Indikilandia

Chapter 2

Summer mornings in Santiago were extremely hot and dry. The smog could be felt in the air. Strange mirages on the streets announced it was going to be one of those days you could only remember in a dream.The wall of the Andes seemed even more overwhelming than when you had said good-night to it last, when the dim blue shadows of starless nights had made it seem soft, hazy, asleep. The pavement in front of their house was parted and the roots of neighboring trees would emerge from the cracks, defying the cement placed over them in haste.He was standing outside and waiting for the taxi. The bags were piled around him and his mother and his sister were frantically finishing up with the packing, the shower, the last good-byes, phone calls.

He couldn't wait for it to be over. He didn't want to leave and yet he found it even worse to prolong the parting so much. He could have been ready in half an hour. And yet they had woken him up early and now they were in danger of missing the plane. But it was always like that in his family, he thought. Frantic, last minute flights even when they meant a whole new world ahead. The race to the airport check-in just because his sister had forgotten her favorite cassette in the stereo and his mom worried about watering the plants even though she would never see them again. She talked to them and said good-bye to each one of them, and she hadn't said a word to anyone else, not even to his uncle Miguel just because he had told her not to smoke so much.

But she always had to get her way. She was brave, the old woman. You had to give her that. She didn't care what anyone else thought. "Fuck'em," she'd say. And he smiled. He remembered the time she had decided to pick-nick on some random people's lawn with them. They were just kids. They ran around naked in the summer, not like the other kids, and his mom was thin and pretty, with her dark, curly hair and the blue bandana wrapped around her head. She had taken the poncho and put it on the lawn. They were eating hot dogs on toast and he remembered how the neighbors had just looked at them through the window at first and then the husband had come out and explained to her how that was private property and so on, like she didn't know, and his mom had answered that the grass was for everyone, how you couldn't own it or something like that- and the neighbors just staring in awe. She was really something. But of course back then, he didn't really see it like that. At school the kids would all play in their clean, colorful clothes. They had matching socks and new shoes. He imagined they went home to macaroni and cheese with milk and cookies everyday. His nails were dirty and the teacher looked at him with pity, which he sensed, even at that age. He would with draw in a corner and travel with his red suitcase to Indikilandia. He was always late for school.

"Caupo, why don't you come in here and have a sandwich before we leave?"

"Mom, if we don't leave now, we're going to miss the plane."

"Yeah,I know, but just one last lunch together here at home, before we leave. I'm sure we have time for that. You know the line at the check in is always so long anyway and the planes never leave on time.Luisa and I are just..."

"Mom, the taxi's here."

"The taxi?"

"I called a taxi, it's too late to take the bus. Get over here, will you. The luggage. Where's Luisa?"

He greeted the taxi driver hastily without looking at him. Their luggage consisted mostly of large grey and blue bags, old, worn out, huge bags. He stuffed them in the trunk and had to put two of them in the back, too. They squeezed in the taxi. His mom and his sister rode in the back. He could see Luisa leaning her chin on one of the bags through the mirror. Her long thick hair was still wet and although he couldn't see her face, he knew she was on the verge of tears.

"Tothe airport."

"Nationalor international flight?"

"International."