Aurelia was devoted to her daughter and in love with José. But despite her strong character, evidenced by the self-sufficiency and discipline that it took to run a pension while raising a child by herself, Aurelia’s situation became increasingly difficult to manage. Her Catholic faith—she always wore a crucifix around her neck—gave her strength, but it was also the source of great anxiety. How could she, in good conscience, continue to see a married man who was also the father of her illegitimate child? After two anguished, isolated years in San Rosendo, Aurelia, convinced she was unfit to raise a daughter alone, told José it was time for him to make a choice: either come back with her to Talcahuano and claim his daughter, or, if he had to stay with the family he established in Temuco, take Laura to his home with Trinidad. Aurelia would even have her daughter drop her last name, Tolrá, and take up Trinidad’s; she would be known as Laura Reyes Candia.
From Temuco, José del Carmen answered her call. He brought his son Neftalí, now seven or eight, along with him to pick up his new half sister. A hard rain fell as they took the train to San Rosendo, where Aurelia was waiting for them. It was the first time she and Neftalí had ever seen each other. His clothes were soaked; Aurelia helped him change and dried his clothes, then she put him and Laura to sleep in the same bed. Bewildered from this strange trip, Neftalí fell asleep wondering who in the world this skinny girl was, in bed beside him, and why he was there. An unshakable bond soon formed between the two of them.
The next morning, he awoke to see Laura’s bags were already packed. Aurelia’s eyes swelled with tears as José del Carmen took her daughter away with him. Laura too was struck by the sudden separation.
The father and the two half siblings rode the rickety steam train back to Temuco, seeing the endless forests and pastures passing outside the window. José reflected on his life and the change to come. It was the last time he would visit Aurelia.
When the train arrived in Temuco and the three travelers reached the wooden house, José finally confessed to his affair with Aurelia. Trinidad was outwardly neither angry nor hurt. Instead it seemed as if she had known about it all along, or at least suspected it. Trinidad had a certain equanimity, the source of which couldn’t be traced, but her inner nature was sweet, diligent, with a campesina’s sense of humor. Her compassion was limitless. Without a word, though perhaps with some resignation, she agreed to take care of Laurita. In their Temuco house, Trinidad thus would raise three children: her own Rodolfo, Rosa’s Neftalí, and Aurelia’s Laura. This family, with its complex origins and unique dynamics, would shape Neftalí’s formative years; its secrets and transgressions would mark the future poet for his entire life.
Chapter Two
Where the Rain Was Born
I first saw trees, ravines
decorated with flowers of wild beauty,
humid territory, forests that flame,
and winter behind the world, flooded.
My childhood is wet shoes, broken trunks
fallen in the dense forest, devoured by vines
and beetles, sweet days above the oats,
and the golden beard of my father leaving
towards the majesty of the railways.
—“The Frontier (1904)”
Trinidad and her stepson had a close, confiding relationship. Trinidad not only nurtured Neftalí affectionately, but protected him as much as she could from the flares of his father’s increasingly short-fused temper, much as José’s stepmother had done for him as a child. In his memoirs, Neruda calls Doña Trinidad his “guardian angel,” and notes tenderly that her “gentle shadow watched over my childhood.”
She governed the Reyes family home, which was always in a state of flux. The interior patio of the house was a familiar, essential setting in Neftalí’s social development growing up. The extended Mason family, as well as neighbors and friends, constantly interacted on the patio and, as Neruda later said, shared everything: “tools or books, birthday cakes, rubbing ointments, umbrellas, tables and chairs.”
Gloomy moss and various vines grew freely on the patio and up the two-story walls. Overflowing potted red geraniums sat atop a five-foot-tall armoire on one side of the patio, and a young palm tree was situated in the center. There were other fruit trees by the fence, and a patch of grass where cilantro, mint, and some medicinal herbs grew. There was a chicken coop. The gate dangling from the fence was rendered irrelevant by the constant circulation of people as the Ortegas, the Masons, and other relatives, friends, and neighbors passed through.
Many of the Mason clan, in which Charles served as paterfamilias, all lived on the same block with interconnecting backyards. José del Carmen’s house adjoined Charles Mason’s larger and much nicer home. The Masons by then had a very full house with six children (two had died in infancy), plus the adopted Orlando, whose parentage was still a secret. Another adjoining home was that of Rudecindo Ortega, who had fathered Orlando and later married Mason’s youngest daughter, Telésfora. In 1899, Telésfora gave birth to Rudecindo Ortega Mason. José del Carmen’s half brother Abdías also lived nearby. He had married Mason and Micaela’s daughter Glasfira, and they had six children who grew up alongside Neftalí.
Like the families that inhabited them, these houses were always being augmented. Consequently, they seemed perpetually under construction. Incomplete staircases led to floors that were equally unfinished, and a conglomeration of objects populated the compound: saddles lined up by the entrances, large wine barrels sat in corners, and ponchos, sombreros, horseshoes, and horse spurs lined the walls. This atmosphere of constant evolution helped to ignite Neftalí’s prodigious creativity. Decades later, Neruda would fill his own homes with unique collections of objects, from ships’ figureheads, glass bottles, and countless seashells to Asian masks
