The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online

talents and, spurred on by circumstances, developed unknown strengths, ripening into the larger-than-life woman who was such an influence in Gregory’s childhood. When she walked into a house she had only to sniff the air for a few seconds to absorb the climate, feel the invisible presences, capture the signs of misfortune, divine the dreams, hear the whispers of the dead, and comprehend the needs of the living. She soon learned that life stories repeat themselves over and over, with very few variations; people are all very much alike, they experience love, hatred, greed, suffering, happiness, and fear in the same ways. Black, white, yellow, as Nora Reeves used to say, we are all the same under the skin; the crystal ball is blind to color, but not to pain. Everyone wanted to hear the same good fortune, not because they thought it was possible but because by merely imagining it they felt better. Olga also discovered that there are only two kinds of illness: those that are fatal and those that heal themselves in their proper time. She would pull out her vials of many-colored sugar pills, her bag of herbs, and her box of amulets to sell health to those who could be cured, convinced that if the patient set his mind to getting well, most likely that was what would happen. People had more confidence in her than in the impersonal surgeons in the hospitals. She was not legally qualified for most of the operations she performed—abortions, tooth extractions, stitching up wounds—but she had a good eye and good hand, so that she never got in serious trouble. One glance was all she needed to see the signs of death, and in that case she never prescribed a treatment, partly because of scruples and partly not to damage her reputation as a healer. Her experience in treating the infirm did not help in the case of Charles Reeves; she was too close to him, and if she saw fatal symptoms, she did not want to admit it.
    Whether out of pride or fear, the preacher refused to see a doctor, prepared to overcome his suffering by pure obstinacy; after the day he fainted, however, what little authority he could claim passed into Olga’s hands. They were on the eastern edge of Los Angeles, where there was a large Latin population, and Olga made the decision to drive Reeves to the hospital. In those days the atmosphere of the city already radiated a certain Mexican flavor despite its uniquely American obsession with living in perfect health, beauty, and happiness. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants were putting their stamp on the place: their scorn for pain and death, their poverty, fatalism, and distrust, their violent passions, but also their music, highly spiced food, and exuberant sense of color. Hispanics were banished to a ghetto, but their influence was borne on the air; they did not belong to the country and, superficially at least, seemed not to want to belong, but secretly they hoped their sons and daughters would be integrated. They half-learned English and transformed it into a Spanglish so deeply rooted that with time it became accepted as the Chicano tongue. Bound to their Catholic tradition and cult of the soul, to a musty patriotism and machismo, they did not assimilate; they were doomed for two or three generations to the most humble service jobs. North Americans thought of them as undesirable people, unpredictable and dangerous, and many protested—Why the hell can’t they stop them from crossing the border? What are the damn police for?—but they hired them as cheap labor and kept a sharp eye on them. The immigrants assumed their marginal role in the society with a measure of pride: bowed, yes, but never broken, hermano. Olga had visited the barrio more than once and felt at home there. Brazenly she rattled off Spanish, scarcely aware that half her vocabulary was formed of invented words. She felt the barrio was a place where she could earn a living from her art.
    They drove the truck to the door of the