The hours of daylight flew by as I helped Uncle Bruno with the animals or in the pastures when it wasn’t raining too hard. In the evenings I would weave on the loom or knit, study, read, help Aunt Pía prepare home remedies, give classes to local kids, or learn Morse code from the radio operator.

  * * *

  —

  Miss Taylor and Teresa Rivas came to stay for a few weeks in the dead of winter, and their joyful presence brightened our bad moods. They were the only two people crazy enough to take vacations to the worst climate in the world, they said. They brought with them news from the capital, magazines and books, school material for Mr. and Mrs. Rivas, yards of cloth for sewing, tools for Aunt Pilar, small items that the neighbors requested, and new records for the Victrola. They taught us the latest dances, to choruses of laughter. Even Uncle Bruno participated in the sing-alongs, enchanted by his niece and the Irish woman. Aunt Pilar had transformed during her time in the country, polishing her knowledge of mechanics, swapping her skirts for pants and boots, and she competed with me for Uncle Bruno’s attention; she was in love with him, according to Miss Taylor. They were about the same age and shared a long list of common interests, so it wasn’t such a far-fetched notion.

  Miss Taylor and Teresa Rivas had the splendid idea that we should celebrate Torito, who’d never had a birthday party and didn’t even know what year he’d been born. By the time he came to us and my parents got around to registering him he’d already passed puberty, so his birth certificate showed at least twelve or thirteen years less than his true age. They decided that, since his last name was Toro and he had a stubbornly loyal nature, his zodiac sign must be Taurus, and therefore he must’ve been born in April or May, but we would celebrate his birthday whenever we were all together.

  Uncle Bruno bought a half rack of lamb at the market so that we didn’t have to kill the only sheep on the farm, which happened to be Torito’s pet, and Facunda made a sponge cake with dulce de leche. Uncle Bruno helped me make a gift for Torito: a little cross that I carved from wood, with his name engraved on one side and mine on the other, tied on a string made from pig leather.

  If it had been made of solid gold, Torito couldn’t have cherished it more. He hung it around his neck and never took it off. I’m telling you this, Camilo, because that cross would play an important role many years later.

  * * *

  —

  If they let José Antonio know in advance that they planned to visit, he would try to be there when Miss Taylor and Teresa came, always taking the opportunity to once again ask the Irish woman for her hand, out of habit. He worked with Marko Kusanovic within a relatively short distance as the crow flies, but at first, before he’d set up his office in the city, he had to come off the mountain on treacherous paths to catch the train. Uncle Bruno and I would meet him at the station and bring him up to speed on the family, out of earshot of my mother and aunts. We were increasingly concerned for my mother, who waited out the overwhelmingly damp winters in bed, with blankets pulled up to her chin, warm linseed poultices on her chest, and engrossed in a continuous torrent of prayers.

  In the third year at Santa Clara, the family decided that she wouldn’t last another winter; we had to send her to the sanitorium in the mountains. José Antonio now earned enough to afford it. From then on, Lucinda and Aunt Pía accompanied her first by train and then bus to the sanitorium, where she’d spend four months healing her lungs and her spirit. They would go back to get her in spring, and she’d return to us with enough strength to survive a little longer. Because of those prolonged absences, and because she’d been practically incapable of a normal existence for most of my life, the memories I have of my mother are less vivid than those of other people I grew up with, such as my aunts, Torito, Miss Taylor, and the Rivas family. Her eternal illness is the reason for my good health; in order to avoid following in her footsteps, I’ve lived my life proudly ignoring any and all ailments. That’s how I learned that, in general, things clear up on their own.

  Spring and summer left no time for rest on the Rivas farm. For the majority of the warmer months I was on tour with Abel and Lucinda’s mobile school, but I also spent time helping out at Santa Clara. We harvested vegetables, beans, and fruit; jarred preserves; made jams, jellies, and cheese from cow, goat, and sheep’s milk; and smoked meat and fish. It was also the season in which the farm animals had their babies, a brief and joyful moment when I could bottle-feed and name them, inevitably becoming attached before they were sold off or slaughtered and I had to forget about them.

  When the time came to slaughter a pig, Uncle Bruno and Torito made sure to do it inside one of the sheds, but no matter how far away I tried to hide, I could always hear the animal’s bloodcurdling squeal. Afterwards, Facunda and Aunt Pilar, up to their elbows in blood, would make sausage, chorizo, ham, and salami, which I’d devour without a hint of guilt. Several times throughout the course of my life I’ve vowed to become a vegetarian, Camilo, but my willpower always fails me.

  * * *

  —

  That’s how I spent my adolescence, our period of Exile, which I remember as the most diaphanous time of my life. They were calm and abundant years, dedicated to the everyday chores of farm life and a devotion to teaching alongside Mr. and Mrs. Rivas. I read a lot, because Miss Taylor always sent books from the capital, which we would discuss by letter and in person when she came to visit the farm. Lucinda and Abel also shared ideas and readings that expanded my horizons. It was clear to me from a young age that although I respected them, my mother and my aunts were stuck in the past, uninterested in the outside world or anything that might challenge their beliefs.

  Our house was small and we lived in very close quarters; I was never alone, but when I turned sixteen I was given a cabin a few yards away from the main house, which Torito, Aunt Pilar, and Uncle Bruno had built in the blink of an eye as a gift for me. I named it the Birdcage, because it looked like an aviary with its hexagonal shape and skylight in the ceiling. There I had my own space with a little privacy and enough peace and quiet to study, read, prepare classes, and dream, away from the incessant chatter of the family. I continued to sleep in my mother and aunts’ house, on a mattress I unrolled every night beside the stove and put away every morning; the last thing I wanted was to face the terrors of the darkness alone in the Birdcage.

  Uncle Bruno and I celebrated the miracle of life with every chick that hatched from its egg and every tomato that came from the garden to the table; he taught me to observe and listen attentively, to get my bearings in the woods, to swim in freezing lakes and rivers, to start a fire without a match, to enjoy the pleasure of sinking my face into a juicy watermelon, and to accept the inevitable pain of saying goodbye to people and animals, because there is no life without death, as he always said.

  Since I didn’t have a group of friends my age and my only company was the adults and children around me, I didn’t have anyone to compare myself to, and so I didn’t experience adolescence as a terrible upheaval; I simply moved from one phase to the next without noticing. I similarly avoided romantic fantasies—so normal at that age—because there were no boys around to inspire them. Apart from that Indian chief who’d tried to trade a horse for me, no one considered me a woman, I was just a girl, Bruno Rivas’s adopted niece.

  I changed a lot. When I look at the only two surviving pictures from that period, I see that at age eighteen I was a lovely young woman; denying it would be false modesty. But I didn’t know it at the time, because within my family and among the people of the region, looks didn’t count for much. No one ever told me I was pretty and the only mirror in the house was barely large enough for me to style my hair. I had dark olive-shaped eyes that contrasted with my pale skin, an untamable mop of dark shiny hair, which I wore in a braid down my back and washed once a week with the soapy foam of local tree bark. My hands, with long fingers and thin wrists, roughened by farmwork and bleach, were more like the hands of a washerwoman, according to Miss Taylor, who had direct knowledge from her experience in the Irish orphanage. I dressed in clothes that had been made for me by my aunts, who thought only of practical utility and never considered fashion: overalls or jumpsuits of rough cloth and clogs made of wood and pig leather for daily use; for going out, a simple percale dress with a lace collar and mother-of-pearl buttons.

  * * *

  —

  Up to now I’ve told you little of Apolonio Toro, unforgettable Torito, who deserves to be paid greater homage since he lived with me for many years of my life and remained with me even after his death. I suppose he’d been born with some genetic anomalies because he looked nothing like anyone we’d ever met. For starters, he was a giant in our country, where people used to be mostly short; not like now, with the younger generations a full head taller than their grandparents. Because he was so large, he moved as slowly as a pachyderm, adding to the appearance of menacing brute that contrasted so sharply with his docile nature. He would’ve been able to strangle a puma with his bare hands, but if anyone taunted him, as sometimes happened, he didn’t even defend himself, as if he were all too aware of his strength and refused to wield it against others. He had a narrow forehead, small, sunken eyes, a prominent jaw, and a mouth that always hung open.

  Once, in the market, a group of boys surrounded him, shouting insults of “Retard!” and “Moron!” and throwing rocks at him. Torito bore the abuse without getting agitated or trying to protect himself, even when he received a cut on his forehead and blood began to run down his face. A small circle of curious onlookers had formed by the time Uncle Bruno showed up, attracted by the commotion, and furiously dispersed the boys. “That gorilla attacked us!” “Lock him up!” they shrieked, but they backed off, continuing to jeer as they ran away.

  I can still picture him, sitting on a bench, since chairs were always too small for him, a safe distance from the stove, because he tended to overheat, whittling a little animal out of wood for the kids who flocked to the house for Facunda’s cookies. The same kids, who were at first terrified of Torito, soon followed him everywhere he went. The women slept in the house, but he preferred the open air and when it rained he put down a blanket to sleep in the shed. We liked to joke that he slept with one eye open, always vigilant. I can’t count the number of times I curled up in his arms after waking from a nightmare. Torito would hear me screaming and get there before anyone else to rock me like a baby, cooing, “Sleep, my little girl, go to sleep, the bogeyman is gone and won’t come back.”

  In the country, Torito found his place in the world. I think he understood the language of animals and plants; he could calm a wild horse by talking softly to it, and encourage crops to grow by playing a song on his harmonica. He could predict the weather well before Uncle Bruno saw any of the telltale signs. The clumsy oaf he’d been in the city was transformed out in nature into a delicate being, sensitive to everything happening around him as well as the moods and emotions of others.

  Every once in a while, Torito disappeared. We knew that he was going because he would change the soles of his boots, pack his hatchet, knife, fishing pole, trapping material, and provisions from Facunda, who treated him with the same bossiness and gruff affection that she otherwise reserved for Uncle Bruno. He’d wrap everything in a blanket and sling it diagonally across his back, tying it to his chest with rope. He’d say goodbye without many words and then set out on foot. He refused to ride on horseback, saying he was too heavy a load for a horse or mule. He’d wander for weeks at a time and return thin, bearded, browned by the sun, and happy. We’d ask him what he’d been doing, and his answer was always the same: getting acquainted. This expression of his extended to the cold impenetrable rain forest, the volcanoes, cliffs, and stony footpaths of the country’s mountainous border, the raging rivers and frothy white waterfalls, the lagoons hidden behind rocky outcroppings. And it also included the locals, who knew the land like the palms of their hands, shepherds and hunters and the indigenous people, who respected him and gave him the nickname Fuchan because of his size. For them, Torito wasn’t the village idiot, but the wise giant.

  * * *

  —

  One Saturday in late autumn, one of the workers on a nearby ranch, who’d seen me at a rodeo, came to the Rivas farm with the excuse of wanting to buy some pigs; I never imagined he was really there for me. I remember that he was unshaven, with an authoritative voice and arrogant posture as he talked down to us from his saddle. The piglets were very small, it wasn’t yet time to sell them, and Uncle Bruno told him to come back in a few months, but when the man lingered Bruno invited him inside for a drink. I served them apple chicha and made a gesture to excuse myself, but the man stopped me with the click of his tongue, like he was calling a dog.

  “Where are you going, pretty girl?” he said.

  Uncle Bruno stood up, more shocked than angry, because we were unaccustomed to such impertinence. He sent me to see my mother while he got rid of the stranger.

  That afternoon I had my weekly bath. In the shed, Facunda and Torito lit the fire to heat the water inside the huge tub, which was later emptied into a wooden trough. Torito left and closed the linen curtain that served as a door, then Facunda helped me wash my hair and scrub my body until my skin was red and shiny new. It was a long and sensual ritual, the hot water and the cold evening air, the foam from the tree bark in my hair, the rough sponge on my skin, the clean scent of mint and basil leaves that Facunda sprinkled into the tub. Afterwards I dried off with rags—we didn’t have towels—and Facunda detangled my dense hair. I aided in the bathing process with her, Lucinda, and my aunts, but my mother took only sponge baths, to avoid catching cold. The men bathed using buckets of water, or in the river.

  It was getting dark when I bid Facunda good night and walked toward our house, wearing my nightdress and a thick vest, to have the cup of broth and bread with cheese that generally made up our dinner. Suddenly I again heard the clicking sound that the strange man had made hours earlier, and before I had time to react he appeared before me.

  “Where are you going, pretty girl?” he snarled.

  I could smell the drink on him from several steps away. I don’t know what idea he had of me; maybe he thought I was one of the servants, someone insignificant who could be taken advantage of. I tried to run, but he cut me off and grabbed me by the neck with one hand, covering my mouth with the other.

  “If you scream I’ll kill you. I have a knife,” he muttered, biting off his words, and he kneed me in the belly, causing me to double over.

  He dragged me to my Birdcage, kicked the door open, and I found myself in the pitch-darkness of the cabin. The Birdcage was close to the house, and if I could’ve screamed someone would’ve heard me, but my mind was clouded with fear. He threw me down without easing his grip, and I felt my head smash against the floorboards. With his free hand he tried to lift my nightdress and pull down my underwear, as I kicked weakly, flattened under his weight. His calloused hand blocked my mouth and nose; I couldn’t breathe, I was suffocating. I scratched at his arm trying to free myself; getting air was much more urgent than defending myself.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t remember what happened after that, I might have lost consciousness from lack of oxygen or simply blacked out from the trauma of that violent act. Torito, noticing I was taking too long to come home, had gone out looking for me, and he must’ve heard something because he came into the Birdcage and managed to grab the man in his huge hands and pull him off before he could rape me. This was explained to me later by my aunts, and they added that Torito had escorted the terrified man out of Santa Clara and given him a swift kick in the rear end, sending him into the middle of the road like a sack of potatoes.

  The police showed up two days later to interrogate everyone in the area. Some fishermen had found the dead body of a man named Pascual Freire, who managed the Moreau family farm, among the reeds of the riverbank, about a mile and a half away. It had been easy to identify him because he was well known in the area as a notorious drunk and a troublemaker who’d had more than one run-in with the law. The logical explanation was that Freire had gotten drunk and drowned, but he had lacerations around his neck. The police didn’t get any good information as they half-heartedly asked their questions and soon left.

  Who accused Torito? I’ll never know, just as I’ll never know if he was responsible for the man’s death. He was arrested that weekend and held in Nahuel, awaiting the order for transfer to Sacramento. We immediately called José Antonio, who took the first train down the next morning. In the meantime, all three members of the Rivas family went to testify that Apolonio Toro was a peaceful person, who had never shown any signs of violence, as many others could attest, including the local children who adored him. They managed to keep him from being moved to Sacramento that day, buying my brother some time.

  José Antonio had worked very little as a lawyer, but the humble local police, who could barely read, didn’t know that. He showed up at the precinct, which was just a shack with a cage for prisoners, wearing a hat and tie, carrying a black briefcase, empty but impressive, and took the irate tone of an offended king. He made their heads swim with legal jargon, and once they were sufficiently intimidated, he handed them several bills for their trouble. They released the detainee with the warning that they’d keep an eye on him. Torito rode home in Uncle Bruno’s truck and had to be helped into the house because he’d been so badly beaten.

  No one in my family or on the Rivas farm asked Torito any questions about what, if anything, he’d done to my attacker. Facunda fortified him with the best of her baked goods, while Aunt Pía consulted with her rival, Yaima, to help heal his wounds. Torito’s kidneys had been damaged, causing blood in his urine, and so many of his ribs were broken that he could hardly breathe. I didn’t leave his side, overcome with guilt, since he’d risked his freedom and possibly even his life to save me. But when I tried to thank him he just repeated the same words he’d said to the police when they’d interrogated him about Pascual Freire: “I didn’t know that dead man.”

 

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