Authors: Isabel Allende
The Infinite Plan (52 page)
“Well, I've been fucked over for sure this time. I don't have any more credit at the banks, and I can't pay my debts. I have no choice but to declare bankruptcy,” I told my friends.
“Everything that really matters is safe from this crisis, Greg. You're losing material things; you'll come out with everything else intact,” Ming replied, and she was right, as always.
“I guess I'll have to begin all over again,” I muttered, but with a strange feeling of euphoria.
Life is irony added to irony. When I saw my family disintegrating and eliminated many other relationships from my life, I lost my terror of being alone. Then when I saw the house of cards of my law firm collapsing and was wiped out, I experienced true security for the first time. And now, just when I had stopped looking for a companion, you appeared and compelled me to plant the rosebushes in solid ground. I realized that in my heart money had never interested me as much as I wanted to believe; the acquisitive goals I set in the hospital in Hawaii were wrongheaded, and deep inside I had always suspected that. I was not deceived by my supposed triumphs; the truth is that all my life I had been pursued by a vague sensation of failure. It took me an eternity, nevertheless, to learn that the more I accumulated, the more vulnerable I was, because I live in a world where the opposite message is drummed into us. Tremendous lucidity is requiredâCarmen has itânot to fall into that trap. I did not have it, and I had to sink to the very bottom to obtain it. At the moment my world caved in on me, when I had nothing left, I discovered I didn't feel depressed, I felt free. I realized that the most important thing was not, as I had imagined, to survive or be successful; the most important thing was the search for my soul, which I had left behind in the quicksand of my childhood. When I found it, I learned that the power I had wasted such desperate energy to gain had always been inside me. I was reconciled with myself, I accepted myself with a touch of kindness, and then, and only then, was rewarded with my first glimpse of peace. I think that was the precise instant I became aware of who I truly am, and at last felt in control of my destiny.
Monday I arrived at the office early in order to clear up some final details. I was met with a bouquet of red roses on my desk and the complicitous smiles of Tina Faibich and Mike Tong, who were there even before me.
“We don't have Sir Francis Drake's treasure, but I did arrange some credit,” my accountant announced, twisting his tie, which he always does when he's nervous.
“What do you mean, Mike?”
“I took the liberty of calling your friend Carmen Morales in Rome. She is lending us a large sum of money. And I have an uncle who is a banker, and he's agreed to give us a loan. With that to go on, we can negotiate. If we declare bankruptcy, no one will get a penny; it's to your creditor's advantage to work out terms with us and be patient.”
“I don't have any collateral.”
“Among Chinese, your word of honor is enough. Carmen said that you had bankrolled her since she was six years old and that she's just lending you a hand in return.”
“More debts, Mike?”
“We're used to it; what's one more stripe to the tiger?”
“You mean we keep up the fight!” I smiled, aware that this time it would be on my own terms.
You know the rest, because we've lived it together. The night we met, you asked me to tell you my story. It's very long, I warned you. That's all right, I have a lot of time, you said, not suspecting what you were getting into when you walked into this infinite plan.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .
Isabel Allende on Destiny, Personal Tragedy, and Writing
A Conversation with Isabel Allende
Excerpt:
Island Beneath the Sea
Have You Read?
More by Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende on Destiny, Personal Tragedy, and Writing
Photo by © William Gordon
“Life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.” Can you describe that noise, what it is, and what it means to you?
We have very busy livesâor we make them very busy. There is noise and activity everywhere. Few people know how to be still and find a quiet place inside themselves. From that place of silence and stillness the creative forces emerge. There we find faith, hope, strength, and wisdom. Since childhood, however, we are taught to do things. Our heads are full of noise. Silence and solitude scare most of us.
You often talk and write about destiny. What is destiny for you?
We are born with a set of cards and we have the freedom to play them the best we can, but we cannot change them. I was born female in the forties into a conservative Catholic family in Chile. I was born healthy. I had my shots as a child. I received love and a proper education. All that determines who I am. The really important events in my life happened in spite of me. I had no control over them: the fact that my father left the family when I was three; the 1973 military coup in Chile that forced me into exile; meeting my husband Willie; the success of my books; the death of my daughter; and so forth. That is destiny.
“
The really important events in my life happened in spite of me. I had no control over them.
”
Just before your daughter, Paula, went into a coma, she said, “I look everywhere for God but can't find him.” Do you, can you, have faith in God after such a tragedy?
Faith has nothing to do with being happy or not. Faith is a gift. Some people receive it and some don't. I imagine that a tragedy like losing a child is more bearable if you believe in God because you can imagine that your child is in heaven.
Do you think that fiction has a moral purpose? Or can it simply be entertainment?
It can be just entertainment, but when fiction makes you think, it is much more exciting. However, beware of authors who pound their “moral messages” into you.
You have written letters all your life, most notably a daily letter to your mother. You've also worked as a journalist. Which form or experience of writing helped you most when you started writing books?
The training of writing daily is very useful. As a journalist I learned to research, to be disciplined, to meet deadlines, to be precise and direct, and to keep in mind the reader and try to grab his or her attention from the very beginning.
Does writing each book change you?
Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul. Why do I write only about certain themes and certain characters? Because they are part of my life, part of myself, they are aspects of me that I need to explore and understand.
“
Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.
”
You always start writing on January 8th, but when do you finish? How long does it take you to write your books?
I write approximately a book per year, but it takes me several years to research a theme. It takes me three or four months to write the first draft, then I have to correct and edit. I write in Spanish, so I also have to work closely with my English translator, Margaret Sayers Peden. And then I have to spend time on book tours, interviews, traveling, et cetera.
Do you have a favorite among your books?
I don't read my own books. As soon as I finish one I am already thinking of the next. I can hardly remember each book. I don't have a favorite, but I am grateful to my first novel,
The House of the Spirits,
which paved the way for all the others, and to
Paula,
because it saved me from depression.
“
I don't read my own books. As soon as I finish one I am already thinking of the next.
”
You grew up in Chile but now live in the United States. Which country has had the most influence on your writing and why?
It is very easy for me to write about Chile. I don't have to think about it. The stories just flow. My roots are in Chile and most of my books have a Latin American flavor. However, I have lived in the United States for many years, I read mainly English fiction, I live in English, and certainly that influences my writing.
A Conversation with Isabel Allende
Which of your male characters do you like best? Remember that Flaubert said
, “Madame Bovary, c'est moi!”
Gregory Reeves, in
The Infinite Plan.
I like him so much that in real life, I married him some years ago, and not even marriage has made me stop liking him.
The Infinite Plan
is based on the life of your husband, William Gordon. How much is fiction and how much reality?
I don't honestly know. I think all my books, with the exception of
Eva Luna
and a few stories, are much more reality than fiction. In
The Infinite Plan
, the characters are based on human models, and nearly everything that happens is real. Sometimes I needed two people to create a character, as was the case with Carmen/Tamar. The models were Carmen Alvarez, a childhood friend of Willie's, and Tabra Tunoa, my good friend, who gave me her biography to use for Tamar. Gregory Reeves was very easy, since Willie was the model. . . . I didn't have to invent the character; it was there, waiting for me. No need to exhaust my imagination.
“
In
The Infinite Plan
, the characters are based on human models, and nearly everything that happens is real.
”
What was Willie's reaction when he read the book? Weren't you afraid he would be horrified to find himself exposed in those pages, with all his problems and faults?
My mother said it would lead to a divorce, but none of it was a surprise to him because we had discussed each chapter. When I met him and he began to tell me the story of his life, I knew I had to write it, and I think that was why I fell so quickly and deeply in love. From the very beginning, I told him what I had in mind; there was nothing hidden. I spent four years sleeping with that story, checking details, asking questions, visiting the places where events had occurred, interviewing dozens of people. When he read the book, Willie told me, he was deeply moved: “This is a map of my life; now I understand where I've been.” The danger with that, of course, is that now he thinks he's Gregory Reeves and goes around worrying about who will play him in the film. He thinks Paul Newman is a little short. . . .
“
When I met [Willie] and he began to tell me the story of his life, I knew I had to write it, and I think that was why I fell so quickly and deeply in love.
”
Taken from
Isabel Allende: Life and Spirits
, Celia Correas Zapata, Arte Publico Press, 2002