Free Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende Page B

that followed, he saw her on the verge of adopting a baby after an investigation about orphans, of plummeting from an airplane after some parachutists, and of fainting from fright in a haunted house where they suffered hours of terror.
    After that night, he accompanied her on most of her assignments. The photographs contributed to the Leal budget and signaled a change in Francisco’s life, which was now enriched with new adventures. Contrasting with the frivolity and ephemeral glitter of the magazine was the harsh reality of the clinic in the working-class neighborhood of his brother José, where three times a week Francisco treated the most desperate patients, always with the sensation of helping very little because there was no consolation for such misery. No one in the publishing house suspected the new photographer. He seemed a tranquil man. Not even Irene knew of his secret life, although occasional hints piqued her curiosity. It would be much later, after they had crossed the frontier of shadows, that she would discover the other face of that gentle friend of few words. In the following months their relationship grew closer. They could not get along without each other; they became accustomed to being together at work and in their free time, inventing pretexts not to be apart. They shared their days, surprised at the number of their meetings. They loved the same music, read the same poets, preferred dry white wine, laughed in unison, were angered by the same injustices, and smiled at the same setbacks. Irene found it strange that at times Francisco disappeared for a day or two, but he eluded explanations and she had to accept the fact without questions. Her feeling was similar to Francisco’s during the time she was with her fiancé, but neither of the two knew how to recognize jealousy.
    *  *  *
    Digna Ranquileo consulted don Simón, known in every corner of the region for his medical successes, far more numerous than those of the hospital. Illnesses, he said, are of two kinds: either they cure themselves or they have no remedy. In the first instance, he could alleviate the symptoms and shorten the convalescence, but if he came across an incurable patient he sent him to the doctor in Los Riscos, thus protecting his prestige and, in passing, casting doubt on traditional medicine. Digna found him resting in a rush chair in the doorway of his house, three blocks from the town plaza. He was scratching his belly contentedly and conversing with a parrot shifting from leg to leg on his shoulder.
    â€œI’ve brought you my little girl,” said Digna, blushing.
    â€œIsn’t this the switched Evangelina?” was the healer’s brash greeting.
    Digna nodded. Slowly the man rose to his feet and invited them inside his dwelling. They entered a large shadowy room lined with flasks, dried branches, herbs hanging from the rooftree, and printed and framed prayers on the wall; it looked more like the cave of a shipwrecked sailor than the consulting room of a scientist, which was what don Simón liked to call himself. He insisted that he had received a medical degree in Brazil, and to anyone who doubted him he displayed a grimy diploma with florid signatures and a border of golden angels. An oilcloth curtain isolated one corner of the room. Eyes rolled back in his head, and lost in concentration, he listened as the mother related the particulars of their misfortune. From the corner of his eye he glanced at Evangelina, detailing the marks of scratches on her skin and the pallor of her face, in spite of cheeks cracked by the cold and violet shadows beneath her eyes. He knew those symptoms, but to be completely sure he asked her to go through the curtain and take off all her clothes.
    â€œI’m going to examine your girl, señora Ranquileo,” he said, depositing the parrot on the table and following Evangelina.
    After examining her in great detail, and making her urinate into a basin in