Treasures in Heaven, a Novel by Kathleen Alcala
Here's an interesting novel set in turn-of-the-century Mexico City. It's a story that's mainly concerned with women's rights, which were just about non-existent in those times, and the political turbulence preceding the Mexican Revolution.
Estela, a rather attractive and spirited lady, lives in a small rural town with her infant son, Noé. We meet her at the point in her life when she is leaving her husband and heading for Mexico City. Essentially she's looking for her former lover, Dr. Victor Carranza. However, when she finds him he's already married. But the good doctor helps her by introducing Estela to La Señorita, an independently wealthy lady who is fighting a cause - the awful plight of women in Mexico at that time.
The two women become close companions and between them they end up opening a school for women of the street and a shelter for women in various kinds of trouble, of which there seems to be an abundance. The title, by the way, is a way of saying that the wealthy enjoy all the pleasures in life but the poor have to wait to experience their "treasures in heaven".
Estela seems to be the one with the ideas while La Señorita has the funds and the powers of persuasion to make the ideas come to life. One of Estela's suggestions is to produce an illustrated magazine for the women whom they have dedicated their lives to helping. Between them they produce a kind of picture book for women who can't read giving them information that they need in order to survive.
Later, the ladies come up with the idea of starting an orchestra among the women in the home. And, lo and behold, a short time later La Señorita has acquired the instruments and a teacher and the lessons begin. The orchestra even gives a concert - a Strauss waltz and a piece by Modeste Moussourgsky. Later they even get a gig entertaining the skaters at a local skating rink. (I didn't know they had skating rinks a hundred years ago either).
Eventually, they even produce a newspaper, La Linterna, and this provides the means for Estela's son, Noé, who has grown up by now, to find his calling in life as a journalist.
After I finished reading this interesting novel I found out it's the third and last book in a trilogy. However, it's still a good standalone story that doesn't require reading the preceding two volumes in order to enjoy it. Estela's lover, Dr. Victor Carranza, evidently figures prominently in the previous books - Spirits of the Ordinary and The Flower in the Skull. So, too, in those volumes, we would no doubt find out about Zacarias, her husband, and why she's running away from him.
It's an enjoyable and interesting story, although I found I had to suspend disbelief a few times as the plot unfolded. It sounds great to talk about starting a magazine or forming an orchestra but, for this reader, it all sounded almost too glib. Having played in an orchestra and having spent a few years producing magazines, it stretched things a bit too much for me to read of prostitutes being rescued from the streets turning to that kind of work and producing successful results in what seems like almost no time at all. Not only does it take time to learn to do those things but it also depends on the availability of talented and dedicated people to do the work.
Despite that, it's quite a full and complete story with lots of interesting characters set against changing and turbulent times in Mexico.
Available from Amazon Books: PaperbackTreasures in Heaven - A Novel
By Kathleen Alcalá
Northwestern University Press. 2003.
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