Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree (4 page)

While Senora Anna had given all her time to her sons, Soledad had rarely been without the little Sofia wrapped in her apron, nestled against her foamy breasts. She even took to carrying the child to her bed - she seemed to sleep better that way, enveloped in her maid’s womanly scent and soft flesh. Anxious that the child wasn’t receiving enough love from her mother, Soledad asserted herself in the nursery in order to make up for it. Senora Anna didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she seemed almost grateful. She never was very interested in her daughter. But Soledad wasn't there to put the world to rights. It was none of her business. The tension between Senor Paco and Senora Anna wasn’t her concern and she only discussed it with the other maids in order to justify why she spent so much time with Sofia. No other reason. She wasn’t one to gossip. So she cared for the child with a fierce devotion, as if the little angel belonged to her.

Now she looked at her watch. It was late - Sofia was in trouble again. She was always in trouble. She seemed to thrive on it. Poor lamb, thought Soledad

as she stirred the tuna sauce and cooked the veal. She's starved of attention, any fool can see that.

Anna marched into the sitting room shaking her head with fury and picked up the receiver.

^l
Hola
Chiquita,’ she said curtly, leaning back against the heavy wooden chest.

‘Anna, I am so sorry, Sofia has gone off with Santiago and Maria again. They really should be back any minute ..

‘Again!’ she exploded, picking up a magazine from the table and fanning herself in agitation. ‘Santiago should be more responsible - he’ll be eighteen in March. He’ll be a man. Why he wants to muck around with a fifteen-year-old child I cannot imagine. Anyhow, this is not the first time, you know. Didn’t you say anything to him last time?’

‘Of course,’ the other woman replied patiently. She hated it when her sister-in-law lost her temper.

^l
Por Dios
, Chiquita, don’t you realize there are kidnappers just waiting out there to prey on children like ours?’

‘Anna, just calm down a little. It’s quite safe here, they won’t have gone far. .

.’ But Anna wasn’t listening.

‘Santiago is a bad influence on Sofia,’ she ranted. ‘She is young and impressionable, so she looks up to him. And as for Maria, she’s a sensible girl and should know better.’

‘I know, I will tell them,’ Chiquita conceded wearily.

‘Good.’

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence before Chiquita tried to change the subject.

‘The
asado
tomorrow, before the match, can I help with anything?’ she asked, somewhat strained. ‘Anything at all?’

‘No, I’m fine, thank you,’ replied Anna, softening a little. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Chiquita. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with Sofia. She’s so headstrong and thoughtless. The boys give me no trouble at all. I don’t know who she gets it from!’

‘Neither do I,’ replied Chiquita dryly.

‘Tonight is the most beautiful night of the summer,’ sighed Sofia from one of the highest boughs of the ombu tree.

There is no tree in the world like the ombu tree. Gigantic with low horizontal branches, its enormous girth can often exceed forty to fifty feet. Its thick roots radiate out over the ground in long bumpy tentacles, as if the tree itself has begun to melt, spreading like wax over the earth. Besides its peculiar shape, the ombu is the only tree indigenous to those dry plains. The only tree that truly belongs. The native Indians had seen their gods in the boughs and it was said no
gaucho
would sleep beneath it, even in Sofia’s day. To the children brought up at Santa Catalina it was a magic tree. It granted wishes where it saw fit, and being tall it was the perfect lookout tower allowing them to see for miles around. But above all, the ombu had a mysterious allure that one simply couldn’t put one’s finger on, an allure that had drawn generations of children to seek adventure within its branches.

‘I can see Jose and Pablo. Hurry up, don’t be boring!’ she called down impatiently.

‘I’m coming, be patient,’ shouted Santi to his cousin as he busily tended to the ponies.

‘Santi, will you give me a leg-up?’ Maria asked her brother in her soft, husky voice, watching Sofia climb higher into the spaghetti of thick branches.

Maria had always admired Sofia. She was brave, outspoken and sure of herself. They had been best friends all their lives, done everything together - plotted, conspired, played and shared secrets. In fact Maria’s mother, Chiquita, used to call them
‘Las Dos Sombras
' (the Two Shadows) when they were smaller, because one was always the shadow of the other.

The rest of the girls on the farm were either older or younger, so Sofia and Maria, being of the same age, were natural allies in a family dominated by boys. Neither had a sister so they had decided years ago to become ‘blood sisters’ by pricking their fingers with a pin and pressing them together to ‘unite’ their blood. From then on they had shared a special secret that no one else knew. They had the same blood and that made them siblings. They were both proud and respectful of their clandestine bond.

From the very top of the tree Sofia could see the whole world - and if not the whole world then at least her world, laid out before her under an awesome sky. The horizon was a vast cauldron of colour as the sun had almost set, flooding the heavens with splashes of pink and gold. The air was sticky and the mosquitoes hovered menacingly about the leaves.

‘I’ve been bitten again,’ winced Maria, scratching her leg.

‘Here,’ said Santi, bending down and taking his younger sister’s foot in his hands. With a swift movement he lifted her up so she could lean on the first branch with her stomach. After that she could make it on her own.

Santi then scaled the tree himself with a lightness of step that never ceased to amaze those who knew him well. As a small child he had suffered a polo accident that had left him with a slight limp. His parents, desperate that this handicap might hinder him in later life, flew him to the United States where he saw every possible specialist. But they needn’t have bothered. Santi had defied doctors’ predictions and found ways around it. As a little boy he had managed to run faster than all his cousins, even those a couple of years older than himself, even if he had run in a slightly odd way, one foot facing inwards. As a young man he was the best polo player on the ranch. There is no doubt about it,’ said his father proudly, ‘young Santiago has a rare courage not often seen these days. He’ll go far. And he’ll have earned every step of the way.’

‘Fantastic, isn’t it!’ beamed a triumphant Sofia, when her cousin joined her. ‘Do you have the penknife? I want to make a wish.’

‘What are you going to wish for this time? It won’t come true,’ Santi said, sitting down and swinging his legs in the air. ‘I don’t know why you bother.’ He sniffed. But Sofia’s hand was already running over the trunk, searching the bark for traces of their past.

‘Oh yes it will, maybe not this year, but one day when it’s really important. You know the tree knows which wishes to grant and which wishes to ignore.’ And she patted it fondly.

‘Now you’re going to tell me the damn tree thinks and feels,’ he scoffed, pushing his thick blond hair off his forehead with a sweaty hand.

‘You’re just an ignorant fool, Santi, but one day you’ll learn. You wait. One day you’ll really need a wish to come true and then when no one’s looking, you’ll sneak up here in the dark to carve your mark in this trunk.’ She laughed.

‘I’d rather go and see
La Vieja Bruja
in town. That old witch has more chance of directing my future than this silly tree.’

‘Go and see her then if you like -
if you
can hold your breath long enough not to smell her. Oh, here’s one,’ she exclaimed, finding one of their latest wishes carved into the wood. Like an old wound, it had left a tidy white scar.

Maria joined them, flushed and hot from exertion. Her tawny brown hair fell about her shoulders in wispy curls, sticking slightly to her glistening round cheeks.

‘Look at the view, it’s magnificent!’ she gasped, gazing about her. But her cousin had lost interest in the view and was busy scanning the bark for her artistry.

‘I think that one was mine,’ she said, stepping onto the branch above Santi’s so she could study it a little closer. ‘Yes, definitely mine - my symbol, you see?’

‘It might have been a symbol six months ago but it’s a smudge now,’ said Santi, pushing himself up and settling on another bumpy arm of the tree.

‘I drew a star - I’m quite good at drawing stars,’ she replied proudly. ‘Hey, Maria, where’s yours?’

Maria edged her way up her branch with unsteady steps. After orientating herself a moment she crossed over Santi’s and sat down on a lower branch close to the trunk. Finding her scar she fingered it nostalgically.

‘My symbol was a bird,’ she said, and smiled at the recollection.

‘What was that for?’ asked Sofia, jumping confidently down to join her.

‘You’ll laugh if I tell you,’ she replied bashfully.

‘No, we won’t,’ said Santi. ‘Has it come true?’

‘Of course not, and it never will, but it’s still worth wishing for,’ she said.

‘Well?’ urged Sofia, intrigued now that her cousin was reluctant to tell them.

‘Okay. I wished for a beautiful voice so I can sing with Mama’s guitar,’ she said, then raising her hazel eyes saw that they were both laughing.

‘So, the bird symbolizes “song”,’ said Santi, grinning broadly.

‘I suppose so, although that wasn’t exactly why I drew it.’

‘Then why did you, dopey?’

‘Because I like birds and there was one in the tree as I made the wish. It was really close. Adorable. You know, Papa always said that the symbol doesn’t have to have anything to do with your wish. You just have to make your mark. Anyway, my bird’s not that funny - and it was a year ago. I was only fourteen at the time. If mine’s so funny what was your wish, Sofia?’

‘I wished for Papa to let me play in the
Copa Santa Catalina
.' she replied haughtily, waiting for Santi’s reaction. As she had expected he exploded into exaggerated laughter.

‘The Santa Catalina Cup? You can’t be serious!’ he exclaimed in amazement, narrowing his pale green eyes imperiously and pulling a face to show his disbelief.

‘I’m very serious,’ she replied challengingly.

‘So what was the star for?’ asked Maria, brushing her shoulder where some of the moss had soiled her shirt.

‘I want to be a polo star,’ Sofia told them both casually, as if she had just declared she wanted to be a nurse.

^l
Mentirosa!
Chofi, it’s probably the only thing you can draw - Maria’s the only artist in this family.’ And he lay back on the branch chuckling.
^l
La Copa Santa Catalina.
You’re only a child.’

‘Only a child, you patronizing oaf?’ she retorted, pretending to be cross. ‘I’ll be sixteen in April. That’s only three months away, then I’ll be a woman.’

‘Chofi, you’ll never be a woman because you’ve never been a girl,’ he said, referring to her tomboy nature. ‘Girls are like Maria. No, Chofi, you’re not a girl at all.’

Sofia watched him flop down over the bough of the tree. His jeans were loose and worn, hanging low on his hips. His T-shirt had ridden up his chest revealing a flat brown tummy and hipbones that stuck out as if he needed feeding. But no one ate more than Santi. He devoured his food with the urgency of someone who hasn’t eaten in a very long time. She wanted to run her fingers over his skin and tickle him. Any excuse to touch him. They mobbed around most of the time and the physical contact excited her. But she hadn’t touched him for an hour or two, so the desire to do so was irresistible.

‘Where’s yours then?’ she asked, demanding his attention again.

‘Oh, I don’t know and I don’t care - it’s rubbish anyway.’

‘No it isn’t,’ insisted the girls in unison.

‘Papa used to make us carve our wishes every summer, remember?’ said Sofia wistfully.

‘They used to do it as children, too. I’m sure their scars are still here if we look for them,’ added Maria enthusiastically

‘They’ll be long gone, Maria. They disappear within a year or two I think,’ said Santi knowledgeably. ‘Anyway, you’d need a lot of magic to make Paco let Sofia play in the
Copa Santa Catalina!
And he began to laugh again, holding his stomach with his hands to show how ludicrous her ambitions were to him. Sofia jumped lithely from her branch to his and then ran her hand over his lower belly until he shrieked with pleasure and pain combined.

‘Chofi, don’t do that up here. We’ll both fall off and be killed!’ he gasped between gales of laughter as her fingers skipped across the line that separated his tan from the secret white skin that hid from the sun beneath his shorts. He

grabbed her by the wrist and squeezed it so hard she winced. Santi was seventeen years old, two years older than his cousin and sister. It excited Sofia when he used his superior strength to dominate her, but pretending she didn’t like it was all part of the game.

‘I don’t see that it’s such a long shot,’ she argued, nursing her wrist against her chest.