Between 1763 and 1800, from an elegant mansion in New Orleans, to captivity in a gloomy mansion, in the Madrid governed by Carlos IV. Luz Gabás studied what happened at the end of the 18th century in that southern state called Louisiana, and its successive dependences –and independences– from the English, French and Spanish. She sounds like a huge narrative job. And it is.
His debut was with Palm trees in the snow (2012) where he talked about the colonial past in Africa. A highly successful novel made into a film. In Like Fire in Ice (2017) she tells a love story against the backdrop of the Carlist Wars. Born in Monzón, Huesca, in 1968, the profile of Gabás (philologist, teacher) contains a piece of information that is very relevant here. She was mayor of Benasque and knew betrayal very well. "I did not understand Shakespeare well until I got into politics," she said in an interview in this newspaper. I would say that he understood many more things.
The times that count force to anticipate changes of board, to take sides. What will happen, the French settler and merchant who owns the best fortune in New Orleans – one of the great protagonists, complex and astute – asks here, before the changes that are announced. If his beloved France, to whom it belongs, cedes Louisiana to Spain (because Spain allied with France in her fight for Florida, and now the favor will be returned), what position will the Indians take, who reject the English and want to remain French?
Monsieur Girard fears for his monopoly and his dealings with the northern tribes. And he also wonders: what position will the French Creoles adopt, if an attempt is made to impose a Spanish government on them? And under what banner will he stand?
It sounds complicated, but all that incessant complication deals with this fresco with fictional characters and other real ones. Of the expulsion of the Jesuits, of changes of flag, of monopolies that end, of neighbors who become enemies, of disgraced authorities, of supporters of the French who, finally, succumb under the new Spanish rule. All this, plus what happens in the court of Spain, or in that of France, which is heading towards the Revolution. Also that little giant that wakes up, in North America.
As in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, there is a great initial question that is answered at the end of these almost eight hundred pages. If Suzette Girard, daughter of this wealthy and very smart merchant, she will achieve the impossible. What can this young lady educated to be a great lady do with an Indian named Ishcate, from the Kaskaskias tribe. The novel is based on the impossible – and conventional – love story.
I will not say what will happen in the end, but the path of one and the other allows this great drawing of societies that are unknown but that live between alliances and wars. And they endured –Gabás clarifies at the end what really happened and what is fiction– a fearsome flood, later a devastating fire, in 1788, smallpox epidemics, malaria.
As in the works of Ken Follett, stories and sub-stories coexist, and great geographical precision; see that indomitable river, which will continue to be so for the crazy Huckleberry Finn, at the end of the 19th century.
If anything excites Ishcate of Kaskaia, it is the alcohol that the English provide to their people to stupefy them and subdue them. If something begins to inflame the young Suzette, it is one of the serious issues that concur here: slavery –important for her is her first scene at the black auction–, and the possibility of free will.
