The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online Page B

the trouble. The world and their family were already in enough turmoil as it was to have to go chasing governesses across seas and continents; a few diamonds more or less did not weigh much in the balance of Alma’s life.
    â€œMy bridge companions tell me there’s a wonderful child psychologist in San Francisco,” Lillian said to her husband when she learned of her niece’s suffering.
    â€œAnd what might that be?” asked the patriarch, raising his eyes from his newspaper for an instant.
    â€œThe name says it all, Isaac, don’t pretend you don’t understand.”
    â€œDo any of your friends know anyone with a child so disturbed they’ve had to turn to a psychologist?”
    â€œNo doubt they do, Isaac, but they’d never in their lives admit it.”
    â€œChildhood is a naturally unhappy period of our existence, Lillian. It was Walt Disney who invented the notion that it has to be happy, simply to make money.”
    â€œYou’re so stubborn! We can’t let Alma sob her heart out forever. We have to do something.”
    â€œAll right, Lillian. We’ll resort to that extreme if all else fails. For now, you could give Alma a few drops of your mixture at night.”
    â€œI’m not sure, Isaac. That’s a double-edged sword. We don’t want to turn the girl into an opium addict so early in her life.”
    They were still debating the relative merits of the psychologist and the opium when they realized that for three nights now there had been no sound from the wardrobe. They listened for another couple of nights and were able to confirm that for some unknown reason the girl had calmed down, and not only slept the whole night but had begun to eat like any normal child. Alma had not forgotten her parents or her brother, and still wanted the family to be reunited as soon as possible, but she was running out of tears and was starting to enjoy her burgeoning friendship with the two people who were to become her life’s only loves: Nathaniel Belasco and Ichimei Fukuda. Nathaniel was about to turn thirteen and was the Belascos’ youngest child. Like her, Ichimei was almost eight, and he was the gardener’s youngest son.
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    The Belascos’ two daughters, Martha and Sarah, lived in such a different world from Alma, concerned only with fashion, parties, and potential boyfriends, that whenever they bumped into her in the nooks and crannies of the Sea Cliff mansion or during the rare formal dinners in the dining room, they were startled, as if unable to recall who this little girl was or what she was doing there. Nathaniel on the other hand could not ignore her, because Alma followed him around from the very first day, determined to replace her beloved brother, Samuel, with this shy cousin. Even though he was five years older, he was the closest to her in age of the Belasco clan, and the most approachable due to his gentle disposition. In Nathaniel she aroused a mixture of fascination and dread. To him she seemed to have stepped out of an old-fashioned photograph, with her grave demeanor and the pretentious British accent she had learned from her devious governess. She was as stiff and angular as a board, smelled of the mothballs from her traveling trunks, and had a defiant white lock that fell over her forehead and contrasted strongly with the rest of her black hair and her olive complexion. At first, Nathaniel tried to escape, but when nothing managed to deter Alma’s clumsy attempts to become friends, he surrendered. He had inherited his father’s kind heart and could intuit his cousin’s secret pain, which she proudly concealed. Still, he found a variety of excuses to avoid helping her. She was a little brat, she wasn’t a close relative, she was only in San Francisco for a while, and it would be a waste of time to become friends with her. After three weeks had gone by with no sign that his cousin’s visit might be coming to an