Исабель Альенде - A Long Petal of the Sea

“There are lots of women and children here. Pregnant women too.”

“I’ll do what I can. I’ll come back with more help.”

—

OUTSIDE THE CAMP, A car with the Red Cross insignia was waiting for them. Elisabeth decided that what Roser needed most was hot food, and so stopped at the first restaurant they came to. The few customers there at that time of day couldn’t conceal their disgust at this smelly beggar accompanying the neat and tidy nurse. Roser ate all the bread put on the table even before the chicken stew arrived. After the meal, the young Swiss nurse drove the car as if it were a bicycle, zigzagging between other vehicles on the road, climbing onto sidewalks and proudly ignoring all the crossroads and traffic lights, which she considered optional. They arrived at Perpignan in no time at all. She took Roser to the house being used as a maternity unit, where there were eight young women, some in the last month of pregnancy, others with newborn babies in their arms.

Roser was received with the unsentimental warmth typical of Spanish women: she was handed a towel, soap, and shampoo and sent off for a shower. An hour later, Roser reappeared in front of Elisabeth, clean, her hair soaking, and wearing a black skirt, a short woolen tunic that covered her belly, and high-heeled shoes. That same evening, Elisabeth took her to the home of an English Quaker couple she had worked with when they were on the Madrid front, offering food, clothing, and protection to child victims of the conflict.

“You can stay with them as long as necessary, Roser, at least until you give birth. After that, we’ll see. They’re really good people. Quakers are always to be found where they’re most needed. They’re saints; the only saints I respect.”

CHAPTER 4

1939

I celebrate the virtues and vices

Of the suburban middle classes.

—PABLO NERUDA

“Suburbs”

THE YELLOW HEART

THE REINA DEL PACIFICO LEFT the Chilean port of Valparaiso at the start of May, to dock in Liverpool twenty-seven days later. In Europe, spring was giving way to an uneasy summer, threatened by the drumbeats of an unavoidable war. The previous fall, the European powers had signed the Munich peace treaty, which Hitler had no intention of respecting. Paralyzed, the Western world looked on as the Nazis continued their expansion.

And yet on board the Reina del Pacifico, the echoes of the approaching conflict were muffled by distance as well as the sound of the diesel engines that propelled this 17,702-ton floating city across two oceans. The 162 passengers in second class and the 446 in third found the crossing rather long, but in first class the inconveniences of sea travel vanished in a refined atmosphere where the days flew by and the rolling waves couldn’t spoil the pleasure of the journey. The noise from the ship’s engines barely reached the upper deck, where it was replaced by the soothing sounds of background music, conversation in several languages among the 280 passengers, the comings and goings of seamen and officers dressed in white from head to foot and waiters in uniforms with gold buttons, an orchestra and a female string quartet, the endless clink of crystal glasses, porcelain crockery, and silver cutlery. The kitchen only closed during the darkest hour before dawn.

In her suite with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a salon, and a balcony, Laura del Solar groaned as she struggled into a girdle, her ball gown still waiting for her on the bed. She had kept it especially for tonight, the second to last of the journey, when the first-class passengers showed off all that was most elegant in their trunks and their most impressive jewelry. Her dressmaker in Santiago had already let six centimeters out on the seams of the pleated blue satin gown she had ordered from Buenos Aires, but after several weeks at sea, Laura could hardly fit into it. Her husband, Isidro del Solar, smiled contentedly as he adjusted the white tie of his tuxedo in the mirror’s beveled glass. Less sweet-toothed and more disciplined than his wife, he hadn’t put on weight, and at fifty-nine was still good-looking. He had changed little over their years of marriage, unlike his wife. Laura sank into the Gobelin upholstered armchair, head down and shoulders drooping. She was in despair.

“What’s wrong, Laurita?”

“Do you mind if I don’t accompany you tonight, Isidro? I’ve got a headache.”

Her husband stood in front of her with the annoyed expression that always overcame her resistance.

“Take a couple of aspirins, Laurita. It’s the captain’s dinner tonight. We’re at an important table, I had to work wonders bribing the maitre d’ to get seats. There are only eight of us; your absence would be noted.”

“The thing is, I don’t feel well, Isidro…”

“Make an effort. For me, this is a business dinner. We’re going to be sharing the table with Senator Trueba and two English businessmen who’re interested in buying my wool. I told you about them, remember? I already have an offer from a military uniform factory in Hamburg, but it’s hard to do deals with Germans.”

“I don’t think Señora Trueba will be there.”

“That woman is very eccentric. They say she talks with the dead,” said Isidro.

“Everyone talks to the dead now and then, Isidro.”

“What nonsense you come out with, Laurita!”

“I can’t fit into the dress.”

“What do a few extra kilos matter? Wear another one. You always look pretty,” he said, in the tone of someone who has repeated the same thing a hundred times.

“How do you expect me not to get fat, Isidro? All we’ve done on board is eat and eat.”

“Well, you could have taken some exercise—swum in the pool, for example.”

“Surely you don’t imagine I was going to show myself in a swimsuit?”

“I can’t force you, Laura, but let me say again that your presence at this dinner is important. Don’t leave me stranded. I’ll help you do up your dress. Wear the sapphire necklace, it’ll look perfect.”

“It’s very showy.”

“Not a bit, it’s modest compared to the jewels we’ve seen on other women here on the boat,” Isidro ruled, opening the safe with the key he carried in his vest pocket.

Laura missed their house in Santiago, with its terrace of camellias, a refuge where little Leonardo played and where she could knit and pray in peace, protected from her husband’s noisy whirlwind of frenetic activity. Isidro del Solar was her destiny, but marriage weighed on her like a burden. She often envied her younger sister, sweet Teresa, a cloistered nun who spent her days in meditation, pious reading, and embroidering the trousseaus for brides-to-be in Chilean high society. An existence devoted to God, without all the distractions Laura suffered from: without having to worry about the melodramas of children and relatives, or do battle with domestic staff, waste time on social visits, and fulfill her role as a dutiful wife. Isidro was omnipresent: the universe revolved around him, his wishes and demands. That was how his grandfather and father had been, that was how all men were.

“Cheer up, Laurita,” said Isidro, struggling with the tiny clasp on the necklace he had already hung around her neck. “I want you to have a good time, for this trip to be memorable.”

What had been memorable was the journey they had made several years earlier on board the newly launched liner Normandie, with its dining room for seven hundred guests, Lalique lamps and chandeliers, art deco design, and a winter garden with exotic caged birds. In just five days between France and New York, the del Solars had experienced a luxury unknown in Chile, where sobriety was a virtue and the more money one had, the more care was taken to hide it. Only Arab immigrants grown rich in commerce flaunted their wealth, but Laura did not know anyone of that ilk—they were outside her circle and always would be.