A Long Petal of the Sea

by Isabel Allende

  That hot evening Ofelia went to the hotel with Victor Dalmau, she was well aware this would be very different from the exhausting skirmishes with Matias that left her puzzled and angry. She was amazed at the decisive way she agreed in an instant and the lack of inhibition with which she took the initiative once alone in the room with Victor. She found she possessed knowledge she had had no possibility of acquiring, and a lack of shame that normally comes from long experience. With the nuns she had learned how to undress gradually: first she put on a long-sleeved nightdress that covered her from head to toe, then fumbled to remove her clothes beneath it—but that evening with Dalmau her modesty simply evaporated. She let her dress, petticoat, and all her undergarments fall to the floor and stepped out of them naked and Olympian, with a mixture of curiosity about what was going to happen and continuing irritation at Matias for being so sanctimonious. Serves him right that I’m unfaithful, she decided enthusiastically.

  Victor didn’t suspect that Ofelia was a virgin, because nothing about her astonishing confidence suggested it, and because he couldn’t imagine such a thing. Virginity had been relegated to his uncertain, almost forgotten adolescence. He came from a different reality, a revolution that had abolished social differences, old-fashioned habits, and religious authority. In Republican Spain, virginity was obsolete; the militiawomen and nurses he had briefly had affairs with enjoyed the same sexual freedom as he did. Nor did it occur to him that Ofelia had agreed to accompany him on a spoiled young woman’s caprice rather than out of love. He himself was in love, and automatically thought she must be as well. It was only later when they were resting after making love that he came to ponder the magnitude of what had happened, their bodies entwined in a bed with sheets yellow from use and stained with virginal blood. He told her how and why he had married Roser, and confessed he had been dreaming of Ofelia for more than a year.

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was the first time for you?” he asked.

  “Because you would have backed out,” she replied, stretching like a cat.

  “I should have been more considerate, Ofelia. I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m happy. My body is tingling. But I have to go, it’s very late.”

  “Tell me when we’ll meet again.”

  “I’ll send word when I can escape. We’re returning to Santiago in three weeks; it’ll be easier then. We’ll have to be very, very careful, because if this gets out, we’re going to pay dearly for it. I can’t bear to think what my father would do.”

  “I’ll have to talk to him at some point…”

  “Are you out of your mind? What are you thinking? If he finds out I’m going with an immigrant who’s married and has a child, he’ll kill both of us. Felipe has already warned me.”

  * * *

  —

  USING THE DENTIST AS an excuse, Ofelia managed to return to Santiago a second time. In the weeks apart from Victor, she discovered somewhat fearfully that her initial curiosity had given way to an obsession to recall every last detail about that evening in the hotel, an unbearable need to see him and make love, to talk and talk, to tell him her secrets and find out about his past. She wanted to ask him why he limped, to count all his scars, to learn about his family and the feelings he had for Roser. He was a man with so many mysteries that unraveling them was going to be a lengthy task: what did words like “exile” and “military uprising” mean, or “mass grave,” “concentration camp,” what were “shattered mules” or the “bread of war”? Victor Dalmau was more or less the same age as Matias Eyzaguirre, but he seemed far older, as tough as cement on the outside and impenetrable inside, sculpted with a chisel, marked by scars and bad memories. Unlike Matias, who enjoyed her explosive temperament and her whirlwind moods, Victor grew impatient at her childishness, wanting her to be clearheaded and intelligent. He wasn’t interested in anything superficial. If he asked her a question, he would listen to her reply as closely as a schoolmaster, and not permit her to evade it with a joke or change of topic. Ofelia was confronted for the first time with the challenge of being taken seriously.

  The second time she awoke from dozing a few minutes after their lovemaking, Ofelia decided she had found the man of her life. None of the pretentious, pampered young men in her circle, their futures secure thanks to their families’ wealth and power, could compete with him. Victor was moved by this confession on her part, because he too felt she was the one for him, and yet he didn’t lose his head: he took into account the bottle of wine they had shared and the novelty of this situation for her. The circumstances encouraged an exaggerated response; but they would have to talk when their bodies had cooled down.

  Ofelia would have willingly broken off her engagement with Matias Eyzaguirre, but Victor made her see that he wasn’t free and had nothing to offer her apart from these hasty, forbidden encounters. She suggested they elope to Brazil or Cuba, where they could live beneath the palm trees and nobody would know them. They might be condemned to secrecy in Chile, but the world was a big place.

  “I have a duty to Roser and Marcel; besides, you have no idea what poverty and exile mean. You wouldn’t be able to stand a week with me under those palm trees,” Victor replied good-humoredly.

  Ofelia began not answering Matias’s letters, in the hope that he would grow tired of her indifference, but that didn’t happen, as her stubborn suitor attributed her silence to nervousness typical of a sensitive fiancée. Meanwhile, surprised at her own duplicity, she continued to display to her family a delight she was far from feeling over the wedding arrangements.

  She let several months go by without making up her mind, still meeting Victor in stolen moments, but as September drew closer, she realized she had to find the courage to break off her engagement, whether or not Victor agreed; the invitations had been sent out, and the wedding announced in El Mercurio. Finally, without a word to anyone, she went to the Foreign Ministry to ask a friend to send a package to Paraguay in the diplomatic bag. The package contained the ring and a letter explaining to Matias that she was in love with somebody else.

  No sooner had he received Ofelia’s package than Matias Eyzaguirre flew to Chile, sitting on the floor of a military plane, because in the midst of a world war fuel was too scarce for unplanned private flights. He burst into the Calle Mar del Plata house while she was having tea, crashing into fragile tables and chairs with curved legs. Ofelia found herself confronted by a total stranger. Her obliging, conciliatory fiancé had been taken over by a madman who laid into her, scarlet with rage and bathed in sweat and tears. His reproachful shouting drew the attention of the family, and this was how Isidro del Solar learned what had been going on under his nose for months.

  Isidro succeeded in removing the irate suitor from the house with the promise that he would deal with the situation in his own way, but his overbearing authority came up against his daughter’s resolute stubbornness. Ofelia refused to give any explanation or reveal the name of her lover, much less to repent her decision. She simply kept her mouth shut, and there was no way to get a word out of her. She remained impervious to her father’s threats, her mother’s tears, and the apocalyptic arguments of Father Vicente Urbina, who was called for urgently as her spiritual guide and administrator of God’s thunderbolts. Seeing it was impossible to reason with her, her father forbade her to leave the house, and gave Juana the task of keeping her in quarantine. Juana Nancucheo took this to heart, because on the one hand she had a great deal of affection for Matias Eyzaguirre—that young man was a real gentleman, one of those who greet the domestic staff by name—on the other, he adored Ofelia, so what more could she ask for? She genuinely wanted to carry out her master’s instructions, but her efforts as a jailer failed completely thanks to the lovers’ guile.

  Victor and Ofelia managed to see each other at the most unexpected times and places: in the Winnipeg bar when it was closed; in sordid hotels, parks, and m
ovie houses, almost always with the complicity of the family chauffeur. Once she had evaded Juana’s vigilance, Ofelia had plenty of free time, but Victor, who lived from minute to minute, running from one place to the next to keep up with his studies and the tavern, found it hard to steal an hour here and there to spend with her. He neglected his family completely. Noting the change in his habits, Roser confronted him in her usual frank way. “You’re in love, aren’t you? I don’t want to know who she is, but you have to be discreet. We’re guests in this country, and if you get into trouble we’ll be deported. Is that clear?” Victor was offended by her harshness, even though it corresponded perfectly to their strange matrimonial agreement.

  That November, President Pedro Aguirre Cerda died of tuberculosis, after only three years in office. The poor people in Chile, who had benefited from his reforms, shed tears for him as for a beloved father in the most spectacular funeral ever seen. Even his right-wing enemies were forced to concede he was honest and grudgingly accepted his vision—he had promoted national industry, health, and education—but there was no way they were going to allow Chile to shift to the Left. Socialism was fine for the Soviets, who lived far away and were barbarians, but it was not for their own homeland. The deceased president’s secular, democratic spirit was a dangerous precedent that was not to be repeated.

  Felipe del Solar met the Dalmaus at the funeral. They had not seen one another in months, and after the procession he invited them to lunch to catch up with their news. He learned they were getting ahead and that Marcel, who was still not three years old, spoke in Catalan as well as in Spanish. Felipe told them about his family: Baby had a heart problem, and his mother wanted to take him on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa Rosa of Lima because in Chile there was a sore lack of national saints; his sister Ofelia’s wedding had been postponed.

  Nothing about Victor betrayed the shock he felt inside on hearing about Ofelia, but Roser could sense the reaction on her own skin and so knew beyond doubt who her husband’s lover was. She would have preferred the identity to remain a mystery, because uncovering Ofelia’s name made her into an incontrovertible reality. The situation was far worse than Roser had imagined.

  “I told you to forget her, Victor!” she reproached him that night when they were alone.

  “I can’t, Roser. Do you remember how you loved Guillem? How you still love him? It’s the same with me and Ofelia.”

  “What about her?”

  “She loves me too. She knows we can never be together openly and accepts it.”

  “How long do you think that girl is going to put up with being your mistress? She has a privileged future ahead of her. She would be crazy to sacrifice it for you. And let me tell you again, Victor: if this gets out, they’ll throw us out of this country. Those people are very powerful.”

  “Nobody will find out.”

  “Everything gets out sooner or later.”

  * * *

  —

  OFELIA’S WEDDING WAS CANCELED with the excuse that she was unwell. Matias Eyzaguirre returned to the post in Paraguay that he had abandoned precipitously. He received a warning for his escapade that had little impact, as he had shown an unusual ability for diplomacy and had succeeded at gaining acceptance in the political and social circles where the ambassador, a rancorous and rather dim man, was struggling. Ofelia was punished with enforced leisure. At twenty-one, she was made to sit at home doing nothing, with Juana Nancucheo keeping a close eye on her. She was bored to death, but it was no use arguing that she had come of age: she had nowhere to go and was incapable of fending for herself, as she was clearly told. “Be very careful, Ofelia, because if you leave by the front door, you’ll never enter this house again,” her father threatened her. She tried to win sympathy from Felipe or her sisters, but the clan closed ranks to defend the family honor, and so in the end she could rely only on help from the chauffeur, a man of negotiable honesty. Her social life was over, for how could she go out and enjoy herself if she was meant to be ill? Her only outings were visits to the Santiago slums with the Catholic Ladies, to family Mass, and to her art classes, where it was unlikely she would meet anyone from her own circle. Thanks to throwing an epic tantrum, she had managed to get her father to yield over these classes. The chauffeur was told to wait at the door for the three or four hours the sessions lasted. Several months went by without Ofelia making any artistic progress, which only went to show she had no talent, as the family already knew. In fact, she would enter the art school carrying her canvases, easel, and paints, walk through the building, and leave by the back door, where Victor was waiting for her. They met only infrequently, as he found it hard to make his rare free time coincide with her class schedule.

  Victor was tired, with dark shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. He was so exhausted that sometimes he nodded off even before his lover managed to remove her clothes in their hotel room. Roser, on the other hand, displayed an irrepressible energy. She was adapting to the city and learning to understand Chileans, who deep down were as generous, muddle-headed, and dramatic as Spaniards. She had set herself to win friends and carve out a reputation as a pianist, and now played on the radio, in the Hotel Crillon, at the cathedral, in clubs, and in private houses. Word got around that she was well turned-out and well-mannered, and that she could play by ear anything she was asked for. All people had to do was whistle a couple of bars and within a few seconds she could play the tune on the piano, which made her ideal for both parties and solemn occasions. She earned a lot more than Victor with his Winnipeg, but had been obliged to neglect her role as a mother. Until he was four, Marcel didn’t call her “mother” but “señora.” The first words he said were “white wine” in Catalan, spoken in his playpen behind the tavern counter. Roser and Victor took turns carrying him in the sling until he became too heavy. It was so snug and warm that, clinging to his mother’s or father’s body, he felt secure. He was a calm, quiet little boy who made his own amusement and rarely asked for anything. His mother would take him to the radio station, and his father to the tavern, but he spent most of his time at the house of a widow who had three cats and looked after him for a modest amount.

  Contrary to expectation, the relationship between Victor and Roser was strengthened during this chaotic time when their lives barely coincided and his heart had gone out to another woman. Their longstanding friendship turned into a deeper complicity in which there was no room for secrets, suspicion, or offense; they started from the principle that they would never hurt each other and that if this happened, it would be unintentional. They protected each other, which made their present hardships and the ghosts of the past bearable.

  In the months Roser had spent in Perpignan living with the Quakers, she had learned to sew. In Chile, she used her first savings to buy a Singer sewing machine: it was a shiny black treadle model, with gilt lettering and flowers, a wonder of efficiency. Its rhythmic sound was similar to her piano exercises, and whenever she finished a dress or a romper for her son, she was as pleased as she was with an audience’s applause. She copied styles from fashion magazines and was always well-dressed. For her performances she made herself a long, steel-colored gown to which she added and subtracted different-colored bows, short or long sleeves, collars, flowers, and brooches so that she looked different on every occasion. She wore her hair in the old-fashioned way, in a chignon held by combs or clasps, and painted her nails and lips bright red, as she would into her old age when her hair was streaked with gray and her lips dry.

  “Your wife is very pretty,” Ofelia told Victor. She had run into Roser at the funeral of one of her uncles, when Roser was playing solemn music on the organ as the deceased man’s relatives walked past offering their condolences to the widow and children. When she saw Ofelia, Roser stopped playing, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered in her ear that she could count on her for anything she might need. This confirmed for Ofelia the truth of Victor’s assertion that
they were like brother and sister.

  Ofelia’s comment about Roser’s looks surprised Victor: whenever he thought of Roser, the image that sprang to mind was that of the skinny, unassuming girl he had known in Spain, the defenseless goatherd his parents had adopted, or simply Guillem’s girlfriend. Whether Roser was that or the woman Ofelia admired did not change the essential fact that he loved her. Not even the irresistible temptation of eloping with Ofelia to a palm tree–fronded paradise could make him leave Roser or her child.

  CHAPTER 8

  1941–1942

  Take note:

  If little by little you stop loving me,

  I’ll stop loving you little by little.

  If suddenly you forget me

  Don’t come looking for me,

  I’ll already have forgotten you.

  —PABLO NERUDA

  “If you forget me”

  THE CAPTAIN’S VERSES

  WHEN OFELIA WAS CONFINED TO the house on Calle Mar del Plata, her amorous encounters with Victor in the hotel became increasingly sporadic and brief. In this new life where he could not see Ofelia so often, Victor Dalmau found he occasionally had time to accept Salvador Allende’s invitation to play chess. The young woman was imprinted on his soul, but he no longer suffered from the permanent anxiety to escape to her clandestine embrace, and didn’t need to spend all hours of the night studying to make up for the hours with her. At medical school, he skipped the classes in theory where no one took attendance, because he could study that material on his own from books and notes. He concentrated on the lab work, autopsies, and hospital practice, where he had to conceal his knowledge so as not to humiliate his professors. He never missed his hours at the tavern, using the slack periods to study, and meanwhile keeping an eye on Marcel in his pen.