Different Flags - Excerpt (Chapter I)

I stayed too long and I shouldn't have. I was twenty-six and a half years - old and I hadn't left my parents' home yet. The taste of wanting to leave, to just go, was always in my mind and soul. I imagined what it would be like, and I felt the steel-flavored despair and urgency of somehow achieving my goal. My goal of somehow going away for good.
For my brother and sister things were different. They were on their way out, while I seemed to be going nowhere. And I felt handicapped, less than, because I didn't know how to do what I dreamed of. Besides, I had no money.
We three children had been born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our mother was Argentinean, our father a Russian immigrant. My father's dream had always been to come to America so that he could live here permanently. He'd fallen in love with the United States after reading books by Jack London and James Fenimore Cooper in his father's well-stocked private library. Papa was very proud of being a Cossack from the Don River. Everyone in his family had strength of character and survival instinct. He wanted his three children to be as feisty as all his relatives--and as he--knew himself to be.
After the end of World War II, our father went to Buenos Aires from his brother's home in the South of France. But in all the years that he lived in Argentina, he never gave up on the dream of being an American, and when I was almost 11 years old, he and I arrived in California. My mother, with my little brother and sister, joined us six months later.
I still don't know what exactly happened between that period of my life and my early twenties, what conflicts or problems I might have had. I just knew that I wasn't happy, that things didn't feel right. My days felt as messy and disorganized as an unmade bed, with no real sense of direction. I was always restless at the same time that I had no guidance, no way to make things better for myself.
My mother had a sister. My aunt's name was Esther, and she had been a good friend to me when I was a little girl in Argentina. She and my Uncle Juan, who lived in a suburb of Buenos Aires, were the only relatives our family kept in touch with. We corresponded on a more or less frequent basis, though neither one of them was a willing letter writer.
My aunt and uncle had never been able to have any children of their own. My aunt became pregnant several times during their marriage, but those pregnancies always ended in miscarriage. There were other nieces from my uncle's family of origin, but my aunt and I shared a special kind of bond. It had aroused my father's jealousy. He could not understand why I loved her so much. It was no good telling him I felt comfortable with her when we lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires and she was a factory worker seemingly content with her situation.
It was now September of 1982 and we, in California, hadn't had any news from them in over eight months. My mother and I had sent letters to their address in Greater Buenos Aires, but there had been no response. Calling them long-distance seemed foolish, since they were both probably in good health, but as usual, lazy about writing. We decided to wait a few more days. If the silence on their end continued, then we would attempt to find out if anything was wrong.
I tried to shrug off my mother's worries by telling her that Tía Esther had a natural distaste for putting words down on paper and standing in line at the post office after working hard all day. I was beginning to wonder what the reason behind their lack of communicatíon was, but the few days were just about up. On a Saturday afternoon between three-thirty and four, our phone rang. All of us except my brother were somewhere in the house.
"I'll get it", my sister Nora said. Our family's phone was in the hallway, next to her bedroom. Nora had been busy cleaning out her closet since after lunch.
"I understand, but read it to me again and this time more slowly, please. I didn't catch everything the telegram says."
My mother and I were in the kitchen having coffee. When we heard the last word "telegram", we looked at each other. I think we both believed that something had happened to my aunt. For some years her health had been less than good and she had retired early. Our uncle was the strong one. He was of Northern Spanish stock; my mother and my aunt's ancestry was from Genoa, in Northern Italy, tough, but still not as tough, as his was.
My mother walked quickly ahead of me to sit by Nora. My sister hadn't moved from her seat after hanging up the phone. She looked at my mother with sadness in her eyes.
"That was Western Union. They said Uncle Juan died yesterday morning", my sister told us in Spanish. "Cancer of the throat."
My mother's eyes and lips opened wide. She couldn't believe it. None of us could.
"Pobre hombre!" my mother said in a low voice. When she sat next to my sister on the couch she looked as if she had just walked several miles. The nearness of my mother's body must have made it easier for Nora to stop holding it in. Her face got red and she started to cry. Nora hadn't known our uncle for as long as I had. I had gone back to Argentina several times after we left it; the last time she saw him was when she was 8 years old. That didn't matter now: she still remembered him as a "cool" and fun-to-be-with man. A "cool uncle."
I had my own memories of him. Only a little over two years before I had seen him at the Airport of Ezeiza, near Buenos Aires, when he and my aunt had gone to see me off. That afternoon my uncle had looked happy and healthy, with more than a few years still ahead of him.
Now I did some thinking."One of us has to go down there. Our aunt will be all alone now", I heard myself saying. She'll need our help and comfort.
"Who has to go and where? What's happened?"
"Our uncle has died, and I want to go to Argentina and stay with my aunt," I told him.
My father made the sign of the cross with his left hand. He and my uncle had been good friends, although for most of the time that he'd lived in Argentina, my father had been considered a foreigner, an outsider. But there had been respect between the only two adult male members of our small family.
"You say you're going, Ana? Why? Your uncle was my brother-in-law and I'm sorry that he died. But it's not necessary for you to go all the way to Buenos Aires." From the tone of his voice, I knew my father thought he was right.
But I had come to a decision, and I thought I was right. I didn't know how I'd made up my mind, but I wanted to be the one to go to Buenos Aires and "represent" our family. I knew my aunt needed support, and just as important, I needed a change.
It looked like I'd found my goal or that it had found me. There was finally something to put my energies into. I was about to get involved in something, do something concrete after so many years of not doing much of anything. The only problem would be money. I needed enough for a plane ticket and a little more to live on. Maybe I could borrow that from my father. I would ask him later.
"I think I should go", I answered.
"Papa's right, Ani. Our aunt won't really be alone. She's always had good neighbors. And we can send her help from here." What my sister said was partly true. My aunt's neighbors were good people, but they were not her family.
"But I don't think helping her from here is going to be enough. We don't know what her situation is really like. And we won't know that for sure until one of us actually goes there and finds out." I knew what I was saying, but more important, I had made my decision and I was going to travel to Buenos Aires.
Later I would talk with my father about the plane money, but first we had to send a telegram expressing our aunt our deepest sympathy. Nora dictated it in Spanish to the Western Union employee over the phone, with my mother's help.
Next day I couldn't think of anything else except my aunt and the trip. I almost felt desperate and anxious. What I could start doing was find out from Pan Am Airlines what their cheapest fare was. Somehow I'd get the money; if not from my father, from somewhere else. Then I would call my aunt and ask her if she needed me. I hoped she would.
On Monday morning, the ticket agent said that a one-way ticket cost $980 and a round trip a little less than twice that much. I'd buy the one-way--getting there mattered more than getting there and then coming back. There would be time later to worry about returning to San Francisco.
I went to talk with my father. He said he'd let me know about lending me the money in two or three days.
"But first, find out that your aunt wants you to stay with her. Remember what happened a few years ago. Your ticket was almost paid for, and then your aunt and Juan wrote to say not to come. Remember how hurt you were and how you cried."
I had not forgotten the time my father was talking about. The trip I made with him to Florida was nice, but I felt that it had just been a substitute for the other one, the one I had really wanted. In a way it was good of my father to remind me of that disappointment. He was a practical and realistic man; he didn't want me to do something for nothing and get hurt again.
"I'll call her later, but I know she'll say yes," I told him. This was a question of really being there when she needed me. She was alone, and I couldn't hold a grudge against her. It wasn't worth it."Papa, there is something I want you to understand: this is not a whim. I'm not a little girl anymore. "I looked at him in the eyes". My wanting this trip has nothing to do with the way I behaved in the past. I'm the only one of us who can and wants to do it, so why not go? You went to France when Uncle Pierre got sick with pneumonia."My father nodded. In the early 70's, he had reluctantly gone to Lyon when his brother wrote him saying he was sick.
"I'll give you my answer before Friday", he finished.For two days that seemed more like two years I couldn't stop myself from walking up and down the house. The waiting period never seemed to end. I couldn't even concentrate on The Betrothed, the novel by Alessandro Manzoni I'd been reading when the news arrived. I thought that it would help me keep me distracted while my father came to his decision, but it couldn't. I didn't understand two words when I tried picking it up again, I loved that book, but for once something in real life was more interesting than a fictíonal story set in the Italy of the 17th century.
I spoke with my aunt one afternoon after my mother had finished her conversation.
"Why didn't you tell us that uncle was so sick?" I tried not to make my question sound like a reproach, but we should have been told what was the matter with him.
My aunt's voice sounded weak and worn out.
"Your poor Tío himself asked me not to. He did not want to worry you because he always hoped to get well. And Norteamérica is so far! He always said that it's not exactly around the corner from here. It's not as if one can take a bus and arrive in half an hour."
A funny way of putting it, but he had been right.
I know, Tía. Would you like me to go there and stay with you for a while?"
My aunt's answer was quick.
"Yes, Ani. Please."
Are you sure?" I had to know that her acceptance of me as a temporary companion was for real.
"Yes, Ani. I am sure. Being with my own niece will make me feel less lonely."
But how soon could I be there? After I got the money and paid for the ticket, all I had to do was prepare my suitcase and wait to board the plane. I wasn't sure how long getting the money would take me, but I didn't think it'd be more than three or four weeks at the most.
"I'll be there around this time next month, Tía." This time next month would be the middle of October, early spring in Argentina.
I'll be expecting you, Ani. And thank-you."
I had to ask again, to make sure.
"Is it really ok. with you?"
"Yes, Ani."
I was relieved, almost grateful.
"We'll call you again soon to see how you're doing. In the meantime, I'll find the exact date of my departure and the flight number. Chau, Tía. I love you."
"Chau, Ani. Give my regards to the rest of the family. And tell your brother Pedro to stop smoking so much. That's why your Tío got sick, all those years of cigarettes."
Great! I had received "permission" from my aunt, and I told her I would actually go to Buenos Aires. That was more than I needed to keep me from letting anyone or anything try to change my mind.