The House of the Spirits: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

The first day of the coup d’état, Jaime wakes at dawn to a call from the President’s secretary. The President isn’t ill, she says, but he has asked for all his doctors to come to the palace. Jaime arrives at eight o’clock and is stunned to see the city empty. A group of soldiers is standing guard outside the castle, and after Jaime identifies himself as a doctor, they let him through. Inside, the President tells Jaime that “the Navy has revolted.”

Jaime quickly calls Alba, warns her not to leave the house, and tells her to call Amanda. Jaime never speaks to Alba again. An hour and a half later, all branches of the military have joined the coup, quickly followed by the police. The President tells the guards at the palace to leave—without their weapons—and they exit, “confused and ashamed.” One of the guards stops at the door. “I’m staying with you, Compañero President,” he says. By midmorning, the President goes on the radio to address the nation. He tells them he won’t resign. He is prepared to repay their loyalty with his life. “Long live the people!” the President cries. “Long live the workers!”

Soon, the bombing begins. As Jaime takes cover, he can’t believe it has come to this. He always thought that the military respected the law. The President is quickly on his feet, firing a bazooka out the window at the military tanks below. The bombing doesn’t last long, but the palace is demolished. An officer outside orders them to surrender, and the President turns to Jaime and the others and shakes their hands. “I’ll go last,” he says. Jaime never sees him alive again. 

Outside, the soldiers fire guns into the air, and one of them punches Jaime in the stomach so hard that he soils himself. “Make way, we’re going to run the tank over these bastards!” yells a colonel. Jaime looks up at the man and thinks that he recognizes him from Tres Marías. Jaime and the others are loaded into a van and taken to the Ministry of Defense. There, a kind soldier tells Jaime to sit and rest but to get up immediately when the soldier says so. “You operated on my mother and saved her life,” the kind soldier says. Within minutes, the soldier tells Jaime to stand, and two men handcuff Jaime and take him to be interrogated.

Jaime’s interrogators know that he doesn’t have anything to do with politics or what is happening, but they want him to go on television and say the President is an alcoholic and that he committed suicide. Jaime refuses, so they hold him down and beat him. Afterward, they take him to a military building, and, after tying his hands and feet with barbed wire, throw him face-first into an animal stall. The other stalls are filled with people, too, and Jaime is left there for two days without food or water. Then the stalls are emptied, and everyone, Jaime included, is taken to an empty lot near the airport and shot.

At the big house on the corner, Esteban pours a glass of champagne in celebration. Alba grabs the glass from his hand and throws it against the wall, shattering it. Blanca smiles. In the middle of the night, the phone rings. Alba answers, and Miguel tells her that he is leaving to fight. She must not talk about him with anyone, and he instructs her destroy her address book and stop seeing all their friends. He tells her he loves her and hangs up. A curfew is enforced over the next two days, and when it is lifted, goods have magically appeared in stores and shops everywhere. Meat and produce fill the shelves, but free pricing has been decreed, and everything is priced three times as high as it was before.

Soldiers patrol the streets, and some of them beat men with beards and harass women wearing slacks. The new government condemns their actions and says the offending soldiers are communists in disguise. Over the next few days, word spread that the President has committed suicide, but no one really believes it. Three days later, Esteban goes to the Ministry of Defense, wondering why no one has invited him to take part in the new government. Esteban used his name and money to buy arms for the coup, and while he isn’t necessarily interested in political power, he would like to be an advisor. He believes wholeheartedly that the coup was they only way to regain control and get rid of Marxism for good.

At the Ministry of Defense, Esteban is surprised to find it a complete disorganized mess. A soldier with his feet on the desk greets him, and without allowing Esteban to speak, tells him to hand over the keys to his car. Congress has been suspended, the soldier says, and all Congressional privileges have been suspended, too. It is obvious to Esteban that the new government has no intention of reopening Congress. Without a way to get home, Esteban gets a ride from a lieutenant, who tells him that there has been very little resistance to the coup, but many have been arrested, and the people are scared. Esteban can tell the soldier feels guilty, so he tells him they had no choice. A coup d’état was necessary to rid the country of Marxism, but even as he says the words, Esteban isn’t so sure. 

Two weeks later, the kind solider goes to the big house on the corner and tells Blanca all about Jaime’s death. Blanca calls for Esteban so he can hear, too, but Esteban doesn’t believe him. Esteban goes to his library, sits in a chair, and calls Jaime’s name. Finally, Jaime’s spirit comes to him, covered in blood and rags, and Esteban knows that Jaime is dead. After Jaime’s death, Esteban begins to speak of tyranny, which Alba has known about all along—she has inherited Clara’s gift.

Alba blames Esteban for everything, and she believes he is the reason why she will never see Jaime or Miguel again. However, when Alba sees her grandfather slumped in a chair, calling out to Clara and Jaime, she realizes how much she loves him. Alba helps wanted revolutionaries sneak out of the country, and she suspects her grandfather knows it. Amanda introduces Alba to some priests who are trying to feed the poor with very few supplies, so Blanca lets Alba raid the stockpile of goods she still has hidden in the back of the house. Like most people of the upper class, Esteban ignores the poor, but when women and children begin begging door to door, he orders the cook to always have something hot available.

The new government erases any history that the regime disapproves of, and they change maps to suit their desires. They appropriate distant countries in geography books, and the United Nations threatens to send in tanks if they don’t stop. The new government censors all books, movies, and songs, and they outlaw words like “freedom,” “justice,” and “trade union.” Most of the professors at Alba’s school have been arrested or killed, including Sebastián Gómez.

Still believing the coup a necessary evil, Esteban decides to go to Tres Marías and get his land back. When he arrives, he finds the remaining peasants miserable and starving. He dismisses them and chases them from the hacienda—the very land they have lived on for generations. That night, Esteban looks around and, seeing nothing but death, curses his temper. He knows he can rebuild Tres Marías again, so he sends word to the peasants that they are welcome to return; however, no one comes back. Esteban leaves for the capital with a heavy soul.

In the meantime, the Poet lies dying in his seaside home. He has been sick for some time, but that doesn’t stop the police from ransacking his home in search of hidden communists and subversive poetry. They take the Poet from his deathbed to the capital, where he dies four days later of heart failure. A wake is held for those with enough courage to go, and even though Esteban doesn’t support the Poet’s ideological convictions, he attends with Alba. At the small funeral, shouts of the Poet’s name begin, along with calls of “Here! Now and forever!” and “Compañero President!” As the Poet is put to rest, his funeral is a “symbolic burial of freedom.”

Months pass, and Alba is busy hiding revolutionaries and feeding the poor. It becomes obvious to everyone, even Esteban, that the military has no intention of handing over power. One day, Blanca drops to her knees in front of Esteban and confesses that Pedro Tercero is hiding in one of the house’s abandoned rooms, where he has been since the coup started. He snuck in Blanca’s window after he was placed on the wanted list and told her the President had been killed. Blanca begs Esteban to help her get him out of the country. 

Esteban goes to the room in which Pedro Tercero is hiding and opens the door. He stands there, and the two men stare at each other. Esteban tells Pedro he has come to get him out of the country, and Pedro initially resists, telling Esteban to “Go to hell.” But when Esteban tells Pedro that that’s where they’re going and to come with him, both men smile and leave the room together. Esteban quickly arranges for both Blanca and Pedro to leave the country, and as he says goodbye, he admits to Blanca that he hasn’t been a very good father. “I love you so much, Papa!” Blanca cries and hugs him. They never see each other again.

Alba decides to start hiding wanted revolutionaries in the abandoned rooms of the big house on the corner, just as Blanca hid Pedro Tercero. Esteban, who has come across Clara’s spirit many times in the house, tells the servants that the strange noises are just the ghosts. One day, Miguel appears, and Alba hides him in the basement, where they have sex and hold each other for days. She tells him about the weapons she buried with Jaime and offers to take him there. Miguel tells Alba that her grandfather is a “bastard.” He says Esteban will get killed one day and admits he has even considered killing him himself. “God forbid, Miguel,” Alba says, “because then I’d have to do the same to you.”

Two weeks later, Alba takes the children from the soup kitchen where she volunteers on an outing, and on the way, she picks up Miguel in disguise. They go for a picnic near the spot where the weapons are buried, and Alba asks what is next. Miguel won’t say; it is better for Alba if she knows nothing. That way, if the police interrogate her, she won’t know anything. In the meantime, Esteban is feeling old and tired. The line between right and wrong is blurry to him, and he has no idea the police have Alba and the house under surveillance. 

The police barge into the big house on the corner in the middle of the night and force Esteban and Alba outside. Luckily, there aren’t any wanted revolutionaries hiding in the house, but the police trash the house and burn all of Jaime’s books, the contents of Marcos’s trunks, and various papers and pamphlets in a massive bonfire in the courtyard. The police tell Esteban that Alba is “the whore of a guerrilla” and throw her into a van. They tape her eyelids closed and begin to drive, grabbing and fondling her along the way. They finally stop and tell their colonel they have arrested Senator Trueba’s granddaughter. “So I see,” a voice says, and Alba immediately recognizes the voice of Esteban García.