The Dogs are Curling Up Again
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Reluctantly, they left the beauty of the wilderness around them. Isabel took some further video of the panorama. When they were on the move again in the car she said, “Looking at the map, I suggest we don’t stop in Vallenar on the way back but if we want a break after a couple of hours of travelling, we could stop about halfway home from Vallenar in the village of Incahausi. I thought Incahuasi was a volcano.” “You’re right. It is. The volcano and the village take their name from the Quechua word meaning Inca house. Could be another good place to check out in case we have to stop again with the children on the return.” Sipping a juice outside a little café cum corner shop in the village of Incahausi, Mateo had a suggestion to make. “Let’s not stop for food here, even if we could find somewhere in this tiny place. Let’s have dinner together in La Serena when we are back. I want to invite you.” Isabel smiled and looking him straight in the face, she agreed. When they arrived in La Serena, Mateo drove his car to the house where Isabel had a room. She was keen to change out of yesterday’s clothes covered with the dust of the desert, but he insisted on waiting for her. She showed him to her room. It was a kind of studio, a large bedroom/living room but she was fortunate enough to have her own small kitchen and a bathroom to herself on the same floor. She offered drinks and nibbles of nuts and disappeared into the bathroom. Mateo dipped into some of her books while she was away. “You have a good collection of art books,” he remarked when she returned. “Most of them I’ve bought at second-hand bookstalls in Santiago or Valparaiso. I brought a few back from England last time I was there. They have charity shops all over Britain and there are wonderful bargains to be had, not only in books but in pictures too. You can often pick up a print of a famous artist and a lovely pricey frame for very little. The Sunday morning antique fairs here are good too. I do the reframing myself where necessary. Look at this great tool I brought from England,” said Isabel pulling out a belted contraption from the bottom drawer of her desk. “It holds the four corners of the frame in place whilst the glue dries and you tighten them with this handle.” Suitably impressed, Mateo didn’t think he’d ever seen one of those on sale in Chile. “Another good reason to go back,” he said, fishing. “There are lots of good reasons but I’m not sure anyone can really feel and be themselves in a different country from where their roots are and where their heart is.” “That’s the key, surely - where your heart is. Exile isn’t like going voluntarily to another country and if you are always longing to return, it's like a small heartbreak every day, isn’t it?” Isabel felt there was some real understanding of her by Mateo. She put her hand on his arm in an unconscious gesture to thank him. Their eyes met. She sensed he wanted to kiss her but she pulled back and declared herself ready to go out. They called briefly at Mateo’s apartment and then took a colectivo and were soon sipping wine in an Italian restaurant and wishing salud to each other and clinking their glasses. When the question was posed after the meal, would she come back to his apartment, Isabel knew that she wanted to. She felt excited that this handsome, perceptive Chilean, with his attractive mop of thick black hair, was making her feel an intense passion like she had not experienced in a long time. The dilemma for her was how was she going to reveal to Mateo all the political work she was trying to achieve and the time that would involve her being away for long weekends from La Serena, which weren’t going to be conducive to a new relationship. Then there was the matter of her false name. She felt she knew she could trust him enough to tell him about the work and that he would be sympathetic with the cause, but giving only fleeting time to him might not be acceptable. She decided that’s how it had to be, take it or leave it and she would tell him at his apartment. Isabel was unusually quiet in the colectivo on the return journey and when he asked her why she said she had something to tell him. When they were back in the apartment, Isabel began explaining her commitments in the northern cities of Chile and that she would have to go the next weekend, the last in September, from Thursday night to Monday morning, if they were to have three weeks in the flowering desert in October with the children. During these weeks she wasn’t going to have Fridays off as usual and she would have to go off for long weekends away again as soon as the desert visits were all over. Mateo just listened. When she stopped talking he leaned over and kissed her. He held her tightly and she put her arms around him and hugged him. “I want to help you,” he eventually gasped and kissed her again. “You’d be risking your job, your career.” But he silenced her with further kisses. “I want to be honest with you, I’m going to be busy. I want to build on all the work I did last year. I can’t drop it…” the kisses were going down her neck and her blouse was being undone.
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About the Book
Political exile Isabel returns to her native Chile when the country is in transition to democracy, following the cruel dictatorship that killed her father and her boyfriend. She is searching for the old Chile she once knew and for her own identity after years in Britain as a refugee, an outsider. Finding Chile deeply divided and democracy impossible with the legacy of the dictator, she embarks on the political activity she sees as vital. Her activism and film-making ambitions carry her across this diverse country of extremes. She visits the native peoples’ homeland with its lush forests and learns of their struggles. With her new Chilean lover, she sees the world’s driest desert in flower and the oldest mummies in the world. Isabel learns much else about her country and herself, whilst risking arrest for her political militancy. Her English partner takes up voluntary work in Chile hoping to find her, fearing for her safety but uncertain if she has left him. His search becomes an enlightening exploration of the culture and politics of Chile in tumultuous times. Isabel is still finding herself and trying to decide her future between two realities.
About the Author
Margaret graduated from Edinburgh University in Politics, after which she commenced a social work career, first in Scotland and later in Nottingham, England. Voluntary work led her to assist in the rehousing of Chilean Refugees with Shelter, a Housing charity. Through Amnesty International she met a number of Chilean refugees and came to know the music of the New Chilean Song Movement. These singers and groups were banned in Chile but in exile were keeping alive their music throughout Europe and the western world, in protest against the dictatorship in Chile. As a mature student, Margaret studied part-time for a Degree in Hispanic and Latin American Studies, whilst continuing to work as a social worker, managing a preventative project, which she had had the opportunity to create through Action for Children. She has two sons and now has four grandchildren. Two are at primary school and two are teenagers who are becoming very aware of the world and our responsibilities towards one another and our planet.
Margaret had the chance of unpaid leave to do voluntary work in the developing world and went to live in Chile in the late 1990s. She saw the raw effects left by the military regime and its legacy of political turbulence. She has a passionate interest in politics and she believes every decision a politician makes is an ethical choice, either towards a greater good or adding to the injustice in the world, for which they must be held accountable by each of us citizens. In addition to voluntary work in two poor neighbourhoods in Chile, Margaret attended literature and social work courses at the Catholic University of Valparaíso. On her return to the UK, she moved into social work training before retiring and living in Bath.