Paula by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online Page A

something North Americans invented later. It was believed that life was hard, and it was therefore good for us to temper our nerves. Didactic methods were based on endurance; the more inhuman tests a child survived, the better prepared he would be to face the hazards of adulthood. I admit that I suffered no ill effects and that if I had conformed with that tradition I would have martyred my own children and now be doing the same with my grandson—but I am too softhearted. Some summer Sundays, the whole family would go to San Cristobal, a hill in the center of Santiago that used to be a wilderness but today is a park. Sometimes Salvador and Tencha Allende came along with their three daughters and their dogs. Allende was already a well-known politician, the most aggressive deputy on the Left and the target of the Right’s odium, but to us he was just another uncle. We would struggle up the faintly marked trails through weeds and tall grasses, burdened down with baskets and wool shawls. Once there, we looked for an open space with a view of the city below—just as I would do during the military coup twenty years later, but for very different reasons—and kept an eye on the picnic, defending pieces of chicken, boiled eggs, and turnovers from the dogs and the invincible advance of the ants. The adults would rest while we cousins hid in the bushes to play doctor. From time to time you could hear the distant roar of a lion from the zoo on the other side of the hill. Once a week they used to feed them live animals, so that the excitement of the hunt and charge of adrenaline would keep them healthy: the big cats devoured an ancient burro, the boas gorged on mice, and the hyenas feasted on rabbits. Everyone said that was where all the dogs and cats from the pound ended up, and that there was a long list of people waiting for an invitation to watch that bone-chilling spectacle. I dreamed of the poor creatures thrust into the cages with the great carnivores, and writhed in anguish thinking of the early Christians in the Roman coliseum; I knew in my heart that if I was asked to choose between renouncing my faith and becoming lunch for a Bengal tiger, heresy would win hands down. After we ate we would run back down the hill, pushing and shoving, and rolling down the steepest part. Salvador Allende always took the lead with his dogs, and his daughter Carmen Paz and I were always the last, reaching the bottom with scraped hands and knees after all the others had grown tired of waiting for us. Except for those Sundays, and summer vacations, life was all sacrifice and hard work. Those were very difficult years for my mother; she had to contend with poverty, gossip, and the snubs of people who had been her friends. Her salary at the bank was barely pin money, and she rounded it out by making hats. It seems I can see her now at the dining table—the same Spanish oak table I use today as a desk in California—trying out various velvets, ribbons, and silk flowers. She would ship the hats off in round boxes to Lima, where they ended up adorning the heads of the cream of Peruvian society. Even so, she could not have survived without help from Tata and Uncle Pablo. In school, I was given a scholarship that depended on my grades. I don’t know how she obtained it, but it must have cost more than one humiliation. She spent hours standing in line in hospitals with my brother Juan who, thanks to Margara’s wooden spoon, had learned to swallow, but who suffered horrible intestinal upsets and had become a case study for doctors until Margara discovered he was eating toothpaste and cured him with a razor strap. My mother was truly overwhelmed by her responsibilities; she suffered unendurable headaches that kept her in bed for two or three days at a time, leaving her completely sapped. She worked hard and long but had little control over her life or those of her children. Margara, who gradually grew into an absolute tyrant,