Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree Read online

  Finally he had confronted Anna. At first Chiquita had told Santi to stay out of his aunt’s way. Anna had specifically told her that she didn’t want to see him. So Santi had done as he was told and made sure he didn’t bump into her. But after about two months, when he was maddened by the silence in the mailbag, he strode into her apartment in Buenos Aires and demanded to know where Sofia was.

  Anna was sitting with the cook talking through recipes for the following week’s meals, when Loreto appeared at the door to the sitting room, red-faced and trembling, to announce that Senor Santiago was in the hall, demanding to see her. Anna told Loreto to tell him that she wasn’t there, that she had gone out and wouldn’t be back until late, but she returned, apologetically, saying that Senor Santiago wouldn’t go until Senora Anna returned, even if he had to spend the night on the floor. Anna relented, dismissed the cook and told Loreto to bring him in.

  When Santi appeared at the door, he looked more like a shadow than a man. His face was black with misery and his eyes livid with fury. He wore a beard and had grown his hair long. He no longer looked handsome but decadent and menacing. In fact, Anna thought he looked more like Fernando, who had always appeared slightly sinister, ever since he had been a boy.

  ‘Come and sit down.' she said calmly, hiding the tremor in her voice behind a steely veneer of control.

  Santi shook his head. ‘I don’t want to sit down. I won’t be staying long. Just give me Sofia’s address and I’ll leave,’ he said in a monotone.

  ‘Now listen to me, Santiago,’ Anna said sharply. ‘How dare you demand my daughter’s address when you are the man guilty of stealing her virtue.’

  ‘Just give it to me and I’ll go,’ he repeated, determined to avoid a scene. He knew what his aunt was like. She had reduced his mother to tears many times. ‘Please,’ he ventured with forced politeness.

  ‘I won’t give you her address, because I don’t want you two to see each other again, or communicate. What do you hope for, Santiago?’ she said icily,

  smoothing back her shiny red hair that was scraped into a knot at the back of her head. ‘You don’t think you can marry, do you? Is that what you want?’

  ‘Just give it to me, damn you! Who she chooses to see is none of your business,’ he snapped, losing his composure.

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that! Sofia is my daughter. She was no more than a child - a minor. How do you think I feel? You stole her innocence,’ she accused furiously, her voice ascending a few notes.

  ‘Stole her innocence? God, you’ve always been so melodramatic, Anna. You don’t want to think of her enjoying it, do you.’ Anna’s face twitched nervously. ‘She did enjoy it. She enjoyed every moment of it because she loves me and I love her. We made love, Anna. Love. Not sex, not sordid, dirty sex, but beautiful love. I can’t expect you to understand, you don’t look capable of enjoying love like Sofia. You’re too dried up with bitterness and resentment. Well, don't give me the address then. But I’ll find it. I’ll find it and Sofia, and I will marry her in Europe and never come back. Then you’ll wish you hadn’t sent her away.’

  He didn’t wait to be ordered out, but left hastily, slamming the door behind him. After that brief collision Chiquita and Miguel had berated him for his rudeness and Paco had confronted him, albeit in a calmer manner, and had explained to him why he wasn’t able to write to Sofia. Santi had been too distraught to notice the hurt in his uncle’s eyes and the greyness that had not only destroyed the colour of his hair but had also deprived him of the golden skin of his happier days. They were both broken men. But Santi couldn’t give up. Sofia had told him never to give up.

  For two and a half years he had tormented himself with possible scenarios. Perhaps she had written and the letter got lost. What if she had been waiting for a letter from him? Oh God, what if she had written? He worried himself into a state of total despair until Maria’s conscience could bear the guilt no longer and she confessed.

  It was a dark, drizzly winter’s night. Santi stood outside on the balcony, gazing down onto the noisy streets of the city, eleven stories below him. As if in a dream he watched unblinking as the world continued oblivious to his pain. Maria stepped out to join him, her lips pale and trembling. She knew she had to tell him. If she didn’t he might just throw himself to his death and then she’d never forgive herself. She stood beside him and looked below at the cars that lit up the street with their bright lights, blowing their horns for no apparent

  reason as Argentines always do. She turned to look at his shadowy profile that continued to stare down without noticing that she was beside him. Without knowing that she was about to confess her darkest secret.

  ‘Santi,’ she said, but her voice failed her, the word escaping in no more than a whisper.

  ‘Leave me alone, Maria. I need to be alone,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the long drop below him.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ she replied, this time putting more force behind her words.

  ‘So talk,’ he said brutally, without meaning to be unkind. His unhappiness had made him insensitive to anybody else’s feelings, as if he were the only human being to suffer.

  ‘I have a confession. Don’t be angry, let me explain wh-wh-why I did it,’ she stammered, the tears already running down her face in anticipation of his reaction. He slowly turned his head and looked at her with heavy eyes.

  ‘Confession?’ he said flatly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What confession?’

  Maria gulped and wiped the tears from her cheeks with a shaking hand. ‘I burnt Sofia’s letters to you.’

  When Maria’s words reached his understanding, all Santi’s anger, misery and frustration coiled with such force that he was unable to control himself. He pulled his hand back and brought it down onto the railing with a loud thud. He picked up one of his mother’s flowerpots and threw it against the wall where it shattered, splattering the wall with mud. Then he turned and looked at his sister with loathing. Fat tears tumbled down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated over and over, trying to touch him. ‘How can I make it up to you?’

  ‘Why?’ He shouted at her, stepping back from her. ‘Why did you do it, Maria? It’s not like you! How could you?’

  ‘I was hurt. Santi, I was hurt. She was my friend too,’ she replied, desperate to get through to him. But he just stood over her, staring at her. ‘Santi. Please forgive me. I’ll do anything.’

  ‘My God, Maria. You of all people. You! I can’t believe you would be so vindictive.’ He gasped, shaking his head in complete astonishment. Maria watched him tremble with fury. He looked so old for a man so young. She had done that to him. She would never forgive herself.

  ‘It was a mistake. I hate myself. I want to die!’ she moaned. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘How did you find the letters?’ he asked in bewilderment.

  ‘I retrieved them from the porter on my way to the university.’

  ‘God, Maria, you’re devious. I never thought you were like that.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m really not. I just couldn't bear you to leave. Not you as well as Sofia. I thought of Mama and Papa and the suffering they would have to endure and I just couldn’t let you do it.’

  ‘So you read the letters.’

  ‘No. I just read the last few lines.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Something about longing for you to go to her in Switzerland.’

  ‘So she had expected me to come. She must think I betrayed her,’ he whispered for his anxiety had left his throat constricted, like the neck of a hanged man.

  ‘I thought she would come back. I thought she’d come back to find that you’d both grown out of it. Then things would be the same again. I never thought she’d leave for good. Oh Santi, I never thought she’d leave for good. I wish I’d never done it.’

  ‘So do I.' he choked, sinking onto the wet tiled floor and dropping his face into his hands. His whole body shook with violent sobs. A
t first he pushed his sister away when she tried to comfort him. But she persisted and after a few attempts he allowed her to wrap her arms around him and they cried together.

  It took two years for Santi to forgive his sister completely. When he clubbed together with Fernando and a couple of Fernando’s guerrilla friends that cold July night to rescue their sister from the sinister Facundo Hernandez, he suddenly saw beyond himself and his own pain. He woke up.

  Maria fell in love with Facundo Hernandez in the autumn of 1978. She had just celebrated her twenty-second birthday. Facundo was tall and swarthy, being of Spanish blood. He had dark brown eyes with long black lashes that curled out like spiders’ legs. He was a young officer in the military - part of General Videla’s army - and wore his smart new uniform with pride. Facundo worshipped the General with the enthusiasm of a new recruit and strutted about the streets of Buenos Aires with an air of self-importance that pertained to all those in the military at that time.

  General Videla had seized power in March 1976 with the aim of terminating the chaos of the Peronist years and restructuring Argentine society. The government launched a bloody war on its opposition, arresting all those suspected of subversion. Houses were broken into in the middle of the night, suspects dragged from their beds never to be seen again. It was a time of great fear. The ‘disappeared’ reached perhaps as many as 20,000 and left no legal trail behind them. They simply vanished.

  Facundo Hernandez believed in democracy. He believed the military were laying foundations for an eventual ‘democracy’ which, in their own words, would ‘suit the reality and needs and progress of the Argentine people’. He was a small cog in this big machine that was going to reform his country. The torture and murders were, he told himself, an unavoidable means to this end, and the end justified the means.

  Facundo Hernandez first laid eyes on Maria Solanas one Sunday morning in April when she was walking in the park in Buenos Aires with a friend. It was a warm day, clear skies shone resplendent over the city and the park was full of children playing in the sunshine. He followed her while she ambled slowly along the path. He liked the way her hair gleamed and fell thickly down her back. She was full. He liked full women. He liked their round bottoms and round thighs. He watched her bottom move as she walked.

  Maria and Victoria sat down at one of the small tables and ordered a couple of Colas. When Facundo Hernandez introduced himself and asked if he might join them, they were suspicious and explained nervously that they were waiting for a friend. lUn amigo’ they said, a male friend. But when he recognized Victoria and claimed to be a friend of her cousin Alejandro Torredon they relaxed and introduced themselves. Maria immediately liked Facundo. He made her laugh. He made her feel attractive. He paid her lots of attention and practically ignored her friend. Still wary of him she declined to give him her telephone number but agreed to meet him at the same time the following day in the park.

  Soon their walks turned into lunches and finally dinner. He was charming and intelligent. She found him very amusing. He had an irreverent sense of humour and loved to make fun of people. He had a way of noticing everyone’s foibles. The woman leaving the Ladies’ with her skirt hitched into her panties. The old man talking at the next-door table oblivious to the piece of food stuck on his cheek. There was something to laugh at in everyone. Maria found him so attractive she laughed at his jokes. Later she would find them cruel.

  He kissed her for the first time in the dark street outside her apartment. He kissed her with tenderness and told her he loved her. Once he had watched her disappear into the hall he decided that this was the woman he would marry and later told Manuela, his regular whore, reassuring her that his marriage wouldn’t change their relationship. ‘No one looks after me like you do, Manuela,’ he grunted as she took him in her mouth.

  At first Maria thought she deserved it. A small disagreement and he slapped her around the face. She was stunned, apologetic. It was her fault; she had been too outspoken. She should show him more respect. She loved him. She loved the way he held her, talked to her, kissed her. He was generous, he bought her clothes. He liked her to dress in a certain way. He got upset if she met him wearing baggy sweaters. ‘You have a beautiful body,’ he would say. ‘I want everyone to see what I have and die of jealousy.’ He told her he was proud of her. If something wasn’t done the way he liked it, he hit her. She accepted his punishments believing that she deserved them, longing for his approval. After he hit her he would cry, cling to her, promise her he would never hit her again. He needed her. She was the only one who could save him. So she continued to see him because she loved him and wanted to help him.

  She would meet him in the afternoons at his apartment in San Telmo. When he said he didn’t want to make love to her, because like herself, he was a good Catholic and intercourse was for the procreation of mankind, she was flattered and touched. He didn’t want to spoil her, he said, but he was happy to touch her and caress her. But intercourse must wait until they were married. Maria hadn’t told her parents about Facundo or introduced him to them. Later she would look back and recognize that she knew, somewhere in her subconscious, that her family wouldn’t approve of Facundo Hernandez.

  Chiquita watched her daughter come home with bruises. Sometimes a cut lip, a purple cheekbone. Maria told her it was nothing. She had merely fallen in the street. Tripped down the stairs in the university building. But the bruises appeared with more frequency and Chiquita spoke to Miguel. Something had to be done.

  One evening in late June, Fernando followed Maria to Facundo Hernandez’s apartment in a seedy building with no character or charm. He watched her climb the stairs and let herself in. Walking around the back Fernando climbed onto the wall and jumped onto the balcony of the first floor. It was easy. He hauled himself up onto the next floor and peered in through the window. The

  sun reflected off the glass and made it difficult to see in. But once his eyes adjusted he could see past his own reflection into the room beyond.

  The man looked like he was devouring his sister. He didn’t make love to Maria. He just mauled her neck and felt her breasts through her tight shirt. Then he pulled away sharply and hit her. He shouted at her, something about wearing a brassfre. ‘I thought I told you not to wear one.’ She was crying. Apologizing. Trembling. Then he was down on his knees, kissing her, cuddling her, until they were clinging to each other, rocking.

  Fernando was appalled and felt the bile rise in his stomach. He had to lean back against the wall for a while, breathing deeply, before he could resume his stake-out. He wanted to burst in through the glass and wring the bloody man’s neck. It was his sister he was abusing! But he knew it would achieve nothing. He had to be patient and watch.

  Fernando didn’t leave it at that. He followed the man to the brothel. Found out his name and that he was an army officer. He didn’t need any more information. He was the enemy. He had to be taught a lesson.

  When Fernando told his parents they were devastated. Chiquita couldn’t understand why her daughter hadn’t told her, why she hadn’t asked for help.

  ‘She’s always told me everything,’ she said tearfully, shaking her head in disbelief. Miguel wanted to kill him for abusing his little girl. Fernando had to physically restrain him from reaching for his gun.

  Fernando felt heroic; it was he who had found out who the man was, followed him, stalked him. He was the one in control of the situation and his parents were grateful. They needed him, relied on him. He told them not to worry, that he was going to deal with it himself, and to his surprise and delight they agreed. For the first time he saw pride in their eyes when they looked at him. He had gained their respect and it felt good.

  Santi, imprisoned for the last four years in his own gloomy world, at last broke his bondage. At first Fernando didn’t want him involved. This was his moment and he wanted to bask in the glory alone. But when he saw how full of admiration Santi was for him he relented. ‘You can come,’ he said gravely, ‘but you have to d
o it my way. No questions.’ Santi agreed. Fernando saw that he was grateful, humble even. Fernando knew that it was going to be dangerous, but he was ready. He felt stronger than he had ever felt before.

  The two brothers sat and discussed Maria. In the darkness under the stars, looking down from the balcony onto the busy streets of Buenos Aires, they

  talked about their childhood. When Fernando felt the first twinges of a bond developing with his brother he barely noticed; it crept up on him when he was too busy talking to Santi as an equal - an equal with a common cause.

  They waited their moment, then together with two guerrilla friends of Fernando’s they stole into Facundo Hernandez’s apartment in the middle of the night. Breaking the curfew, risking their lives. With their faces covered in black stockings they pulled the terrified man out of his bed. Tied him to a chair and beat him until he arrived at the frontier between this life and the next. He begged to live. Fernando told him that if he ever went near Maria Solanas again, spoke to her or communicated with her in any way, they would return to finish the job. Facundo gasped with fear before passing out.

  Chiquita talked to her daughter. It wasn’t easy. In the cosy security of her bedroom Chiquita told Maria what she knew, of his beatings and his whore. Maria tried to defend him, saying they were mistaken - Facundo had never hit her, ever. Emotionally she backed into a corner and scratched anyone who came near her. She accused them of spying on her. It was her life - she could see who she wanted. They had no right to get involved.

  It took a long time, but with Fernando and Santi’s help they gently wore her down until she hung her head and shook like a child. ‘I love him, Mama. I don’t know why, I just do,’ she cried. As the evening drew in they talked and talked, Miguel, Chiquita, Santi, Fernando and Maria, all together in that small room, united. Maria looked around her and took comfort from their loyalty and love. Worried, Chiquita left her daughter asleep in their matrimonial bed and called the doctor to come and take a look at her. Dr Higgins was unavailable so he sent someone from his practice. A gentle young man called Eduardo Maraldi.