Death in some cases unearths more family secrets than are entombed with the deceased.
My father’s death was one of those cases and now, nearly a month after his demise, I stood before
an ancient trunk, its key in hand. The key had surfaced during a cleaning out of the junk
in Dad’s office desk. The tag read, inexplicably, “Key to Inspiration Trunk.”
Soon, it would share secrets that I could never be certain my father wanted revealed.
Since his death, I had been too busy carrying out the sundry and numerous details that death delegates to the living – probate court, death certificates, and the like – to open the trunk. I was curious about it but it had simply not been a high priority. Plus, I had acquired a heavier workload in the family business.
Finally, here I was, poised to open the trunk. Though tattered and tired-looking, it still managed an aura of mystery, like a wrinkled old man with bright eyes. Of course part of the mystique was fostered by Dad, who had never allowed me to open the trunk, even as an adult working in the family business. It had been sitting in the back of the walk-in office safe for as long as I could remember; constructed of tattered leather and battered wood, cornered with metal hinges.
I slipped the key into the lock below the round top and, after some fidgeting, was able to turn it. It groaned with creaky complaint as I carefully lifted the top until it rested on its hinges. A dry, not unpleasant smell, greeted me. The dim overhead bulb of the safe did not reveal much. It looked like clothing. Dropping to my knees I fumbled through the contents to find a variety of bras and corsets, along with black dresses and other outerwear. Disappointed with my find – gold doubloons would be more valuable and less unsettling – I glanced in to the underside of the lid to find a torn painting of Christ. There was something else – a barely visible, slim and yellow-paged book sticking out from the tear in the painting. I carefully widened the tear in order to remove the sheath of parchment. The Spanish writing presented little challenge since it was the primary language in our home.
I returned with the parchment to Dad’s huge leather office chair, sank into it, and fired up one of his illegal and coveted Cubans, ready to embark on the reading. It was dated August 9th, 1848, and began innocently enough…
+ + +
My name is Doctor Hector Delgado and I am writing this history of the island of Corpulencia. May history be the judge of my actions and those of my family. Our story follows:
When Simon Bolivar’s army defeated the Spanish Loyalists, in the 1819 battle of Boyaca, Colombia, two thousand of the loyalists, led by General José Barreira, were captured and imprisoned. After a year of imprisonment, about one hundred of the officers were exiled to a small, uninhabited island named Santiago, of the Galapagos archipelago. The officers were allowed to take their families, two doctors, a priest, and servants, plus basic supplies, including food, clothing, tools, and some goats and pigs. The year of our exile was 1820. Our small island flourished, thanks to a good water supply, fertile land, and the bounty of the sea.
Fear that Bolivar’s men would someday return to attack motivated us to build a walled castle-like fortress of stone, surrounded by a deep moat. The servants would live outside the fortress walls and enter only to bring in supplies or perform their tasks.
The people were content. We worked hard and traded with ships that sailed into our small port to have the things we had been accustomed to in Spain. General Barreira’s rule was firm but evenhanded and he was unanimously admired by his former officers and their families. Isabella, the General’s wife, basked in the same affection and after eight years of bountiful rule they became King and Queen of the island.
Their only child was the Crown Princess who, even at the tender age of ten, possessed a singular beauty. Fearing that undue admiration of her beauty would stunt the development of her humility, the royal couple restricted her to the palace grounds until her first Communion, when they invited the entire populace of the island to the celebration. It was worse than they had feared. Such an enthusiastic gushing of praise greeted her that the Queen decided to again keep the Princess out of the public eye, fearing such a deluge of adulation would spoil her, no matter how they tried to countermand it. Following the first Communion, the royal nanny was instructed to keep the Princess confined to royal living quarters until her coming-out party five years later, occasioned by the Crown Princess’ Quinceañera, her fifteenth birthday.
Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that her sequester had not been well thought out. During her absence from the public she became very lonely and sought solace in food. Since she was confined to royal quarters, there was little opportunity for exercise. To complicate matters, her nanny doted on her, spoiled her, and provided any sweets the Princess hungered for. Her eating was constant, any time of day, with no restrictions.
The royal couple was unaware of this constant gorging and therefore completely perplexed about her tremendous weight gain, since she always ate sparingly at family meals. They finally summoned me, the royal doctor. The other doctor cared for the people outside the castle walls, in the servant settlement. On the day of the exam, the rotund Princess lay on her canopied bed. From her years of seclusion she had become a very modest person and the exam would obviously be quite traumatic for her.
She asked for a sedative. I happily obliged and she promptly fell into a heavy slumber. Normally, a bed this size would be reserved for the king, but this was no time for decorum; the Princess’ bulk demanded a king-size bed. I sat in a chair to the side, eyes averted, with pen and paper in hand. To maintain the Princess’ modesty, the nanny would take instructions from me to perform the tasks of a normal exam; listening to the heart, looking into the mouth, ears and so on. No medical problem was found, so I directed the nanny in less standard procedures, like examining her skin – a considerable number of square meters – for any irregularities.
“Doctor Delgado, I cannot look under the breasts without help,” the diminutive nanny complained, with a tired whine, for it had been nearly three hours of examining.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think I can lift them.”
“You must try,” I answered. “Brace your feet and use both hands to lift.”
I could hear her struggling and then success. “Yes, the skin looks fine.”
The examination was complete, but the cause of the Princess’ obesity remained a mystery. Flummoxed, I knew I would be held accountable by the royal family. I suspected overeating, but was assured, by the nanny and the royal couple, that the Princess ate sparingly and sometimes actually skipped meals. Of course, as I later discovered, the nanny knew that the skipped meals were replaced with arequipe and postre de natas – very sweet and fattening desserts. I decided the only possible medical explanation was a goiter and I pored intently over my latest medical text from Spain to find that iodine – the only cure available – could be found in small quantities in seaweed. I instructed the Princess to drink large amounts of the water resulting from boiling seaweed. Of course, the Princess never drank the seawater and the nanny simply poured it out. And, of course, she didn’t lose any weight.
For five years, the Princess remained in the royal quarters, remained lonely, remained fat. The time for her Quinceañera was now a day away and the royal family was in a royal dither. The Princess had become quite willful – due to the nanny’s doting – and refused to attend the Quinceañera, blaming her refusal on the dress, a white one. Carlotta Noreña, the royal dressmaker, was sent for.
Black eyes shining, she strode confidently into Princess’ royal sitting room to take measurements, only to blanch when she saw the enormous task at hand. Recovering quickly, she sent for material, specifying black, to make the Princess appear smaller than the spectacular reality. Measurements were begun as they waited for the material. The tape was too short, but the nanny would hold it to the Princess until the dressmaker could get around to the other side and finish the measurement. Through artful pushing and squeezing, plus a whalebone corset, the resourceful Carlotta was able to fashion a black dress that gave an improbable illusion of what some could charitably call a large woman. The final product was less a dress than a brilliant feat of engineering or perhaps magic. After much tantrum throwing and verbal abuse directed at the dressmaker, her parents, and her dog – which she kicked – the Princess finally tried on the dress and agreed to attend the Quinceañera. It was three o’clock in the morning. The young, but brilliant, Carlotta, exhausted and sworn to strict secrecy, walked out muttering quietly and returned home, outside the castle walls, to immediately down a bottle of aguardiente and fall into bed.
Much later that morning, anticipation was palpable in the crowded square. The Princess’ eight-year hiatus had only made the mystique of her remembered beauty more compelling to her subjects. The celebration was set to begin at noon. I talked to Carlotta – waiting with everyone else for the Princess’ arrival – and she told me everything about the dressmaking debacle. Her black eyes flashed as she spoke. I wondered why she hadn’t married. We were interrupted by the tower bells announcing the Princess’ appearance. Suddenly the bells fell silent. The audience was rapt as she finally appeared on the massive steps leading from the royal quarters into the square. First a collective gasp, then silence, followed by the nanny clapping wildly. Immediately, everyone around her joined in and the clapping spread quickly throughout the square, soon turning into thunderous applause.
The celebration went splendidly. Enormous, but radiant, the Princess could only speak in small breathy gasps due to the tightness of the corset. She was even more beautiful than remembered and, as the afternoon wore on, a strange thing happened. Many of those in attendance found themselves gradually starting to feel they were relatively insignificant. They were, relatively speaking, small. Meanwhile, the Princess reveled in her reception and gained confidence from her first public outing in five years. Unfortunately, this Quinceañara marked the beginning of the demise of the island.
From that day, the Princess set a new standard for feminine beauty and comportment. Young men cried ashamedly, in private, because they could not be with her while young women cried openly because they didn’t look like her. To satiate and dull this envy and lust, they began to eat, and then they gradually began to look like her, and then it started – the emulation of the Princess. They spoke in the same breathy manner as the Princess. They ate, and ate, and ate. Within a year, the young women began to wear dresses fashioned after hers; long and black, featuring open bodices to display already ample bosoms proudly. The obliging and always entrepreneurial Carlotta developed a clever brassiere that pushed up the breasts for fullness and squeezed them together for cleavage. This push-up bra became widely popular, along with the whalebone corsets and black dresses. The dressmaker prospered.
As time passed, the appreciation of the Princess’ lifestyle also gained followers among the older generation and soon most of the populace of the castle had accepted it. The few who protested were banished to a life outside the castle in the servant settlement, with the other Thins, as they came to be known. Within two years, everyone inside the castle walls was morbidly obese.
The Princess gained considerable confidence from the acceptance of her lifestyle and the emulation from the people, and became a spokesperson for the decadent lifestyle and excesses of life. Every Sunday after church – and after the Thins had been sent back to their settlement – she would labor up the few stairs to the pulpit to hector the congregation about the godliness of gaining weight; about the glory of gluttony and the uselessness of exercise. Her encouragement of gluttony and decadence led to corpulence as a prized condition, which led to unavoidable flatulence that – while definitely not prized – was at least tolerated. Everyone understood that breaking wind was a necessary byproduct of obesity. The noise and smell were simply ignored. Perfumed hankies, imported from Spain, were helpful and when one person fluttered them around the nose, it was a signal for others to frantically pull them from sleeves and bodices and join in.
As she became more and more strident about the need for corpulence, the Princess’ weekly talk began to sound more like a harangue…
“Why are we taught that fat is bad? Actually we should be who we are, who we are meant to be, and if that means eating when we want, what we want, and how much of what we want – then so be it. We must live life! Eat, drink, dance and enjoy! That is the way!”
Eventually, she began to deride and speak derogatorily of the Thins, the people who lived outside the castle walls…
“What do the Thins have over us? They are thin because they do our work. We do the thinking. They are second-class citizens, these Thins, and deservedly so. We, the aristocracy, provide brains and they provide muscle to do our work. It is a symbiotic relationship.”
Of course, when reports of her words were leaked to the Thins, a certain restiveness began to simmer. It would become a larger problem soon. Even the King and Queen, always eager to please their only daughter, were caught up in the frenzy to gain weight.
Like the dressmaker, I was prospering. The Hippocratic oath was weighing heavily on my conscience but if I didn’t want to be banished from the castle I would have to give tacit approval to the royal lifestyle by keeping my mouth tightly shut. Soon, the royal couple developed problems along with much of the other aristocracy. The King was beset with heart problems, while the Queen was deteriorating rapidly due to diabetes.
As the castle aristocracy became heavier, so did the workload of the Thins. Plus, the general health of the aristocrats became worse and worse and my office was always overflowing. Most complaints concerned the heart, diabetes, and the joints. I had trouble knowing which road to take, the ethical road of Hippocrates, or continue on the prosperous lower road of keeping my mouth shut and simply treating the ailments of the fat.
Death sometimes solves such dilemmas. Mine was solved when the Queen died of complications from diabetes. The King died of a heart attack a week later. But now death had left a new dilemma. Turmoil loomed over my immediate future. The Princess, soon to be proclaimed Queen, would need a scapegoat for the untimely and early deaths of the royal couple. I suspected that I, as royal doctor, would have to take the blame, not the royal lifestyle. A few days after their deaths, the Princess summoned me to her quarters. She was reclined, regal and enormous, on her bed and motioned me to sit on the same chair that I always took for consultations.
“You have disappointed me, again, Doctor Delgado,” she said, in her breathy gasps. You have fought with me every step of the way and now, due to your youthful incompetence, both my parents are dead.”
Beads of sweat formed on my quivering upper lip as I asked, “My…my, youthful incompetence?”
“If you had not influenced them, they would have been more inclined to gain more weight and been more robust.”
“But….” I started to defend myself, but again she interrupted.
“I will become Queen in one month, and I want the people to know that their queen will punish those responsible for the deaths of the royal couple. You are losing only your position as royal doctor, not your life, and for that you should be grateful. Anyway, you are much too thin to be inside the castle walls.”
Abruptly, I realized that the even-handed rule of the King would not be continued. “Too thin?” I wondered if she knew that my shirt was stuffed with empty flour bags. That night I moved from my comfortable quarters to the austerity of the settlement. As a further insult, the doctor of the Thins – who had, suspiciously enough, gained much weight recently – would be moving into my quarters in the castle. Business was bad in the settlement, the Thins were simply too healthy.
To occupy my time, I returned to my old love – the natural world, especially the flora and fauna of the islands. The Galapagos were rich in diversity and for me it was a fascinating avocation and diversion from the troubles at hand. Most evenings, after a day of trekking around the island, I would have a glass of wine and dinner and review my notes at the La Taverna the only restaurant in the Thins settlement. On one of those evenings, I was on my way to the bathroom, when I stumbled on something jutting out from under a table in the corner, unreached by the dim candlelight. I squinted and peered under the table to find the offending object – the foot of a large sleeping man.
I immediately stepped back to the bar and quietly asked the barman about the sleeper.
“He’s an Englishman, Charles Darwin by name,” he said with a sneer. “He claims to be a natural scientist, but to me he is nothing but a drunken lout. He’s been in port for two days and when he isn’t drunk, he’s brawling.”
“Who said that?” an angry voice demanded. It came from under the table. “I’m going to kick the arse of he who uttered those words.”
The barman and I fell silent. In a few minutes we could hear snoring. I stepped back to the table to find Darwin sleeping. I was curious about him.
“Quien es usted?” I asked a bit hesitatingly, not knowing what else to say.
“My name is Charles Darwin,” he slurred in English, as he sat up and conked his head on the table. “I am here to do research on this island of Santiago.”
From that inauspicious beginning Darwin and I became quite well acquainted, bound together by our common interest in the natural world. We spent the next nine days hiking throughout the island by day and comparing notes by night. He was a dark, brooding young man, whose obvious sense of ambition was hampered only by a rather shiftless approach to his research. Plus, he seemed more interested in doing research on the mammary glands and flashing eyes of the waitresses at La Taverna than the flora and fauna we gathered in the field. In the following week, I worked with him, trying to develop his sense of discipline. I was able to help him narrow down his efforts, encouraging him to hone in the transmutation of species and a theory that I was developing which I called “Natural Selection.” We also spent some time on developing a diagrammatic approach to evolution which I christened the “Evolutionary Tree.” He was especially keen on examining the tortoise shells that I had collected from various neighboring islands. I pointed out the fact that the characteristics of the shells could identify what island they had lived on.
By the time he sailed away on The HMS Beagle, nine days after we had met, he was a changed man – infused with a new focus and optimistic about his future. I had become quite fond of him and I shared my notes with him and gave him all the specimens I had collected on the island. Frankly, I did not expect much to come of his efforts, for he seemed just a bit on the indolent side to me.
Meanwhile, during the nine days Darwin and I had been immersed in the purity of academic research, the Princess had been engaged in more nefarious activities. She had renamed the island Corpulencia. The word “fat” was outlawed, replaced by the more acceptable words of “corpulent,” “heavy,” or simply “large.” Pews in the front of the church were removed and replaced by larger ones. Notices were posted on the large pews: “Corpulents Only.” The Thins, invited into the castle every Sunday for church, were relegated to the rear. The restiveness continued simmering, threatening to boil over.
The menu for the coronation feast was prepared; Morcilla, chorizo, chunchullo, papas criolla, yucca, frijoles, and more. From the sea, paella would be prepared using the most succulent shellfish, including the enormous and popular sea turtles.
The day of the coronation dawned brightly. A lazy wind would do little to abate the heat. The searing heat would be inescapable. From tree shade, I watched as the Thins moved casks of Chianti and the food into the castle. The buffet would be served by Thins in the Royal Banquet Hall, under the supervision of the dressmaker Carlotta, who was gaining more responsibility since her success as a clothier.
The luncheon began at noon. The Corpulentos grazed along the buffet, eating as they walked, greedily and gleefully stuffing themselves. The Morcilla – blood sausage – was a particular favorite, as were the black beans; all washed down with copious Chianti. All the food was presented in the tortoise shells which Darwin and I had studied the week before.
By two o’clock much of the food had been devoured and the dressmaker made a decision to send the Thins back to their settlement. Meanwhile the food was attempting, unsuccessfully, to settle in the stomachs of the Corpulentos and soon the perfumed hankies were pulled out and fluttered about the noses. But they offered a weak defense to the smells assaulting the olfactory senses of the guests. Something had to be done. The always resourceful dressmaker flung open the massive door and the assembled guests poured gratefully into the courtyard, gasping for air. The relief was short-lived.
The sun had been baking down on the dark stones of the courtyard all day, making the already oppressive afternoon even worse. The health of the enormous guests, in their heat absorbing black dresses and suits, quickly approached a critical state. Some tried to leave, but were thwarted – all doors leading from the courtyard had been inexplicably bolted. Outside, from the Thins settlement, we could hear Señor Hernandez bellowing for the dressmaker – who was evidently no longer in the square – to open the doors. I started to sprint to the castle but was stopped by two Thins guarding the path to the drawbridge.
“Let them be,” one said.
“But I am a doctor.”
“Let them be,” the other repeated. “We have waited for this day.”
Before I could reply, a sharp hissing sound arose from the castle walls and we turned as one to see the screeching Princess, arms outstretched, rising slowly over the wall like a dirigible, propelled by a sputtering brown plume. Suddenly the hissing grew louder as she gained speed only to change course, smash into a parapet and explode. Burning fat and partially digested Morcilla and frijoles, rained down on the square. There were screams from inside and cheering from the settlement. She was followed in quick succession by Señor Hernandez, the judicial authority of the island, who had made an ill-fated decision to smoke a cigar and the jailer, Señor Lozano, who had innocently struck the match.
“In the name of God, I must go in,” I said to the guards. “Things will change now. The Princess is gone alomg with all the legal authority.”
No reply. They simply looked at each other, nodded in agreement, and released me.
Immediately, I ran into the castle and unbolted the massive doors leading to the square. There the remainder of the castle aristocracy was huddled together in the small bit of shade available. Many were in varying stages of undress, but for the others, clothing had tightened around them as they ate and perspired and it was impossible to remove it. Fortunately, the dressmaker organized people to help me with the rescue effort and there were no more serious explosions, though I had to treat minor lacerations caused by whalebone fragments. It was essentially a matter of helping the Corpulentos inside and hydrating them. Some of the women had to have their whalebone corsets cut off.
We all knew that governing of the island would change immediately and I met with five other influential Thins. We appointed an interim governing council and a temporary constitution was immediately written. There would be no royalty, no aristocracy. The island would retain its original name of Santiago. Grudges would be buried, along with what remained of the Princess and the other two. Moderation and harmony would once again reign on the island. Corpulence would not be rewarded or encouraged, nor would it be given special privilege, but obese people would have the same rights and respect as the others.
Early the next morning, I answered a knock on my door to find the dressmaker, her black eyes shining starkly from her haggard face.
“Come in, Carlotta.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“You know that you have to leave the island?” I asked, hoping that she would make this easy.
“Oh, yes, Doctor. I have been packing my trunk most of the night.”
“Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I have to find another center of decadence to sell my push-up brassieres, corsets, and other foundations. I have them packed in my trunk. The logical choice would be New York. The United States of America is becoming affluent and affluence breeds decadence – the perfect market for my products. Fat is in their future. I will try to make my way there, starting tomorrow. You know that a ship from Isabella island is stopping here tomorrow and going on to the mainland.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. Relieved, under the circumstances, to know she was leaving. We both knew there was no other choice. It was obvious she had locked the door to the square. I said nothing about my disapproval of her actions – this was not the first or last time that love had trumped principles and good sense. We looked at each other, silent. Finally, I spoke…
“I will be on the same ship.”
“Good,” she said, black eyes shining.
Tomorrow Carlotta – the dressmaker – and I will leave together. We do not know what the future will hold, but I do know that the true history of Corpulencia is contained in this document.
Sincerely,
Doctor Hector Delgado
+ + +
I took a thoughtful puff from the smoldering Cuban…
So this is how it all came about. I had known only bits and pieces of the history of our ancestors and how our family business had been founded. I closed the slim volume and returned it to the trunk, carefully slipping it behind the tear in the painting. The trunk’s mystery was gone – its power spent when its secrets were discovered. Now, it was simply a tired old trunk, somehow smaller, even more forlorn. I returned to Dad’s chair, sinking into it to pensively gaze out the window towards the Statue of Liberty, through the backward lettering that read,
Delgado Foundations
Stalwart Undergarments For Stalwart People
– Since 1850 –
