Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree (62 page)

Every item in the room dragged her back to those languid days at Santa Catalina and she bathed in the wistful pleasure they gave her. In the cupboard every piece of clothing told a story, like a museum of her life. She laughed at the white dress she had worn for Santi’s return that was still scrunched up in a ball at the back of the shelf and the stack of jeans she had worn every day. It was fascinating. Of course she couldn’t have got into anything had she wanted to, she was no longer a size eight. But the shirts and sweaters would have fitted. She longed to put it all on and walk out onto the terrace.

‘When we sent you away I always expected you to come back.’ Sofia turned to find her mother standing uncomfortably in the doorway. ‘So I left yer room as it was.’ She spoke in English, it seemed a release for her to talk in her own language. She walked over to the window and ran her hand down the curtains. ‘When you didn’t return I couldn’t bear to clear yer room out. There was always a chance that you might change yer mind. I didn’t know what to do with yer things. I didn’t want to throw anything away in case ...’ Her voice trailed off.

‘No, everything’s as I left it,’ replied Sofia, sitting on the bed.

‘Yes, it just happened like that. I have never had to move you out. Rafael has built a house, Agustin lives in the States, Paco and I are now alone. You can stay here as long as you want to. Unless you have somewhere else you would prefer to stay?’

‘No, I hadn’t given it any thought actually, so this would be very nice. Thank you.’ Then she couldn’t resist it so she added, ‘Just like old times!’ She turned and to her surprise, her mother’s brittle expression softened and she detected the beginnings of a smile.

‘Let’s hope not,’ Anna replied.

As she closed the door to her room and made her way over to Chiquita’s house later that evening, Sofia recalled those idyllic days when her romance with San-ti was still undiscovered and her mother and she were friends. That summer had been the happiest of her life. She remembered those days and her heart was filled once more with the secret hope that she could somehow relive them.

Maria was sitting up in bed in a pale blue nightdress. She looked celestial. Although she had no hair, her skin was as translucent as gauze and her sherry eyes shone with pleasure.

‘It is just magic to be at home,’ she enthused, pulling two of her smaller children to her and kissing their tanned faces lovingly. ‘Eduardo, get Sofia the photo album, I want to show her the years she missed.’

Unlike the hospital the atmosphere was one of happiness. Chiquita’s house was full of warmth, music and laughter, the sultry night bathed in the sweet scents of damp grass and jasmine. Santi and Claudia had no country house of their own so they stayed with his parents at weekends and during the school holidays. She could see why Santi had never wanted to leave. This house was his home, and the echoes of an enchanted childhood still reverberated off the walls.

Santi and Sofia barely exchanged words as she sat and talked the hours away with his sister and mother, but they were very conscious of the other’s presence. The women laughed about the adventures they had had, one story striking the memory of another, and the years of separation slowly melted away. When they left Maria asleep in her brightly decorated room full of flowers Sofia felt as if they had never been parted.

‘You know, Chiquita, it is so good to see Maria again,’ she said as they entered the sitting room. ‘I’m glad I came.’

‘It has done Maria the world of good. She missed you so much. I think you have given her the will to live perhaps a little longer.’ Sofia embraced her aunt. The fear and uncertainty of the last few months had eaten away at Chiquita’s spirit and stretched her emotions to their limit. She was as fragile as a twig.

‘You and your family are what Maria cherishes.
You
give her the will to live. Look how happy she is to be at home. Her final days will be peaceful and full of joy.’

‘You’re so right, my dear Sofia,’ and then she looked at her through her tears and whispered, ‘and what are we going to do with you, eh?’

‘What do you mean? I shall return to my family, of course.’

Chiquita nodded with understanding. ‘Of course,’ she said gently, but she smiled and her eyes traced Sofia’s features as if she were reading the feelings they betrayed.

Santi and Claudia were sitting quietly reading magazines. Panchito, now a strapping thirty year old, slouched on the sofa watching television. He reminded her of Santi as a young man. His legs were long and skinny, dangling over the armrest. He had a charisma that Sofia found engaging. Like Dorian Gray, Panchito looked like a younger, flawless image of his brother. His eyes were the same sea-green and yet they lacked the depth of his brother’s. His face was unlined and smooth yet that too lacked the character of Santi’s, whose face showed that he had suffered and survived.

Sofia looked at Santi and loved him more for his crumpled skin and melancholic eyes. He had once exuded a confidence that believed it could tame the ebb and flow of life and train it to do his bidding. Fate had taught him that one cannot conquer what is out of one’s control; one can only learn to live in harmony with it. Santi had relinquished his arrogance the hard way.

‘Santi, bring Sofia a glass of wine - white or red?’ asked Chiquita.

‘Red,’ said Santi, automatically answering the question for her. Red had always been Sofia's favourite colour.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied in surprise. Claudia looked up from her magazine and watched her husband pour the wine. Sofia waited for the look of anxiety that was sure to follow, but it never came. If Claudia had minded she made sure she didn’t show it.

‘So, Sofia, how long will you be staying?’ she asked, her apathetic blue eyes smiling a little too much in an attempt to hide the fear that trembled behind them.

‘I don’t know, I have no plans,’ Sofia responded with a smile of equal sincerity.

‘Don’t you have children and a husband?’

‘Yes, I do. David’s busy with a play at the moment so he couldn’t come. Anyhow, it would be hard for him, he doesn’t know any of you and he doesn’t speak Spanish. He’s happy for me to stay as long as I want.’

‘We all read about you in the papers,’ enthused her aunt. ‘Such a nice picture - you looked beautiful. I still have it somewhere. I’ll pull it out and show you sometime. Yes, I must still have it somewhere.’ Santi brought her the wine. Sofia caught his eye but he didn’t respond. ‘You should have been an actress. You were a prima donna even as a child,’ recalled Chiquita, ‘you were always attracting attention. I’m surprised your husband hasn’t put you in one of his plays! You know, Claudia, she was quite the exhibitionist. I remember a play that was put on at San Andres, Sofia, and you refused to take part because you weren’t the lead. Do you remember, Santi? She must have cried for a week. You said you were better than everyone else.’

‘Yes, I remember that,’ he replied.

‘She always got her way, Claudia. Poor Paco could never say no.’

‘Nor could Grandpa,’ Sofia admitted sheepishly, laughing a little. ‘It used to drive my mother insane the way we’d gang up on her.’

‘Now your grandfather - what an extraordinary man
he
was.’

‘You know I still miss him. I miss his humour,’ Sofia said wistfully. ‘I’ll never forget that time he was kept in the intensive care unit at the hospital in Buenos Aires, having contracted some highly infectious disease. God knows what he had, but whatever it was it baffled the doctors. I think it was some sort of amoeba. Do you remember, Chiquita?’ she said.

Chiquita frowned and shook her head. ‘I don’t believe I do.’

‘Well, the doctor said Grandpa was not permitted to leave his room. At one point, he wanted to go to the bathroom and after ringing his bell a couple of times to no effect, he left his room and wandered around the whole floor until he found the
bahos.
On his return he noticed there was a sign on the door of his room stating that no one, under any circumstances, was permitted to enter without supervision -
highly contagious patient within
it said. Grandpa decided he couldn’t possibly go in, as he’d be breaking the rules. So what do you think he did? He shuffled off around all the wards, infecting everyone he came into contact with, until he found a nurse to escort him back to his room. Apparently

he caused a minor panic. Knowing Grandpa O’Dwyer, he would have done it on purpose. They always answered his bell after that.’

They must have praised the day he left,’ chuckled Santi, shaking his head. ‘I remember the time you fought with Anna and packed your bags and came over to our house, declaring that you wanted Mama to adopt you. Do you remember, Sofia?’ He laughed, the wine dulling his senses and loosening his muscles that ached from having to dissemble his emotions.

‘I’m not sure I want to remember that, it’s a bit embarrassing,’ Sofia said awkwardly.

‘No, it wasn’t. Santi and Maria were thrilled. They encouraged it,’ said Chiquita.

‘What did my parents say about it?’ she asked. She never did get to the bottom of that one.

‘Well, let me think.’ Her aunt sighed, narrowing her eyes. ‘Your father . . . yes, Paco came over and got you. I recall he told you there were very nice orphanages you could go to if you didn’t want to live at home. He said you were too much of a handful to sell to any of his family!’

‘Did he really?’ Sofia giggled.

‘You were always a handful. I’m glad you’ve settled down,’ Chiquita said fondly. All the time Claudia hadn’t spoken. She had just listened.

‘She used to play polo with the boys,’ continued Chiquita, nodding her head.

‘D/os - it’s been years, literally. I don’t know whether I’d remember how to play.’

‘Could you play as well as the boys?’ asked Claudia finally, attempting to join in.

‘Not as well as Santi, but definitely as well as Agustin,’ Chiquita said truthfully.

‘I wanted to do whatever the boys did. They always seemed to have much more fun than us girls,’ Sofia recalled.

‘You were a sort of honorary boy, weren’t you, Chofi?’ smirked Santi. Sofia hesitated. That was the first time she had heard him call her ‘Chofi’. Chiquita pretended not to notice, but Sofia knew she had as her eyes anxiously darted to Santi and then back to her. Of course Claudia kept her composure and sipped her wine as if her husband had said nothing unusual.

‘Sofia was such a menace. I am so happy you have settled down, found a nice husband - I knew you would,’ Chiquita said nervously, trying to fill the

silence.

Claudia looked at her watch. ‘Santi, we should say goodnight to the children,’ she said tightly.

‘Right now?’ he asked.

‘Yes. They’ll be so disappointed if you don’t say goodnight.’

‘I really should get back to my parents. It’s been a long day and I’m tired. I’ll see you all tomorrow,’ said Sofia, getting up.

Claudia and Santi stood up to leave. Santi didn’t kiss her. He just acknowledged her awkwardly before leaving the room, followed by his wife. Chiquita kissed her tenderly.

‘Talk to Anna, Sofia,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Sofia.

‘Just talk to her. Things have not been easy - for any of you.’

As Sofia wandered slowly back to the house she remembered the many times she had walked this stretch of land. This used to be her home. The smell of eucalyptus hung in the humid air and she could hear the ponies snorting in the fields. The crickets clicked rhythmically - for as long as there had been Argentina she imagined there had been crickets. They were as much a part of the place as the ombu. She couldn’t imagine the
campo
without them. She breathed in the scents of the
pampa
and drifted on her memories and bittersweet echoes of her childhood.

By the time she reached the house she felt sick with nostalgia. She needed time to be on her own, to think. Having expected Santa Catalina to have changed, it was disturbing to find that it hadn’t. She could have been a child again and yet here she was within the body of a mature woman, full of the experiences of another country, another life. Looking about her she realized that Santa Catalina was fixed in a time warp, as if the world outside had not touched it. She wandered up to the pool and walked around it. But the memories cascaded, persisted; everything she set her eyes upon pulled her back to

the past. The tennis court where she and Santi had so often played loomed out at her through the darkness and she could almost hear their ghostly voices laughing and joking on the breeze.

Sofia sat by the water’s edge and thought about David. She imagined his expression, his pale blue eyes, the straight aristocratic nose she so often kissed. She imagined those features she loved. Yes, she loved him, but not in the same way that she loved Santi. She knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn’t crave another man’s arms, another man’s lips, another man’s caresses, and yet she had never ceased to love this human being who was in some strange way attached to her soul. She longed for Santi and her longing choked her. After twenty-three years the hurt was still as raw as it ever had been.

It was dark when she reached the house. She had calmed down, walked a bit, breathed deeply, all those wise things Grandpa O’Dwyer had taught her to do when her brothers had teased her, leaving her hoarse with fury. She wandered into the kitchen where Soledad greeted her with a taste of
dulce de leche
mousse before it had set. Placing herself in her usual seat at the kitchen table while Soledad cooked, they chatted as friends. Sofia had to distract herself and