Isabel Allende - Island Beneath the Sea

In the Valmorain house not too far away they had heard the distant sound of music, but Hortense Guizot, like all the other white women in the city, pretended not to. She knew what was going on; no one had talked about anything else for several weeks. She had finished dinner and was embroidering in the drawing room, surrounded by her daughters, who were playing with dolls while the youngest slept in her cradle, all as blond and rosy as she once had been. Now, ground down by maternity, she used rouge on her cheeks and relied on a blond switch her slave Denise artfully combed in with her own straw-colored hair. Dinner consisted of soup, two main courses, salad, cheeses, and three desserts; nothing too complicated because she was alone. The girls were not yet eating in the dining hall, nor was her husband, who was following a rigorous diet and preferred not to be tempted. He was in the library, where he'd been sent chicken and rice cooked without salt; he was trying to follow Dr. Parmentier's strict orders. Besides starving, he had to take walks in the fresh air and deny himself alcohol, cigars, and coffee. He would have died of boredom without his brother-in-law Sancho, who visited him every day to bring him up to date on news and gossip, cheer him up with his good humor, and beat him at cards and dominos.

Parmentier, who complained so often about his own heart, was not following the monkish regimen he imposed on his patient because Sanite Dede, the voodoo priestess at place Congo, had read his fortune in the cowrie shells, and according to her prophecy he was going to live till he was eighty-nine years old. "You, white man, are going to close the eyes of that saintly Pere Antoine when he dies in 1829." That soothed him in regard to his health but created the sadness of losing in that long life his dearest beloveds, like Adele and perhaps even one of his children.

The first alarm that things were not going well with Valmorain had occurred during his trip to France. Following the lugubrious visit with his hundred-year-old mother and unmarried sisters, he left Maurice in France and set sail for New Orleans. On the ship he suffered several attacks of fatigue, which he attributed to the buffeting of the waves, excess of wine, and bad food. When he got home, his friend Parmentier diagnosed high blood pressure, fluttering pulse, bad digestion, abundance of bile, flatulence, festering humors, and palpitations of the heart. He told him with no beating about the bush that he must lose weight and change his life or end up in his mausoleum in Saint Louis Cemetery before the end of a year. Terrified, Valmorain submitted to the doctor's demands and the despotism of his wife, who had become his jailer under the pretext of caring for him. Just in case, he went to docteurs feuilles and magi, whom he had always mocked until his fright made him change his mind. Nothing to lose by trying it, he thought. He had obtained a gris-gris, he had a pagan altar in his room, he drank potions impossible to identify that Celestine brought from the market, and he had made two nocturnal excursions to an island in the swamp so Sanite Dede could cleanse him with her incantations and the smoke of her tobacco. Parmentier did not question the priestess's competence, faithful to his idea that the mind has the power to cure, and if the patient believed in magic, there was no reason to discourage him from it.

Maurice, who was working in a sugar importing agency in France, where Valmorain had placed him to learn that aspect of the family business, took the first available ship when he learned of his father's illness and reached New Orleans at the end of October. He found Valmorain transformed into a voluminous sea lion in a large chair beside the hearth, with a knit cap on his head, a shawl over his legs, and a wood cross and a rag gris-gris around his neck, vastly deteriorated in comparison to the haughty, extravagant man who had wanted to introduce his son to the dissolute life in Paris. Maurice knelt beside his father, who clasped him in a trembling embrace. "My son, at last you have come, now I can die in peace," he murmured. "Don't be foolish, Toulouse!" Hortense Guizot interrupted, watching them with disgust. And it was on the tip of her tongue to add that he wasn't going to die yet, unfortunately, but she caught herself in time. She had been looking after her husband for three months and had run out of patience. Valmorain irritated her all day and woke her at night with repeated nightmares about some Lacroix, who came to him in raw flesh, dragging his skin along the ground like a bleeding shirt.

The stepmother welcomed Maurice curtly, and his sisters greeted him with learned curtsies, keeping their distance because they had no idea who this brother was, he was mentioned very rarely in the family. The eldest of the five girls, the one Maurice had known before she could walk, was eight, and the youngest was in the arms of a wet nurse. As the house had become crowded with the family and servants, Maurice took lodging at his uncle Sancho's apartment, an ideal solution for everyone except Toulouse Valmorain, who meant to keep his son by his side to shower him with advice and pass on to him how to manage his wealth. That was the last thing Maurice wanted, but it wasn't the moment to contradict his father.

The night of the ball, Sancho and Maurice did not dine at the Valmorain residence, as they did almost daily, more as obligation than pleasure. Neither of the two was comfortable with Hortense Guizot, who never had wanted the stepson and grudgingly tolerated Sancho, with his dashing mustache, his Spanish accent, and his shamelessness; he had to be brazen to parade around town with that Cuban woman, a mixed-blood vixen directly to blame for the much talked about Cordon Bleu ball. Only her impeccable upbringing kept Hortense from bursting out with insults when she thought about that: no lady ever alluded to the fascination those mulatta courtesans exercised over white men or to the immoral practice of offering them their daughters. She knew that uncle and son were making preparations to attend the ball, but not even in the clutch of death would she mention it to them. Neither could she talk about it with her husband; that would be to admit she spied on their private conversations, just as she went through his correspondence and looked into the secret compartments in his desk where he hid his money. That was how she learned that Sancho had received two invitations from Violette Boisier because Maurice wanted to go to the ball. Sancho had to consult Valmorain because his nephew's inopportune interest in placage required financial support.

Hortense, who was listening with her ear glued to a hole she had drilled in the wall, heard her husband immediately approve the idea and assumed that Maurice's eagerness had dispelled his doubts regarding his son's virility. She herself had contributed to those doubts, using the word effeminate in more than one conversation about her stepson. To Valmorain, placage seemed appropriate, seeing that Maurice had never shown any appetite for brothels or the family slaves. He was young, and had at least ten years to think about marriage, and in the meantime he needed to unburden himself of his masculine impulses, as Sancho called them. A young girl of color, clean, virtuous, faithful, offered many advantages. Sancho explained to Valmorain the financial considerations, which previously had been left to the protector's goodwill but now, since Violette Boisier had taken charge of things, were stipulated in an oral contract, which if it lacked legal value was nonetheless inviolable. Valmorain had not objected to the cost: Maurice deserved it. On the other side of the wall, Hortense Guizot was close to screaming.

Jean-Martin confessed to Isidor Morisset, with tears of shame, what Valmorain had said, and his mother not denied it, simply refused to speak of it. Morisset listened to what he said with a mocking laugh-What the devil does that matter, son!-but immediately he was moved and pulled him to his ample chest to console him. He was not sentimental and was himself surprised at the emotion the youth aroused in him, desires to protect him and kiss him. He pushed him away gently, picked up his hat, and went to take a long walk along the dike until he cleared his mind. Two days later they sailed for France. Jean-Martin bid his small family farewell with his usual public rigidity, but at the last minute he threw his arms around Violette and whispered that he would write her.