MY SISTER SALLY. EXTERMINATION HOURS.

II

From our father, Harold Carter, we had inherited a small fortune and a plea, repeated on his deathbed, that we remain close. Our father was a skilled businessman. The company where he was an executive had a branch in Naples. There he met a beautiful young Italian woman named Paola Valenti. They married. From that marriage Gladys, Bobby, Sally and I were born into the world. My mother, a faithful but jealous and temperamental wife, bequeathed to us the catalytic spirit of the fiery Latin race. She lived long enough to see Sally, her favourite, succeed at the Los Angeles School of Drama and make her professional acting debut in a packed theatre. My mother died of pneumonia. A year later, in San Antonio, my father became involved with a woman, Eleanor Wellen. She had a son, Jim. After marrying my father, Eleanor turned out to be one of those women who, even at night, spent more time in nightclubs than at home. My father filed for divorce and she asked for an exorbitant sum of money in exchange for her consent. My father refused, so she sued him for alleged "mental cruelty", but days before the case was heard Eleanor disappeared, leaving Jim in my father's custody. Months later news of her was received from the American Legation in Rio de Janeiro. Eleanor had been found dead from an excess of barbiturates in the flat of a former Brazilian swimming champion.

        Each of the five siblings had taken their own path in life and we only got together once a year for Christmas, in New York City.

         From a very young age, Sally had been drawn to the performing arts. She chose a career in the theatre and went on to have some success on Broadway. She even worked in two films, only with less success. She settled in Los Angeles and married an influential industrialist. Sally was devastated to discover that she would never be able to have children. The doctors' verdict was conclusive, inexorable. Sally had to grant her husband a divorce.With the money from her share of the inheritance, plus what she had been able to save from her performances on the various important stages of the Union during her triumphant and productive tours, Sally could live comfortably for the rest of her life without working. And that is what she did. She retired from the theatre. She was not persuaded by the pleas of her artistic agent to change her mind, nor by the lamentations of friends, audiences and theatre critics. I, who was then also living in Los Angeles, invited her frequently and tried to prevent her decision by flattering her vanity as an actress. All to no avail. Wounded in her frustration as a mother, and to satisfy her maternal instinct, Sally adopted three little war orphans: two Vietnamese girls and a Vietnamese boy. I remember how often, since her divorce, Sally would comment, tenderly approvingly, on the charitable work of the famous Josephine Baker. That New Year's Eve, without waiting for Christmas, we five siblings were together to meet the children. Gladys arrived from New York, impatient with curiosity. Jim, who was then a representative of a small farm machinery company in Boston, showed up smart and casual, and very anxious to see his "dear little nephews".