Miracle in the Andes Read online

  I COULDN’T HELP thinking of my father as the Fairchild flew above the Andes. He had dropped us off at the airport in Montevideo when our trip first began. “Have fun,” he said. “I will pick you up on Monday.” He kissed my mother and my sister, gave me a warm embrace, and then turned to go back to the office, to the orderly, predictable world in which he thrived. While we had fun in Chile he would do what he always did: solve problems, take care of things, work hard, provide. Out of love for his family he had arranged in his mind a future that would keep us all safe, happy, and always together. He had planned well and paid attention to all the details. The Parrados would always be fortunate people. He believed in this so firmly, and our trust for him was so strong, how could we ever doubt him?

  “Fasten your seat belts, please,” the steward said. “There is going to be some turbulence ahead.” We were making our way over Planchón Pass. Panchito was still at the window, but we were flying through thick fog and there wasn’t much to see. I was thinking about the girls Panchito and I had met on our last trip to Chile. We had gone with them to the beach resort of Viña del Mar and stayed out so late we almost missed our rugby match the following morning. They had agreed to meet us this year and had offered to pick us up at the airport, but our layover in Mendoza had thrown us off schedule and I hoped we would be able to find them. I was about to mention this to Panchito when the plane suddenly dipped sideways. Then we felt four sharp bumps as the belly of the plane skipped hard over pockets of turbulence. Some of the guys whooped and cheered, as if they were on an amusement park ride.

  I leaned forward and smiled reassuringly at Susy and my mother. My mother looked worried. She had put away the book she was reading, and was holding my sister’s hand. I wanted to tell them not to worry, but before I could speak, the bottom seemed to fall out of the fuselage, and my stomach pitched as the plane dropped for what must have been several hundred feet.

  Now the plane was bouncing and sliding in the turbulence. As the pilots fought to stabilize the Fairchild, I felt Panchito’s elbow in my side.

  “Look at this, Nando,” he said. “Should we be so close to the mountains?”

  I bent down to look out the small window. We were flying in thick cloud cover, but through breaks in the clouds I could see a massive wall of rock and snow flashing past. The Fairchild was bobbing roughly, and the swaying tip of the wing was no more than twenty-five feet from the black slopes of the mountain. For a second or so I stared in disbelief, then the plane’s engines screamed as the pilots tried desperately to climb. The fuselage began to vibrate so violently I feared it would shake itself to pieces. My mother and sister turned to look at me over the seats. Our eyes met for an instant, then a powerful tremor rocked the plane. There was a terrible howl of metal grinding. Suddenly I saw open sky above me. Frigid air blasted my face and I noticed, with an odd calmness, that clouds were swirling in the aisle. There was no time to make sense of things, or to pray or feel fear. It all happened in a heartbeat. Then I was torn from my seat with incredible force and hurled forward into the darkness and silence.

  Chapter Two

  Everything Precious

  “HERE, NANDO, ARE you thirsty?”

  It was my teammate Gustavo Zerbino crouching beside me, pressing a ball of snow to my lips. The snow was cold and it burned my throat as I swallowed, but my body was so parched I gobbled it in lumps and begged for more. Several hours had passed since I woke from the coma. My mind was clearer now, and I was full of questions. When I finished with the snow, I motioned Gustavo closer.

  “Where is my mother?” I asked. “Where is Susy? Are they all right?”

  Gustavo’s face betrayed no emotion. “Get some rest,” he said. “You’re still very weak.” He walked away, and for a while the others kept their distance. Again and again I pleaded with them to give me some news of my loved ones, but my voice was just a whisper and it was easy for them to pretend they didn’t hear.

  I lay shivering on the cold floor of the fuselage as the others bustled around me, listening for the sound of my sister’s voice and glancing about for a glimpse of my mother’s face. How desperately I wanted to see my mother’s warm smile, her deep blue eyes, to be swept up in her arms and told that we would be okay. Eugenia was the emotional heart of our family. Her wisdom, strength, and courage had been the foundation of our lives, and I needed her so badly now that missing her felt like a physical pain worse than the cold or the throbbing in my head.

  When Gustavo came again with another ball of snow, I grabbed his sleeve.

  “Where are they, Gustavo?” I insisted. “Please.”

  Gustavo looked into my eyes and must have seen that I was ready to have an answer. “Nando, you must be strong,” he said. “Your mother is dead.”

  When I look back on this moment, I cannot say why this news did not destroy me. Never had I needed my mother’s touch so badly, and now I was being told I would never feel that touch again. For a brief moment, grief and panic exploded in my heart so violently that I feared I would go mad, but then a thought formed in my head, in a voice so lucid and so detached from everything that I was feeling that it could have been someone whispering in my ear. The voice said, Do not cry. Tears waste salt. You will need salt to survive.

  I was astounded at the calmness of this thought, and shocked at the cold-bloodedness of the voice that spoke it. Not cry for my mother? Not cry for the greatest loss of my life? I am stranded in the Andes, I am freezing, my skull is in pieces! I should not cry?

  The voice spoke again. Do not cry.

  “There is more,” Gustavo told me. “Panchito is dead. Guido, too. And many others.” I shook my head feebly in disbelief. How could this be happening? Sobs gathered in my throat, but before I could surrender to my grief and shock, the voice spoke again, and louder. They are all gone. They are all a part of your past. Don’t waste energy on things you can’t control. Look forward. Think clearly. You will survive.

  Gustavo still knelt above me, and I wanted to grab him, shake him, make him tell me it was all a lie. Then I remembered my sister, and through no effort of my own, I did what the voice wanted; I let my grief for my mother and friends slip into the past, as my mind filled with a wild surge of fear for my sister’s safety. I stared at Gustavo numbly for a moment as I gathered my courage for the question I had to ask.

  “Gustavo, where is Susy?”

  “She’s over there,” he said, pointing to the rear of the plane, “but she is hurt very badly.” Suddenly, everything changed for me. My own suffering faded and I was filled with an urgent desire to reach my sister. Struggling to my feet, I tried to walk, but the pain in my head made me swoon and I slumped back roughly to the floor of the fuselage. I rested for a moment, then rolled onto my stomach and dragged myself on my elbows toward my sister. The floor all around me was littered with the sort of debris that called to mind the violent interruption of ordinary life—cracked plastic cups, splayed magazines, a scattering of playing cards and paperback books. Damaged seats from the plane were stacked in a tangled pile near the cockpit bulkhead, and as I crawled on my stomach I could see, on either side of the aisle, the broken metal brackets that had held those seats to the floor. For a moment I imagined the terrible force it would take to tear the seats loose from such sturdy anchors.

  I inched slowly toward Susy, but I was very weak and my progress was slow. Soon my strength gave out. I let my head slump to the floor to rest, but then I felt arms lifting me and carrying me forward. Someone helped me to the rear of the plane and there, lying on her back, was Susy. At first glance she did not seem to be badly injured. There were traces of blood on her brow, but someone had obviously washed her face. Her hair had been smoothed back. Someone had comforted her. She was wearing the new coat she had purchased just for this trip—a beautiful coat made from antelope leather—and the soft fur collar of the coat moved against her cheek in the frigid breeze.

  My friends helped me lie down beside her. I wrapped my arms around her and whispered in
her ear. “I am here, Susy. It’s Nando.” She turned and looked at me with her soft, caramel-colored eyes, but her gaze was unfocused and I couldn’t be sure she knew it was me. She rolled in my arms as if to move closer to me, but then she groaned softly and pulled away. It hurt her to lie that way, so I let her find a less painful position, then I embraced her again, wrapping my arms and legs around her to protect her, as well as I could, from the cold. I lay with her that way for hours. Mostly she was quiet. Sometimes she would sob or quietly moan. From time to time she would call out for our mother.

  “Mamá, please,” she would cry, “I am so cold, please, Mamá, let’s go home.” These words pierced my heart like arrows. Susy was my mother’s baby, and the two of them had always shared a special tenderness. They were so similar in temperament, so gentle and patient and warm, so at ease in each other’s company that I don’t remember them ever having a fight. They would spend hours together, cooking, taking walks, or just talking. I remember them so many times sitting alone on the sofa, their heads together, whispering, nodding, laughing at some shared secret. I believe my sister told my mother everything. She trusted my mother’s advice, and sought her counsel on the things that mattered to her—friendships, studies, clothes, ambitions, values, and, always, how to deal with men.

  Susy had my mother’s strong, soft Ukrainian features, and she loved hearing about our family’s origins in Eastern Europe. I remember each day, when we would have our after-school café con leche, she would coax our grandmother Lina to tell stories about the rustic little village where she was born: how cold and snowy it was in winter, and how all the villagers had to share and work together to survive. She understood the sacrifices Lina had made to come here, and I think these stories made her feel closer to our family’s past. Susy shared my mother’s love for the closeness of family, but she was no stay-at-home girl. She had many friends, she loved music and dancing and parties, and as much as she adored our home life in Montevideo, she always dreamed of seeing other places. When she was sixteen she spent a year as an exchange student living with a family in Florida, an experience that taught her to love the U.S.A. “Anything is possible there,” she would tell me. “You can dream anything and make it come true!” It was her dream to do her college studies in the States, and often she would suggest that she might end up staying there even longer. “Who knows?” she would say. “I might meet my husband there, and become an American for good!”

  When Susy and I were small, we were each other’s favorite playmates. As we grew older, I became a trusted confidant. She shared her secrets with me, told me her hopes and her worries. I remember that she was always concerned about her weight—she thought she was too heavy, but she was not. She had broad shoulders and wide hips, but she was tall and her body was trim and proportional. She had the strong, shapely build of a gymnast or a swimmer. But her true beauty was in her deep, clear caramel eyes, her fine skin, and the sweetness and strength that glowed in her strong, kind face. She was young, and had not yet had a serious boyfriend, and I knew she worried that boys would not find her attractive. But I saw nothing but beauty when I looked at her. How could I convince her that she was a treasure? My little sister Susy had been precious to me from the moment she was born, and the first time I held her in my arms I knew it would always be my job to protect her. As I lay with her on the floor of the fuselage, I remembered a day at the beach when we were both small. Susy was still a toddler; I was five or six years old. She was playing in the sand with the sun in her eyes. I was not swimming or playing. My eye was always on her, watching that she did not wander into the surf where the tide could snatch her, or stray into the dunes where some stranger could whisk her away. I never let her out of my sight. I stared down anyone who came near her. Even as a child I realized that the beach was full of dangers, and I had to be vigilant to keep her safe.

  This sense of protectiveness only grew stronger as we grew older. I made a point of knowing her friends and her hangouts, and when I got old enough to drive, I became the regular chauffeur for Susy and her gang. I would take them to dances and parties and pick them up afterwards. I liked to do this. It was a satisfying thing, knowing they would be safe with me. I remember taking them to the big movie house in our neighborhood—a place where all our friends would meet on weekends. She would sit with her friends and I would sit with mine, but I would keep my eye on her in the dark, always checking to make sure she was all right, being sure she knew I was close enough if she should need me. Other girls might have hated a brother like this, but I think Susy liked it that I cared enough to watch over her, and in the end it drew us closer.

  Now, as I held her in my arms, I felt a terrible pang of helplessness. Watching her suffer was an unspeakable anguish for me, but there was nothing I could do. All my life, I would have done anything to keep Susy safe, and spare her from pain. Even now, in the battered shell of this aircraft, I would have gladly given my own life to end her suffering and send her home to my father.

  My father! In all the chaos and confusion, I had not had the time to consider what he must be going through. He would have heard the news three days ago, and for all that time he would have lived believing he had lost us all. I knew him well, I knew his deep practicality, and I knew he would not allow himself the luxury of false hope. To survive a plane crash in the Andes? At this time of year? Impossible. Now I saw him clearly, my strong, loving father tossing in his bed, staggered by his unimaginable loss. After all his concern for us, all his work and planning, all his trust in the orderliness of the world and the certainty of our happiness, how could he bear the brutal truth: He could not protect us. He could not protect us. My heart broke for him, and this heartbreak was more painful than the thirst, the cold, the grinding fear, and the shattering pain in my head. I imagined him grieving for me. Grieving for me! I could not stand the idea that he thought I was dead. I felt an urgent, almost violent longing to be with him, to comfort him, to tell him I was caring for my sister, to show him he had not lost us all.

  “I am alive,” I whispered to him. “I am alive.”

  How badly I needed my father’s strength, his wisdom. Surely, if he were here, he would know how to get us home. But as the afternoon passed and it grew colder and darker, I sank into a mood of pure despair. I felt as far from my father as a soul in heaven. It seemed that we had fallen through a crack in the sky into some frozen hell from which no return to the ordinary world was even possible. Like other boys, I knew myths and legends in which heroes had fallen into an evil underworld, or had been lured into enchanted forests from which there was no escape. In their struggles to return to their homes, they had to suffer through many ordeals—they battled dragons and demons, matched wits with sorcerers, sailed across treacherous seas. But even those great heroes needed magical help to succeed—a wizard’s guidance, a flying carpet, a secret charm, a magic sword. We were a group of untested boys who had never in our lives truly suffered. Few of us had ever seen snow. None of us had ever set foot in the mountains. Where would we find our hero? What magic would carry us home?

  I buried my face in Susy’s hair to keep myself from sobbing. Then, as if with a will of its own, an old memory began to glow in my mind, a story my father had told me countless times. When he was a young man, my father was one of Uruguay’s top competitive rowers, and one summer he traveled to Argentina to compete in a race on the section of the Uruguay River known as the Delta del Tigre. Seler was a powerful rower, and he quickly pulled away from most of the field, but one Argentine racer stayed with him. They raced, neck and neck, the length of the course, both of them straining with all their might to gain the slightest advantage, but as the finish line approached, it was still too close to call. My father’s lungs were burning and his legs were seized with cramps. All he wanted was to slump forward, gulp air into his lungs, and end his suffering. There will be other races, he told himself, as he eased his grip on the oars. But then he glanced at his competitor in the scull beside him, and saw pure agony in that
man’s face. “I realized he was suffering as much as I was,” my father told me. “So I decided I would not quit after all. I decided I would suffer a little longer.”

  With new resolve, Seler dug the oars into the water and stroked with all the power he could muster. His heart pounded and his stomach pitched and his muscles felt as if they were being torn from the bone. But he forced himself to struggle, and when the racers reached the finish line, the prow of my father’s scull got there first, by inches.

  I was five years old the first time my father told me that story, and I was awestruck by this image of my father—hovering on the verge of surrender, then somehow finding the will to endure. As a boy, I asked him to tell me the story over and over again. I never grew tired of hearing it, and I never lost that heroic image of my father. Many years later, when I’d see him in the office at the hardware store, weary, working late, stooped over his desk and squinting through his thick glasses at stacks of invoices and order forms, I still saw that heroic young man on the river in Argentina, suffering, struggling, but refusing to give in, a man who knew where the finish line was, and who would do anything required to get there.

  As I huddled in the plane with Susy, I thought of my father struggling on that Argentine river. I tried to find the same strength in myself, but all I felt was hopelessness and fear. I heard my father’s voice, his old advice: Be strong, Nando, be smart. Make your own luck. Take care of the people you love. The words inspired nothing in me but a black sense of loss.