“What is your connection to the Del Valles?” Miss Taylor asked Teresa.

  “None. I went to the party with my brother, Roberto, the magician. Remember him?”

  “Your brother is fantastic!” exclaimed Miss Taylor.

  “Magic is only a hobby; no one can earn a living swallowing swords and making bunnies disappear.”

  * * *

  —

  Teresa lit a burner to boil water and served us tea in chipped cups, mine with sugar and Josephine’s with a shot of cheap aguardiente. They smoked dark, bitter cigarettes, which according to Teresa cleansed the lungs. She told us that her parents were both teachers in a southern province, which she and her brother had left as soon as they could—him to study at the university and she in search of adventure. She told us she’d never felt comfortable in her parents’ environment, defining herself as bohemian. Her father had contracted the Spanish influenza years before and survived, but he’d had trouble with his lungs ever since.

  “My parents recently retired. Teachers are paid next to nothing here, Jo. The new pension system was implemented too late for them to benefit, and they didn’t have any savings, so they moved out into the country, where they don’t need much to live, and now teach classes for free. I’d like to help them, but I’m a lost cause—I barely make enough to eat. Roberto, on the other hand, will have a good career and he’s a responsible and generous son; he’ll have to support my parents.”

  Teresa explained to Miss Taylor that her brother had entered military service at a young age, which had delayed his studies, but that in a few years he would graduate as an agricultural specialist. He studied during the day and worked as a waiter at night and a magician whenever he had a chance. Teresa had a job as an operator with the National Telephone Company.

  “Of course, I can’t turn up there dressed like a man,” she added, laughing.

  She showed us a few photos of her parents, taken in the town square, and one of her brother as a new recruit in uniform, a clean-shaven boy who looked nothing like the entertaining mustached magician we’d seen at the party.

  Many years later, in her old age, Josephine Taylor would tell me how that afternoon she and Teresa had cemented a friendship that would transform her life. Her only sexual experience had been the rapes and beatings from that British officer in her adolescence, which had left scars on her body and mind, as well as a profound rejection of all physical intimacy. The notion of sexual pleasure was inconceivable to her, and maybe for this reason she didn’t know how to interpret José Antonio’s attentions. With Teresa she discovered love and was able to cultivate sensuality, something she didn’t even know existed. At thirty-one years old, she still maintained a rare innocence.

  Teresa bragged about her willingness to try anything new, never minding morals or rules imposed by others. She mocked religion and the law alike. She explained to Josephine that she’d had affairs with both men and women, and considered monogamy to be an absurd constraint.

  “I believe in free love. Don’t try to tie me down,” she warned Miss Taylor a few weeks later, as they lay naked on the divan caressing each other.

  Miss Taylor accepted this condition with a lump in her throat. She never imagined that over their long and intimate relationship, she’d never have cause for jealousy, because Teresa would be the most faithful and devoted of lovers.

  * * *

  —

  In September 1929, the United States stock market suffered an alarming drop, and in early October it plunged further. My father calculated that, if the strongest economy in the world were to topple, all the other countries would feel a cataclysmic impact, and ours would be no exception. He knew it was a matter of time, maybe only a few days, before his financial empire fell and he’d be ruined, like so many men of great wealth in America. What would happen with his businesses, with the sale of the house, which was almost finalized, and the construction project he’d sunk so much money into? He’d mortgaged his assets to invest in the stock market, taken money from loan sharks, and involved himself in illegal schemes that forced him to keep one official register and one secret one, which he shared only with José Antonio.

  Arsenio Del Valle felt panic rise like flames inside him and a glacial cold on his skin, so anxious that he couldn’t sit still as his mind clouded with worry; he panted and sweated. He tallied the number of people who depended on him, not only his family, but also his servants and the employees in his office, the workers at the sawmill and in his vineyards to the north, where he’d begun to fulfill his dream of distilling refined brandy to compete with Peruvian pisco. They’d all be forced out into the streets. None of his sons except José Antonio helped him run his businesses; the other four took full advantage of the prosperity that he provided without ever asking how hard it had been won. He was desperate, consumed with stress over how he’d support his wife, his sisters-in-law, and me, how to save himself from bankruptcy and the humiliation of failure, how he’d face society, his creditors, my mother.

  He wasn’t the only one in this position. Among the members of the Union Club paralyzing fear spread from one man to the next. In the sitting rooms decorated in the green and maroon English style, with scenes of foxhunting that had never taken place in our country and authentic Chippendale furniture, the upper-class gentlemen—who had always had economic clout, although not always political power—accustomed to the security of their privilege, followed the news in disbelief. Up to then calamities of all kinds, so frequent in this land of earthquakes, floods, droughts, poverty, and eternal discontent, had rarely touched them.

  The waiters ran around serving liquor and passing trays of raw oysters, crab legs, pickled quail, and fried empanadas, the anxiety so great that no one even sat at the tables. An optimistic voice rose up to declare that, as long as the price of certain minerals remained stable, the country could weather any storm looming on the horizon. This delusion was immediately quashed. The numbers showed an unavoidable reality.

  * * *

  —

  Just as my father had expected, with a knot in his stomach, the last Tuesday in October the entire world found out that the international stock market had collapsed. He locked himself in the library with José Antonio to take a hard look at their situation, conscious that his own denial had kept him from taking steps to avoid disaster. He questioned everything, especially his own judgment. He had failed at the very thing his social position had been founded upon: his natural ability to make money, his clairvoyant vision for opportunities that no one else could see, his bloodhound nose for problems and their solutions, the salesman’s charisma he could use to bamboozle people with such skill that they thought he was doing them a favor, and his enviable panache for getting out of tight situations. None of this had prepared him to face the chasm that now opened up at his feet, and the fact that so many others were staring into the same void was no consolation. He knew that his son, unbiased and reasonable, was the best person to counsel him.

  “I’m sorry, Dad, I think we’ve lost everything,” José Antonio said after checking the books for the second time, the doctored ones as well as the real ones.

  My brother explained that his stocks no longer had any value, that he owed money to half the world, and that there was a real possibility of his being arrested on grounds of tax evasion. There was no way to pay his debts, but no one else would be able to either; the creditors would have to wait. The bank would take the sawmill, the vineyards, the construction projects, and even our house. What would we live on? We’d have to reduce expenses to a minimum.

  “So you’re saying, we have to cut back…” my father stammered in a thread of a voice.

  The possibility had never occurred to him.

  * * *

  —

  The global financial debacle paralyzed our country. We didn’t know it yet, but we’d be the nation most greatly affected by the crisis, because the exportation system that sustained us would collapse. The wealthy families, who despite having lost so much were able to leave the city, fled to their rural estates, where at least they’d have livestock and gardens to provide food, but the majority of the population felt the crushing blow of poverty.

  As more companies declared bankruptcy, the number of unemployed increased; in a very short time soup kitchens and community food banks opened where thousands of hungry people lined up for a plate of watery broth. Crowds of men wandered in search of work, and women and children begged in the streets. No one stopped to give alms to the homeless lying on the sidewalks. There were frequent outbursts of violence among the desperate population. The crime rate increased so greatly in the cities that no one felt safe.

  The government was in the hands of the iron-fisted general who had sent the previous president into exile. They said that he drowned his political enemies in the port and that anyone who dove down to take a look could see the skeletons laid bare by the fish, blocks of cement tied to their ankles. Despite his repressive measures, the general was losing power by the minute, plagued by massive protests that the new branch of the police, trained with Prussian military tactics, quelled with gunfire. The capital looked like a city at war. Students went on strike, as did teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, and other unions, all united by a single demand for the general to step down. The general, barricaded inside his office, couldn’t believe that his luck had been turned on its head overnight, and he ordered the police to continue carrying out their duty.

  * * *

  —

  The second day of the protests, José Antonio and my other brothers went out to participate in the demonstrations, not so much out of political conviction as to vent their frustration and keep from being left out, since their friends and acquaintances were all protesting. White-collar workers wearing hats and ties, shirtless laborers, and beggars in rags all mingled on the streets. There had never been such a crowd marching shoulder to shoulder, so different from the parades of poor families during the worst times of unemployment, which the upper class merely watched from their balconies. José Antonio, accustomed to controlled emotions and an orderly existence, found it to be a liberating experience; for a few hours he had the sense of belonging to a community. He hardly recognized himself in this manic state, shouting to provoke the dense line of police officers who responded with whips of their batons and shots fired into the air.

  That’s what he was doing when he saw, on a street corner, Josephine Taylor, as excited as the rest of the crowd, and me, gripping her hand, terrified. His euphoria chilled instantly. In his pocket he carried a little box with a ring of garnets and diamonds, the same ring Miss Taylor had delicately rejected when he’d asked her on bended knee to marry him.

  “I’ll never get married, José Antonio, but I’ll always love you as my best friend,” she told him, and had continued treating him with the same familiarity as before, as if he’d never made any declaration of love.

  But the close and caring relationship they’d had for so long gave José Antonio hope that in time she’d change her mind. The ring would remain in his possession for thirty years.

  There were few females among the protestors, and in her pants, suit jacket, and Bolshevik hat, Miss Taylor blended in with the men. She was with another woman, also dressed in men’s clothes, who was unknown to José Antonio. He had never seen Miss Taylor dressed this way; in her role as governess she was the model of traditional femininity. He took her by the arm and grabbed me by the collar of my coat, practically dragging us to the door of a building, away from the police.

  “You could get trampled or shot! What are you doing here, Josephine? And with Violeta!” he said, baffled as to why this Irish woman should be concerned with local politics.

  “The same as you: protesting.” She laughed, her voice hoarse from shouting.

  José Antonio didn’t get the chance to ask her why she was disguised as a man because Miss Taylor’s companion interrupted him, introducing herself as “Teresa Rivas, feminist, at your service.” He was not familiar with the term and thought that the woman had perhaps said “communist” or “anarchist,” but there was no time to ask for clarifications, because a sudden shout of triumph rose up and the crowd began to jump, throw their hats in the air, and climb onto the roofs of cars, waving flags and cheering in unison, “He’s fallen! He’s fallen!”

  And it was true. When the general finally understood that he had completely lost control of the country and that his orders were no longer obeyed by the military or the police force that he himself had created, he escaped from the presidential palace and fled the country with his family by train, the same train on which the recently exiled president would soon return. That night, Miss Taylor said once again that we’d be better off with a monarchy, and my father was in total agreement. The celebrations in the streets went on for hours, but that brief political victory did nothing to mitigate the poverty and destitution in which the country was already mired.

  My father held off the banks and creditors for a full year, as his last resources were diminished. He managed to delay the impending shipwreck through a pyramid scheme that had already been outlawed in other countries but was still unknown in ours. He knew it was a short-term solution, and when it folded, he hit rock bottom. He understood by then that he had no one left to turn to; he had made too many enemies over a career singularly focused on earning more and more money. He’d swindled several acquaintances with the pyramid scheme; others had been his partners in failed ventures in which they’d lost everything while he’d walked away unscathed. He certainly couldn’t expect help from his siblings, who at the start of the crisis had turned to him seeking loans. He’d explained that he was bankrupt, but they didn’t believe him and went away angry; they hadn’t forgotten how he’d made off with the family inheritance. He stopped going to the Union Club because he couldn’t afford membership and was too proud to let them temporarily waive the fees, as had been done with other members in similar situations. He’d climbed too high and wagered too much. His fall was spectacular.

  José Antonio was the only person who knew the whole truth; my other brothers, stripped of their monthly allowance, took refuge with cousins and friends, trying to steer clear of their father’s disgrace. The women of the family had to reduce their expenses and say goodbye to almost all of the servants, but they didn’t realize how serious things truly were. Like so many other matters, it didn’t concern them; it was a problem for the men to solve.

  My father’s enthusiasm, which had been the main driving force in his life, vanished. He bore the pain of each day with the help of gin and combatted his nighttime insomnia with his wife’s miracle drops. He awoke in the morning with a foggy mind and weak knees, sniffed white powders, dressed himself with difficulty, and, to avoid my mother’s questions, scurried to the office, where there was nothing to do except wait for the hours to pass and the situation to worsen. The alcohol, cocaine, and opium enabled him to function but gave him acid reflux and suppressed his appetite. He became thin, with dark circles under his eyes, his skin sallow and his shoulders hunched. He’d aged a century within a few months, but I was the only one who seemed to notice his weakened state. I followed him around the house, silent as a cat, and, breaking the rule against entering the library, I sat at his feet as he lay on the leather sofa and stared blankly at the wall.

  “Are you sick, Dad? Why are you sad?” I asked over and over, without expecting a response.

  My father was a ghost.

  * * *

  —

  Two days after the fall of the government, Arsenio Del Valle learned that we were being evicted from Camellia House, where he and all his children had been born. He had one week to vacate the premises. The final nail in his coffin was the arrest warrant for fraud and tax evasion that his son José Antonio had long feared would come.

  In that big old house of so many rooms filled with rumbling pipes, creaky floors, rats scurrying between the walls, and the inhabitants clomping around, no one heard the gunshot. I found him the next morning, when I went into the library to take him his cup of coffee, as I often did since they’d fired the maids. The heavy velvet curtains were closed and the only light came from a Tiffany desk lamp with a stained-glass shade. It was a big room with high ceilings, the walls lined with bookshelves and reproductions of classic oil paintings that a Uruguayan artist copied so accurately they could fool an expert buyer, something my father had proven on a few occasions. All that remained was an enormous Judith with the severed head of Holofernes resting on a platter. The Persian rugs had disappeared, along with the bearskin, two baroque chairs, huge Chinese porcelain vases, and the majority of the various collections. This room, which had previously been the most luxurious in the house, was now a naked space.

  Blinded by the morning light of the conservatory, I paused for a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, and then I saw my father slumped in the chair behind his desk. I thought he was sleeping, but the stillness of the air and the faint smell of gunpowder alerted me that something was amiss.

  My father shot himself through the temple with the English revolver he’d bought during the pandemic. The bullet lodged cleanly in his brain, the entry point a black hole the size of a coin, a thin trail of blood trickling from the wound down to the paisley design on his Indian smoking jacket and from there to the carpet, which absorbed the stain. I remained frozen at his side for an eternity, observing him, the coffee mug trembling in my hands, whispering to him, “Dad, Dad.” I can still remember with perfect clarity the feeling of emptiness and terrible calm that came over me and would last until long after the funeral. Finally, I set the mug on the desk and went quietly to look for Miss Taylor.