The Soul of a Woman Read online

  My son asked Roger what he felt when he met me and, blushing, he answered: “I felt like a teenager. And now I feel like a kid who wakes up every day knowing that he is going to the circus.” Everything is relative. This is the most peaceful time in my life; there’s no melodrama. Roger, on the other hand, thinks the daily excitement around me never ends; there’s no time to get bored. Maybe he misses some tedium.

  And what did I feel when I met him? Curiosity and a certain flutter in my stomach that before could lead me to reckless action and now warns me to go slowly and carefully. But I don’t listen. My theory and practice is to say yes to life and then I’ll see how I manage along the way.

  In summary, if I found a sweetheart, there’s hope for any old woman who wants a companion.

  Returning to seventeen

  after having lived through a century

  is like deciphering signs

  without benefit of wisdom

  to be suddenly once again

  as fragile as one second

  to feel things as intensely

  as a child in front of God,

  that’s what it is like for me

  in this very fertile instant.

  —“Returning to Seventeen” by Violeta Parra

  * * *

  Young people ask me often how is it to love at my age. They are amazed that I can still speak in full sentences, let alone fall in love. Well, it’s the same as falling in love at seventeen, as Violeta Parra wrote, but with a greater sense of urgency. Roger and I have only a few years ahead of us. Years sneak by quickly, on tiptoe, scoffing, and suddenly they give us a fright in the mirror or smack us on the back. Every minute is precious and we can’t waste it on misunderstanding, impatience, jealousy, pettiness, or the other silly stuff that soils relationships. In truth this formula can be applied at any age because it’s always the case that our days are limited. If I had lived this way before, maybe I would not have two divorces behind me.

  * * *

  According to Rebecca Solnit in her book Men Explain Things to Me, “Feminism is an endeavor to change something very old, widespread, and deeply rooted in many, perhaps most, cultures around the world, innumerable institutions, and most households on earth—and in our minds where it all begins and ends. That so much change has been made in four or five decades is amazing; that everything is not permanently, definitively, irrevocably changed is not a sign of failure.”

  To dismantle the system that sustains civilization is very difficult and takes time, but we are achieving it bit by bit. The complex and fascinating task of inventing a new order to replace it is long. We advance two steps forward and fall one step back, stumbling, falling, getting back up, making mistakes, and celebrating ephemeral victories. There are moments of terrible disenchantment and others of great impetus, as has been the case with the #MeToo movement and the massive women’s marches in many cities around the world. Nothing can stop us if we share a vision of the future and we are determined to make it come true together.

  Patriarchy has not always existed. It is not inherent to the human condition, it is imposed by culture. We have kept a record of our presence on the planet since the invention of writing, around five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia; that’s nothing compared to the more or less two hundred thousand years of Homo sapiens’ existence. History is written by men and they exalt or omit facts according to their convenience. The feminine half of humanity is ignored in official history.

  Who challenged machismo before the Women’s Liberation Movement? Racism, colonization, exploitation, property, distribution of income, and other manifestations of the patriarchy were questioned, but women were not included in those analyses. It was assumed that gender division was a biological or divine imperative, and that power naturally fell to men. But it was not always that way. Before male dominance there were other forms of organization. Let’s try to remember them or imagine them.

  * * *

  It’s possible that I will see profound change on more fronts before I die because young people are as anxious as we are; they are our allies. They are in a hurry. They are fed up with the economic model, the systematic destruction of nature, corrupt governments, discrimination, and the inequality that separates us and creates violence. They feel that the world they will inherit and have to manage is a disaster. The vision of a better world is shared by activists, artists, scientists, ecologists, various spiritual groups unconnected to any form of organized religion—which almost without exception are reactionary and patriarchal institutions—and many others. We have a lot of work to do, my friends. We have to clean house.

  First of all, we need to end the patriarchy, an ancient institution that exalts masculine values (and flaws) and represses the female half of humanity. We have to question everything, from religion and laws to science and cultural mores. We are going to get really angry, so angry that our fury will smash the foundations that support this civilization. Docility, praised as a feminine virtue, is our worst enemy; it has never served us well, it is only convenient for men.

  Respect, compliance, and fear, which are instilled in women from infancy, are so detrimental to us that we don’t even know our own power. So great is that power, the patriarchy’s goal is to crush it by any means, including the worst forms of violence. These methods are so successful that frequently the most rabid defenders of the patriarchy are women.

  The activist Mona Eltahawy, who starts all her speeches with the statement “Fuck the patriarchy!” says that we have to defy, disobey, and disrupt. There’s no other way. There are more than enough reasons to fear confrontation, as shown by the dreadful statistics of women sold, beaten, raped, tortured, and killed with impunity all over the world, not to mention other less lethal ways of silencing and scaring us. Defy, disobey, and disrupt is for young women who don’t have the responsibility of motherhood, and for grandmothers who are past their reproductive years.

  It’s time that women participate in the management of this pathetic world on terms equal to men. Often women in power behave like hard men because it’s been the only way they could compete and command, but when we reach a critical number of women in positions of power and leadership we will tip the balance toward a more just and egalitarian civilization.

  More than forty years ago Bella Abzug, the famous activist and congresswoman from New York, summarized the above in one sentence: “In the twenty-first century women will change the nature of power instead of power changing the nature of women.”

  * * *

  My daughter must have been around twenty years old when she suggested that I shouldn’t talk so much about feminism because it was dated and not sexy. We were already feeling the backlash against women’s lib, which had achieved so much. Paula and I had a monumental argument. I explained to her that feminism, like all revolutions, is an organic phenomenon subject to change and revision.

  Paula belonged to a generation of privileged young women who benefited from the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers and then rested on those laurels, thinking that everything was done. I explained to her that the majority of women had not yet received those benefits, and that they were resigned to their fate. They thought, as my mother had assured me, that the world is like this and it can’t be changed. “If for any reason you don’t like the word feminist, look for another word. The name is not important as long as the work gets done for yourself and for your sisters in the rest of the world who need it,” I told her. Paula answered with a sigh, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

  Men succeed in depicting feminists as hysterical and hairy bitches. No wonder young women in their reproductive years, as Paula was then, were scared by the term; it could chase away potential boyfriends. However, as soon as my daughter graduated from university and started working, she enthusiastically embraced the ideas she had heard about since childhood. She had a Sicilian boyfriend, a char
ming young man who was waiting for her to learn to cook pasta to get married and have six children. He approved of Paula’s choice to study psychology because it would help her in raising children, but when she decided to specialize in human sexuality he broke up with her. He could not tolerate that his bride would go around measuring other men’s penises and orgasms. I don’t blame him; poor young man.

  My daughter died a long time ago and I still think of her every single day when I wake up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. I miss her so much! She would have been very happy to see today’s new wave of young feminists, who are defiant, creative, and have a sense of humor.

  * * *

  This is a happy time for me. Happiness is not exuberant or noisy like joy or pleasure, it is silent, calm, and soft; it is an internal feeling of well-being that starts with loving myself. I am free. I don’t have to prove anything to anybody, nor do I have to care for my children or grandchildren. They are all self-sufficient adults. I have done my duty, as my grandfather would say, and I have done more than was expected of me.

  Some people have plans for the future; they even think of a career, but as I said before, the only goal I’ve had since childhood was to support myself and I have done it. But I have walked the rest of my journey blindly. John Lennon said that life is what happens when we are busy making other plans. In other words, life is a mapless road and we can’t go back. I had no control over the important events that determined my destiny or my personality, such as my father’s disappearance, the military coup in Chile, exile, my daughter’s death, the success of The House of the Spirits, or my two divorces. Of course, it could be argued that I had control over the divorces, but the success of a marriage depends on both participants.

  My old age is a precious gift. My brain still works. I like my brain. I feel lighter. I am free of self-doubt, irrational desires, useless complexes, and other deadly sins that are not worth the trouble. I am letting go…letting go. I should have started earlier.

  People come and go, and even the closest members of the family eventually disperse. It’s useless to cling to anybody or anything because everything in the universe tends toward separation, chaos, and entropy, not cohesion. I have chosen a simpler life, with fewer material things and more leisure, fewer worries and more fun, fewer social commitments and more true friendship, less fuss and more silence.

  I don’t know if I would have achieved all of the above without the success of my books, which have saved me from the economic instability that affects a great majority of the elderly. I can enjoy freedom because I have the necessary resources to live the way I want. That’s a privilege.

  Every morning when I wake up, after greeting Paula, Panchita, and other present spirits, when the room is still dark and silent, I call back my soul, which is still roaming in the land of dreams, and I give thanks for all I have, particularly for love, good health, and writing. And I also give thanks for the rich and passionate life I have and will continue to have. I am not ready to pass the torch and hopefully I never will be. I want to light the torches of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work we didn’t have time to finish.

  * * *

  I am writing this in March 2020, forced by the coronavirus to remain locked at home with Roger. (Instead, I should be writing a novel inspired by García Márquez: Love in the Time of Pandemic.) At our age, if Roger or I caught the virus we would be screwed. We can’t complain; we are a thousand times safer than the heroes of our time, women and men fighting the virus in the front lines, and much more comfortable than most people who now are forced to remain quarantined until further notice. It pains me to think of the elderly who are alone, to think of the sick, the homeless, those who survive with almost nothing and have no safety net or help, the families who live crowded in unhealthy tenements, those who survive in refugee camps, and so many others who are suffering this emergency without resources.

  Roger and I are very lucky. The dogs provide entertainment and company; we are not bored. Roger works remotely from his computer, I write quietly in the attic, and in our spare time we read and watch movies on TV. We’re still allowed to get out for a walk, as long as we keep a distance of six feet from other people; that helps us clear our minds. Maybe this is the honeymoon that we never had because we were too busy. We have been in this strange retreat for a week and we are still doing well, but I am afraid that if this crisis goes on much longer we will run out of the patience, kindness, and discipline to put up with each other. Forced and close coexistence can be very irritating. I have heard that in China, where the quarantine was first imposed, hundreds of thousands of couples have filed for divorce.

  No one alive remembers a global catastrophe of this magnitude. In extreme situations the best and the worst emerge in people; heroes and villains appear. Also, the character of a nation is manifested. In Italy people sing opera on their balconies to cheer one another; in other places people buy guns. And I was told that in Chile the sales of chocolate, wine, and condoms have increased!

  We could not have imagined that in just a few days the known world would be so disrupted. All social life has been suspended, and all gatherings are forbidden, from football games to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Schools, universities, restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, malls, and much more are closed. Traveling is out of the question. Those who have some savings are withdrawing them from the bank and hiding them under their mattresses. The stock market has plummeted. The moment of truth has finally come to our unsustainable consumer economy. The streets are empty, the cities are quiet, nations are scared, and many of us are questioning our civilization.

  However, not all news is bad. Pollution has diminished, the water in the Venetian canals is clear, the sky in Beijing has turned blue, and birds are singing among the skyscrapers of New York. Relatives, friends, colleagues, and neighbors communicate as much as they can to give one another support. Lovers previously undecided now plan to move in together as soon as they can reunite. Suddenly we realized that what really matters is love.

  Pessimists say that this is a dystopian science fiction nightmare, and that human beings divided into savage tribes will end up devouring one another, like in Cormac McCarthy’s terrifying novel The Road. Realists think that this will pass, as so many other catastrophes have passed throughout history, and we will have to deal with the long-term consequences. We, the optimists, believe that this is the shock needed to amend our course, a unique opportunity to make profound changes. We can’t continue in a civilization based on unbridled materialism, greed, and violence.

  This is a time for reflection. What kind of world do we want? I think this is the most important question of our time, the question that every woman and every man with awareness should ask, the question the caliph of Baghdad should have asked the thief in the old tale.

  We want a world of beauty, not only that which the senses appreciate, but also the beauty perceived by an open heart and a clear mind. We want a pristine planet protected from all forms of aggression. We want a balanced and sustainable civilization based on mutual respect, and respect for other species and for nature. We want an inclusive and egalitarian civilization free of gender, race, class, and age discrimination, and any other classification that separates us. We want the kind of world where peace, empathy, decency, truth, and compassion prevail. Above all, we want a joyful world. That is what we, the good witches, want. It’s not a fantasy, it’s a project. Together we can achieve it.

  When the coronavirus crisis is over we will crawl from our lairs and cautiously enter a new normal, and the first thing we will do is hug one another in the streets. How we have missed touching people! We will cherish each encounter and tend kindly to the matters of the heart.

  To Paula, Lori, Mana, Nicole, and the other extraordinary women in my life

  Acknowledgments

>   I am truly grateful to:

  Lori Barra and Sarah Hillesheim for the wonderful work they do at our foundation.

  Johanna Castillo, Lluís Palomares, and Maribel Luque, my agents, who came up with the idea of writing about feminism.

  Jennifer Hershey, Nuria Tey, and David Trías, my editors at Ballantine and Plaza & Janés.

  Kavita Ramdas for being a mentor at my foundation and sharing with me her knowledge about women’s issues worldwide.

  Laura Palomares for her insights about young feminists.

  Lauren Cuthbert for editing my translation into English.

  The heroines I meet every day through my foundation, who shared their stories with me and inspired this book.

  The feminists who shaped me as a young woman and still guide my life.

  By Isabel Allende

  The House of the Spirits

  Of Love and Shadows

  Eva Luna

  The Stories of Eva Luna

  The Infinite Plan

  Daughter of Fortune

  Portrait in Sepia

  Zorro

  Inés of My Soul

  Island Beneath the Sea

  Maya’s Notebook

  Ripper

  The Japanese Lover

  In the Midst of Winter

  A Long Petal of the Sea

  For Young Adults

  City of the Beasts

  Kingdom of the Golden Dragon

  Forest of the Pygmies