The Boss Family

I lied in my last post; I came back here for more than the intangible IT. I came back for this family. I may be filled with run of the mill two-days-left sentimentality, but I have to think that some sort stars aligned to bring me here.

There was no hole in my life for the Boss’s to move into. When I arrived two and a half years ago I wasn’t lacking a supportive family infrastructure or a close-knit upbringing. They are certainly not the family I never had. Because I did have that. I have that. I wasn’t looking to be taken in and I didn’t need to be adopted. Which I suppose it what makes it all the more surprising that I have been.

Mathias, Karin, Remo and Mara are an intimate unit, a far more coherent group than I’ve found in the stereotypical scattered, frantic American families. Karin’s relatives are nine hours away in Santiago and Mathias, the only son of older, now deceased parents, has none to speak of. Being transplants to Pucon the two have no long-time ties to the area. They’ve made tenuous friendships over the years with fellow German expats, parents of their children’s classmates, and co-workers, but the number of house-visiting acquaintances is small. The long distances between towns and villages, and the rough roads that penetrate the countryside where friends live, keeps them further isolated, and as a result, more interdependent.

The whole family eats dinner together every night. There is no ceremony, no pageantry, but the daily ritual of eating dinner together is, I think, somehow casually sacred to them. Mathias sits at the head of the table, cuts the steak, rabbit, duck he’s stuffed full of carrots, apples, tomatoes, oranges, and serves it out; Remo and Mara sit on the sides perpendicular to him, ladling their dishes full of potatoes and all the saucy, creamy components of the meal; Karin sits next to Remo hopping up and down and up and down to switch off lights, bring a new dish to the table, turn up or down music, or push the vegetables closer to my plate when Mathias isn’t looking because she knows I’m trying to avoid potatoes; and Sam and I round out the end of the table, looking forward to our dinner with the hunger that comes only from all day outdoor work.

There is nothing cloying or cute about it, but they are happy. Mathias and Karin love each other. They are loving and unembarrassed by it and when I get Mathias really talking about the decisions he’s made in his life, he is proud, deeply proud, for having made such a beautiful life. When Karin calls, he answers the phone with, “mi amor?,” or “mein schatz?” They fight about the other driving poorly, or the dishes being misplaced on the shelves, but they never look for excuses to argue and that’s the difference.

Remo and Mara, although they’ve grown up in an international environment with people from all corners of the world passing through their house daily, have a narrowed view of the world. I asked Mara if she would consider studying in Germany or the states, and she looked shocked and said “NO! That’s so far.” Of course, it’s not so far, but at this point, Remo and Mara don’t yearn to expand their world beyond Pucon and their family. Mara is thirteen and Remo sixteen and they are affectionate with their parents in ways which would shock a lot of Americans. Mara holds her dad’s hand during dinner and Remo, a full head taller than Karin by now, wraps himself around her shoulders, kisses her cheek, and lingers by her ear before heading up to bed. They are that rare breed of loved, doted upon, adored children who have escaped becoming spoiled or precious.

I’ll miss dinner conversations, which aren’t deep or electrifying, but are easy and functional and an entertaining display of language acrobatics. Karin shares news from town, Sam and I report on the day’s ride, and Remo and Mara give updates on grades, studies, friends and movies, and it’s all discussed without tears, angst, shouting, demands or threats. Thoughts are fractured units without a cohesive language and sentences jump split midway between German, English and Spanish. Karin, while perfectly fluent in German, always initiates in Spanish. Mathias follows suit, but yells and curses in German; it is his language of frustration which I think has as much to do with his associations with German and Germany than with the actual consonant-heavy harshness of the language. Once after reprimanding the dogs in sweeping, severe German, he smiled and said, “You just don’t get the same effect in Spanish.”

Remo and Mara are impressively fluent, nuanced English speakers which is partly due to

their parents speaking the language and there always being English speaking workers in the house, but has more to do with their obsession with movies. They watch a movie most nights of the weeks, if not more than one, usually in English, and there movies I’ve seen which they haven’t.  As a result, their English is relatively unaccented, their vocabulary is modern, casual and varied, and they have a strong grasp on youth slang. They insist on speaking to me in English, answering in their third language even when I begin in Spanish. I don’t share their stubbornness and am frankly self-conscious of my Spanish around them, which compared to their English, is infantile. Mara has a cute habit of slipping into frantic, runaway Spanish when she’s emotional; a heated story about the particular injustices of her life and mistreatment at the hands of an incompetent math teacher is told in squeaking, gushing castellano.

            Maybe I’ve fallen so fully into this family because I fill a unique niche.  Karin and Mathias are a bit too young to be my parents; Mara and Remo are a bit too young to be my siblings. I’m not an extra daughter or another sister. I am the aunt or neighbor who the girl next door who was the right amount of different to fit in. There are huge slices of my life they know little about, but I’m sure that goes both ways, and it doesn’t matter. Because when I’m here, even though I’m a different person than I am in the states, they know the Antilco me thoroughly.

On a recent and unusual drive alone with Mathias, I told him I was thrilled that, after so much time here, I was finally getting a chance to do some of the run-of-the-mill things, like go to Temuco, a local city, and visit Kathi and Conrad, friends of the family. Mara, I told him, is frequently shocked that there remain things like this I still haven’t done. (“..And my uncle- you’ve met him, right? WHAT?! You haven’t? How is that possible?”) As we drove, Mathias paused, then said with disarming sincerity, “You know, Mara doesn’t say that because all the other helpers do those things and she can’t believe you haven’t. She’s surprised because you are so much part of the family and she doesn’t understand how you don’t know something the family is so familiar with.”

That left me speechless.  Somehow it seems unfair to descend on a family with such intensity and then pull out of it just as suddenly. I appreciate Karin’s gentle mothering, winking eyes, and buoyant hospitality. I’ll miss the long hours of talk with Mathias, which range from politics and literature to the business side of Antilco, and stop frequently on topics of language. “I love your language,” he says and is the perfect conversation partner for my own geeky interest in words and English. Remo still seems far from seeking out his own path and life, preferring the cocoon of Antilco, but we are closer than we were two years ago and he comes to me enthusiastically with movie and music reviews.

            And Mara… who I’ve fallen in love with most of all. She’s grown up in all sorts of physical and emotional ways since I was last here and is now a sweet, caring, thoughtful thirteen year-old, and a fantastic rider.  And beyond the plainer, uglier truths that I fill the general place of “role model” that all tween girls are looking for, and that she flatters my ego by adoring me, there is something deeper there and I look forward to her getting home from school everyday. Yesterday, I didn’t wait that long and rode to her school myself to pick her up, leading her horse with me so we could ride home together.

            Last Sunday, in the burnt light of Autumn, Sam, Remo, Mara and I saddled horses for fun and set up jumps in the back pasture. We went round and round for hours, teaching the horses to jump and doing tricks. We put on the capes, one blue and one green, my mom made them two years ago and galloped with the material rippling behind us, imagining ourselves elves and warriors. An idea from Mara sent us back to the house to collect play weapons, bamboo swords, toy pistols, bows and arrows, and then we were out to the vast pasture down the street. We’d each chosen a character and had sketched out a vague story line and now all that remained was to act it out. There is nothing quite like playing cowboys and Indians when you can actually spur your horse into a gallop to chase down the bad guy.

 We’re all going out to a party tonight together, a fundraiser dance organized by all the 18 year olds in the area, and we spent tonight getting ready. I now have glitter on my nails and some borrowed jewelry and Mara and I have made escape plans and secret codes to help each other deal with unwelcome male attention. She and Remo have sworn to tell people I’m nineteen and I’ve resolved to slouch all night, in an effort to blend in somewhat, and though part of me feels ridiculous going, I was touched when they came storming in the house one afternoon to invite me. And honestly, on my last night in Pucon, there is no where I’d rather be than with the two of them.