Portrait in Sepia (18 page)

I believe that adventure marked me, because twenty-five years have gone by and I still tremble when I think of those interminable hours. At that time you never saw little girls alone in Chinatown; their families kept an eagle eye on them because with the least carelessness they could disappear into the cracks of child prostitution. I was too young for that, but girls my age were often kidnapped or bought in order to be trained from childhood in all manner of depravities. The woman returned hours later, when it was black as pitch, accompanied by a younger man. They observed me by lamplight and began a heated discussion in their language, and although I knew it, I understood very little because I was so tired and scared to death. Several times I thought I heard the name of my grandfather, Tao Chi'en. They left, and again I was alone, shivering with cold and terror, I don't know for how long. When the door opened again, the light of the lamp blinded me. I heard my name in Chinese, Lai Ming, and recognized the unmistakable voice of my uncle Lucky. His arms lifted me up and that was the last thing I knew; I was dazed with relief. I don't remember the trip in the carriage or the moment I found myself back in the mansion on Nob Hill, facing my grandmother Paulina. Neither do I remember what happened in the weeks that followed, because I had chicken pox and was very sick. It was a confusing time, with many changes and contradictions.

Now as I tie up the loose ends of my past, I can be absolutely sure that I was saved by the good fortune of my uncle Lucky. The woman who had kidnapped me from the street had gone to a representative of her tong, because nothing happened in Chinatown without the knowledge and approval of those associations. The entire community belonged to one tong or other, closed and zealously guarded brotherhoods that enlisted their members by demanding loyalty and commissions in exchange for protection, contacts for jobs, and the promise that they would return the bodies of their members to China should they die on American soil. That man had seen me many times holding my grandfather's hand, and by a fortunate coincidence he belonged to the same tong as Tao Chi'en. He was the one who had called my uncle. Lucky's first impulse was to take me home so that his new wife, ordered by catalog from China, could look after me, but then he realized that his parents' instructions must be respected. After placing me in the hands of Paulina del Valle, my grandmother Eliza had left to take her husband's body back to Hong Kong for burial. Both she and Tao Chi'en had always maintained that the Chinese quarter of San Francisco was too small a world for me; they wanted me to be part of the United States. Although he didn't agree with that principle, Lucky Chi'en could not disobey the will of his parents, which was why he paid my kidnappers the agreed-upon sum and took me back to Paulina del Valle's house. I would not see him again for more than twenty years, when I went to find him to track down the last details of my story.

•

The proud family of my paternal grandparents lived in San Francisco for thirty-six years without leaving much of a trace. I have tried to follow their trail. The mansion on Nob Hill is a hotel today, and no one remembers its first owners. Paging through old newspapers in the library, I discovered many mentions of the family in the social pages, as well as the story of the statue of the Republic and my mother's name. I also found a brief notice of the death of my grandfather, Tao Chi'en, a very laudatory obituary written by a Jacob Freemont, and an expression of condolence from the medical society stating its gratitude for the contributions the
zhong-yi
Tao Chi'en had made to Western medicine. That was rare, because the Chinese population was nearly invisible at that time; they were born, they lived and died, on the fringes of the American consciousness, but the prestige of Tao Chi'en surpassed the limits of Chinatown and of California. He was known even in England, where he gave a number of lectures on acupuncture. Without those printed testimonies, most of the protagonists of this story would have been borne away on the winds of oblivion.

My escapade in Chinatown, when I went looking for my maternal grandparents, was yet another motive for Paulina del Valle's decision to return to Chile. She understood that no sumptuous soirees or extravagances were going to restore her to the social position she had enjoyed while her husband was still alive. She was growing old alone, far from her children, her relatives, her language, and her country. What money she had left would never stretch far enough to maintain the style of life she was accustomed to in her forty-five-room mansion, but it was an enormous fortune in Chile, where everything was less expensive. In addition, a granddaughter who was a stranger to her had fallen into her lap, whom she felt obliged to uproot completely from her Chinese past if she was to make a Chilean señorita out of her. Paulina could not bear the idea that I might run away again, so she hired an English nanny to watch me day and night. She canceled her plans to travel to Egypt and the banquets for the New Year, but she sped up the creation of her new wardrobe and then methodically divided her money between banks in the United States and England, sending to Chile only what was indispensable for setting up house because she considered the political situation unstable. She wrote a long letter to her nephew Severo del Valle, needing to reconcile with him and tell him what had happened to Tao Chi'en and about Eliza Sommers's decision to leave Aurora with her, explaining in detail the advantages in having her, Paulina, raise the little girl. Severo del Valle understood her arguments and accepted her proposal, because he already had two children and his wife was expecting their third—although he refused to give Paulina legal custody, as she wanted.

Paulina's lawyers helped her put her finances in order and sell the mansion, while her butler, Williams, took charge of the practical aspects of organizing the family's move to the south end of the world and of crating all his employer's belongings—she did not want to sell anything so no one could say she needed the money. According to the plan, Paulina would take a steamship with me, the English nanny, and other trusted employees, while William would send the baggage to Chile and then be free, after accepting a healthy tip in pounds sterling. That was to be his last duty in Paulina del Valle's service. One week before she left, however, the butler asked permission to speak with her in private.

"Begging your pardon, milady, but may I inquire as to why I have fallen from your favor?"

"What are you talking about, Williams! You know how much I appreciate you and how grateful I am for your services."

"Nevertheless, it is not madam's wish to take me to Chile—"

"Williams, for God's sake! The thought had never occurred to me. What would I do with a British butler in Chile? Nobody has one. They would laugh at both of us. Have you looked at a map? That country is very far from here, and no one speaks English; your life there would not be very pleasant. I have no right to ask such a sacrifice of you, Williams."

"If you will allow me to say so, milady, being separated from madam would constitute an even greater sacrifice."

Paulina del Valle sat looking at her employee, eyes round with surprise. For the first time she realized that Williams was something more than an automaton in a black swallowtail coat and white gloves. She saw a man of about fifty, with broad shoulders and a pleasant face, a thick head of pepper-and-salt hair, and penetrating eyes; he did have the rough hands of a stevedore, and his teeth were yellowed by nicotine, although she had never seen him smoking or chewing tobacco. Neither of them spoke for what seemed a very long time, she observing him and he accepting her scrutiny with no sign of discomfort.

"I could not help noticing, milady, the difficulties that widowhood has thrust upon madam," Williams said finally in the indirect language he always used.

"Are you making fun of me?" Paulina smiled.

"Nothing farther from my mind, milady."

"Uh, ah," she began, clearing her throat to fill the long pause that followed the butler's answer.

"Madam will be asking herself where all this is leading," he continued.

"Let's say that you have succeeded in getting my attention, Williams."

"It occurs to me that in view of the fact that I cannot go to Chile as madam's butler, perhaps it would not be an entirely bad idea if I went, ahem, as her husband."

Paulina del Valle thought the floor would open up and that she, chair and all, would drop to the center of the earth. Her first thought was that the man had lost his sanity, there was no other explanation, but when she reappraised his dignity and calm, she swallowed the insults that had risen to her lips.

"Allow me to explain that point of view, madam," he continued. "I do not, naturally, expect to exercise the role of husband in any sentimental area. Nor do I aspire to madam's fortune, which would be entirely safe—for that madam would undertake the necessary legal precautions. My capacity would be very nearly the same as it is now: that is, to be of assistance in every way I am able, employing the maximum discretion. I surmise that in Chile, as elsewhere in the world, a woman alone encounters many obstacles. I would consider it an honor to be responsible for madam's well-being."

"And what would you gain from this curious arrangement?" Paulina inquired, unable to veil her caustic tone.

"For one thing, I would win respect. For another, I admit that the idea of never seeing madam again has tormented me ever since she began to make plans to leave. I have been at madam's side for half my life, and I have become accustomed to that company."

Paulina was mute for another eternity while she mulled over her employee's strange proposition. The way he had put it, it was a good business deal, with advantages for both: he would profit from a higher level of life than he would ever have otherwise, and she would go about on the arm of a man who, all things considered, was extremely distinguished-looking. In truth, he looked like a member of the British nobility. Just imagining the faces of her relatives in Chile, and the envy of her sisters, made her laugh.

"You are at least ten years younger and sixty pounds lighter than I am. Aren't you afraid of ridicule?" she asked, shuddering with laughter.

"Not at all. As for madam, does she fear being seen with someone of my status?"

"I fear nothing in this life, and I take pleasure in shocking people. What is your name, Williams?"

"Frederick, milady"

"Frederick Williams. A good name, aristocratic as you please."

"I regret to inform madam that it is, shall we say, ahem, the only thing aristocratic about me." And Williams smiled.

And that is how one week later, my grandmother, Paulina del Valle, her newly inaugurated husband, her hairdresser, the nanny, two maids, a valet, a manservant, and I set off by train for New York with a carload of trunks, there to take a British steamer to Europe. We also had Caramelo, who was at the stage in his development when dogs hump everything in sight—in this case, my grandmother's fox cape. The cape had tails all around the edge, and Caramelo, confused by the passivity with which the vixens received his amorous advances, kept chewing the tails off. Furious, Paulina del Valle was at the point of tossing both dog and cape overboard, but I threw such a fit that I saved both their skins. My grandmother occupied a three-room suite, and Frederick Williams one of like size across the passageway. In the daytime she entertained herself by eating every hour, changing clothes for every activity, teaching me arithmetic so in the future I could take charge of her account books, and telling me the story of the family so I would know where I came from, without ever clarifying the question of my father's identity, as if I had popped up in the del Valle clan through parthenogenesis. If I asked about my mother or my father, she answered that they were dead, and that it was all right because having a grandmother like her was more than enough. In the meanwhile, Frederick Williams would be playing bridge and reading English newspapers, like all the other gentlemen in first class. He had let his sideburns grow, had a bushy mustache with waxed tips, which gave him an air of importance, and smoked a pipe and Cuban cigars. He confessed to my grandmother that he was an inveterate smoker, and that the most difficult part of his job as butler had been abstaining in public; now finally he could savor his tobacco and throw away the mint tablets he bought wholesale and that by then had eaten holes in his stomach. In those days when men of high position sported a prominent paunch and double chin, the rather slim, athletic figure of Williams was a rarity in good society, although his impeccable good manners were much more convincing than my grandmother's. At night, before they went down together to the ballroom, they would come by the cabin I shared with the nanny and say good night. They were a spectacle, she combed and made up by her hairdresser, gowned for a ball and shimmering with jewels like an obese idol, and he turned into a distinguished prince consort. At times I would sneak down to the salon to spy, openmouthed, at how Frederick Williams was able to steer Paulina del Valle across the dance floor with all the assurance of someone well accustomed to maneuvering heavy tonnage.

•

We arrived in Chile a year later, when my grandmother's stumbling fortune was back on its feet thanks to sugar speculation during the War of the Pacific. Her theory had been right: people eat more sweets during bad times. Our arrival coincided with a major theatrical event: the incomparable Sarah Bernhardt in her most famous role,
La Dame aux camélias
. The celebrated actress did not have the same success in Santiago she had in the rest of the civilized world because a sanctimonious Chilean society had no sympathy for a tubercular courtesan; it seemed normal to everyone that she would sacrifice herself for her lover to quiet wagging tongues, and they saw no reason for all that drama and wilting camellias. The famous actress was convinced that she had visited a land of major idiots, an opinion Paulina del Valle fully shared. My grandmother had paraded her entourage through several cities of Europe but had not fulfilled her dream of going to Egypt because she felt sure she wouldn't find a camel that could bear her weight and she would have to visit the pyramids on foot beneath a sun like molten lava. In 1886 I was six years old. I spoke a weird mixture of Chinese, English, and Spanish, but I knew the four fundamental operations of arithmetic and with incredibly precocious skill could convert French francs into pounds sterling, and pounds into German marks or Italian lire. I had stopped crying all the time for my grandfather Tao and grandmother Eliza, but I continued to be regularly tortured by the same inexplicable nightmares. There was a black hole in my memory, something always present and dangerous that I couldn't identify, something unknown that terrified me, especially in the dark or in a crowd. I couldn't stand to be surrounded with people, I would begin to scream like someone possessed, and my grandmother Paulina would have to wrap me in her bear-like grasp to calm me. I still had the habit of taking refuge in her bed when I woke up frightened, and a bond grew between us that I am sure saved me from the madness and terror I would otherwise have sunk into. Affected by her need to console me, Paulina del Valle changed in ways imperceptible to everyone except Frederick Williams. She was growing more tolerant and affectionate, and she even lost a little weight—running around after me, she was so busy that she forgot her pastries. I have no doubt she adored me. I say that with no false modesty, since she gave me so much proof of her love; she allowed me to grow up with as much freedom as was possible in those times, igniting my curiosity and showing me the world. She never allowed sentimentality or complaints: "There's no looking back," was one of her mottoes. She played pranks on me—some a little heavy-handed—until I learned to turn the tables, and that marked the tone of our relationship. Once in the patio I found a lizard that had been run over by a carriage wheel and lain in the sun for several days; it was fossilized and forever preserved in its sorry guise of a squashed reptile. I picked it up and kept it, not sure why, until I devised the perfect use for it. I was sitting at my desk doing my arithmetic, and when my grandmother wandered into the room for some reason, I pretended to have an uncontrollable attack of coughing, and she came over to pound me on the back. I bent way over, with my face in my hands, and to the poor woman's dismay I "spit up" the lizard, which landed in my skirt. She was so shocked when she saw the horror my lungs had apparently spewed forth that she fell back into a chair, but later she laughed as hard as I had, and kept the desiccated little lizard between the pages of a book as a souvenir. It's hard to understand why, as strong as she was, that woman was afraid to tell me the truth about my past. It occurs to me that despite her defiant stance in the face of convention, she was never able to overcome the prejudices of her class. To protect me from rejection, she carefully hid my one-quarter Chinese blood, my mother's modest social position, and the fact that in truth I was a bastard. This is the only thing I can ever criticize my giant of a grandmother for.