they’d have stayed like that for a long time, trying to accommodate themselves to this sudden intimacy. Maybe she began to feel stifled in the heat, and he helped her to get out of her coat and boots; then they caressed each other hesitantly, recognizing each other, delving into their souls to make sure they weren’t mistaken. “You smell of tobacco and dessert. And you’re smooth and black like a seal,” my Nini told him.I heard that phrase many times.
The last part of the legend I don’t have to invent, because they told me. With that first embrace, my Nini concluded that she’d known the astronomer in other lives and other times, that this was just a re-encounter and that their astral signs and tarot cards were aligned. “Thank goodness you’re a man, Paul. Imagine if in this reincarnation you’d come back as my mother,” she sighed, sitting on his lap. “Since I’m not your mother, why don’t we get married?” he answered.
Two weeks later she arrived in California dragging her son, who had no desire to emigrate for a second time, with a three-month engagement visa, at the end of which she had to either get married or leave the country. They got married.
I spent my first day in Chile wandering around Santiago with a map, in a heavy, dry heat, killing time until my bus left for the south. It’s a modern city, with nothing exotic or picturesque—no Indians in traditional clothes or colonial neighborhoods with boldly colored houses, like the ones I’d seen with my grandparents in Guatemala or Mexico. I took a funicular to the top of a hill, an obligatory trip for tourists, and got an idea of the size of the capital, which looks like it goes on forever, and of the pollution that covers it like a dusty mist. At dusk I boarded an apricot-colored bus heading south, to Chiloé.
I tried and tried to sleep, lulled by the movement, thepurring of the motor, and the snores of the other passengers, but it’s never been easy for me to sleep, and much less now, when I still have residues of the wild life running through my veins. When the sun came up we stopped to use the restroom and have a coffee at a posada, in a pastoral landscape of rolling green hills and cows, and then we went on for another several hours until we reached a rudimentary port, where we could stretch our legs and buy cheese and seafood empanadas from some women wearing white coats like nurses. The bus boarded a ferry to cross the Chacao Channel: half an hour sailing silently over a luminous sea. I got off the bus to look over the edge with all the rest of the numb passengers, who, like me, had spent many hours imprisoned in their seats. Defying the biting wind, we admired the flocks of swallows, like kerchiefs in the sky, and the toninas , dolphins with white bellies that danced alongside the ferry.
The bus left me in Ancud, on the Isla Grande, the second largest city of the archipelago. From there I had to take another bus to the town where Manuel Arias was expecting me, but I discovered that my wallet was missing. My Nini had warned me about Chilean pickpockets and their magician’s skill: they’ll very kindly steal your soul. Luckily they left my photo of my Popo and my passport, which I had in the other pocket of my backpack. I was alone, without a single cent, in an unknown country. If I’d learned anything from last year’s ill-fated adventures, though, it was not to get overwhelmed by minor inconveniences.
In one of the little souvenir shops in the plaza, where they sold Chiloé knits, three women sat in a circle, chatting and knitting. I assumed that if they were like my Nini,they’d help me; Chilean women fly to the rescue of anyone in distress, especially an outsider. I explained the problem in my hesitant Spanish, and they immediately dropped their knitting needles and offered me a chair and an orange soda while they discussed my case, talking over each other in their rush to give opinions. They made several calls on a cell
The last part of the legend I don’t have to invent, because they told me. With that first embrace, my Nini concluded that she’d known the astronomer in other lives and other times, that this was just a re-encounter and that their astral signs and tarot cards were aligned. “Thank goodness you’re a man, Paul. Imagine if in this reincarnation you’d come back as my mother,” she sighed, sitting on his lap. “Since I’m not your mother, why don’t we get married?” he answered.
Two weeks later she arrived in California dragging her son, who had no desire to emigrate for a second time, with a three-month engagement visa, at the end of which she had to either get married or leave the country. They got married.
I spent my first day in Chile wandering around Santiago with a map, in a heavy, dry heat, killing time until my bus left for the south. It’s a modern city, with nothing exotic or picturesque—no Indians in traditional clothes or colonial neighborhoods with boldly colored houses, like the ones I’d seen with my grandparents in Guatemala or Mexico. I took a funicular to the top of a hill, an obligatory trip for tourists, and got an idea of the size of the capital, which looks like it goes on forever, and of the pollution that covers it like a dusty mist. At dusk I boarded an apricot-colored bus heading south, to Chiloé.
I tried and tried to sleep, lulled by the movement, thepurring of the motor, and the snores of the other passengers, but it’s never been easy for me to sleep, and much less now, when I still have residues of the wild life running through my veins. When the sun came up we stopped to use the restroom and have a coffee at a posada, in a pastoral landscape of rolling green hills and cows, and then we went on for another several hours until we reached a rudimentary port, where we could stretch our legs and buy cheese and seafood empanadas from some women wearing white coats like nurses. The bus boarded a ferry to cross the Chacao Channel: half an hour sailing silently over a luminous sea. I got off the bus to look over the edge with all the rest of the numb passengers, who, like me, had spent many hours imprisoned in their seats. Defying the biting wind, we admired the flocks of swallows, like kerchiefs in the sky, and the toninas , dolphins with white bellies that danced alongside the ferry.
The bus left me in Ancud, on the Isla Grande, the second largest city of the archipelago. From there I had to take another bus to the town where Manuel Arias was expecting me, but I discovered that my wallet was missing. My Nini had warned me about Chilean pickpockets and their magician’s skill: they’ll very kindly steal your soul. Luckily they left my photo of my Popo and my passport, which I had in the other pocket of my backpack. I was alone, without a single cent, in an unknown country. If I’d learned anything from last year’s ill-fated adventures, though, it was not to get overwhelmed by minor inconveniences.
In one of the little souvenir shops in the plaza, where they sold Chiloé knits, three women sat in a circle, chatting and knitting. I assumed that if they were like my Nini,they’d help me; Chilean women fly to the rescue of anyone in distress, especially an outsider. I explained the problem in my hesitant Spanish, and they immediately dropped their knitting needles and offered me a chair and an orange soda while they discussed my case, talking over each other in their rush to give opinions. They made several calls on a cell