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| Isabel Allende |
At the university, Roser is befriended by Professor Dalmau, her music teacher, who opens his home to her. Of the two sons in the family, Victor who is training to be a doctor, and Guillem who is a soldier, Roser falls in love with Guillem. When he comes home with typhus from Republican battles with Franco’s forces, Roser nurses him back to health. She becomes pregnant before he returns to the front, but he is killed on the River Ebro. Victor knows this, but he can’t bear to tell Roser. He asks a friend, the Basque ambulance driver Ibarra, to take his mother and Roser over the Pyrenees into France when it becomes clear the Republicans are losing.
Roser is uncomplaining and brave, hiking through the mountains when Ibarra’s motorcycle gives out. They are cold and hungry but stay with smugglers along the way. The French don’t want the refugees. Roser is sent to a women’s concentration camp on a beach with no facilities. A Swiss nurse who is trying to save children sees that Roser is pregnant and takes Roser to live with a Quaker family where her healthy son Marcel is born.
Guillem’s brother Victor accompanies wounded soldiers to France. Conditions are hostile for refugees and when Victor hears that a ship is being readied to take some to Chile, he applies. Told that families will be given first priority, he hunts for Roser. He tells her that Guillem has been killed and that, if they marry, they might be able to repatriate to Chile. Pablo Neruda, who is preparing the ship, the Winnipeg, says they need pianists in Chile.
The refugees arrive in Chile on the day World War II begins in Europe to a huge welcome. At first Victor, Roser and the little Marcel are taken in by a wealthy family. They live together as brother and sister, starting a bar where Victor works while completing medical school, and Roser makes her living playing the piano. She is realistic, does not look back, though she longs to play serious music. She helps Victor with his depression and nightmares after the horrors he has seen.
Victor falls in love with the young daughter of the wealthy family they are hosted by, but he hides his affair, not wanting to damage the love and respect he has for Roser. When the girl gets pregnant, her family whisks her away to the country.
After World War II, a letter comes from Carme, Victor’s mother. She had slipped away during the retreat from Spain but was found by Andorran smugglers. Victor, Roser and ten-year-old Marcel go to visit her. Roser’s only fear, of heights, emerges on the airplane. “Clench your teeth and carry on,” is her method of coping.
Roser realizes her dream of creating an orchestra of ancient musical instruments partly with help from Venezuelan benefactors. Venezuela has a lush culture, fueled by oil at this time. Roser also has an affair, with Aitor Ibarra, who had led her out of Spain. It makes her young and playful, but they too protect their marriages.
Victor is unpolitical, but admires Salvador Allende and often plays chess with him. He and Roser provide a safe house for Neruda when he falls from grace. When Allende wins a presidential election in 1970, Chileans are euphoric. But things are chaotic in the country. When the military steps in, Allende is killed and thousands are arrested and tortured. Victor spends 11 months in a concentration camp before Roser manages to find him. He has saved the life of the camp commandant. Victor and Roser ask for asylum in Venezuela. Roser’s son Marcel is studying in Colorado. Victor’s mother has died.
By this time Victor feels a passion for Roser. They fall in love like adolescents. Roser tells Victor about her affair, wanting no secrets between them. She is beautiful and sensual in her 50’s. She dresses “with the discreet elegance which was her trademark.” When Franco dies in 1975, they go back to Spain briefly, but it is unrecognizable. Roser says, “I am fed up with being an outsider. I want to go back to Chile.” They live in Venezuela nine years.
In 1983 Victor’s name is on a list of exiles allowed to return to Chile. He goes back to a prestigious job in a private clinic, but also works in a shantytown. The degree of inequality is staggering. Roser’s Ancient Music Orchestra give concerts in parks and she also teaches music in the shantytowns. They find an old stone and wood house at the edge of Santiago where they live with their dogs. Marcel comes on weekends for barbecues. Gradually Victor goes back to public life as democracy returns.
Roser’s health begins to fail, however. She stoically undergoes treatment for her terminal cancer at Victor’s request. He is terrified to lose her. The stone house is their sanctuary. Roser listens to music, plays with the cat. At last she begs Victor, “Let me go. I am happy. I am not afraid, but don’t take me to the hospital.” She dies in 1991.
Roser’s story is told in A Long Petal of the Sea [published in English in 2020] by Isabel Allende. Allende has many personal connections to this fictional story, having been an exile herself from Chile and Venezuela. Though it is clear where Allende’s sympathies lie, in this book she tells a balanced, realistic story, standing back far enough from the action to show the whole lives of several major characters. Though Roser may be a little flecked with stardust and her circumstances paved with fortuitous meetings, I am willing to grant her her truth.
