Violeta by Isabel Allende

Author:Isabel Allende [Allende, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2021-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

15

My brother and Josephine Taylor, the only ones who knew about Julián’s abusiveness, criticized me often for putting up with him. At their insistence, I went to see a psychiatrist to help resolve that destructive emotional dependence.

Dr. Levy was a Jewish man who had studied with Carl Jung. He was a university professor and author of several books—an eminent figure. I’d guess he was around eighty, but it’s possible he was younger and merely worn down from so much suffering. The doctor knew Julián because he was one of the immigrants Julián had secretly flown into the country after the war. He had lost his entire family to the concentration camps, but that monumental grief didn’t leave him bitter; he instead had an infinite compassion for human fragility. I was embarrassed to have a Holocaust survivor waste his time on my miserable emotional problems, but with a glance he put my mind at ease. He closed the door to his office and time stood still in that room crammed with books; nothing else existed: only he and I.

“I’ve led a banal life, Dr. Levy. I’m mediocre,” I said to him in one session.

He responded that all lives are banal and we’re all mediocre, depending on who we compare ourselves to.

“Why would you want a tragic life, Violeta?” he asked me, and his voice broke, surely thinking of the suffering he’d witnessed. “There’s a Chinese curse that is applicable here: I wish you an interesting life. The corresponding blessing would be: I wish you a boring life,” he added.

Thanks to Dr. Levy, who held my hand through the process, I finally managed to leave Julián. He guided me down a long road of introspection, beginning in my childhood at Camellia House, where I discovered my father’s body, and traveling the landscapes of my memory: Miss Taylor, my aunts, the Rivas farm, the itinerant school, the assault by Pascual Freire and Torito’s rescue, Fabian, Julián and my children, until finally reaching age fifty, weary from conflict and loneliness.

The first thing I did was inform Julián that he could no longer count on me to clean up his messes, finance his extravagances, pay his debts, work accounting miracles, or pick up the pieces of the disasters he created. I would also never again set foot in the pink cake in Miami; no more poop-covered dollars in the washing machine, gangsters, or spies for me. If he wanted to come see me, he’d have to stay in a hotel and treat Juan Martín with respect. Lastly, he had to know that if he ever laid a hand on me again he’d be truly sorry.

“You’re going to need strength and mental clarity to hold him to this, Violeta. I’d advise you to refrain from alcohol when you’re with Julián,” Dr. Levy said.

Up to that moment I’d never connected drinking with the power Julián held over me.

Julián thought my departure was another of the empty threats I’d been repeating for years, but this time I had Dr.

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