In the Midst of Winter

by Isabel Allende

Without these essential virtues dancing lost all meaning for her, so that in the end she sold her academy. The women in the Farinha family—grandmother, sisters, aunts, and cousins—all closed ranks, taking turns to be with her. Anita clung closely to Bibi, watching over her anxiously all the time for fear of losing her. Her family tried to distract her by getting her to write a book with the recipes of several generations of Farinhas, in the belief that nothing bad can resist the remedy of work and the comfort of food. Then they made her arrange eighty albums of family photographs in chronological order, and when she had done that invented other pretexts to keep her busy. Richard reluctantly allowed them to take his wife and child to her grandparents’ ranch for a couple of months. The sun and wind revived Anita’s spirits; she returned from the countryside weighing four kilos more and regretting that she had sold the academy because she wanted to dance again.

  They made love as they had in the days when that was all they ever did. They went out to listen to music and dance. Richard tried a few steps with his wife until he could see that all eyes were fixed on her, whether it was because they recognized the queen of the Anita Farinha Academy or simply out of admiration or desire, then he gallantly gave way for other men who were lighter on their feet. He retreated to drink at their table and watch her tenderly, vaguely wondering about his existence.

  He was of an age to plan the future, but with a glass in his hand it was easy to postpone that concern. He had completed his doctorate more than two years earlier but had not made anything of it apart from a couple of articles published in academic journals in the United States. One was on the land rights of indigenous people in the 1988 Brazilian constitution, the other on gender violence. He made his living giving English classes. Out of curiosity rather than ambition he occasionally applied for one of the job vacancies he saw in the American Political Science Review. He considered his time in Rio de Janeiro as a nice pause in his destiny, a prolonged vacation. He would soon have to carve out a professional career for himself, but that could wait a while longer. The city was conducive to pleasure and leisure. Anita had a small house near the beach and they got by on the money from the sale of her academy and his English classes.

  BIBI WAS ALMOST THREE when the goddesses finally answered the prayers of Anita and the rest of the women in her family. “I owe it to Yemaya,” said Anita when she told her husband she was pregnant. “Is that so? I thought you owed it to me,” he laughed, lifting her in a bear hug. There were no problems during the pregnancy and she reached full term, but the birth itself was difficult and in the end a caesarean was needed. The doctor warned Anita she should not have any more children, at least for a few years, but that did not upset her too much because now she had Pablo in her arms. He was a healthy boy with a voracious appetite, the little brother for Bibi that the whole family had been waiting for.

  At dawn a month later, Richard leaned over the crib to pick up the child and hand him to Anita. He was surprised Pablo had not cried from hunger in the night, as he usually did every three or four hours. He was sleeping so peacefully that Richard hesitated to disturb him. A wave of tenderness engulfed him to the core. The overwhelming sense of gratitude he often felt in the presence of Bibi made his eyes sting and brought a knot to his throat. Anita took the baby with her night gown open to put him on her breast. It was then she realized he was not breathing. A visceral scream like that of a tortured animal shook the house, the neighborhood, the whole world.

  An autopsy was required to determine the cause of death. Richard tried to keep this from Anita, because the idea that their tiny Pablo would be systematically cut open would be too horrible for her to bear. The pathologist’s report attributed it to sudden infant death syndrome, or crib death. An entirely unpredictable misfortune. Anita fell into a deep, dark sorrow, an unfathomable cavern from which her husband was excluded. Richard found himself rejected by his wife and banished to the farthest corner of his home as an encumbrance by the rest of the Farinha family, who invaded his privacy to take care of Anita, look after Bibi, and make decisions without consulting him. The relatives took over his small family, thinking he was incapable of understanding the magnitude of the tragedy because he did not share their sensibilities. Deep down, Richard was relieved, because it was true that he was a stranger to this kind of mourning. He increased the number of hours he taught, left the house early, and found excuses to come back late. In need of distraction, he started drinking more.

  THEY WERE ONLY A FEW MILES from the turnoff to the cabin when they heard a siren and a police car pulled out from where it had been concealed behind some bushes. Lucia saw the lights whirling between her and the Subaru behind. For a moment she seriously considered putting her foot down and risking her life on it, but a cry from Richard forced her to change her plan. She slowed and pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. “Now we really are done for,” groaned Richard, struggling upright. Lucia lowered the window and waited breathlessly while the patrol car came to a halt behind her. The Subaru slowed down as it went past, but she managed to signal to Evelyn to continue on without stopping. The policeman came up a moment later.

  “Your license and registration,” he demanded.

  “Have I done something wrong, officer?”

  “Your documents, please.”

  Lucia searched in the glove compartment and passed him the Lexus’s documents and her international driver’s license, which she was afraid might have expired as she could not remember when she had obtained it in Chile. The policeman studied them slowly and glanced at Richard, who had sat up and was straightening his clothes in the backseat.

  “Step out of the car,” he ordered Lucia.

  Lucia obeyed. Her legs began to give way beneath her. It flashed through her mind that this must be how African-­Americans felt when they were stopped by the police, and that if Richard had been driving their treatment would have been very different. At that moment Richard opened the rear door and almost crawled out.

  “Wait inside the vehicle, sir!” yelled the policeman, his right hand moving toward his gun holster.

  Richard was on his knees retching. He vomited the rest of his oatmeal all over the man’s boots. The policeman jumped back in disgust.

  “He’s sick, he has an ulcer, officer,” Lucia explained.

  “What is your relationship to him?”

  “I’m . . . I’m . . . ,” Lucia stammered.

  “She’s my housekeeper. She works for me,” Richard managed to groan between two bouts of retching.

  The stereotypes automatically fell into place for the policeman: a Latina employee driving her boss, probably to the hospital. The guy seemed genuinely ill. Curiously, the woman had a foreign license; this was not the first time he had seen an international permit. Chile? Where on earth was that? He waited for Richard to straighten up, then told him to get back into the car, but by now his voice had softened. He went around to the rear of the Lexus, called Lucia over, and pointed to the trunk.

  “Yes, officer. It just happened. There was a pileup on the highway, you might know about it. I was hit by a car that didn’t manage to brake, but it was nothing, only a slight dent and the rear light casing. I painted the bulb with nail polish until I can find a replacement.”

  “I’m going to have to issue you a ticket.”

  “I need to take Mr. Bowmaster to see a doctor.”

  “I’ll let you go this time, but you must replace the light within twenty-four hours, do you understand?”

  “Yes, officer.”

  “Do you require help with your sick passenger? I can escort you to the hospital.”

  “Many thanks, officer, but that won’t be necessary.”

  Lucia’s heart was beating wildly as she slid back behind the wheel. The police car moved off. I’m going to have a heart attack, she thought, but thirty seconds later she was wracked with nervous giggles. If she had been fined, her identity and the car’s details would hav
e been registered in the police report, and then Richard’s worst fears would have come true in their full horror.

  “That was a close one,” she said, wiping away tears of laughter, but Richard remained unamused.

  The Subaru was waiting for them a half mile farther on. A short while later, Richard spotted the entrance to Horacio’s cabin, little more than an almost invisible track covered with several inches of snow that snaked between the pines. For about ten minutes they made their way slowly through the woods without seeing any signs of human life, praying their vehicles would not get stuck. Suddenly they saw the sloping roof of a cabin straight out of a fairy tale, with icicles hanging from it like Christmas decorations.

  Still weak from vomiting, but in less pain, Richard undid the padlock on the gate. They parked the cars and got out. He had to push as hard as he could to open the front door, which was swollen from the dampness. As soon as they stepped inside a foul smell assaulted them. Richard explained the house had been shut up for more than two years, and that bats and other creatures must have taken it over.

  “When are we going to get rid of the Lexus?” asked Lucia.

  “Today, but give me half an hour to recover,” said Richard, flinging himself down on the battered living room sofa. He did not dare ask her to lie down with him or embrace him to warm him up.

  “Yes, get some rest. But if we stay here for long we’re going to freeze to death,” she told him.

  “We have to switch on the electricity generator and fill the heaters with fuel. There are cans of kerosene in the kitchen. The pipes are frozen so we’ll melt snow to cook with. We can’t use the hearth, someone might see the smoke.”

  “You’re in no state to do anything. Come on, Evelyn,” said Lucia, covering Richard with a stiff moth-eaten blanket she found.

  Within a short while, the women had lit two heaters but had been unable to make the decrepit generator start. After he managed to get to his feet, Richard also failed. In the cabin there was only a kerosene camping stove, which he and Horacio used when they went ice fishing. In their luggage Richard had included three flashlights, sleeping bags, and other items essential for an exploration up the Amazon, as well as a few packets of the dried vegetarian food he took with him on his long cycling trips. “Food for donkeys,” commented Lucia good-humoredly as she tried to boil water on the tiny stove, which turned out to be as uncooperative as the generator. However, after being soaked in boiling water the donkey food turned into a decent meal, although Richard was unable to touch it and had nothing more than some clear soup and half a cup of tea to stay hydrated since he could not keep anything more down. After that he collapsed once more, wrapped in the blanket, while Lucia and Evelyn shared a cup of tea and talked quietly so not to disturb him.

  Evelyn

  Chicago–New York, 2008–2011

  It was ten years since Evelyn Ortega’s mother, Miriam, had seen the three children she had left with their grandmother in Guatemala, but she recognized her daughter the moment she arrived in Chicago thanks to photos and because she looked so much like Concepcion Montoya. Thankfully she doesn’t take after me, Miriam thought as Evelyn climbed out of Galileo Leon’s pickup. The grandmother was of mixed blood: she had the best of both the Maya and white races, and had been a beauty in her youth before she was captured by the soldiers. Evelyn had inherited her fine features, which had skipped a generation. Miriam on the other hand was coarser looking, stocky and with short legs, as her father had probably been, that “rapist straight down from the mountains,” as Concepcion always called him. Miriam’s daughter seemed still a child, with her thick black braid hanging down to her waist and her delicate face. Miriam ran toward her and hugged her tight, repeating her name over and over, weeping with joy at having Evelyn at last and with sadness for her other two murdered children. Evelyn allowed herself to be embraced without making any move to return her mother’s effusive greeting: this plump woman with yellow hair was a stranger to her.

  That initial encounter set the tone for the relationship between mother and daughter. In order to avoid the embarrassment of getting her words entangled, Evelyn spoke as little as possible, and Miriam took this silence as a reproach. Although Evelyn never brought the matter up, Miriam used every excuse she could find to make it plain that she had not chosen to abandon her children but had been forced to. They would all have gone hungry if she had stayed in Monja Blanca del Valle making tamales with Evelyn’s grandmother. Couldn’t Evelyn see that? When she herself was a mother she would understand what a huge sacrifice Miriam had made for her family’s sake.

  Another matter floating in the air was the fate of Gregorio and Andres. Miriam thought that if she had been in Guatemala, she would have brought up the boys with a firm hand. Gregorio would not have strayed onto the path of criminality and Andres would not have died through his brother’s fault. Whenever this came up, Evelyn did find the words to defend her grandma, who she insisted had taught them how to behave. Her brother had gone bad because of his own weakness, not because his grandmother had spared him the back of her hand.

  The Leon family lived in a trailer park. There were about twenty similar trailers, each with a small yard, in their case shared with a parrot and a big, harmless dog. Evelyn was given a foam mattress that at night she put down on the kitchen floor. They had a tiny bathroom and a sink out in the yard. Despite the cramped conditions, they all got along well, partly because they worked different shifts. Miriam cleaned offices at night and houses in the morning. She was away from midnight until the following noon. Galileo had no fixed hours for his painting contracts, and when he was at home he was as quiet as if he had done something wrong, so as to avoid his wife’s flaring bad temper. A neighbor had looked after the children without overcharging, but when Evelyn arrived she was given that responsibility. Miriam was at home in the afternoon, which meant that for the first year Evelyn could attend English classes for immigrants that were offered by a local church and later finish high school. After that she began working with her mother. Miriam and Galileo were Pentecostals; their lives revolved around their church’s services and social activities.

  Galileo explained to Evelyn that he had found redemption in the Lord and a family in his brothers and sisters in faith. “I led the life of a sinner until I went to the church and there the Holy Spirit descended on me. That was nine years ago.” Evelyn found it hard to believe that such a meek man could have done a great deal of sinning. According to Galileo, a bolt from the heavens threw him to the floor during a religious service and as he writhed in a trance Satan was driven out of his body while the enthusiastic congregation sang and prayed for him at the tops of their lungs. Ever since then, his life had taken a new direction, he said. He had met Miriam, who shouted a lot but was a good woman who helped keep him on a righteous path. God had given him two children. The Almighty was like family to him, and he spoke to him like son to father; it was enough for him to ask for something with all his heart for it to be granted. He had made public witness of his faith and been baptized by immersion in a local swimming pool. He was hoping Evelyn would do the same, but she kept postponing the moment out of loyalty to Father Benito and her grandmother, who would be offended if she changed religion.

  The harmony that reigned among the trailer’s inhabitants was endangered during the rare visits made by Doreen, Galileo’s daughter born of a fleeting youthful romance with an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lived by smuggling and fortune-telling. Miriam said that not only had Doreen inherited her mother’s knack for hoodwinking fools but she was an addict who went about enveloped in a fateful dark cloud that made everything she touched turn to dog shit. Although twenty-six, she looked fifty, and had never done an honest day’s work in her life but boasted of handling vast amounts of money. No one dared ask where she got it from—they suspected her methods were unlawful—but apparently the cash slipped through her fingers as quickly as it had come. This meant she often came to her
father to demand a loan without any intention of ever paying it back. Miriam loathed her and Galileo was afraid of her. In her presence he squirmed like a worm and gave her whatever he could, which was always less than what she wanted. Miriam did not have the courage to stand up to her either, saying Doreen had bad blood, without specifying what she meant by that, and looking down on her because she was black. Nothing in Doreen’s appearance seemed capable of inspiring fear: she was skinny, wasted, with rat’s eyes and yellow teeth and fingernails, permanently hunched due to her weak bones. Yet she gave off a frightening, barely contained rage, like a pressure cooker about to explode. Miriam ordered her daughter to stay off that woman’s radar; nothing good could come from her.

  Her mother’s warning was unnecessary, because Evelyn found it impossible even to breathe whenever Doreen came near. Out in the yard the dog would begin to howl a warning several minutes before she appeared. This alerted Evelyn to the fact she should make herself scarce, but she did not always manage to do so in time. Doreen would catch her: “Where are you going so fast, you stuttering retard?” She was the only one who insulted Evelyn in this way: all the others had become accustomed to figuring out the meaning of Evelyn’s stumbling sentences before she finished them. Galileo Leon was quick to give his daughter money so that she would leave, and each time he begged her to accompany him to church, even if only once. He still lived in hope that the Holy Spirit would graciously descend to save her from herself, as it had done with him.

  MORE THAN TWO YEARS went by without Evelyn’s receiving the notification from the court that she had been informed about at the detention center. Miriam lived in fear of the mail, although she thought that by now her daughter’s file had probably gotten lost in the dusty recesses of the immigration service and she would be able to live without documents for the rest of her days without being bothered. Evelyn had finished her last year at high school and had graduated in her cap and gown like all the rest of her class, without anyone asking to see any proof of who she was.