Zorro by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online

her daughter’s, was framed by an untamed mop of smoke-colored hair, to which she owed her name. She came in without asking permission, pushed Alejandro de la Vega aside when he attempted to find out who she was, walked straight through the complicated layout of the mansion, and stopped at her daughter’s bed.
    She called her by her true name, Toypurnia, and spoke to her in the tongue of their ancestors, until the dying woman opened her eyes. Then from her pouch she took the medicinal herbs needed to save her, boiled them in a clay olla over the brazier that warmed the room, and gave them to her to drink. The entire house was saturated with the odor of sage.
    In the meantime, Ana, with her habitual good nature, had taken Regina’s child, whimpering with hunger, to her breast; thus Diego and Bernardo, Ana’s son, began their lives with the same milk and in the same arms.
    That made them milk brothers for as long as they lived.
    Once White Owl found that her daughter could stand, and that she could eat without being nauseated, she put her plants and belongings back into her pouch, took one look at Diego and Bernardo, who were sleeping side by side in the same cradle without showing the least sign that she was curious about which of the two was her grandson and left without a good-bye. Alejandro de la Vega watched her go with great relief. He was grateful that she had saved Regina from certain death, but he was happier to be grateful from a distance; he felt uncomfortable under that woman’s influence, and worse, the Indians on the ranch were becoming insolent. They appeared for work in the morning with faces streaked with paint, at night they danced like sleepwalkers to the sound of mournful ocarinas, and in general they ignored his orders as if they had lost their Spanish.
    Normality returned to the hacienda at the same rate that Regina recovered her health. By the following spring, everyone except Alejandro de la Vega had forgotten that Regina had had one foot in the grave. It did not require medical training to deduce that she could not have any more children. Without his realizing, this knowledge began to come between Alejandro and his wife as he turned his devotion to Diego. He had dreamed of a large family, like those of other dons in the region. One of his friends had fathered thirty-six legitimate children in addition to the bastards that he didn’t bother to count. He had twenty children from his first marriage in Mexico, and sixteen from the second, the last five born in Alta California, one per year. The fear that something bad would happen to that one irreplaceable son, as it did to so many small children who died before they learned to walk, kept de la Vega awake at night. He formed the habit of praying aloud, kneeling beside his son’s bed, crying out to heaven to watch over him.
    Emotionless, arms folded across her breast, Regina observed her humbled husband from the doorway. In those moments she thought she despised him, but later, in bed, surrounded by the warmth and scents of their intimacy, they found a shortlived reconciliation. At dawn Alejandro dressed and went down to his office, where an Indian girl served him his hot chocolate, thick and bitter the way he liked it. He began the day by meeting with his foreman to give him instructions about the ranch, then turned to his multiple duties as alcalde. Husband and wife spent the day apart, in their own occupations, until sunset marked the hour to meet again. In summer they dined on the terrace of the bougainvillea, always accompanied by musicians playing their favorite songs. In winter they ate in the Sewing Room, where no one had ever sewed on so much as a button; the name came from a painting of a Dutch woman embroidering by the light of a candle. Often Alejandro stayed overnight in Pueblo de los Angeles because it grew late at a fiesta, or because he was playing cards with other dons. The round of dances, cards, musical evenings, and get-tog ethers