foggy and cloudy around Santiago, in which case we won’t be able to see the mountains at all. I concentrate on my book even though my friend looks kind of bored, I think she’d love to have another conversation with me, but I’m really getting into the story and I don’t want to be distracted. Anne Frank was almost exactly my age when she wrote it, so I can really relate to it. Right now Anne and her family just went into hiding in the secret annex, and I’m dying to know what happens next.
I go through immigration and wait for my suitcase at the carousel, I always get uptight wondering if it’s going to show up or not, but I’m lucky this time and my suitcase is one of the first to arrive. Mom tied a golden ribbon to the handle so I can recognize it easily. I go outside, where there’s always a big, noisy crowd waiting for the passengers to come out, and I look around for my grandparents. What would I do, I think with a tiny bit of panic, if my grandparents aren’t here to pick me up? I’d have to find a public phone to call them, and I’ve never used a public phone in Chile before, I’ve got some Chilean bills with me but no coins. But my grandparents are here, looking anxiously at the people coming out the door, and, it’s funny, they don’t see me, they stare straight through me, and I kind of go behind them and I tap Bueli on the shoulder. Bueli, which sounds like Welly, is how her grandchildren call my grandmother, I’m not sure where the name comes from, I think from abuelita, which is grandmother in Spanish. She turns around to look at me, and she still doesn’t recognize me, I’m almost as tall as she is now, and I say Bueli, it’s me, and she looks a little confused but then she says, oh, my God, Sonia! and she hugs me so hard I think she’s going to break my back. Grandpa hugs me too, and Bueli says she can’t believe how much I’ve grown in the past two years, since she last saw me, I’m a little woman now, no wonder she couldn’t recognize me, and so pretty, she adds, which makes me blush because I’m sure I look disgusting with my hair all tangled up and my clothes all rumpled after having traveled all night.
We walk to where their car is parked and Grandpa insists on carrying my suitcase, although I think I’m stronger than he is, he looks kind of frail, to be honest, small and thin and a little stooped. I help him get the suitcase into the trunk and we drive to their apartment. The weather is just like I remembered it from the last time we were here in the winter, overcast and gray and a little gloomy, but not cold at all, and I find it funny both Bueli and Grandpa are wearing heavy overcoats. Grandpa turns on the heater at full blast and pretty soon I’m roasting in the car, so I lower the window halfway to let fresh air in.
Bueli turns halfway to me and says everyone is looking forward to seeing me, my aunts and uncles and cousins. They have big plans for me, they want to take me to lots of places and keep me busy and entertained the whole time, but she hopes she and I can spend enough time together, too. It’ll be great to have me around, especially now, with what’s going on, she says, and then she sighs, a long, big sigh, and Grandpa kind of scolds her, you couldn’t wait to bring that up, could you, and I have no clue what they’re talking about, so I ask and they remain silent, and I wonder what’s going on, and then Grandpa tells Bueli, you started it already, so tell her, and Bueli sighs again and says, it’s Miriam, she’s very sick, and then I remember my parents told me before I left that Miriam is very sick, she has cancer of some kind, but I’d forgotten. Miriam is Bueli’s niece and my dad’s cousin, and I saw her every time we came to Chile in the past. She’s a tall and skinny woman, older than my dad, although I don’t think she ever married. Whenever I saw her she was always very nice to me, chatting with me as if I was her age, she’s the kind of person you feel good with right away, so I’m sorry she’s sick. I tell Bueli so, and she sighs and doesn’t say anything.
At their apartment building Grandpa asks Pedro, the handyman who takes care of the building, to bring the suitcase up the stairs to their apartment, on the second floor, and Pedro takes off his hat to say hi to me, which is a little embarrassing, he’s a pretty old, gray-haired man. Upstairs, Nana Eudocia, Grandpa and Bueli’s live-in maid, is waiting at the door. She’s been with them forever, I think, at least since I’ve been coming to Chile, and she’s always so nice, bringing me breakfast in bed and all and offering me food all day long. Hola! she says, and she seems really happy to see me, look at you, how much you’ve grown, and I hug her and she seems kind of shy about it. I guess she’s not used to people in the family hugging her like that, but I really like her, and I don’t think because she’s a maid I should treat her any differently from anyone else.
Pedro brings my suitcase to my bedroom, which used to be my dad’s bedroom before he married Mom, and puts it on top of the bed, and Bueli says she and Nana Eudocia will help me unpack, and I say I don’t need any help, and they insist and I insist, and I end up kind of pushing them out the door. I don’t want them to treat me like a baby, although, to be honest, I don’t mind Nana Eudocia doing my laundry or making my bed or bringing me breakfast in bed in the mornings.
Aunt Beatriz, my dad’s sister, and my cousin Felicia, Aunt Beatriz’s daughter, come to see me and have lunch with us. Felicia, to whose wedding we came two years ago, is pregnant, and she looks pretty big. Her belly is huge and round like an oversized basketball, and she moves as if she were dragging anchors with her legs. She still looks so pretty, though, she’s got huge grey-blue eyes and straight blond hair, which she wears tied back with a ribbon. I think she’s due pretty soon, in the next month or so, and the baby is going to be Aunt Beatriz’s first grandchild and Grandpa and Bueli’s first great-grandchild, and they’re all very excited about it. I’m excited too, because I may still be in Chile when Felicia has the baby and I’ll be able to see it.
Nana Eudocia has prepared a huge lunch, as usual. Whenever we eat at my grandparents’ home they serve enormous amounts of food, and I’m sure they end up throwing half of it away because, who can eat so much? Dad always complains about it, saying he hates to see food wasted like this, I guess he thinks of all the hungry people in the world, but they don’t pay any attention to him, and the next time they serve just as much or more. It’s what they do in Chile, I guess, because no matter whose house I go to, it’s always the same, enough food to feed a regiment. We all sit down and, actually, I get a little nauseous just looking at the food. I didn’t sleep very much last night during the flight, and after the excitement of the arrival and all, now that I’m sitting down and relaxing, it’s beginning to catch up with me. I feel lightheaded and my eyelids feel like lead, and I’m scared I may fall asleep while eating and drop my head on my plate, but the beef empanadas they serve as an appetizer look delicious, and once I start eating I find I’m pretty hungry even though I had breakfast on the plane not too long ago, just before landing. They serve meals at crazy hours during those overnight flights.
We talk and laugh over lunch, and they ask me lots of questions about my parents and my brother and sister, and also about school and stuff, and they all comment on how well I speak Spanish, even though they make fun of my accent, saying I speak like a gringuita, which means a little gringa, which I am, after all, since I’m the only one in my family born in the United States. Bueli is busy pushing food on everyone and making sure we all eat until we burst, but she looks sad and she sighs every minute or so, and I can see Grandpa is kind of mad about it. He gives Bueli dirty looks and raises his eyebrows at her, like saying, snap out of it, but Bueli ignores him and keeps sighing and pushing food.
Beatriz and Felicia leave after lunch, and Bueli suggests I go to my room and take a nap. She and Grandpa will go to the hospital to visit Miriam, she says, but Nana Eudocia will stay with me. I say I’m not really tired, but actually I am, so I don’t fight her too much and go to my room and close the door and lie on top of the bed at first but then I get cold, the winter may not be all that hard in Santiago, but the houses are not so well heated, there is no central heating in Grandpa and Bueli’s apartment, they use these tall and skinny kerosene heaters, so I get under the covers, and I must’ve really been
tired, after all, because I don’t remember anything after that. When I wake up it’s already dark out and the streetlights outside my window have glowing halos around them. It’s not all that late, though, only five-fifteen, it just gets dark pretty early in the winter in Santiago.
When I step out of my room Grandpa and Bueli are already back, and Bueli has a face like she’s seen a ghost. I ask how is Aunt Miriam, knowing pretty well what the answer is going to be, but what can I do, it’d be worse not to ask, and Bueli shakes her head and tries to speak but she can’t, and Grandpa says, not so good, Miriam is going downhill quickly, and Bueli begins to cry, and Grandpa looks kind of impatient, come on, come on, he says in a tone that to me sounds a little too snappy. I think he feels Bueli is taking it too hard. After all Miriam is not a daughter or anything, just a niece, but that’s the way Bueli is, family is everything to her, and she’d take it to heart even if a third cousin’s dog were run over by a truck. I don’t know what to say or do, so I hug Bueli and kiss her on the cheek, and Bueli looks at me like saying, thank you, even though she’s still crying. Maybe the hug helped a little, but I wonder what kind of vacation I’m going to have if Miriam stays sick like this and Bueli keeps crying all day long.
The next morning cousin Diego, Felicia’s younger brother, shows up at the apartment to take me out for a ride, and Bueli insists I put on my winter jacket and a scarf even though it’s nice and sunny and not cold at all outside. Diego asks me where I’d like to go, and I say I have no idea, and he suggests we go up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal. The air is crisp and clear, he says, so we’ll have a great view of Santiago from there. I point to his car and ask, is that thing going to make it all the way up? Diego looks very offended, he may not drive a fancy car like I’m obviously used to in Gringoland, he says raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes, but he wants me to know his car is only five years old, a 1975 Fiat, and it may look like a wreck but it’s in perfect mechanical condition and will climb the mountain without any problem at all, so we leave and the car, which is so tiny you feel like a sardine inside, rattles and shakes all over and the engine sounds like a sewing machine, putt-putt-putt, but once we start climbing the Cerro’s steep dirt road it just keeps going, even though huffing and puffing, helped along by Diego who is busy changing gears every couple of seconds or so. We park at the top and walk to the terrace overlooking the city, with the statue of the Virgin Mary behind us, and since Diego has a camera with him I ask him to take my picture in the same pose as the Virgin, with the Virgin in the background, so I turn my body kind of sideways and half extend my arms with the palms of my hands up, puckering my mouth and raising my eyes high to the sky, like I’m spaced out.
We contemplate the city from the terrace, and I’m kind of glad Bueli forced me to wear my winter jacket because it’s pretty chilly up here, very windy, and I pull up my hood to cover my ears. Diego points out some of the sights, like the national stadium, Cerro Santa Lucia, some of the taller buildings downtown, but to be honest I’m more interested in looking at him than at the sights, he’s soooo good looking, probably one of the most good looking guys I’ve ever seen, like a movie star, he reminds me a little of Christopher Reeve who I saw only a couple of weeks ago in Superman II, he’s got