Laura had first seen Neruda at the headquarters of the FECh during the 1921 spring fiesta, when he was crowned the top poet. She was only fourteen and had been excited by the energy and fantastic spectacle of the whole festival, including Neruda’s muted eccentricity as he accepted his prize.
A couple of years later, her older sister, who was also studying at the Pedagogy Institute, brought her to one of Neruda’s first big readings at the University of Chile’s main hall. Two poems in particular struck chords in her young heart: “Farewell” (“deep inside you, on his knees, / a sad child, like myself, watches us”; “I love the love of sailors / who kiss, then leave”) and Poem VI, about Albertina:
I remember you as you were in that last autumn
You were the grey beret and the heart in calm
Deep in your eyes the twilight burned
The dry leaves of autumn whirled in your soul.
Laura, now seventeen, thought his voice sounded like a goose’s, a bit whiny, with almost a stubborn lament. Just like Albertina and her amigas, Laura would imitate it with her friends, always making them laugh. She felt that the whine in his thin reading voice must be somewhat characteristic of his personality. Still, there was something endearing about it.
Laura’s father was a learned, sensitive, and popular poet who possessed an ample spirit and, as she put it, rejoiced in all of nature’s manifestations. Perhaps it was from him that she acquired an enduring interest in art in all its forms. She sought out conferences, readings, concerts, and art expositions all around Santiago.
In 1923, Laura was in her third year at an experimental boarding school, the progressive Normal School (No. 1). Its founding was a breakthrough in Latin America, a model training setting that allowed women to become teachers (though without improving their stature in society). The school vigorously promoted art and literature, and invited writers, artists, and intellectuals to present and share their work and ideas.
The school decided to ask Neruda to give a reading, and it fell upon Laura and her classmate Agustina Villalobos to deliver the invitation to him on behalf of the director and the faculty. At the time, Neruda was living in a tiny room in a run-down boardinghouse at 330 Echaurren Street. He had been moving from one shabby residence to another, living on a shoestring. Laura and Agustina found him in his room, lying on a mattress atop a cheap box spring. There was an old sugar crate that served as a nightstand, and next to it was a chair with his clothes piled and hanging from it. That was all the furniture he had, as he’d sold the rest to finance the printing of The Book of Twilights.
When Laura and Agustina timidly entered the room, Neruda smiled, slowly putting the book he was reading atop the pile of others on the sugar crate. They handed him the invitation, along with a bouquet of white carnations. He asked their names, what grade they were in, and where they were from. Laura answered San Fernando, a tranquil town between the Andes and the coast, about ninety miles south of Santiago. San Fernando is in the province of Colchagua—Mapudungun for “valley of small lakes.” The name moved Neruda. The region boasts some of the country’s most fertile soils. Laura’s grandparents owned a large hacienda where they grew everything from grains to onions. Laura’s grandmother was adamant that their family not mix their blood with strangers’; they were supposedly of pure Spanish descent. Laura’s mother, though, wanted something different for her daughters. To experience the cosmopolitan city and to attain a good education, Laura and her older sister had moved into their cousin’s large house in Santiago.
Neruda might have loved to hear all of this, but the conversation that night was limited to brief remarks before the girls left, their mission completed. Neruda was immediately lured by Laura’s extraordinary beauty. Due to the brevity of the encounter, he wasn’t yet able to appreciate how bright and insightful she truly was. Nor did he know that even though Laura thought his style of dress somewhat pretentious, she also found him handsome.
As a result of the invitation Laura delivered, Neruda started to visit her school, in particular her history teacher, María Malvar de Leng, who lived there as well. During these visits, the teacher would call out for Laura to accompany Neruda in great shouts from the second-floor balcony that overlooked the patio. Soon Laura and Neruda began to see each other outside of school. Laura’s older cousin had to chaperone. Her parents were definitely not happy about the interaction between their young daughter and this “atrocious troubadour.”
It was the spring of 1923. Albertina had just left for Concepción. Little is known about the relationship between Laura and Neruda. Neruda didn’t write about her later, out of respect for his friendship with Laura’s future husband, Homero Arce, who would become his faithful secretary. Arce died in 1977, after agents from the dictatorship cracked his skull. Five years later, Laura opened up—to a degree—in a moving memoir: “I loved Pablito for a short and violent time.”
* * *
On February 14, 1924, from Puerto Saavedra, Neruda wrote to his hero Carlos Sabat Ercasty: “Here I have finished my book Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song, which I think will be published in the month of April.” It was finally ready, but he had yet to find a publisher. He wanted to reach a broader audience and get more recognition for this book than he had for The Book of Twilights. He was being amply ambitious, aiming only for established,
