Villa Ruiseno – March 1946

Mercedes Moller was sitting with her hands folded on her laps because her hands were too big.

She had determined this shortly before her 12th birthday on a hot January afternoon, having spent the majority of it lounging on the lawn by the pool next to Augusta and Marie Elsa. With the shadows of the tree beginning to lengthen across the manicured lawn, they had retreated to the bedroom and were seeing to their toilette before an afternoon tea of dobladitas, butter and home made jam and Augusta had given the hairbrush to Mercedes before sitting down on the quilt of the bed expectantly. Coming to kneel behind her friend she'd begun to count out the strokes through the dark chocolate hair until Augusta exclaimed she brushed hair like a sailor with a particular exasperated irritation. Elsa had looked up from the dress she was buttoning and a sharp "Augusta!" which silenced any further comments but Mercedes had stilled the brush and her face had flushed, eyes on the offending hand.

"Forgive me, Mechita." Augusta had said when she noticed the look on Mercede's face and then indicated with a tap of her hand that she should continue.

Mercedes had begun to brush the hair again, registering, for the first time how her hands, having somehow grown over the summer at a disproportionate rate to her body, seemed so much larger than Augusta's or Elsa's. Their hands were delicate with long slender fingers that moved with an unconscious grace. In comparison her palms were too big, fingers too thick. They were clumsy, oafish things and in that moment she hated them for being so different from her friends.

So now, a few weeks later, as the trio sat waiting for class to begin, Mercedes had her hands folded on her lap to make them less paw like. They were waiting for Miss Guillemena to make her entrance. Mercedes already had her books out along with a brand new fountain pen (birthday present from her father) carefully laid in the concave indent by to the ink well at the top of her desk. Her eyes kept glancing towards the door as she only half listened to Augusta and Elsa, busy whispering about how gallant the town heart-throb, Lucas, had looked at church the previous day, having returned, sun kissed, from his summer vacation at his Aunt's in Chillian a week before. How about the way his white button up cotton shirt fitted to show off the athletic build of his shoulder and how bold with his style was, wearing grey unpleated pants and oxford shoes. He looked like a model straight out of Rosetta. Only imagine, he'd tipped his hat at them as he left after the service!

Their excited giggles stopped abruptly when the sharp click-clack of heels were heard entering the door. The class all turned in their seats, sitting up straight.

"Good morning." Miss Guillemena said as she entered. She seemed to tower over them with imposing severity. Her hair was slicked back in a tight, low bun a compliment to the unremarkable clothes she wore; a plain black skirt and a white shirt buttoned to the top, with a black blazer that looked insufferably hot for the weather and only seemed to reinforce her austere disciplinarianism. Augusta and Elsa had often said they found her overbearing and uptight but, worst of all, she was a spinster which was generally agreed on by everyone in the class to be her worst trait. Until this summer Mercedes had been inclined to agree for no other reason than she'd never thought all that deeply on the matter but this summer had marked a shift for her.

Her eldest brother, Horatio, had turned 18 and with it graduated from the school. He had been mad set on leaving the village.

"I have to go see the world, Mechita." he'd said as she'd sat, forlorn, on the bed in his room. His brown leather suitcase lay open his clothes, personal items and a map of Europe tucked neatly inside. "and I'll be away at university for the next few years. Papa will want me back and working as soon as I'm done, I'm sure, and then I will have missed my chance."

"But I'll miss you!" she'd cried, feeling the tears sting her eyes and blinking them furiously away because she didn't want him to tease her as he often did. "Who will take me to the river to swim or go fishing with me? What about our summer picnics?"

He'd stepped close and cupped her cheek with his hand. "I'll write to you every week. I'll send postcards. I promise."

"It won't be the same." she'd said. In spite of herself, her lip had trembled and tears had escaped.

And so Mercedes had found herself with more time on her hands than she was used to. Her papa was busy running the only hotel in the pueblo and Carlos was too busy hanging out with his friends on the dusty benches beneath the tree of the town square. At sixteen, he hardly cared to entertain his little sister, instead he and his friends amused themselves with games of poker in exchange for gum, cigarettes and the odd peso. With more swagger than they had right to possess, they called out to the young ladies of the village as they walked by. Most ignored them, some shot them disapproving stares but there was a girl or two who walked a little slower, swishing their skirts around their legs as they passed and flashed a pretty smile. They would stop under the tree claiming respite from the heat of the sun but Mercedes rolled her eyes because she knew they just wanted to chat with the boys.

It was a small village of a few hundred and the numbers swelled to a little under a thousand when the families of the surrounding vineyards and farms were included. There was Mr Hernandez, the widower, in his cravat and suit jacket, briskly walking to the bank ever morning at a quarter to eight and leaving at twelve to make himself lunch at his home down the street. Not infrequently he would stop at the store to buy eggs and Mercedes wondered if that was all he ate. There was Mrs Hernandez with two toddlers and a baby blue pram who would appear around the corner every Monday and Thursday to have morning tea in the hotel restaurant with Miss Alvarez who was recently engaged to a Mr Ruiz from a neighbouring village. There was old Mrs Tapia who made her daily trip to the butcher with her basket hanging off the crook of her arm and her walking cane in the other. If it was Wednesday or Saturday she would stop at the farmers market that took over the town square for the morning and amongst the bustled she'd carefully select tomatoes, grapes or cherimoyas, a kilogram of flour or a nice atuna fish from the fishmonger.

It was on one of the market days of the new year that Mercedes had first noticed Miss Guillemena from the window of her room situated on the top floor of the hotel. She had moved the single bed up against the wall and positioned the arm chair by the window so she could look out at the people below. It had been a particularly hot, still morning where the heat seemed to press down on the skin like a heavy blanket and seep away all vitality. Sunglasses and wide brimmed hats were out and the line up for ice-cream spilled out of the hotel and onto the street. She was blinking sleepily, her head leaning against the arm propped up on the window sill when she saw the head of her teacher emerge from the hotel front door with an ice cream cone in her hand and her shopping basket in the other. There was nothing remarkable in seeing her, as she lived close by, but it was what she was wearing that made Mercedes take note. Instead of her usual muted black, she had on a navy blue and white polka dot button up dress with a white collar, a white belt and a full skirt skimming her hips. Her hair had been swept back into a loose chignon, a few curls of hair escaping to frame her face as she sat down on the wall besides the gazebo that dominated the center of the square. She licked away the rivulets of melted vanilla ice cream that had begun to drip over her fingers. Mercedes had leaned forward in her chair, over the window sill to get a better look and watched as Miss Guillemena proceeded to delicately work away at her ice cream before proceeding to eat the cone. The activity lasted some ten minutes. A few parents had nodded as they passed but apart for that Miss Guillemena sat uninterrupted while the rest of the village swirled past, the hubbub of village voices rising and falling, the distant sound of a motor-car rumbling down an adjacent street. When she had finished, she wiped her hand with a hankerchief she produced from her basket and, her eyes closed, her face turned briefly towards the eleven o'clock sun before she stood and walked down the street. Perhaps it was the cut of the dress and the way it pinched in at the waist that made it look like her hips swayed. Mercedes had craned her neck until her teacher had walked down the street that lead to the church and slipped through the heavy wooden door before sitting back into her seat with a sigh.

It was a week later at about the same time that Mercedes had spotted Miss Guillemena sitting in the same spot with an ice cream in hand once more, this time in a green mid-calf skirt and a cream cotton lace top tucked in. Again Mercedes had watched her. She couldn't have said just why she felt drawn to the figure sitting alone on the wall but she had to admit that she was. She watched for a few moments, a desire coalescing inside and, with the thought only half formed in her mind, she found herself hurrying down the stairs towards the hotel kitchen where she begged an ice-cream off the cook who slipped it to her with a wink and said not tell her papa. She emerged, blinking, into the sunshine and walked with quick steps between Mr Carrasco's bread stall and Mrs Medina's flower stand. It was as she neared that she slowed and then stopped. She was a few paces away from Miss Guillemena , close enough that her movement caused the woman to look to her.

"Hello, Mercedes." she said, perhaps a little surprised to see her student standing there.

"Hello." Mercedes replied, unsure of what exactly to do next which made her blush with embarrassment. She'd had a vague notion of sitting with Miss Guillemena and eating her ice-cream too but she didn't know how to go about it now that she was stood there.

"I see we have the same idea." Miss Guillemena said.

Mercedes looked to the chocolate ice-cream clutched in her hand.

"Yes."

"I think it's about to melt everywhere."

"Oh." Mercedes said and quickly ran the tip of her tongue along the edge to catch the drips that were about to escape the cone. She thought that she had never felt quite so self-conscious before, eating an ice-cream. As she did this, she was trying to think of something to say and was about to open her mouth to comment on the weather (adults always seemed amenable to the topic) but she was saved from such banality when Miss Guillemena glanced down at to the book Mercedes was pressing against her side.

"I see you have been reading." she said with some interest. Mercedes had quite forgotten she was even carrying it. In her rush to go downstairs, it had remained clutched in her hand. She turned it over to display the cover.

"Ah. Poetry by Vicente Huidobro."

Mercedes had been very glad that it was not Mary Poppins,which she had been reading earlier that morning yet again, until she had thrown in aside in boredom and had gone to see if Elsa or Augusta wanted to go to their favourite tree at the edge of town. It had been their favourite hang out over many previous summers but Elsa had gone to Chillan with her sister and mother for the day and Augusta didn't seem much interested, she wanted to finish reading the latest magazine of Rosetta. After about a quarter of an hour she'd walked home, scuffing her feet against the dust of the road, past the farmer's marked and ambled up the steps of the hotel. She found herself idly scanning her father's book collection in his office while he was busy discussing a missing item in an order they'd received that morning. She'd been running her finger along the spines and stopped on a thin, small book. Flipping it open she'd seen an inscription: 'To my beloved wife, love always, your Erneto '. She had slipped out the door of the study and climbed the stairs noiselessly to her bedroom, jumping over the 5th stair and treading to the left of the 11th stair to avoid the creaks. Her door closed, she'd carefully opened it. Anything of her mother's was a treasure to be savoured, anything she had owned or loved a clue into the woman who, in spite of Mercedes efforts, had become a fuzzy memory. She had careful re-read the inscription, warmed by this proof of love from her father.

She had not said anything of this. She'd sat down beside as, one handed, Miss Guillemena leafed through the book.

"I'm surprised to see you reading material such as this."

Mercedes couldn't quite decipher if she was disapproving of her choice in books or not. She though perhaps from the way her face seemed so stern that she did but then she fell on a page where the poem was written in the shape of a diamond and paused.

"That's my favourite." Mercedes had said, if only because it was one of the few she'd read so far as the the shape of the poem had caught her eye.

Miss Guillemea smoothing the page down with her hand. She brought the ice-cream to her lips in the same absent minded way one might sip from a cup of tea and she licked as her eyes scanned down the words before she began to speak softly;

Thesa
The beautiful
Gentle princess,

Made from a white star
Made from a star Japanese
Thesa is the divine Flower of Kyoto
And when passing triumphantly on her palanquin
It appears as if she were a tender lily, as though a pale lotus
Plucked on a summer afternoon from the imperial garden.
Goddess like, they all adore her as far as Mikado
But she moves between all, indifferent
Nobody knowing their love to be returned
And always smiling, she's smiling.

She is Japanese Ophelia
which the flow of love
Crazy and impish
Triumphant
Kisses.

When she finished she paused. She closed the book and handed it back to Mercedes.

"A good poem." She said and this time Mercedes smiled brightly at the comment as if it were a compliment on her good taste. My favourite poet is Gabriela Mistral. Have you heard of her?"

Mercedes shook her head.

"She is a Chilean. A great advocate for education and she writes beautiful poetry." Miss Guillemena said and closed her eyes and recited:

She speaks in her way of her savage seas
With unknown algae and unknown sands;
She prays to a formless, weightless God,
Aged, as if dying.
In our garden now so strange,
She has planted cactus and alien grass.
The desert zephyr fills her with its breath
And she has loved with a fierce, white passion
She never speaks of, for if she were to tell
It would be like the face of unknown stars.
Among us she may live for eighty years,
Yet always as if newly come,
Speaking a tongue that plants and whines
Only by tiny creatures understood.
And she will die here in our midst
One night of utmost suffering,
With only her fate as a pillow,
And death, silent and strange.

Miss Guillemena's voice rose and fell in low, full tones and she seemed so swept up in the poem she recited that her voice caught on the edges of the words. Her face transformed and Mercedes was surprised to realise that she was beautiful. She had never thought about it before but she did then. She looked at the profile of her face, noticing how her black hair shone, the length of her lashes, how strong and regal her nose was and the fullness of her red lips, moving to shapes the words of the poem. She seemed younger then, or rather, Mercedes perceived in her a sort of longing, a vulnerability that made her seem less distant and severe, the part of Miss Guillemena that was still a young, vibrant woman.

Mercedes didn't entirely understand the meaning of what she said but she felt the current of sadness that swelled beneath the words. Perhaps it was that or perhaps it was the way her teacher's face turned away her face to hide her glassy eyes when she finished, as if she had a visceral understanding of words she'd just spoken, that prompted tears to well in her own. She inched a little closer but didn't quite dare to place her hand on the one that rested on the rough concrete of the wall.

"It's beautiful." she said.

Presently Miss Guillemena collected herself and they finished their ice-cream in silence. Then she rose, picking up her basket of farmers produce and looked down at Mercedes.

"It was lovely talking with you." she said with uncharacteristic warmth and in that moment the sadness Mercedes felt vanished and she beamed. She watched as her teacher walked down the street towards the church as she had done the week before, thinking how strange that poem was and how, in hearing it, she'd felt like she was accorded a special insight into the heart Miss Guillemena and she was moved in a way she had never felt before.

She did not see her again that summer despite looking for her on market days, the words from the poem rolling through her head;

And she has loved with a fierce, white passion
She never speaks of, for if she were to tell
It would be like the face of unknown stars.

Now, as she sat in class, she no longer saw the same dowdy teacher that her friends did.

"Pop quiz." Miss Guillemena said and a small wave of dismay rippled through the class. Her sharp eye glanced around the class, daring anyone to vocalize their approbations. "I trust you have all read to the end of the first scene of act two?"

Mercedes was nodding her head to which Miss Guillemena looked approvingly at her and she flushed. Then she heard Augusta snicker under her breath. She turned to look and her friend raised her eyebrows in apology.

"What are you doing, trying to become the teacher's pet?"

"I like Spanish class." Mercedes retorted hotly and turned back to the front of the class, feeling that she was wrong, somehow, for no longer thinking Miss Guillemena was a beast.

In cursive script, Miss Guillemena began to write out the questions. The scratching of brass pen nibs and the clinking of them against the glass of the ink well were the only sounds as the class wrote out their careful answer, ensuring they responded in full sentences as they had been instructed to do at length now that they were in Grade 8 and in their last year of primary school.

That finished, their workbooks were collected at the front of the class for marking and everyone had opened their books to the second scene of the second act.

"Who will read for the role of Romeo?" Miss Guillemena asked. Not a hand went up. She pursed her lips and waited a moment. "Very well. Who will read Juliet?"

Mercedes hand shot up along with half the class. When Miss Guillemena nodded to her, she jumped up, her heart beating with a sudden furious pace. The play in hand, she walked to the front of the class. Miss Guillemena encouraged the class for a Romeo to step forward but the girls all stayed mute. Who wanted to play a boy?

"Very well. I will read it." she said curtly.

She had Mercedes stand on a chair to simulate the balcony and Mercedes buried her face in her text as a snicker rippled through the class.

"Class!" Miss Guillemena said, "You'd better listen closely rather than laughing. I expect some intelligent analysis of the text when we are done."

She cleared her throat and began to read.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon...

Mercedes peered over the edge of her text book watching as Miss Guillemena spoke Romeo's monologue. Like that day in the square, when she had recited her poem, she seemed to become wrapped up in the words and her voice, her whole being seemed to soften.

… It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!

Mercedes coloured. Unlike in the square, today Miss Guillemena's eyes were open and their rich brown looked into hers. It was thrilling. She felt the words pass through her body like a heat, a sensation she'd never known before and it made her legs tremble.

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Mercedes was so taken with the moment, she had forgotten to follow the lines in her book and silence fell. It took her a moment to realise it was her turn to speak and she dipped her eyes to the text with a mumbled apology, feeling like her hands were monstrous as they clasped the text book, made bigger by her exposed place on the chair in front of her classmates. Finally, she located her place.

Aye, me!

The class tittered. Mercedes kept her eyes fixed on her text then. She took some quick breaths and waited tensely for her next lines;

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

As they moved through the text and she found her pace and it felt like a sort of power lingered in the words because it seemed to wrap around them and in a few minutes, she no longer though of her oafish hands or of the classmates looking at her. She felt like one of those heroines from the movies and Miss Guillemena was the hero. It was as if they were the only two in the room. Like she was given wings and words were the wind to make them take flight. Into those words Mercedes poured herself with all the feeling her small frame contained and it coursed through her veins like potent magic.

Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!

When she finished, she stood, holding Miss Guillemena's gaze and she thought she just might burst. Then her teacher looked away and the class broke into applause. Oh! that that moment had never ended! She stepped down from the chair and dashed to her seat, cheeks burning.

"Mechita, that was wonderful!" Elsa whispered to her.

"Aye me!" Augusta sighed, "I wish I had a Romeo."

Mercedes smiled shyly and was glad that Miss Guillemena had begun the discussion about the scene so that she might become invisible and have a moment to collect herself. She folded her hands in her lap and did not speak for the rest of the class. She couldn't define what had transpired, only that it was important. She could not know how deeply it would shape who she was to become. The combination of loosing herself in the make-believe world of two lovers and Miss Guillemena speaking the words to her. There was something thrilling and illicit about it. Something that roused all her tender, pubescent feelings, feelings that lingered, even as she pushed it from her mind out of some unnamed uneasiness. Even as she plastered a sweet smile over the sinking suspicion that something about her was not quite right, not quite normal. Even as she understood, in some way, that she would never be like Elsa or Augusta with their elegant hands and their shy giggles, as they whispered about boys.