Chapter 5: Dama de Noche (A Bonus Chapter)

Santiago, Chile

She held his hand in hers as she walked a step ahead. He was falling behind. Anyone they came across was bound to think that she was dragging him to where they are going. He did not mind at all. From his vantage point, he could see how her dark hair and the skirt of her dress billow in the soft Pacific breeze.

The night is balmy, the sweet scent of jacaranda flowers is its top notes. Somewhere someone was passionately singing Victor Jara's La Luna Siempre Es Muy Linda with his guitarra, the echo of their footsteps on the cobblestone sidewalks falling in step with the ballad.

It is their last night in Chile and they are spending it in Santiago before they fly back to England the next day. Almost all of their things are packed. There is only one thing more to do, Robert told himself and that is to take Cora to Liguria in Avenida Providencia for a night of dinner and live music.

Inside the bar, they were ushered to a table for two. Robert ordered lomo a la paila picante and chacarero tradicional (en mechada) and he was pairing it with a glass of premium carménère from von Siebenthal Gran Reserva. Cora looked amused at the humongous dinner her husband is having. She, on the other hand, is keen on the milanesa parmesana con tomate y albahaca sandwich which she pairs with a prosecco.

While waiting for their meals to arrive, they sat back on their chair to take in the interior of the bar. Cora is always the one to notice details. It must be her artistic background, Robert thought. She marveled at the floor to ceiling dark wood shelves that stacked a wide collection of vino, aperitivos, piscos, cervezas, vermouth, tragos largos, and bajativos. He is having a very good look of her since they left Casablanca. Her face shone under the warm light of the chandeliers, her pale face subtly bronzed by their trip across a couple of South American countries. She was the one who suggested the trip, she is very adept with travelling. They never travelled to the continent together before though he knew that she had been here eons ago. They have widely travelled Europe, the Mediterranean, and Asia Minor. But she could be very persuasive especially when she did almost nothing, Robert smiled to himself.

To his wonderment, this is a trip he is bound to relive till old age. The diversity of the cultures and languages that they have been exposed to and the experiences that came with those. They met numerous people and he had not seen Cora's genuine youthful delight in years. Some of the experiences were quite new to him like riding a horse in the estancias while the golden sun beats in the horizon. Everything, even the tufts of hair behind the horse's neck shone like golden orange threads under it. Often, travelling from one city to another, one country to another, soaking in all the possible experiences in two to three days could feel so frenetic but there were also those languid days like the week they spent with Cora's childhood friend. It particularly gave him the respite he needed and Anthony's company felt very much like that of Shrimpie.

His gaze trailed back to Cora, looking so composed before him, happy and composed. When you find her sitting in one of the posh restaurants in London or working or simply sightseeing in art galleries and museums, you will miss the sense of fun and adventure in her. She is the first to sample a calesa ride, dance to the banjo, sample a native brew, talk to strangers, always egging him on. In their long marriage, she is almost always the first to take a leap of faith in family finances, in raising their children, in making decisions that would impact them all, in the demonstration of love. Risk-averse, he is always the more careful one asking "Does it work?" "Will it work?" Surprisingly, it is almost always Cora's leaps of faith that got them through their rough sails.

Their dinner is served and she continued with her low chatter. Interesting how origamis could remind you of couples like them: by its design, two corners of the paper are brought together, unimaginable angles are created where there seemed none, and the manifold distances are reduced to a hairline by the intricacies of its folds. Most couples could claim to coming a long way. They could too! To marry Cora was unimaginable to him at 24. It's a preposterous idea! He shouted at his father when the proposal was broached to him in London. They had just returned from their trip in New York where he had been introduced to his father's potential investor, Isidore Levinson. On their third day in New York, they had dinner with Isidore's family and he saw her first—young, beautiful, vibrant but reserved, and could seem to hold up her share of intelligent conversation but only when drawn into the topic. Most of the time she was quietly eating the food on her plate observing at the people from behind those bright blue eyes. He found it somewhat infuriating, he thought she was quietly appraising him. He did not look at her hard enough though. She was just a daughter of his father's prospective investor and they do not have to be chummy with each other. Besides, she also seemed least interested.

He thought that he would not have anything to do with her after that; that he, or his family, would operate as her father's business partner remotely in London and peace is to be had. But his father's suggestion that she might be a good match to him financially wise had his blood curling in anger. He was mad at his father, he was even fuming mad at her for a reason he could not fathom, he was mad at the situations that led the whole of UK to the winter of discontent in 1978-79 and badly hurt his family's investments. "How bad is it?" He remembered sitting down his father one day, a couple of days after the old man broached the matter of dating Ms. Levinson, to know the exact gravity of their loss. "It's bad" was his fathers' grim reply. "Is there no other way out?" Rober demanded. "No, well, there are but they take time to execute and the returns are not guaranteed positive. The recovery of our investments are not assured." Robert could only wash his face with dry hands. Later that day, he was sitting in a pub for a few shots of whisky determined not to make Ms. Levinson his family's road to redemption.

He almost lost her that day. If he had been too stubborn and rebellious, he would not have left London for New York on the pretense of working out the two family's business partnership just to be near her. He would have lost her forever. She would not be sitting across him in Liguria tonight. God knows he would not even be here in Chile in the first place if not for her. It had been a long time, but every time he is reminded how he almost let her escape from his fingers like a grain of sand because he thought that his family was making things unfair to him, he is washed by a gnawing sense of guilt, the one that constricts his heart and breathing. He could not imagine how life would be without Cora.

"Robert, is your food good?" Her inquiring voice snapped him back into the moment.

"As good as I imagined it to be, my darling." He smiled back.

"Oh, I thought you're not enjoying it you seemed to be in some kind of stupor."

"No, I was only thinking of a lot of things."

"I hope they aren't too negative." Her discreet smile, oftentimes mistaken for a simper, painted her face.

"No, not at all." Their chatter went on until it's time to sit back and savor their wine. Their conversation drifted to their adult children in England. They start to make nebulous plans to take the whole family to a vacation to…maybe Southeast Asia. The younger ones would love the white beaches and the ecotourism springing round the region.

As the night deepens, a live band started to play. The singer took to the stage amidst the cheers of the regulars and the acoustic sound of guitar gradually drifted throughout the bar.

El museu de las distancias rotas
se quedaba con lo que me decias
tu dejabas caer con cuentagotas
tu vida en la mia, tu vida en la mia

The lead singer started to croon in a soft, melodious voice…She was sipping her second glass of prosecco. From the rim of the glass, her eyes looked at him, shining and sparkling as her wine.

Cada cuál a merced de su corriente
y a merced de la gravedad el velo,
de pronto el tiempo quedó latente,
tu mano en mi pelo, tu mano en mi pelo.

He could make out the meaning of the lyrics with his elementary Spanish. It talks about how each of us is under the mercy of certain forces, a veil tossed in the air is always at the mercy of gravity, how, according to the voice in the song, time stood still when the hands of his lover caressed his hair.

Y un silencio con tus mismos ojos
fue a ocupar mi corazón vacío,
de la pena que se llevó flotando el río,
de la pena que se llevó flotando el río.

The one who wrote the song talks further about a stillness that comes from his lover's eyes, a kind of stillness that occupies his empty heart, and washed his pain away down the river. The writer of the song described it just the way his Cora always make him feel. He found an articulation of his feelings in the song! Before they met a long time ago, his duty to his family and their public reputation defined his personal identity. He had friends but at night, after a round of brandy or whisky or beer, he would go home to his pad, strip his clothes away, lay down to sleep expecting the next day to be the same. He had girlfriends here and there but those relationships were mostly escape and release from the hectic monotony of his life. He did not know he was deeply longing for an emotional connection until he pursued her and made her his wife. At first, it was a difficult adjustment for both of them. But from the moment they found love, she has become both his rainbow of happiness and emotional anchor, magnifying that up by giving him three adorable daughters and a heart that is now his home.

He wanted to gather his wife, his dama de noche, in his arms and sway with her slowly to the rhythm of this beautiful and romantic song. But the bar is not for dancing. So, he signaled for the bill. The night is still young and there is plenty of time to take her into his arms.

After a couple of minutes, hands closely linked, they walked back to their hotel in silence, only their bodies, heart, and mind were loudly talking to each other while a waxing gibbous moon mutely followed behind.

The song used in this vignette is entitled "El Museu De Las Distancias Rotas" by Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler. It is not available on Spotify but it is included in the sound track of the movie "The City of Your Final Destination" (2008) with Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney, Charlotte Gainsbourg, etc.