The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (16 page)

Indeed, Amparo’s congenital happiness has flooded the house in a bubble bath of optimism and good cheer. Luz has turned on
the radio and is dancing merengue with Ismael. Lily is watching and smiling. Carlos Alberto looks reassured, though he has
yet to smile; Consuelo believes it is the sight of Alegra in her white nurse’s uniform that reassures him. Earlier, she heard
him on the phone, talking to his department at the University, saying that he had found a substitute to teach his classes
for two weeks. She thinks he must be worried about money, and whether his employers will hold his job for him. These days,
jobs of any kind are hard to come by. But if such are the thoughts on his mind, he is making a heroic effort to evict them.
He asks to borrow Consuelo’s sewing kit. Then, spreading the contents on the dining table, he sits and constructs a red satin
pillow in the shape of a heart, which he stuffs to the brim with fragrant heads of honeysuckle—Lily’s favorite flowers. He
places the pillow next to her bulging stomach, as close to the baby as possible, as though the strength of his ardor might
seep into the womb by a process of osmosis.

In the evening, Consuelo hears the ancient Lancer backing out of the driveway, and calls out to Marta, “Ask my husband where
he thinks he is going.” But Marta cannot hear her over the roar of the engine.

Concerned that he may feel he is no longer needed, that he may be planning some new jungle expedition, that it will be another
impossible six months before she presses her deprived flesh to his, she hurries to the door and signals him to wait. Then
she sends Carlos Alberto to accompany him. One hour later they return, their arms full of paper bags, and Consuelo’s heart
jumps with joy, as if it is her wedding day.

Of course love
is
enough; how could it be otherwise? For the first time since he carried Lily out of the hospital, she speaks to her husband
without interpreters.

“I thought you might be planning to return to the Gran Sabana,” she says.

Ismael looks at her in a way she has missed every day since they were separated by their daughter’s decree, in a way that
still makes her legs quiver and her knees go weak, in a way that starts a rumba in her womb.

“You, my darling, are my Gran Sabana,” he says, taking her into his arms.

The fruit of the passiflora edulis is used as a heart tonic and an aphrodisiac, its flower as a sedative, and its leaves to
control muscle spasms and cramps.

A
mparo always felt her life lacked dimension until she became a midwife. Until then, she had defined herself as an adult in
terms of her two primary roles: wife of the powerful and influential Alejandro Aguilar, and mother of rambunctious twins,
Alex and Isabel. The fact is, Amparo had been fascinated with the business of birth ever since, at the age of nine, she had
watched the birth of her bull terrier’s puppies. As a child, so great was her desire to witness the miracle over and over
again, she had rescued every pregnant stray she found on the road, creating a doggie birth center in her parents’ garden shed,
soothing her canine patients when they went into labor, squealing with delight each time a wet mongrel squeezed from its mother’s
womb. When her parents had had enough of being woken in the night by the cries of puppies, they told her sternly that she
was not to bring any more pregnant bitches into the garden. But she had cried more noisily, and in a way more disturbing,
than her charges until her parents surrendered on the condition that she agree to find homes for all the puppies and their
mothers. Amparo diligently kept her end of the bargain.

Becoming proficient at delivering puppies was a stepping stone toward her ultimate ambition, which, she informed her parents,
was to assist human babies into the world. But her science grades were so poor that not even her parents’ considerable wealth
and influence could procure admittance to any medical school, and her hopes in this regard were irrevocably dashed by the
time she was seventeen. In any case, by then she had discovered boys—a passion that seemed to cure her of her disappointment
in her own grades and, for a time, even of her obsession with birth. But it returned with a vengeance while she was pregnant
with Alex and Isabel, and when they were born, despite the wracking convulsions of her womb, her screams were more of frustration
than pain, because she could not have a bird’s-eye view of their emergence. Afterward, she made her friend Consuelo promise
that she could be in the room when Lily entered the world. But even here she had been thwarted, for Lily was born two months
premature while she was out of town.

Next, she had volunteered at a local hospital, saying she wanted to assist with deliveries, but the hospital officials had
told her that while they would welcome her help with the babies
after
they were born,
during
the birth only the doctors and nurses could be present. Foiled once again, she had finally given up, vowing to devote herself
fully and exclusively to the role of wife and mother. It was a vow she fulfilled brilliantly and competently for a decade,
when Ismael had introduced her to Lucrecia, a Guajira midwife who was looking for an apprentice.

Lucrecia was older than Amparo had expected, the skin of her face like soft, worn leather, her eyes acute in their perception.
She made it clear from the beginning that position and wealth were of no consequence whatsoever, and Amparo realized she would
have to use alternate means to make a favorable impression. As the wife of a powerful businessman, making favorable impressions
had become one of Amparo’s specialties, but she rightly sensed Lucrecia’s immunity to her social charms and graces, and stood
before her like an awkward schoolgirl, wracking her brain for a way to gain approval.

“Why do you want to become a midwife? What makes you think you deserve to bring babies into the world?” Lucrecia asked.

“I don’t know whether I deserve it,” Amparo said. “I only know that almost as long as I can remember, I have had no compelling
wish to do anything else.”

Though it seemed an eternity to Amparo, it took Lucrecia only seconds to make up her mind. She said, “Well, you’re not quite
what I had expected in an apprentice, but you have given me a straight answer, and you come highly recommended by Ismael.
I’ll teach you, but you should be prepared for a lot of hard work and mess you’re probably not used to. Menos mal that you
have maids and cooks to take care of your home and family, because from now on, you are going to be spending most of your
time with me. You’ll have to live in Valencia, at least during the week. And don’t you come down there with your fancy outfits
and high heels—the women I work with need to feel comfortable with you and you need to feel comfortable in order to work properly—bring
loose-fitting clothes and flat shoes. And make sure you trim those claws. Long nails have no place in the birthing business.”

“Agreed,” said Amparo, weak with gratitude and relief that she at last had a foot in the door of miracles.

Oblivious to the scandal her newfound vocation would incite among her social peers, she began to spend five days a week with
Lucrecia in Valencia, an hour’s drive away, returning to Tamanaco only on the weekends. In compensation for her absence during
the week, she gave the cook the whole weekend off, insisting on preparing the family meals herself, calling her children into
the kitchen to keep her company as she chopped, peeled, tossed, steamed, and broiled. Her exuberance was both evident and
contagious, and, for the first time in years, Alejandro made himself unavailable to his office during weekends. He purchased
matching red aprons and joined her in the kitchen, performing such tasks as she directed, mostly the washing up—just as he
had done during the first year of their marriage, when they were nowhere near wealthy enough to afford a cook or a maid. In
fact, the family now spent more time together than ever before.

For Alex and Isabel, this new lifestyle was something extraordinary, and they could hardly wait for the weekend to arrive.
Though surely they knew they were deeply and abundantly loved by their parents, there had been little opportunity to spend
time with them, except on holidays. They had never before seen their mother in the kitchen and had rarely been inside it themselves.
To watch her cooking up a storm, while their father helped, kissing her each time he passed her on the way to the sink, to
watch their parents laugh till tears spurted from their eyes—this trumped every other weekend activity, and the children began
to make excuses when their friends called them out to play. During these boisterous kitchen reunions, they listened raptly
while their mother recounted what she had learned each week—the use of gravity and bathtubs in birthing, how to turn a breach
baby, the proper way to sever an umbilical cord, the unparalleled delight of ushering new life into the world, and the humbling
privilege of laying a newborn upon the breast of the mother. So vivid and unusual were her descriptions, for each birthing
story took unexpected twists and turns, that afterward the children, ordinarily fastidious and fussy in their eating habits,
polished their plates with gusto, as though gobbling up life itself. Their flesh grew rosy and plump with contentment. As
for Alejandro, a blaze of honeymoonish passion consumed him, and he couldn’t keep his hands off Amparo when she was home.

And so it was that Amparo’s life took an entirely new shape. She dropped out of society, appearing rarely, if at all, at her
husband’s business dinners, where she would be ill at ease, distracted, impatient to return to the fascinating business of
bringing new life into the world. She studied diligently, learning everything the Guajira midwife had to teach her, all the
while marveling at the sheer physical force of a woman’s labor, with its attendant pain and joy. Amparo’s teacher was a practical
woman who, though she insisted that natural birth was best for the baby, found nothing edifying in pain for the sake of pain.
She carried with her always a pouch filled with coca leaf, which she generously administered whenever a woman begged for strength
and relief.

At the end of her third year as an apprentice, Lucrecia told Amparo she was leaving and would not be returning. “I have spent
too many years bringing other people’s children into the world. I have two sons; it is time I paid more attention to my own
children.” The prospect of working without the benefit of advice from her mentor terrified Amparo. Observing the panic in
her pupil’s eyes, Lucrecia touched Amparo’s cheek, saying she had nothing more to teach her.

Amparo returned home with blessings and a suitcase full of medicinal herbs: Anamu leaves and Manacá root for stimulating the
uterus, Pata de carnero for relieving muscle cramps, Abuta to regulate blood pressure, Anise to chew during labor, Sangre
de grado to stop bleeding, Uña de gato for recovery from childbirth, Para toda to restore hormonal balance, Catuaba for stretch
marks, Amor seco to increase breast milk yield, flores de naranja for soothing the mother of a stillborn, coca leaf for labor
pain, Parchita to fortify the heart and ignite passion.