Chapter One
Europe 1500-1537
I am Inés Suárez, a townswoman of the loyal city of Santiago
de Nueva Extremadura in the Kingdom of Chile, writing in the
year of Our Lord 1580. I am not sure of the exact date of my
birth, but according to my mother I was born following the
famine and deadly plague that ravaged Spain upon the death of
Philip the Handsome. I do not believe that the death of the
king provoked the plague, as people said as they watched the
progress of the funeral cortège, which left the odor of bitter
almonds floating in the air for days, but one never knows.
Queen Juana, still young and beautiful, traveled across
Castile for more than two years, carrying her husband’s
catafalque from one side of the country to the other, opening
it from time to time to kiss her husband’s lips, hoping that
he would revive.
Despite the embalmer’s emollients, The Handsome stank. When I
came into the world, the unlucky queen, by then royally
insane, was secluded in the palace at Tordesillas with the
corpse of her consort. That means that my heart has beaten for
at least seventy winters, and that I am destined to die before
this Christmas. I could say that a Gypsy on the shores of the
Río Jerte divined the date of my death, but that would be one
of those untruths one reads in a book and then, because it is
in print, appears to be true. All the Gypsy did was predict a
long life for me, which they always do in return for a coin.
It is my reckless heart that tells me that the end is near.
I always knew that I would die an old woman, in peace and in
my bed, like all the women of my family. That is why I never
hesitated to confront danger, since no one is carried off to
the other world before the appointed hour. “You will be dying
a little old woman, I tell you, señorayyy,” Catalina would
reassure me-her pleasant Peruvian Spanish trailing out the
word-when the obstinate galloping hoof beats I felt in my
chest drove me to the ground. I have forgotten Catalina’s
Quechua name, and now it is too late to ask because I buried
her in the patio of my house many years ago, but I have
absolute faith in the precision and veracity of her
prophecies. Catalina entered my service in the ancient city of
Cuzco, the jewel of the Incas, during the era of Francisco
Pizarro, that fearless bastard who, if one listens to loose
tongues, once herded pigs in Spain and ended up as the Marqués
Gobernador of Peru, crushed by his ambition and multiple
betrayals.
Such are the ironies of this new world of the Americas, where
traditional laws have no bearing, and society is completely
scrambled: saints and sinners, Whites, Blacks, Browns,
Indians, Mestizos, nobles, and peasants. Any one among us can
find himself in chains, branded with red-hot iron, and the
next day be elevated by a turn of fortune. I have lived more
than forty years in the New World and still I am not
accustomed to the lack of order, though I myself have
benefited from it. Had I stayed in the town of my birth I
would today be an old, old woman, poor, and blind from tatting
so much lace by the light of a candle. There I would be Inés,
the seamstress on the street of the aqueduct. Here I am doña
Inés Suárez, a highly placed señora, widow of The Most
Excellent Gobernador don Rodrigo de Quiroga, conquistador and
founder of the Kingdom of Chile.
So, I am at least seventy years old, as I was saying, years
well-lived, but my soul and my heart, still caught in a
fissure of my youth, wonder what devilish thing has happened
to my body. When I look at myself in my silver mirror,
Rodrigo’s first gift to me when we were wed, I do not
recognize the grandmother with a crown of white hair who looks
back at me. Who is that person mocking the true Inés? I look
more closely, with the hope of finding in the depths of the
mirror the girl with braids and scraped knees I once was, the
young girl who escaped to the back gardens to make love, the
mature and passionate woman who slept wrapped in Rodrigo de
Quiroga’s arms. They are all crouching back there, I am sure,
but I cannot seem to see them. I do not ride my mare any
longer, or wear my coat of mail and my sword, but it is not
for lack of spirit-that I have always had more than enough
of-it is only because my body has betrayed me. I have very
little strength, my joints hurt, my bones are icy, and my
sight is hazy. Without my scribe’s spectacles, which I had
sent from Peru, I would not be able to write these pages. I
wanted to go with Rodrigo-may God hold him in his Holy
Bosom-in his last battle against the Mapuche nation, but he
would not let me. He laughed. “You are very old for that,
Inés.” “No more than you,” I replied, although that wasn’t
true, he was several younger than I. We believed we would
never see each other again but we made our good-byes without
tears, certain that we would be reunited in the next life. I
had known for some time that Rodrigo’s days were numbered,
even though he did everything he could to hide it. He never
complained, but bore the pain with clenched teeth, and only
the cold sweat on his brow betrayed his suffering.
He was feverish when he set off, and had a suppurating pustule
on one leg that all my remedies and prayers had not cured. He
was going to fulfil his desire to die like a soldier, in the
heat of combat, not flat on his back in bed like an old man.
I, on the other hand, wanted to be with him to hold his head
at that last instant, and to tell him how much I cherished the
love he had lavished on me throughout our long lives.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Ines of My Soul
by Isabel Allende
Copyright © 2006 by Isabel Allende.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
HarperCollins
Copyright © 2006
Isabel Allende
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-06-116153-5
