Monica

Monica
I never told her aboutMonica. Maybe I didn't want to make her feel there was some one else whom I loved not as mush her but definitely loved. Lorna came to California with her parents after September 11of 1973 CIA coup which installed Augusto Pinochet in power. Her father a very well known British banker and her mom from Chile to this day I can't remember which town. When she first told me her father was quite wealthy a banker financier of sort it sounded awkward that a wealthy family had escaped after the coup. Apparently her mom had a brother who was part of Allende government; he was arrested in the days after the coup, taken in to custody and never heard from again like many who perished in Santiago soccer stadium. They had some sympathy towards the Allende government and that was enough flee the country after the coup. Lorna was kind and generous in early stages of her political awakening; she was studying political science and logic at Berkeley. I had just separated and was working two shifts a day one at a print shop owned and operated by a group of friends and at night worked at a café in Cody's bookstore on telegraph avenue. We became good friends at first spending most of the time off work and later at night going to la Pena a political cultural center on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley run by a group of Chilean and other Latin American political exiles. She was barely 16 when she left Chile now in her early twenties she often remembered those days of upheaval and often wondered what happened to her family to her revolutionary uncle who was murdered by Pinochet and CIA trained henchmen. After a tiring night at work she asked me if I wanted to come over, I knew she is dating some one but I was not sure if they were still together. So I accepted and jokingly said what are you going to make for dinner, she laughed with her eyes glowing and said let me surprise you. I walked to her apt after work it wasn't that far from campus above a furniture store. I rang the bell she appeared from the window she motioned to be quite and threw me a key to enter. She opened the door gave me a warm long hug like we had not seen each other for the longest time. I held her in my arms and as we ended the long embrace she held my hand in hers taking me to the kitchen where she was making empanadas. She asked me to open a nice bottle of merlot she had brought from her parents house they lived not far from Berkeley about 20 miles or so. She could commute but she preferred this small studio which she had taken over the lease from a close friend who was a basq and probably an ETA member which was quite active at the time. She was so different, yes challenging definitely different in the way question the way thing were. We drank the bottle of merlot and ate most of empanadas. She asked me if I could stay the night we went to her bed and talked and held each other till morning. We were both afraid of the future, we had found in each other something precious which we thought might be threatened by having sex, we didn't want to lose what we had. Love like that was hard to find we shared so much in our beliefs in our way of life. She was from a well to do family, she could have had anything she wanted but she chose working hard while at Berkeley her philosophy of life was simple. Live simply so others could simply live. Her apt was furnished by furniture that was left by Martha her basq friend on the wall there was a poster of a painting by Frida Kahlo the one in which she is knifed by Diego. She is open to new literary works she loved Kundera most specially his unbearable lightness of being maybe she knew what's in our future. In Berkeley of those days one could still be inspired to dream to write to try to live other way than the competitive life of get rich quick. How ever people fail they adopt what seems normal and acceptable by all. Main test for many students comes after graduation. Life on Berkeley campus of those years was like living a bubble.Monica was amazed by street personalities, people who lived in a dream world of their own either by use of drugs or simply living in ideal world of their own. Some would carry conversations with those who no longer were present old friends or relatives. Some carrying on serious philosophic or political conversation others on illusive trips as one of our friends used to say " a trip which they never returned from". There we so many among them David was our favorite. He would wear similar suit and hat as Frank Sinatra, he had a small speaker amp and mike which he carried with him and stood in front of Bancroft entrance near administration building and sang favorites from Sinatra albums. Any time we saw him on campus he would jokingly sing "strangers in the night, what were the chances, exchanging glances…" or how ever the song went.
We meet at Lapena on Shattuck for a drink and then head to her home or mine life was simple but I was so involved with my political activism and gradual influx of comrades who were escaping and needed help that I lost some one so dear and generously loving.
At times we are blind to our own needs to our own well being. I lost her simply by not seeing a future for myself. By ignoring the precious gift life had given me. Or maybe love sometimes is so beautiful that you are happy to have memories of when love was fresh and sweet. Maybe she has caught herself smiling at our moments together when love was bliss.