Read Online Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende - Free Book Online Page A

Beltrán had prophesied that one day his coconut-knocking machine would be useful, and time proved him right.
    That was a trying period for Beatriz and her husband. Eusebio wanted to make a clean break and remove himself forever from his nagging wife, who was always harrying him with the same old tune, but she refused, with little reason other than the desire to torment him and to prevent his establishing a new relationship with one of her rivals. She argued that they needed to provide a stable home environment for Irene. Before causing my daughter any pain, she said, you will have to walk over my dead body. Her husband was at the point of doing just that, but tried instead to buy his freedom. On three occasions he offered Beatriz a large sum of money if she would allow him to leave in peace, and three times she accepted but at the last minute, when the lawyers had prepared the papers and all that was missing was the binding signature, she reneged. Their constant battles fortified her hatred. For this, and a thousand sentimental reasons, Irene did not weep for her father. She had no doubt that he had fled to free himself of his attachments, his debts, and his wife.
    When Francisco Leal knocked at the door, Irene came to welcome him accompanied by Cleo, who was barking around her feet. She had prepared for the trip with a shawl over her shoulders, a kerchief over her head, and her tape recorder in her hands.
    â€œDo you know where this saint lives?” he asked.
    â€œIn Los Riscos, an hour from here.”
    They left the dog in the house, climbed on the motorcycle, and set out. It was a brilliant, warm, and cloudless morning.
    *  *  *
    They rode across the entire city, through the shaded streets of the exclusive neighborhoods with their lush trees and lordly mansions, the gray, noisy middle-class zone, and the wide cordons of misery. As they flew along, Francisco Leal thought about Irene, whom he could feel pressed against his back. The first time he had seen her, eleven months before that fateful spring, he thought she had escaped from a tale about pirates and princesses; to him she seemed a marvel that no one else could perceive. At that time he had been looking for work outside his profession. His private consulting room was always empty, producing large expenses and no earnings. He had also been suspended from his appointment at the University when the School of Psychology was closed for being a hotbed of pernicious ideas. He had spent months applying at every school, hospital, and industry, with no result except growing discouragement, until he was convinced that his years of study and his foreign doctorate would be of no use in the new society. It was not that suddenly all human wants had been resolved and the country peopled with happy citizens but, rather, that the rich did not suffer from problems of basic existence and the others, even though they might need him desperately, could not pay for the luxury of psychological therapy. They gritted their teeth and endured in silence.
    The life of Francisco Leal, bright with good omens in adolescence, seemed, as he completed his second decade, a failure in the eyes of any impartial observer, and even more in his own. For a while, he drew consolation and strength from his clandestine practice, but soon it became essential for him to contribute to the family income. Stringency in the Leal household was rapidly becoming poverty. He managed to keep his emotions under control until it was clear that all doors were closed to him; then one night his serenity deserted him and he broke down in the kitchen as his mother was preparing dinner. Seeing him in that state, she dried her hands on her apron, removed the stew from the stove, and put her arms around him as she had when he was a boy.
    â€œPsychology isn’t the only thing in the world, son. Wipe your nose and look for something else,” she said.
    Until then it had not occurred to Francisco to change