Swedish Tango / the Rhythm of Memory by Alyson Richman Page A

and Rafael would want for nothing. In a few months’ time, as his contract began paying out his royalties, there would be little that he could not give his family. Even if he wasn’t intellectually satisfied, he had to find some contentment in the fact that no one, not even Dr. Herrera, could say that he hadn’t provided them with the best life possible.

Sixteen

S ANTIAGO , C HILE
    J ANUARY 1970
    As Octavio’s career became more demanding, and Salomé became pregnant with her second, then her third child, she would often seek the comforts of her family’s hacienda during the summer. The house, situated just outside Talca, had been owned by the family for centuries, and Salomé loved to go there and breathe the fresh air and spend time with her mother.
    The train from Santiago to Talca was not a long journey, but Salomé always prepared small sandwiches and tea cakes for Rafael and his younger sisters, Blanca and Isabelle. They sat with their noses pressed to the glass, their childlike wonder reflected in the brass railings of the train’s passenger compartment.
    Their grandmother would wait for them at the platform. Her unusual, natural blond hair twisted like a
churro
, her face shaded by the brim of her broad straw hat. Rafael was old enough to run to her, to bury his cheek into her side, and smell the scent of marzipan that always clung sweetly in the basin of her palms.
    The Herrera family had maintained the same carriage for over a hundred years, and Salomé could not help but smile at the joy on Rafael’s face when he saw it waiting there at the station for them. She had been the same way when she was a child.
    The carriage had been cared for over the years like a family jewel. The forest green exterior sparkled, the black canvas top hadbeen polished and tightened to perfection. But it was the inside that Rafael adored the most.
    The interior of the carriage was the color of crushed marigolds. Thick, yellow leather upholstery that smelled of polish and the hide’s natural oils. When the driver hoisted Rafael’s tiny body deep inside, his heart soared. Here, he felt like a king. His father would be joining the family in a week’s time, so he was the man of the family for the brief time until the carriage reached the hacienda. His grandmother, mother, and two small sisters surrounded him and busied themselves with their female chatter. But he, with the damask ceiling above his head, and the narrow window close to his face, was steeped in wonder.
    The roads leading to the estate were narrow and unpaved. Country roads where the dirt kicked up from beneath the carriage’s wheels like clouds of brown steam. The women’s heads bobbed back and forth, their shoulders sliding into one another, their knees rocking to each side. But Rafael adored it. He could feel each rock crushing underneath the carriage’s wheels, he could hear the rhythm of the horse’s footsteps, he could see the mountains and the shore beyond.
    The hacienda was by far the grandest home he had ever seen, and he secretly wished his grandparents lived there year-round. His great-grandfather Don Isadore was the only one, aside from the servants, who maintained a full-time residence there.
    Don Isadore, like his son-in-law, Salomé’s father, had also been a doctor. Now ninety-two years old, he was an intimidating figure to the young children. Although he spent the majority of his day laboring over his experiments, cultivating strange, hybrid fruit trees in the garden, he did so while dressed in formal attire. Rafael had no memory of his great-grandfather in anything but a dark black suit, starched white shirt, and one of his many intricate, brocadedvests. Tall and slender as a cat’s tail, he maintained an ample head of smooth white hair and full mustache. He seldom spoke, preferring to stare and to nod, as if those gestures were words themselves, interpreted by those who knew him well enough after all these years.
    His wife, Salomé’s