her belly and wondered to herself if maybe this time she would be blessed with a girl. Someone who might look like her, someone who would one day grow up and become her best friend.