Paula

Paula Summary | Part 1, Pages 3 -19 Summary

Isabel Allende is a native of Chile, her father a cousin of Salvador Allende. At the beginning of this non-fiction work, we are told by the author that her adult daughter Paula is critically ill in a hospital in Spain. The author has joined her side. Initially, her daughter slips in and out of consciousness from complications of porphyria.

In order to pass the time, the writer, who has written many successful novels, is encouraged to write a novel or some factual accounts of the family history while she is sitting by her daughter's side. She is writing this book as though it is a letter to her daughter, one she hopes Paula will read when she recovers from her illness. Rather than having chapters, the book simply continues on much like a diary. In the early entries, the author goes back and forth between her own family history and the day-to-day events that occur at the hospital.

Ms. Allende starts by making it clear that her mother's side of the family descended from men who migrated to Chile from the Basque area of Spain. Due to intelligence, a drive to succeed and some good choices in business investments, each generation improves the fortunes of the family. Isabel's grandfather had been very poor as a young man, as his father died while he was still a teenager. Isabel's grandparents on her mother's side of the family work hard to become rich and well placed in society. Ms. Allende focuses first on her grandparents who were always there for her. Her grandmother was a very spiritual person who saw visions of dead people and claimed to have some psychic abilities. Most people in the family believed the grandmother, nicknamed Memé, or simply tolerated her spirituality. Memé believed in a natural approach to life, including keeping chickens and goats about the courtyard, even though they lived in the city of Santiago. The household made foods such as plum jam from trees in the yard. Memé would wake and speak of her own dreams as prophecies.

The grandfather was called Tata. Ms. Allende writes that her grandparents had a whirlwind courtship as Tata fell in love with Memé at first sight. Memé was the youngest of twelve children and very young when they married. Tata owned land east of the Andes on which he raised sheep. The family also had a second home on the ocean in the far south of Chile where the family would vacation every summer. Isabel's mother was the only daughter with several brothers. The home in Santiago housed several generations of family members. The men would leave on business matters for long periods of time, leaving Memé in charge.

Isabel's mother was a beautiful young lady who was courted by many members of the elite society once she became a teenager. She had led a sheltered life. She was educated at a girls' Catholic school. Her first love was Tomás Allende, first cousin of Salvador Allende. There were

rumors that Tomás liked to party and gamble and there was even a whispered rumor of an illegitimate child. However, he swept Isabel's mother off of her feet. Grandfather Tata took the family to Spain to spend time in Europe, hoping Paula's mother would find a handsome new suitor and forget Allende. Unfortunately, just as the ship landed, World War II broke out in Europe. They were forced to scramble to return home on a tramp steamer in order to get away from war. Once they got home, Tomás Allende presented himself to Paula's mother and they were soon married.

Through family connections, Allende received the appointment of secretary to the Chilean embassy in Peru. Thus, the new bride began marriage in a new country without any family there to help. She became pregnant with Isabel on the honeymoon. As the wife of a government official, she was expected to entertain, in spite of her duties as a new mother. Her mother, Memé, sensed her daughter needed her and she arrived just in time for Isabel's delivery. At that time, Isabel's mother was kept apart from the baby in the hospital. She was so distressed at the separation and the unfamiliarity of the hospital, that Isabel's mother and Memé snuck into the nursery of the hospital, grabbed the baby, and left before they were absolutely sure they had the right baby. Thus began the family joke about whether Isabel was really a blood relative.

Over several years, Tomas Allende had managed to finagle and maintain a station above himself by providing wine, women and gambling to other men in society in Peru. He kept an apartment for assignations of others and even had a two-way mirror so that he could guarantee what he wanted by blackmail, if necessary. However, one of the assignations proved disastrous for those involved and caused such a scandal that Tomás was forced to go into hiding.

Isabel was three years old and her brother was barely a toddler when their mother gave birth at home, unable to afford the hospital.

The Chilean embassy sent over an official to discretely assist Mrs. Allende and her children pack for the return to Chile. The man was Ramόn, later known by the children as Tío Ramόn. With the exception of Salvador Allende, Isabel never saw her father or any of his side of the family again. Isabel and her mother and brothers returned to Santiago to move back in with Memé and Tata. Ramón had fallen in love with Isabel's mother. He began a long process of leaving his wife and eventually would come to be the father figure who raised Paula.