Free Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende

much in vogue. Francisco waited near the reception desk for a time that seemed very brief, entertained by a remarkable parade of girls modeling lingerie, children bringing stories for a children’s contest, an inventor determined to publicize his urinometer—a new instrument for measuring the direction and force of a stream of urine—a couple afflicted with amorous problems who were looking for the Advice to the Lovelorn, and a lady with jet-black hair who introduced herself as the composer of horoscopes and predictions. When she saw him she stopped dead, as if she had had a premonition.
    â€œI read it on your forehead—you will experience a great passion!” she exclaimed.
    Francisco had broken up with his most recent girlfriend several months before, and had determined to keep himself free of all amorous uncertainties. He sat there like a schoolboy who had been sent to the corner, not knowing what to say and feeling ridiculous. She explored his head with expert fingers, examined his palms, and without affectation pronounced him a Sagittarius, although she suspected an ascendant Scorpio, since he was marked by signs of sex and death. Especially death.
    Finally this pythoness disappeared, to the relief of Francisco, who knew nothing about the zodiac and mistrusted chiromancy, divination, and other madness. Shortly afterward, Irene Beltrán appeared and he was able to see her full length. She was just as he had imagined her. She was wearing a long peasant skirt of chambray, a blouse of rough cotton, a multicolored woven sash cinching her waist, and was carrying a leather purse crammed as full as a mailman’s pouch. Amid a jangle of brass and silver bracelets, she held out a tiny hand with rings on every short-nailed finger.
    â€œDo you like vegetarian food?” she asked and, without waiting for an answer, took him by the arm and led him down the stairs; like many other things in that publishing house, the elevators were stuck.
    As they emerged into the street, the sun blazed down on Irene’s hair and Francisco thought he had never seen anything so extraordinary. He could not resist the impulse to reach out and touch it. She smiled, accustomed to producing amazement in a latitude where hair of that color was so rare. When they reached the corner, she stopped, removed a stamped envelope from her purse, and dropped it in the mailbox.
    â€œNo one writes to the Colonel,” she said enigmatically.
    Two blocks down the street they came to a small restaurant, a meeting place for macrobioticists, spiritists, bohemians, students, and gastric-ulcer sufferers. At that hour it was full, but she was a regular customer. The waiter greeted her by name, led them to a corner, and seated them at a wooden table with a checked tablecloth. Without delay he served them lunch, along with fruit juice and a dark bread filled with raisins and nuts. Irene and Francisco savored the food slowly, studying each other. Soon they were exchanging confidences; she told him of her work on the magazine, where she wrote about prodigious hormones shot like bullets into the arm to avoid conception, masks of sea algae for erasing signs of age on the skin, love affairs of princes and princesses of the royal houses of Europe, processions of extraterrestrial or pastoral styles dependent on the caprice of each season in Paris, and other subjects of diverse interest. About herself, she said that she lived with her mother, an aged servant, and her dog, Cleo. She added that four years ago her father had gone out to buy cigarettes, and had disappeared from their lives forever. About her fiancé, Army Captain Gustavo Morante, she said not a word. Francisco would learn of his existence much later.
    For dessert, they were served preserved papayas that had been grown in the warm northern regions. She caressed them with eyes and spoon, anticipating her pleasure. Francisco realized that she, like him, respected certain earthly pleasures.