Portrait in Sepia

by Isabel Allende

  “Mother, I have no connection with these people. I do not know them, and I do not know what they are talking about,” said Matías from the desk, carved ivory pipe in hand.

  “Lynn has told us everything,” Eliza interrupted, getting to her feet, her voice quivering but holding back the tears.

  “If it’s money you want—” Matías began, but his mother cut him off with a ferocious glare.

  “You must forgive us,” Paulina said, speaking to Tao Chi’en and Eliza Sommers.“My son is as surprised as I am. I’m sure we can work this out in a decent way, whatever’s right.”

  “Lynn wishes to marry, of course. She has told us that you two are in love,” said Tao Chi’en, also standing by now, speaking to Matías, who responded with a curt laugh that sounded like a dog barking.

  “You seem like respectable people,” said Matías. “Nonetheless, your daughter is not, as any of my friends can attest. I don’t know which of them is responsible for your unhappy circumstance, but certainly I am not.”

  Eliza Sommers had completely lost her color. She was as pale as plaster and trembling so hard she seemed about to fall. Tao Chi’en took her firmly by the arm and, supporting her as he would an invalid, led her toward the door. Severo del Valle thought he would die of anguish and shame, as if he were the one responsible for what had happened. He hurried to open the door for them and accompanied them outside, where a hired carriage was waiting. He could not think of anything to say to them. He returned to the salon in time to hear the end of an argument.

  “I will not tolerate having bastards of my blood strewn about the landscape!” Paulina screamed.

  “Define your loyalties, Mother. Whom are you going to believe, your own son or a pastry shop owner and a Chinaman?” Matías fired back, slamming the door as he left.

  That night Severo del Valle confronted Matías. He had enough information to be able to deduce events and he intended to disarm his cousin through tenacious questioning, but that wasn’t necessary; Matías immediately told him everything. He felt trapped in an absurd situation for which he was not responsible, he said. Lynn Sommers had pursued him and handed herself to him on a tray. He never really intended to seduce her—the bet had been nothing but bombast. For two months he had been trying to wean her away without destroying her. He was afraid she would do something foolish; she was one of those hysterical young girls capable of throwing herself into the sea for love, he explained. He admitted that Lynn was little more than a child and that she had come to his arms a virgin, her head filled with sugary poems and completely ignorant of the rudiments of sex, but he repeated that he had no obligation to her, and that he had never mentioned the word love to her, much less marriage. Girls like her always brought complications, he added, which was why he avoided them like the plague. He had never imagined that his brief meeting with Lynn would have such consequences. They had been together a handful of times, he said, and he had recommended that afterward she douche with vinegar and mustard; how could he know that she was so astoundingly fertile? In any case, he was willing to pay the expenses of the baby, the money was the least of it, but he did not plan to give the child his name because there was no proof it was his. “I will not marry now, or ever, Severo. Do you know anyone with less vocation for bourgeois life than I?” he concluded.

  One week later, Severo del Valle went to the clinic of Tao Chi’en, after having mulled for hours the scabrous mission his cousin had assigned him. The zhong-yi had attended his last patient for the day, and he received Severo alone in the small waiting room of his office on the first floor. He listened impassively to Severo’s offer.

  “Lynn does not need money, that is why she has parents,” he said, reflecting no emotion. “In any case, I appreciate your concern, Mr. del Valle.”

  “How is Miss Sommers?” asked Severo, humiliated by the other man’s dignity.

  “My daughter still believes there has been a misunderstanding. She is sure that soon Mr. Rodríguez de Santa Cruz will come to ask her to marry him, and out of love, not duty.”

  “Mr. Chi’en, I can’t tell you what I would give to change these circumstances. The truth is that my cousin is not in good health, he cannot marry. I regret it more than I can say,” murmured Severo del Valle.

  “We regret it much more. Lynn is merely a diversion for your cousin. To Lynn, he is her life,” Tao Chi’en said softly.

  “I would like to explain to your daughter, Mr. Chi’en. May I see her, please?”

  “I must ask Lynn. At the moment she does not want to see anyone, but I will let you know if she changes her mind,” the zhong-yi replied, walking Severo to the door.

  Severo del Valle waited three weeks without news of Lynn, until he couldn’t contain his impatience any longer and went to the tea shop to ask Eliza Sommers to allow him to speak with her daughter. He expected to be met with unyielding resistance, but Eliza, enveloped in her aroma of sugar and vanilla, received him with the same serenity Tao Chi’en had shown when he spoke with him. At first Eliza had blamed herself for what happened: she had been careless, she hadn’t been capable of protecting her daughter, and now the girl’s life was ruined. She wept in her husband’s arms until he reminded her that when she was sixteen she had suffered a similar experience: the same excessive love, abandonment by her lover, pregnancy, terror. The difference was that Lynn was not alone; she would not have to run away from home and sail half the length of the hemisphere in the hold of a ship to follow an unworthy man, as Eliza had done. Lynn had come to her parents, and it was their great good fortune that they were able to help her, Tao Chi’en had said. In China or in Chile, their daughter would be lost, society would have no forgiveness, but in California, a land without tradition, there was room for everyone. The zhong-yi gathered his small family together and told them that the baby was a gift from heaven and that they should await it with joy; tears were bad for karma, they harmed the creature in the mother’s womb and marked it for a life of uncertainty. This infant boy or girl would be welcome. Its uncle Lucky, and he himself, its grandfather, would be worthy substitutes for the absent father. And as for Lynn’s thwarted love, well, they would think about that later. He seemed so enthusiastic about the prospect of being a grandfather that Eliza was embarrassed about her prudish concerns; she dried her tears and never again blamed herself. If to Tao Chi’en the compassion he felt for his daughter counted more than family honor, the same should be true for her, she decided; her duty was to protect Lynn and nothing else mattered. That was what she calmly told Severo del Valle that day in the tearoom. She did not understand the Chilean’s reasons for insisting on speaking with her daughter, but she interceded in his behalf, and finally Lynn agreed to see him. She barely remembered him, but she welcomed him with the hope that he was there as an emissary of Matías.

  During the months that followed, Severo del Valle’s visits to the home of the Chi’ens became a habit. He would come at nightfall, when he was through work, tie his horse in front of the house, and appear, hat in one hand and some gift in the other, until gradually Lynn’s room filled with toys and baby clothes. Tao Chi’en taught him to play mah-jongg, and they spent hours with Eliza and Lynn moving the beautiful ivory tiles. Lucky didn’t join them because to him it seemed a waste of time to play without betting. In contrast, Tao Chi’en played only in the bosom of his family, because in his youth he had sworn never to play for money and he was sure that if he broke that vow he would bring down some misfortune. The Chi’ens became so accustomed to Severo’s presence that when he was late they would consult the clock, worried. Eliza Sommers took advantage of his visits to practice her Spanish and remember Chile, that far-off country she still thought of as her homeland but had not set foot in for more than thirty years. They discussed the details of the war, and political changes. After several decades of conservative governments the liberals had triumphed and the struggle to break the hold of the clergy and enact reforms had divided every Chilean family. Most men, however Catholic they might be, were e
ager to modernize the country, but the women, who were much more religious, turned against their fathers and husbands to defend the Church. As Nívea explained in her letters, no matter how liberal the government, the fate of the poor had not changed, and she added that, as they had forever, upper-class women and the clergy were pulling the strings of power. Separating church and state was no doubt a great step forward, the girl wrote behind the backs of the del Valle clan, which did not tolerate such ideas, but it was still the same families who controlled everything. “Let’s start another political party, Severo, one that seeks justice and equality,” she proposed, fired by her clandestine conversations with Sor María Escapulario.

  In the south of the continent the War of the Pacific raged on, increasingly brutal, while Chilean armies prepared to begin the campaign in the desert of the north, a territory as wild and inhospitable as the moon, where supplying the troops turned out to be a titanic task. The only way to transport soldiers to the places where the battles would be fought was by sea, but the Peruvian navy was not going to permit that. Severo del Valle thought that the war was being won by Chile, whose organization and ferocity seemed unbeatable. It was not just weapons and warlike character that determined the result of a conflict, Severo explained to Eliza Sommers, but the example of a handful of heroic men that could inflame the soul of a nation.

  “I believe that the war was decided in May, señora, in a naval battle just outside the port of Iquique. There an obsolete Chilean frigate held out against a far superior Peruvian force. Arturo Prat was in command, a young, very religious, and rather timid captain who never took part in the revels and escapades of military life and who had distinguished himself so little that his superiors had no confidence in his valor. That day, however, he was converted into the hero who galvanized the spirits of all Chileans.”

  Eliza knew the details; she had read them in an out-of-date copy of the Times of London, in which the episode was described as “one of the most glorious combats that has ever taken place. An antiquated wood ship, on the edge of being unseaworthy, bore up for three and a half hours under bombardment from land and a powerful armor-clad ship, and went down with its banner proudly flying.” The Peruvian vessel, under the command of Admiral Miguel Grau, a hero of his own nation, set a direct course for the Chilean frigate, piercing her with its ram, at which point Captain Prat leapt onto the attacking ship, followed by one of his men. Both died minutes later, shot on the enemy deck. With the second ramming, several more men leapt onto the Peruvian vessel, emulating their captain, and they too were riddled with bullets. Three-quarters of the crew died before the frigate was sunk. Such unimagined heroism transmitted courage to their compatriots and so impressed their enemies that Admiral Grau repeated with amazement, “How those Chileans fight!”

  “Grau is a gentleman. He himself collected Prat’s sword and personal belongings and returned them to his widow,” Severo recounted, and added that after that battle the sacred motto in Chile was “Fight to victory or to death,” as those courageous men had done.

  “And you, Severo, aren’t you planning to go?” Eliza asked.

  “Yes, I will do that very soon,” the young man replied, embarrassed, not knowing why he was waiting to perform his duty. In the meantime, Lynn was growing large without losing a shred of her grace or beauty. She stopped wearing dresses she could no longer fasten and made herself comfortable in the bright silk tunics she bought in Chinatown. She went out very little, despite her father’s insistence that she take walks. Occasionally Severo del Valle picked her up in his carriage and took her for a ride through the Presidio or along the beach, where they would sit on a shawl to picnic and read: he his newspapers and law books and she the romantic novels she didn’t believe in any longer but still read as escape. Severo lived day to day, from one visit with the Chi’ens to the next, with no ambition but to see Lynn. He was no longer writing to Nívea. Many times he had taken pen in hand to confess that he loved another, but he tore up the letters without mailing them because he couldn’t find words to break with his sweetheart without wounding her mortally. Lynn, furthermore, had never given him any sign that would offer hope for imagining a future with her. They never spoke of Matías, just as Matías never referred to Lynn, but the question was always in the air. Severo was careful not to mention his new friendship with the Chi’ens in the home of his aunt and uncle, and he assumed that no one suspected it except the fastidious Williams, whom he did not have to inform since he had learned about it the same way he learned everything that happened in that palatial mansion. Severo had been arriving home late with an idiotic smile on his face for two months when Williams led him to the attic and by the light of a spirit lamp showed him a bulky object covered by sheets. When it was uncovered, Severo saw that it was a gleaming cradle.

  “It is embossed silver. Silver from the del Valle mines in Chile. All the children in this family have slept here. Take it if you wish,” was all he said.

  Paulina del Valle was so embarrassed that she stopped going to the tea shop, unable to paste together the shattered pieces of her long friendship with Eliza Sommers. She had to give up her Chilean pastries, which for years had been her greatest weakness, and resign herself to the French cook in her own kitchen. Her commanding vitality, so useful in sweeping aside obstacles and carrying out projects, now was working against her. Condemned to inaction, she was consumed with impatience, her heart jumping up and down in her chest. “My nerves are killing me, Williams,” she complained, for the first time in her life feeling indisposed. She reasoned that given the fact she had an unfaithful husband and three irresponsible sons, it was more than likely that scattered here and there were a good number of illegitimate children with her blood, and there was no logic in tormenting herself so. Nonetheless, those hypothetical bastards had no name, no face, while this one was right under her nose. If only it hadn’t been Lynn Sommers! She couldn’t forget the visit of Eliza and that Chinese person whose name she couldn’t remember; the vision of that dignified couple in her sitting room was very painful to her. Matías had seduced the girl—no subtlety of logic or convenience could refute the truth that her intuition had accepted from the first moment. Her son’s denials and his sarcastic comments about Lynn’s questionable virtue had merely reinforced her conviction. The baby that girl was carrying in her womb invoked a hurricane of ambivalent sentiments: on the one hand, a mute rage against Matías, and on the other, an inevitable tenderness for that first grandchild. The minute Feliciano returned from his trip, she told him the news.

  “These things happen all the time, Paulina, no need to make a tragedy of it. Half the kids in California are bastards. The important thing is to avoid scandal and close ranks around Matías. The family comes first.” Feliciano’s opinion was clear.

  “That baby is our family,” she argued.

  “It isn’t even born yet, and you’re already taking it in! I know that Miss Lynn Sommers. I saw her posing nude in the sculptor’s studio, exhibiting herself in the middle of a circle of men. Any one of them might be her lover. Can’t you see that?”

  “You’re the one who can’t see, Feliciano.”

  “I see that this could turn into blackmail that never ends. I forbid you to have the slightest contact with those people, and if they come anywhere near here, I will handle the matter,” was Feliciano’s lightning conclusion.

  From that day forward, Paulina never mentioned the subject before her son or her husband, but she could not keep it all to herself and ended by confiding in the faithful Williams, who had the virtue of listening to the end and not giving his opinion unless it was requested. If she could help Lynn Sommers, she would feel a little better, Paulina thought, but for once her fortune would not solve anything.

  Those months were disastrous for Matías. Not only did the difficulty with Lynn stir up his bile, the pain in his joints had increased so markedly that he could not practice his fencing and he also had to give up other sports. He woke in such suffering that he wondered if t
he time hadn’t come to consider suicide, an idea he had nourished ever since he had learned the name of his illness, but once he got out of bed and began to move around he felt better, and his gusto for life would return with new vigor. His wrists and knees swelled, his hands trembled, and the opium he smoked in Chinatown ceased to be a diversion and became a necessity. It was Amanda Lowell—his best companion in dissipation and his only confidante—who taught him the advantages of injecting morphine: more effective, cleaner, and more elegant than a pipe of opium. A minimal dose, and instantly his agony would disappear and give way to peace. The scandal of the bastard on the way ceased to depress him, and by midsummer he suddenly announced that he was sailing for Europe within a few days to see whether a change of air, the thermal waters of Italy, and English physicians could alleviate his symptoms. He did not add that he planned to meet Amanda Lowell in New York and continue the journey with her, because her name was never spoken in the family, where the memory of the redheaded Scotswoman guaranteed Feliciano indigestion and Paulina apoplectic rage. It was not just his physical discomfort and his wish to get away from Lynn Sommers that motivated Matías’s precipitous voyage; there was also the matter of new gambling debts, learned of soon after his departure when a pair of circumspect Chinese appeared in Feliciano’s office to advise him, with extreme courtesy, that either he paid the amount his son owed them, including the interest, or something frankly disagreeable would happen to some member of his honorable family. As answer, the magnate had them thrown out of his office and then called Jacob Freemont, the journalist, who was an expert on the underworld of the city. Freemont listened with sympathy—he was a good friend of Matías—and then went with Feliciano to call upon the chief of police, an Australian with a murky reputation who owed him certain favors, to ask him to resolve the matter in his own way. “The only way I know is to pay,” the officer replied, and explained that no one opposed the tongs of Chinatown. He had had to collect gutted bodies with their viscera neatly packed in a box beside them. Of course, those were retributions among the Celestials themselves, he added; with whites they at least tried to make it look like an accident. Hadn’t Feliciano noticed how many people died in unexplained fires, trampled by horses in a deserted street, drowned in the quiet waters of the bay, or crushed by bricks that in some puzzling way fell from a building under construction? Feliciano Rodríguez de Santa Cruz paid.