A Long Petal of the Sea(40)

Juana Nancucheo held out for a week without asking about Felipe’s lodgers, but in the end her curiosity got the better of her pride and so, armed with a tray of freshly baked bread rolls, she went to see what was going on. The door was opened by the new nanny, with the baby in her arms. “The master and mistress aren’t at home,” she said. Juana pushed her aside and strode in. She inspected everything from top to bottom, and was able to verify that the Reds, as Don Isidro called them, were quite clean and tidy. She looked into the pans in the kitchen and gave orders to the nanny, who she thought looked too young and dumb. “Where’s the mother of the brat traipsing about? A fine thing to have children and abandon them. But I must say, little Marcel is sweet. Big eyes, nice and plump, and not shy at all: he threw his arms around my neck and tugged on my braid,” she later told Felipe.



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IN PARIS ON SEPTEMBER 4, 1939, Isidro del Solar was getting his wife used to the idea of the young ladies’ college in London where he had already enrolled Ofelia, when they were caught unaware by the news that war had been declared. The conflict had been looming for months, but Isidro had managed to put the collective apprehension out of his mind, lest it interfere with his vacation. The press was exaggerating. The world was always on the verge of some military confrontation or other: what need was there to get into a state about this one?

But he only had to open the door of their suite to realize the seriousness of what was going on. Outside there was frenzied activity: hotel staff running to and fro with suitcases and trunks, guests thronging the exit, ladies with their lap dogs, men fighting over taxis, confused children wailing. The streets were in turmoil as well: half the city seemed to want to escape to the countryside until the situation became clearer. The traffic was at a standstill because there were so many vehicles loaded to the roof trying to force their way through rushing pedestrians; loudspeakers were blaring out urgent instructions, while police on horseback tried to keep order. Isidro del Solar was forced to accept that his plans to return calmly to London to drop off his daughter, pick up the latest model automobile he was shipping to Chile, and then embark on the Reina del Pacifico had gone up in smoke. He had to get out of Europe as quickly as possible.



He called the Chilean ambassador in France, then had to wait anxiously for three days until the legation found passages for them on the last departing Chilean ship, a cargo boat full to bursting with three hundred passengers instead of the regulation fifty. In order to make room for the del Solar family, the authorities were about to disembark a Jewish family who had paid for their tickets and bribed a Chilean consul with their grandmother’s jewels to obtain visas. Already, some ships had refused to accept Jews, and liners had returned with them to their point of departure because no country would accept them. This family, like several others among the passengers, had fled Germany after suffering dreadful harassment and had been forbidden to take anything of value. For them, leaving Europe was a question of life or death.

Ofelia heard them pleading with the captain and volunteered (without consulting her parents) to let them have her cabin, even though this meant sharing a narrow bunk with her mother. One has to adapt in times of crisis, Isidro said, but he was unhappy about being thrown together with people of different social standing, the sixty Jews, the awful food that was simply rice and more rice, the lack of enough water for a bath, and the fear of sailing without lights to be invisible to enemy planes. “I don’t know how we’re going to survive a month crammed like sardines in this rust bucket,” he would complain, while his wife prayed and his daughter kept busy entertaining the children and drawing portraits and scenes of shipboard life. Soon Ofelia, prompted by her brother Felipe’s generosity, gave some of her clothes to the Jews who had boarded with nothing more than what they were standing in. “All that money spent in shops only for that child to give away what we bought. Thank heavens her trousseau is safely in the trunks in the hold,” muttered Isidro, taken aback by this gesture from his daughter, who had always seemed to him so frivolous. It was only months later that Ofelia learned that the Second World War had saved her from the ladies’ college.



In normal times, the voyage to Chile took twenty-seven days, but their ship took twenty-two, traveling at full speed, dodging floating mines and avoiding warships from both navies. In theory they were safe because they flew the neutral flag of Chile, but in practice there could be a tragic misunderstanding and they could be sunk by the Germans or the Allies.

In the Panama Canal they met with extraordinary protective measures against any sabotage: nets and divers searching for any possible bombs in the locks. For Laura and Isidro del Solar the heat and mosquitoes were pure torture, the discomfort unbearable, and the tension produced by the war had their stomachs in knots. For Ofelia, on the other hand, the experience was more rewarding than the journey on the Reina del Pacifico, with its air-conditioning and orgies of chocolate.

Felipe was waiting for them in Valparaiso with his car and a rented van to carry all their baggage, driven by the family chauffeur. He was surprised at seeing his sister again, as she had always seemed to him shallow-minded, prissy, and trivial. She seemed older and more serious; she had grown up, and her features were better defined—she was no longer the doll-faced girl who had left Chile, but an interesting young woman. If she hadn’t been his sister, he would have said she was very pretty. Matias Eyzaguirre was at the port as well, with his car and a bouquet of roses for his reluctant fiancée. Like Felipe, he was impressed when he saw Ofelia. She had always been attractive, but now she seemed to him so beautiful he was struck by the terrible thought that some other more intelligent or richer man might snatch her from him. He decided to bring his plans forward. He would tell her at once of his first diplomatic mission, and as soon as they were on their own he would offer her his great-grandmother’s diamond ring. He was sweating so nervously his shirt was soaked: who could tell how this impetuous young woman would react at the prospect of getting married and going to live in Paraguay?