The Sum of Our Days (30 page)

Soon that populated universe vanished and I entered a white, silent space. I was floating on air; I was an eagle with its great wings outspread, riding the wind, seeing the world from above, free, powerful, solitary, strong, unbound. That great bird was there for a long time, and then suddenly it soared to a different, still more glorious place where form disappeared and there was nothing but spirit. There was no eagle, no memories, no emotions, there was no “I,” I had dissolved in the silence. If I'd had the slightest awareness or desire, I would have looked for you, Paula. Much later, I saw a small circle like a silver coin, and shot toward it like an arrow; I crossed through the opening and effortlessly plunged into an absolute void, a deep translucent gray. There was no sensation, no spirit, not a trace of individual consciousness; instead I felt a divine, absolute presence. I was inside the Goddess. It was the death or glory the prophets speak of. If that was dying, Paula, you are in a dimension beyond reach, and it is absurd to imagine that you are with me in everyday life, or that you are helping me in my tasks and ambitions, my fears and vanities.

A thousand years later I returned, like an exhausted pilgrim, to a familiar reality, following the same road I had taken there, but in reverse: I went through the small silver moon, floated in the eagle's space, descended to the white sky, sank into psychedelic images, and finally reentered my poor body, which for two days had been very ill, cared for by Willie, who was beginning to believe he had lost his wife to the world of the spirits. In Willie's reaction to the
ayahuasca
, he did not ascend to glory nor enter death, he was trapped in a bureaucratic purgatory, shuffling papers, and a few hours later the effects of the drug had passed. In the meantime, I was lying on the floor, where he later made me comfortable with pillows and blankets, shivering, muttering incomprehensible words, and vomiting a foam that was whiter with each retching. At first I was agitated, but later I lay relaxed and motionless; I didn't seem to be suffering, Willie tells me. The third day, by then conscious, I spent in bed reliving each instant of that extraordinary journey. I knew now that I could write the trilogy, because to counteract a stumbling imagination I had the opportunity to perceive the universe, once again, with an intensity provided by the
ayahuasca
, similar to the fervor of my childhood. The adventure with the drug bound me with something I can only define as love, an impression of oneness: I dissolved into the divine, I felt that there was no separation between me and the rest of all that exists, all that was light and silence. I was left with the certainty that we are spirits, and all that is material is illusory, something that cannot be proved rationally but at times I have briefly experienced in moments of exaltation before nature, of intimacy with a beloved, or in meditation. I accepted that in this human life my totemic animal is the eagle, the bird that glided through my visions viewing everything from a great distance. That distance is what allows me to tell stories, because I can see angles and horizons. It seems that I was born to tell and tell and tell. My body ached, but I have never been more lucid. Of all the adventures in a lifetime of upheaval, the only thing I can compare to that visit to the dimension of the shamans was your death, daughter. On both occasions something inexplicable and profound happened that transformed me. I was never the same after your last night in this world, or after I drank that powerful potion: I lost my fear of death and experienced the eternity of the spirit.

O
N
T
UESDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
11, 2001, I was in the shower when the telephone rang early in the morning. It was my mother, from Chile, horrified at the news we hadn't as yet heard because it was three hours earlier in California than on the other coast and we'd just got out of bed. When I heard her voice I thought she was talking about the anniversary of the military coup in Chile; it, too, was a terrorist attack against a democracy, which we remember every year as a day of mourning: Tuesday, September 11, 1973. We turned on the television and watched over and over the same images of the planes crashing into the towers of the World Trade Center that reminded me of the bombardment the military launched against La Moneda palace in Chile, the place where President Salvador Allende died that day. We ran to our banks to withdraw cash and to get in a supply of water, gasoline, and food. Flights were canceled, thousands of passengers were trapped, hotels were booked beyond capacity and had to put beds in the hallways. Telephone lines were so overloaded that communication was nearly impossible. Lori couldn't reach her parents for two days, and I wasn't able to talk with mine in Chile. Nico and Lori moved over to our house with the children, who were with them that week; they didn't go to school because classes were canceled. Together we felt more safe.

For days, no one could go back to work in Manhattan; a cloud of dust floated in the sky and toxic gases escaped from broken pipes. In the midst of the still reigning confusion, we had news from Jason. He told us that in New York the situation was slowly beginning to improve. He walked at night to the area of the disaster with a spade and helmet to help the rescue teams, which were exhausted. He passed dozens of volunteers returning from hours of labor in the ruins with white cloths tied around their necks in honor of the victims trapped in the towers, who had waved handkerchiefs out the windows to say good-bye. From a long way away you could see smoke rising from the ruins. New Yorkers felt as if they'd been clubbed. Sirens sounded and ambulances rolled by empty because there were no further survivors, while dozens of television cameras lined up around the area marked out by the firemen. Everyone was anticipating another strike, but no one seriously considered leaving the city; New York had not lost its ambitious, strong, visionary character. When Jason reached the site of the disaster, he met hundreds of volunteers like himself; for each victim that disappeared in the ruins there were several persons ready to look for him. Every time a truckload of workers drove by, the crowd greeted them with shouts of encouragement. Other volunteers brought water and food. Where once proud towers had stood there was a black, smoking hole. It's like a terrible dream, Jason told us.

It wasn't long until the bombing of Afghanistan began. Missiles rained over the mountains where the handful of terrorists were hiding—no one wanted to confront them face to face—their concussions leveling the earth, while winter fell over Afghanistan and women and children in the refugee camps began to die of the cold: collateral damage. In the meantime paranoia was growing in the United States; people were wearing gloves and masks to open mail, fearing the possibility of a smallpox virus or anthrax, supposed weapons of mass destruction. As terrified as anyone, I went out and bought Cipro, a powerful antibiotic that could save my grandchildren in case of biological warfare, but Nico told me that if we gave the pill to the children at the first symptom of a cold, it wouldn't be effective for a real illness. It was like killing flies with a cannon. “Be calm, Mamá, you can't prevent everything,” he told me. And then I remembered you, daughter, and the military coup in Chile, and many other moments in my life when I was powerless. I have no control over crucial events, those that determine the course of life, so it makes more sense to relax. The collective hysteria had made me forget that essential lesson for several weeks, but Nico's comment restored my sense of reality.

D
URING THE COURSE OF MY RESEARCH
for the trilogy for young readers, I often visited the Book Passage bookstore, and it was there I met Juliette, a young, very beautiful, and very pregnant American girl who was barely managing to counterbalance the most enormous belly I had ever seen. She was expecting twins, but they were not hers, she told me; they belonged to someone else, and she had merely lent her womb. It was an altruistic impulse on her part, which, after I learned her story, seemed truly foolish.

At the age of twenty-something, after her university graduation, Juliette took a trip to Greece, a logical destination for someone who had studied art. There she met Manoli, an exuberant Greek with a mane of hair and a prophet's beard, velvety eyes, and an overpowering personality that immediately seduced her. The man wore very short shorts, and when he crouched down or sat and crossed his legs, his private parts were no longer private. I can imagine they were exceptional, since women chased him at a fast trot through all the little streets on the island. Manoli had a silver tongue and could spend twelve hours in the plaza or in a café telling stories without taking a breath, surrounded with listeners hypnotized by his voice. The story of his own family was a novel in itself: the Turks had decapitated his grandfather and grandmother before their seven children, who, along with other Greek prisoners, were forced to walk from the Black Sea to Lebanon. Along that route of sorrow six of the siblings died and only Manoli's father, who was then six years old, survived. Among the hundreds of tourists golden from the sun and eager to roll with him on the warm Grecian sands, Manoli chose Juliette, for her air of innocence and her beauty. To the surprise of the island's inhabitants, who considered him to be an incorrigible bachelor, he proposed marriage to Juliette. There had been a previous marriage to a Chilean woman who, bizarrely, had run away with a yoga instructor on the day of her wedding. The story wasn't clear, but according to local gossip, the rival had put LSD in Manoli's drink, and he had awakened a day later in a psychiatric hospital. By then his scatterbrained wife had disappeared. He never heard anything of the Chilean woman again, and in order to marry Juliette he had to cut through the red tape to prove that his wife had deserted the marriage, since there had been no one to sign the divorce papers.

Manoli lived in an old house atop a cliff overlooking the Aegean sea; for more than two hundred years it had belonged to a succession of lookouts whose responsibility it was to scan the horizon. At the sight of enemy ships, they had to jump on a horse, kept always saddled, and gallop to the mythic city of Rhodes, founded by the gods, to sound the alarm. Manoli set tables outside and converted it into a restaurant. Every year he put a coat of white paint on the house and dark brown on the shutters and doors, like all the homes in that idyllic town where there are no cars and people know each other by name. Lindos, crowned by its acropolis, looks more or less as it has for many centuries, with the addition of a medieval castle, now in ruins. Juliette didn't hesitate an instant to marry, although she knew from the beginning that this was a man who could never be tamed. To avoid the pain of jealousy and the humiliation of having someone come to her with the latest gossip, she informed Manoli that he could have all the amorous adventures he pleased, but never behind her back, she would rather know. Manoli thanked her, but fortunately he had the good sense never to confess an infidelity, and as a result Juliette lived in peace and in love. She and Manoli were together for sixteen years in Lindos.

The restaurant kept them very busy during high season, but it closed in winter and they used that time to travel. Manoli was a magician in the kitchen. He prepared everything at the moment: meat, grilled fish, fresh salads. He himself chose each fish the boats brought from the sea at dawn, and every vegetable that came on mule back from the gardens outside of town, and his fame spread beyond the island. It was a twenty-minute stroll from the town to the cliff where the restaurant stood. The clientele was in no hurry; the majestic countryside invited contemplation. Most stayed through the night to follow the trajectory of the moon above the acropolis and the sea. Juliette, with her classic face, her light cotton dresses, her sandals, and her dark chestnut hair loose on her shoulders, was even more attractive than the food. She looked like a vestal virgin of some ancient Greek temple, and it came as a shock to hear her American accent. She glided among the tables with her trays, always sweet and pleasant despite the tumult of the customers crowded around the tables and awaiting their turn at the door. Only twice did she lose patience, and in both instances it was with American tourists. The first had to do with a blimp of a man, red-faced from too much sun and ouzo, who three times sent his plate back because it was not precisely what he wanted. Worse, he did so with objectionable manners. Juliette, exhausted after a long night of serving customers, brought him the fourth plate and without a word dumped it over his head. The second occasion was the fault of a snake that curled up a table leg and slithered toward the salad bowl in the midst of hysterical screams from a group of Texans who undoubtedly had seen others much larger where they came from. Juliette saw no reason to frighten the customers with that uproar. She fetched a large knife from the kitchen and with four karate chops cut the snake into five neat pieces. “I'll be right out with your lobster,” was all she said.

Juliette willingly put up with Manoli's manias—he was never an easy husband—because he was the most entertaining and passionate man she had ever known. Compared to him, other men seemed insignificant. Women, right in front of her, handed Manoli the key to their hotel rooms, which he always refused with some charming joke—after carefully taking note of the room number. They had two boys as good-looking as their mother: Aristotelis, and then four years later, Achilleas. The younger was still in diapers when his father went to Thessaloniki to consult a physician about his aching bones. Juliette stayed in Lindos with the boys, looking after the restaurant as best she could, not attaching too much significance to her husband's aches and pains since she had never heard him complain. Manoli phoned every day to talk about trifles, never referring to his health. If she asked a question, he answered evasively, with the promise that he would be back before the week was out, when they learned the results of the tests. However, the very day she was expecting him back, about dusk, she saw a long line of friends and neighbors coming up the hill toward her house. She felt a claw in her throat and instantly recalled that the day before, during his phone call, her husband's voice had cracked with a sob when he told her, “You are a good mother, Juliette.” She had been thinking about those words, so unexpected from Manoli, who was not given to heartfelt compliments. At that moment she realized that it had been his good-bye. The sorrowful faces of the men gathered at her door, and the collective embrace of the women, confirmed her fears. Manoli had died of a galloping cancer that no one had suspected because he had been so clever in hiding the torment of his deteriorating bones. He had gone into the hospital knowing that his hour had come, but out of pride had not wanted his wife and sons to see him die in agony. Juliette's neighbors coordinated their efforts and bought plane tickets for her and her boys. The women packed her suitcase, closed the house and restaurant, and one of them went with her to Thessaloniki.