The Sum of Our Days Read online

  For a week, Willie and I rubbed elbows with celebrities, and lived as important people in this world live. Each star had a court of assistants, makeup artists, hairdressers, masseuses, and cooks. Meryl Streep, beautiful and remote, came and went with her children and their respective nannies and tutors. One of her young daughters with the same talent and ethereal appearance as her mother acted in the film. Glenn Close had several dogs, and assistants to look after the dogs. She had read my book very carefully to prepare for the part of Férula, the spinster, and we spent pleasant hours chatting. She asked me whether the relationship between Férula and Clara was lesbian, and I didn’t know what to answer as I was surprised by that reading. I think that in the early years of the twentieth century in Chile, a time in which part of the novel is set, there were loving relations among women that never reached a sexual level because of the societal and religious impediments of the time. In real life Jeremy Irons was not precisely the frosty English aristocrat we admire on the screen; he could have been a likable taxi driver in the suburbs of London. He had a dark sense of humor, fingers stained with nicotine, and was proud of his inexhaustible repertoire of wild stories, such as one in which he loses his dog in the London Underground, and for one entire morning dog and master cross paths going in opposite directions, leaping out of trains every time they catch sight of each other in some station. I don’t know why, but for the film they put something like a bit in his mouth that distorted his face and his voice. Vanessa Redgrave, tall, patrician, luminous, with eyes of cobalt blue, showed up sans makeup and with a babushka around her head, none of which diminished one whit the formidable impact of her presence. Winona Ryder I met later; she was a kind of pretty little boy whose mother had whacked his hair with her scissors; to me she seemed enchanting, but among the technical crew she had a reputation for being spoiled and capricious. I’ve heard that later that damaged a career that could have been brilliant. As for Antonio Banderas, I had seen him once or twice before and was already in love with him, one of those shy, ridiculous schoolgirl crushes adolescents have on screen stars—no matter that if you stretched the years a little he could be my son. There was always a line of half-frozen fans at the main door of the hotel, feet buried in the snow, hoping some star would come by and they could ask for an autograph, but the actors all used a service door, and fans had to be content with my signature. “Who’s she?” I heard one ask in English, pointing to me. “Can’t you see? She’s Meryl Streep,” another answered.

  Just when we’d become accustomed to living like royalty, our vacation ended. We went home and immediately we passed into absolute anonymity; if we called any of our famous “friends,” we had to spell our names. The world premiere wasn’t held in Hollywood but in Munich—the producers were German—where we were greeted by a throng of tall people and a crushing bombardment of cameras and lights. Everyone was wearing black, and I, in the same color but only half their height, disappeared below belt-buckle level. I appear in only one press photo, and I look like a terrified mouse, black on black, with Willie’s amputated hand on one shoulder.

  I AM GOING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING NOW that happened a long time after the movie version of The House of the Spirits came out, or I’ll never tell it at all; it is in reference to fame and that’s something that never interested you, Paula. I was asked to carry the Olympic flag in the Winter Games in Italy, in February of 2006. It took only four minutes for me to be catapulted into fame. Now people recognize me in the street, and at last my grandchildren boast of having me for a grandmother.

  One day Nicoletta Pavarotti called me; she is the wife of the tenor, a charming woman thirty-four years younger than her famous husband, and she told me that I had been selected as one of the eight persons who would carry a flag in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. I replied that there was surely some error because I am the opposite of an athlete, and in truth, I wasn’t sure I could make it around the stadium without a walker. She explained that it was a great honor; the candidates had been rigorously screened, and their lives, their ideas, and their work had been thoroughly investigated. In addition, it would be the first time that only women would carry the flag: three female gold medalists and five women representing continents. I represented Latin America. My first question, naturally, was what I would wear. She replied that we would all be dressed in a uniform, and she asked for my measurements, which sent me into a panic: I could see myself in a quilted outfit in some repulsive pastel color, fat as an ad for Michelin tires.

  “May I wear high heels?” I asked, and heard a sigh from the other end of the line.

  In mid-February Willie and I, with the rest of the family, arrived in Turin, a beautiful city on an international scale, but not to Italians, who are not impressed even by Venice or Florence. Enthusiastic crowds cheered as the Olympic torch was carried through the streets, or as any of eighty competing teams passed by, each in their national colors. Those young people were the best athletes in the world; they had trained since they were three or four years old and had sacrificed everything to participate in the Olympiad. They all deserved to win, but there is an unpredictable element of luck involved: one flake of snow, one centimeter of ice or the wind speed can determine the result of a race. Nonetheless, what weighs heaviest, more than training or luck, is heart: only the most valiant and determined heart will take home the gold medal. Passion, that is the winner’s secret. The streets of Turin were covered with posters proclaiming the motto of the Olympiad: “Passion Lives Here.” And that is my greatest wish, to live passionately to the very end.

  In the stadium, I met the other flag bearers: three athletes and the actresses Susan Sarandon and Sophia Loren, as well as two activists, the Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai from Kenya and Somaly Mam, who campaigns against the sexual traffic of children in Cambodia. I was also given my uniform. It wasn’t the style of clothing I normally wear but it wasn’t as horrible as I had imagined: sweater, skirt, and coat of winter white wool, boots and gloves of the same color, all bearing an expensive designer’s logo. Not that bad, to tell the truth. I looked like a refrigerator, but the others did, too, except for Sophia Loren, tall, imposing, full-breasted, and sensual, and splendid in all her seventy-some years. I don’t know how she keeps herself slim, because during the long hours we were waiting in the wings, she never stopped snacking on carbohydrates: cookies, nuts, bananas, chocolates. And I don’t know how she can be so tanned and not have wrinkles. Sophia is from another era, very different from today’s models and actresses, who look like skeletons with false breasts. Her beauty is legendary, and apparently indestructible. Earlier I had heard her say during a television program that the secret for beauty was to maintain good posture and not “make old woman noises,” no moaning, grunting, coughing, puffing, talking to yourself, or breaking wind, though you have nothing to worry about, daughter, you will always be twenty-eight years old. On the other hand I, who am hopelessly vain, have tried to follow that advice in every detail, since I cannot imitate Sophia in any other way.

  The woman who impressed me most was undoubtedly Wangari Maathai, who works with women in African villages and has planted more than thirty million trees, changing the soil and the weather in some regions. This magnificent woman glows like a lamp, and I felt an irresistible urge to put my arms around her, something that occasionally happens in the presence of certain young men, but never with a lady like her. I hugged her for a long time, unable to let go, she was like a tree: strong, solid, quiet, content. Wangari must have been frightened, and she unobtrusively pushed me away.

  The Olympic Games opened with an extravagant spectacle in which thousands of actors, dancers, extras, musicians, technicians, producers, and many more people took part. At a certain moment, about eleven p.m., when the temperature had fallen to below zero, we were led to the wings and given the enormous Olympic flag. Loudspeakers announced the climactic moment of the ceremony and the Triumphal March from Verdi’s Aïda was rousingly sung by the 40,000 spectators. Sophia Lore
n walked ahead of me. She is a head taller than I am, not counting her luxuriant hair, and she walked with the elegance of a giraffe on the African savannah, supporting the flag on her shoulder. I trotted behind on tiptoe, holding my section above my head with my arm extended. I was dwarfed beneath the damned flag. Of course all cameras were focused on Sophia Loren, the eternal symbol of beauty and sexuality, and that worked in my favor because I appeared in all the press photographs, even though between Sophia’s legs. I confess to being so happy that according to Nico and Willie, who with tears of pride were urging me on from the gallery, I was levitating. That circuit of the Olympic stadium was my four magnificent minutes of fame. I have kept all the articles and photos because it is the one thing I do not want ever to forget when senile dementia erases all my other memories.

  The Depraved Santa Claus

  BUT LET’S GO BACK, PAULA, and not get lost in time. We grew very fond of Sally, Jason’s sweetheart, a discreet girl of few words who kept herself in the background, although she was always attentive and participating. She had a fairy godmother touch with the children. She was short, pretty without being flamboyant, with smooth blond hair and never a drop of makeup. She looked about fifteen. She had a job in a center for juvenile delinquents, which required courage and a strong hand. She got up early, left, and we wouldn’t see her until evening, when she came home dragging with fatigue. Several of the youths in her charge had been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, and although they were minors, they were the size of mastodons. I don’t know how—beside them she looked like a sparrow—she earned their respect. The day one of the troublemakers threatened her with a knife was the day I offered her a safer job in my office helping Celia, who by now could not keep up with the load of work. They were very good friends; Sally was always ready to help with Celia’s children and spend time with her because Nico was gone, working and studying English. Over time, I came to know Sally, and I agreed with Willie that she had very little in common with Jason. “Keep your nose out of it,” Willie ordered. But how could I do that? They lived in our house, and Sally’s bridal gown, a vision of meringue-colored lace, was hanging in my closet. She and Jason planned to get married as soon as he finished his studies. That was what Jason told us, but Sally showed no sign of impatience; they acted like a pair of bored fifty-year-olds. These modern courtships, long and easygoing, worry me. Urgency is inseparable from love. According to Abuela Hilda, who saw things that were invisible, if Sally married Jason it would not be because she loved him, but to stay in our family.

  The only work Jason could find after graduating from college was a temporary job in a mall, sweating in a ridiculous Santa Claus suit. At least it had the effect of teaching him that he would have to continue his education and get a professional degree. He told us that most of the Santa Clauses were poor devils who came to work with several jolts of cheap whisky under their belts, and that some fondled the children. In view of those revelations, Willie decided that our children would have their own Santa Claus, and he bought a convincing beard, patent leather boots, and a splendid costume of red velvet trimmed with real rabbit fur. I wanted him to choose something less expensive, but he proclaimed that he never wore anything ordinary, and besides, it would serve many years and the cost would be amortized. So that Christmas we invited a dozen children, with their parents, and at the appointed hour we turned down the lights, someone played Christmas music on an electronic organ, and Willie came in through a window, carrying his bag of gifts. His entrance produced a stampede of terror among the youngest, except for Sabrina, who is not afraid of anything. “You must be very rich if you can get Santa on such a busy night,” she commented. The older children were enchanted, until one of them declared that he didn’t believe in Santa Claus, and Willie angrily replied, “Then no presents for you, you little shit!” That was the end of the party. The children immediately suspected that it was Willie hiding behind the beard—who else would it be?—but Alejandro put an end to any speculation with this irrefutable logic. “We don’t want to know. It’s like the tooth fairy that brings money when you lose a tooth. It’s best if our parents think we’re stupid.” That year Nicole was still too young to participate in the farce, but three years later she was consumed with doubt. She was terrified of Santa, and every Christmas we had to stay in the bathroom with her, where she closed the door and shivered until we assured her the terrible old man had left on his sleigh for the next house. This time she hunkered down beside the toilet, wearing a long face and refusing to open her presents.

  “What is the matter, Nicole?” I asked.

  “Tell me the truth. Is Willie Santa Claus?”

  “I think it would be better if you asked him,” I suggested, afraid that if I lied to her, she would never believe me again.

  Willie led her by the hand to the room where he kept the costume he had just worn, and admitted the truth. He cautioned her that this would be a secret between the two of them, one she shouldn’t share with the other children. My youngest grandchild returned to the party with the same long face, took her place in a corner, and wouldn’t touch her presents.

  “And what’s the matter now, Nicole?”

  “You’ve always made fun of me! You’ve ruined my life!” was her answer. She was not yet three years old.

  I told Jason how helpful my training as a journalist had been in my work as a writer, and suggested that it could be a first step toward his literary career. Journalism teaches you to investigate, sum up, work under pressure, and use language efficiently, and in addition forces you to keep the reader in mind, something authors tend to forget when preoccupied with posterity. After a lot of pressure—he doubted himself and didn’t even want to fill out the admission forms—he applied to several universities and to his surprise was accepted in all of them. He could give himself the pleasure of studying journalism in the most prestigious of them all, Columbia University in New York. That put physical distance between him and Sally, and it seemed to me that their lukewarm relationship would become frigid, although they kept talking about getting married. Sally stayed close with us, working with Celia and me and helping with the children. She was the perfect aunt.

  Jason left in 1995 with the idea of graduating and returning to California. Of all Willie’s children, he was the one who most liked the idea of living in a tribe. “I want to have a big family, and this blend of Americans and Latins works great,” he told me once. To fit in, he had spent a few months in Mexico studying Spanish, and spoke it well, with the same bandit accent as Willie’s. Jason and I were always friends; we shared the vice of books, and we liked to sit on the terrace with a glass of wine and tell each other plots for possible novels. He felt that you, Ernesto, Celia, and Nico were as much his siblings as the ones fate had given him, and he wanted all of us to be together forever. However, after your death and Jennifer’s disappearance, we all sank into sadness, and bonds were cut or altered. Jason says now, years later, that the family went to hell, but I remind him that families, like almost everything in this world, metamorphose or evolve.

  An Enormous Rock

  CELIA AND WILLIE ARGUED at the top of their lungs, as passionate over trivialities as they were about serious matters.

  “Put on your seat belt, Celia,” he would say to her in the car.

  “You don’t have to in the back seat.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No!”

  “I don’t give a shit whether you have to or not! This is my car and I’m driving. Put it on or get out!” Willie would roar, red with rage.

  “Fuck you, I’m getting out!”

  Celia had rebelled against masculine authority from the time she was a child, and Willie, who himself exploded at the least provocation, accused her of being an ill-mannered little brat. He was often furious with her, but everything was forgiven as soon as she took up her guitar. Nico and I tried to keep them separated, but we were not always successful. Abuela Hilda stayed out of it; the most she ever said was that Celia was
not accustomed to accepting affection, but that with time she’d get the drift of it.

  Tabra was operated on to remove the footballs and replace them with normal breasts, sacks of a solution less toxic than the silicone. As an aside, the doctor who put in the original ones has become one of the most famous plastic surgeons in Costa Rica, so the experience he gained with my friend was not wasted. I suppose that by now he must be a doddering old man and doesn’t even remember the young American girl who was his first experiment. Tabra this time was six hours in the operating room. They had to scrape the fossilized silicone off her ribs, and when she came out of the clinic she was in such pain that we brought her home to stay until she could get along by herself. Her lymph nodes were so inflamed she couldn’t move her arms, and she had a reaction to the anesthesia that left her nauseated for a week. She couldn’t keep anything down except watery soups and toast. By coincidence, Jason had left for New York to study and Sally had moved to an apartment she shared with a friend, but Abuela Hilda, Nico, Celia, and the three children were temporarily living with us. The Sausalito garret had become too small for Nico’s family and we were in the final stages of buying a house for them; it was a little farther away and needed work but it had a pool, a lot more room, and untouched wooded hills at the back door, perfect for bringing up the children. Our house was filled to the brim, but in spite of how bad Tabra felt, the atmosphere was usually festive, except when Celia or Willie got heated about something and then the least spark set off a fight. The day Tabra arrived, one exploded over something relatively serious that had happened in the office: Celia had accused Willie of not having been clear about some money and he went at her like a man possessed. They exchanged noisy insults and I wasn’t able to soothe their rage or get them to lower their voices and work out a solution on reasonable terms. In only a few minutes the tone had escalated to the level of a street brawl, which Nico finally stopped with the only yell any of us had heard in his lifetime and that paralyzed us with surprise. Willie exited with the slam of a door that nearly brought down the house. In one of the rooms, Tabra, still dazed from the effects of the operation and the painkillers, heard the screams and thought she was dreaming. Abuela Hilda and Sally, who was visiting, disappeared with the children—I think they hid in the cellar among the plaster skulls and the hidey-holes of the skunks.