CHAPTER #10

Buenos Aires and Mendoza.

The thing I remember most about the apartment in Buenos Aires is the smell of eucalyptus branches in a large arrangement of dried flowers by the front door. Although we only lived there for six months, to this day, whenever I smell eucalyptus I think of Buenos Aires.

Not long after our arrival Don told me that friends from Chile, the Piazzas and the Manisters, would be working on the project in Mendoza as well. Good, I thought: they can help me to teach Don how to play bridge. In the meantime Don was heavily involved in preparing the ground work to start up an office in Mendoza. The project had been commissioned by Fabricaciones Militares and there was much planning to be done.

At the end of six months all arrangements had been completed and four bright red Jeeps were packed and ready for departure. We set off early one morning, with three other families, in a convoy bound for Mendoza: MacFadyens in the first vehicle, followed by Manisters, then Piazzas with their two children, and finally Joe LaRoque (alone) bringing up the rear. (Sadly, Joe LaRoque was killed in a motorcycle accident several years later.)

It was an interesting journey. There were no gas stations or rest rooms along the road so whenever anyone had to “go”, the Jeeps simply pulled off the road so that those in need could head for the bushes with T-paper in hand. After my experience at the spa this shouldn’t have bothered me at all but I was scared of being bitten on the bottom by anything larger than a flea so my dashes behind bushes tended to be hurried and fearful excursions.

Mendoza is situated more or less in the centre of Argentina at the base of the Andes mountain range. Although large areas of the province are quite desertic, several small rivers provide irrigation for the growth of at least 80% of all the wine and fruit produced in the country.

It is a land full of contrasting beauty: man-made oases of green, dry pebbled landscapes with occasional scrubby bushes, and weathered rocks showing layer upon layer of sediments in bands of soft pink, yellow ochre, and raw sienna.

When the convoy finally reached Mendoza we checked in to the Hotel Suffolk so that the women and children could rest and the men could explore their new office. It was several weeks before each family was able to find more permanent shelter but, meanwhile, the Hotel Suffolk was excellent and people were friendly.

The house we chose for ourselves was built right up to the sidewalk with no garden at all. It was bright and sunny, with a lovely walled-in, tiled patio at the back decorated with plants, mosaic benches and white wrought iron furniture. The owners were Greek and the resident maid turned out to be a dab hand at preparing delicious Greek meals. Best of all, the house was close to Don’s office. We settled in comfortably, I started to relax and even began to think of babies again.

Don soon discovered, however, that it was impossible to find an experienced English-speaking secretary to work in the office so I was invited to step in and save the day. This I did. In fact, I enjoyed working again especially as there was not much to do in the small town and the maid we had inherited was prepared to do most of the cooking herself. So each morning Don would leave early for the office and I would follow a little later. Sometimes we would return together at the end of the day but Workaholic Don usually stayed late.

Everything went along swimmingly for several months and I was as happy as a lark until one day I received a letter from my mother which gave me a terrible shock: my father had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was soon to die!

Too upset to function at the office, Don drove me home so that I could grieve in private. I had known my Dad was ill, of course, but never imagined that his end was so imminent. By the end of the day, worn out and dehydrated from crying, I gathered my thoughts together and tried to decide what to do.

With Don virtually supporting three families (Kay and Rod in Vineland, Genevieve in Chicago and us in Mendoza), travelling to South Africa to see my father was not economically feasible. Dad was being cared for by Mum at home and Eddie was providing the strength they both needed to get through the next horrific months.

I telephoned Mum and Eddie to express my sorrow and told them I wouldn’t be able to return to S.A.

They understood and said there was nothing I could do anyway. But it grieved me terribly not to be able to say goodbye to my Dad in person.....

All I could do, really, was write a letter telling my father how much he had meant to me all the years of my life and how very much I loved him and would miss him when he was gone. Mum read my letter to him when he was very close to death and she said it comforted him to know that he had been a good father. He sent his love to me also and told me not to be sad.

My Dad, who had never been able to express his emotions easily, told Mum that she had always been a wonderful wife to him and that he loved her very much. Then he died in her arms. He was a good, kind, honorable man and one that Eddie and I were proud to have had as a father.

Even though it is now almost forty years since he died, I can still conjure up memories and images of my Dad that are as vivid and clear to me as if they occurred yesterday....and I still feel the pain of his loss.

Then one day the sun came out again for me when a miracle occurred. I had become pregnant at last and a long-awaited dream was about to come true. After my pregnancy was confirmed I was almost too excited to go to the office but I forced myself to calm down and to carry on as normally as possible. Of course, nothing was normal - everything was simply extraordinary and wonderful.

My family was excited, too, and the anticipation of a new baby helped a little to dull the pain of losing Dad. So began a flurry of activity: of knitting and sewing and embroidering sets of outfits in several sizes. I scoured baby stores, read books on natural childbirth and baby care, and followed the doctor’s instructions with total dedication. Couldn’t wait to get into maternity outfits and thrilled to each swelling inch of my belly. “Come, quick, Don! The baby is moving!” Was a cry that echoed often throughout our small house. We spent hours thinking of names for this new little person and finally decided upon Bryony for a girl and Brian for a boy.

Papboy was as pleased as Punch at the news of my pregnancy also. He loved little children and it gave him a new lease on life to think that he would soon have another small grandchild to spoil. Pap, in the meantime, had decided that he was too lonely living in that big mansion in Rosedale, so he sold it to a man he thought would love the house and live in it forever. Ha! It was a real estate developer in disguise who, once he got the house for the pitiful sum of $125,000 (in ‘63-’64), tore it down and built nine town houses on the lot - each of which sold for $2-million! Needless to say, Pap was angry with himself for having been so thoroughly duped.

However, aside from our baby, he did have a new interest in life: a house in Port Hope which, as far as we could see, was not much smaller than the one he had had in Rosedale. Mary and Michael Fekete moved with him to Port Hope and all three of them had become fully occupied fitting Pap’s carpets and furniture into the available space.

We planned to be back in Canada by December but, meanwhile, I was juggling incipient motherhood with secretarial duties, making baby clothes and housekeeping.

Then one day, inexplicably, I woke up with a very high fever. Must be the flu, I thought, and stayed in bed. When it didn’t go away the doctor was called. He didn’t seem to know what was causing the problem but prescribed antibiotics and told me to keep him posted. After a few days I felt better and resumed working as usual.

By now I was five months pregnant and several of my friends decided it was time to have a baby shower. We had a wonderful party and Bryony (or Brian) received loads of gifts which I drooled over for hours and then packed away carefully for the baby’s layette. Then, a month later, the high fever returned and I noticed blood spots on the sheet.

Don immediately called for the doctor who arrived around midday. By then I was experiencing intermittent pain, petrified that something had gone wrong with the baby. It had. I was rushed to the hospital and began to experience severe pains at regular intervals. My body was not yet primed to deliver a baby and I was trying to stop it from coming out by squeezing with all my might. The doctor had to convince me that my baby was no longer alive before I would let it go. Bryony was stillborn some time later, weighing only 16 ounces. She had blotches all over her little body and an autopsy showed contusions in her brain.

Don and I were devastated by the loss of our baby and, although life went on as before after that, my own dream of motherhood died with Bryony. From that moment on I resolved to direct all of my maternal instincts towards Rod and perhaps, some day, even to Genevieve. Eventually I gave the baby’s layette to a lady in Port Hope whose church was holding a bazaar. She assured me it would keep some other little baby very happy. It was some comfort for me to know that the love that went into making those little garments was going to benefit a baby after all.

By now we had been living in Mendoza for just over a year and Don’s commitment to the project was coming to an end. He was needed to act as liaison with an American geological company called Lockwood, Kessler & Bartlett based in Long Island, N.Y.

Don’s Canadian employers, Hunting Survey Corporation, had recently become affiliated with LKB and was now called Lockwood Survey Corporation. So we packed up our old kit bags, said our goodbyes and set off for Canada via Lima, Venezuela and Panama. It was Don’s intention to meet several business associates in each of the places we visited en route so I was looking forward to having some time to explore.

First stop, Lima. Never having been to Peru before, my first choice was to visit the ancient ruins of Machu Pichu but, alas, rain and fog prevented it. However, the hotel we stayed in was built high on a hill with a spectacular view from the balcony. From that vantage point I could watch rain pelt down for hours and see the Andes emerge from the pervading mist like an army laying siege to the city of Lima spread out below.

In Venezuela, Caracas is overshadowed by the Avila mountain, which is nearly 8000 feet high, and there I remember bouncing over cobbles down a narrow street split in half by a deep canal. Like every country in South America I’d ever been in (except maybe landlocked Paraguay) Venezuela had a sampling of every type of topography - including the famous Angel Falls which is the tallest in the world - but our stopover was too short to allow exploration.

However, we did drive up into the hills to have lunch with a man called Armando Lazzari who lived in a wonderful Spanish-style hacienda. While we were there I noticed a small, very beautiful painting hung on the patio wall which was totally exposed to heat and humidity. Thinking this was a poor place for a painting of such calibre, I turned it over and noticed a stamp on the back with a crown above it, indicating that it had come from a museum in Belgium.

Could the painting have been plundered during WW II? After all, many Nazis escaped to South America at the end of that conflict and Armando might have bought it quite unsuspectingly. I didn’t have the nerve to ask and, besides, it was none of my business but it seemed like an intriguing possibility to me then.

By the time we arrived in Panama City all I could think of was getting back to Canada again. In fact, my only memory of Panama was one of congested traffic, hordes of people, the hotel we stayed in, and a park across the road with huge trees in it.

I remember standing on the balcony of the hotel, at dusk, and seeing several black clouds appear in the distance. Gradually the clouds evolved into thousands of crows which plummeted into the trees, turning green leaves black with feathers. Every crow in Panama City must have chosen that particular park in which to roost; they stained the ground white with their faeces and cawed anyone within earshot to deaf.

We were told that the townspeople had tried every ploy they could think of to discourage those clever and persistent birds, but nothing (short of poisoning their seed) had deterred them. Considering the indestructibility of crows in general, I suspect their descendants are still making life difficult for the residents of Panama City.

Well, “stone the crows”, as Pap was wont to say, soon we would be back in Canada again, invited to stay with him in Port Hope until it was time for Don to take up his next assignment in Long Island, N.Y. It would be strange to find Pap in a new home and in such different surroundings.

I knew that Port Hope was a small town about an hour’s drive from Toronto and that distance could pose a problem for Don in getting to his office every day. Don had also warned me that we might have to stay in Port Hope for a considerable while because there were work permits to get and much to be done before departure.

No matter, I would be happy to stay in Canada for any length of time. It would give me a chance to find out more about my new family - and my newly adopted country.