A Long Petal of the Sea(79)

Several years were to go by before he could keep his promise to return to Chile. They spent them in Venezuela, where Marcel was living and where they had work and friends. The Chilean colony grew daily because, in addition to political exiles, others arrived in search of economic opportunities. In their Palos Grandes neighborhood a Chilean accent was more common than a Venezuelan one. Most of those who came remained isolated within their own community, licking their wounds and concerned above all about the situation in Chile, which showed no signs of changing despite the promising snippets of news that passed from mouth to mouth but were never confirmed. The fact was that the dictatorship was still solid. Roser suggested to Victor that the only healthy way to grow old was to integrate into Venezuelan society. They had to live in the present, making the most of everything that agreeable country had to offer, grateful they were well received and had work, without wallowing in the past. The return to Chile was left pending for some future date. They didn’t allow it to spoil their present, as that future could be a long way off. Roser prevented him from living in nostalgia and hope, introducing him to the art of having a good time without feeling guilty. This, together with generosity, was the best lesson Venezuela had to give. In his sixties, Victor changed more than he had done in all his previous life. He attributed this to his continuing infatuation, Roser’s constant efforts to smooth the rough edges of his nature, as well as the positive influence of the Caribbean chaos. This was how he described the institutionalized indolence that undermined his serious attitude, at least for a few years. He learned to dance salsa and play the four-stringed guitar.



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IT WAS THEN THAT Victor Dalmau met Ofelia del Solar again. Over the years, he had sporadically had news of her, but had never seen her because they moved in very different circles and she had spent most of her life in other countries due to her husband’s profession. He had also done his best to avoid her, concerned that the ashes of that frustrated youthful love might still contain burning embers that could disrupt his orderly existence or his relationship with Roser. He had never understood why Ofelia had cut him out of her life so completely, with no explanation apart from a short letter written in the tone of a capricious young girl that he could not match with the woman who escaped from her art classes to make love with him in a seedy hotel. At first, when he had finished feeling sorry for himself and cursing her in secret, he came to detest her. He attributed to her all the worst defects of her class: lack of awareness, egotism, arrogance, pretentiousness. His loathing slowly subsided, leaving him with the fond memory of the most beautiful woman he had ever known, her infectious laughter and her seductiveness. As time went by, he seldom thought of Ofelia, and never felt the impulse to find out about her. Prior to the dictatorship in Chile, he had heard random scraps about her life, usually from some comment by Felipe del Solar, whom he saw a couple of times a year in order to artificially preserve a friendship based entirely on Victor’s sense of gratitude. He had seen some not-exactly-flattering images of her in newspaper social pages, but nothing in the Arts sections; her work was unknown in Chile. “Well, the same happens with other talented national artists, and more so if they’re women,” Roser remarked, when she once brought back a magazine from Miami that had four full-color pages showing Ofelia’s work. Victor studied the two photos of the artist that accompanied the article. The eyes were those of the Ofelia he knew, but the rest had changed a lot—although that could have been the camera’s fault.



Roser arrived with the news that there was an exhibit of the latest works by Ofelia del Solar in the Caracas Athenaeum. “Did you see she uses her maiden name?” she said. Victor pointed out this had always been the case, especially among Chilean women, and that Matias Eyzaguirre had died years earlier. If she hadn’t taken her husband’s name during his lifetime, why would she do so as a widow? “Well, whatever. Let’s go to the opening,” said Roser.

His automatic reaction was to say no, but curiosity got the better of him. There weren’t many works in the exhibit, but each was the size of a door, so they filled three rooms. Ofelia had not escaped the influence of Guayasamin, the great Ecuadorean painter under whom she had studied. Her canvases were of a similar style, with strong brushstrokes, dark lines, and abstract figures. They didn’t, though, have any of his humanitarian message; there was no denunciation of cruelty or exploitation, nothing of the historical or political conflicts of the time. Instead they were sensual images, some of them very explicit, couples entwined in twisted or violent embraces, women yielding to pleasure or suffering. They confused Victor, as they didn’t correspond to the idea he had of the artist. He remembered Ofelia in the first flush of womanhood, the pampered, na?ve, and impulsive girl he had fallen in love with, who painted watercolor landscapes and bouquets of flowers. All he knew of her was that since those far-off days she had been the wife and then the widow of a diplomat; she was a traditional woman, accepting her role. But these paintings showed an ardent temperament and a surprisingly erotic imagination. It was as if the passion he had caught a glimpse of in the dingy hotel where they made love had remained suppressed inside her and its only means of escape was through brushes and paint. Her last canvas, displayed on its own on one wall of the gallery, made a strong impression on him. It was a naked man holding a rifle, painted in white, black, and gray. Victor studied it for several minutes, stirred without knowing why. He went closer to read the title: Militiaman, 1973. “It’s not for sale,” a voice next to him said. It was Ofelia. She looked different from how he remembered her, and from the few photographs he had seen: older, more faded.