The Spanish Daughter

Puri considers her attraction to Martin, which she views as immoral because Cristóbal had died so recently. She views Martin with more passion and dismisses her marriage as uninspired in comparison. She and Martin chat together, discussing pranks they played in the past. Martin pushes past her reticence to divulge information, telling her he must find out everything about her. He asks Puri to compare the experience of being a woman and a man, and she responds that being a woman, for her, means mending every problem in everyone’s life. He prefers her as Puri rather than Cristóbal.

Returning to the hacienda, she makes chocolate for Angélica, Catalina, and Laurent after Angélica thanks her for fighting Don Fernando, her erstwhile fiancé and now enemy. Laurent dismisses the chocolate, saying that the ingredients are superior in France. Angélica and Catalina stuff themselves before going to bed.

With Laurent in town, Puri looks for her father’s key. Remembering that her mother kept a key behind a picture of three windmills in La Mancha, she looks behind her father’s own copy and finds a key. It opens the locked drawer, and she finds a chess set there. Hidden among the pieces is an odd key, likely to a safe. She decides to go to the bank in the morning to try her father’s safety deposit box. As she walks quietly across the patio, she sees Angélica leaving, wearing a cloak.

Puri goes to the bank, and after paying the bank manager a small fee and telling him that Puri was Armand’s majority heir, he lets her see the safety deposit box. Inside, Puri finds letters from Elisa arranged chronologically, from when Elisa was 12 until a final letter was sent from Quito, Ecuador, three years before. Elisa and her mother moved frequently, and Elisa’s mother took Benjamin, a puppeteer, as her lover and husband, although they never officially. Elisa’s last letter chronicles the death of her mother from pneumonia and her despair.

Lost in thought after leaving the bank, Puri doesn’t hear Soledad call to her. Puri tells Soledad that Franco is in the Caribbean—he boarded a steamer to Cuba. Soledad found an expensive pocket watch under his bed, and she thinks it is a clue to his disappearance. Puri takes the watch, leaving Cristóbal’s with Soledad as a guarantee that she will return. She thinks she can use the watch to solve the mystery.

Because it’s Fiesta de Vinces, Puri cannot gain passage to Guayaquil, Ecuador, to visit the watchmakers who made Franco’s watch. Instead, Puri plans to attend a concert that evening, where Angélica and Catalina will be performing, and a private party afterward. Her sisters are wearing elegant dresses, and Laurent is wearing an impeccable suit, which he claims comes from Paris. Puri wears a heavier gray suit that covers her breasts, and Angélica suggests that she have a new wardrobe made.

Their instruments wait for them in Vinces. When they arrive, Puri sees familiar faces from bingo night, some of whom acknowledge her. Laurent barely pays attention as Angélica and Catalina play, but Puri praises them after their performance. She sees Martin at the afterparty, and he says that buyers attend these events.

A chill falls over the crowd at the party, and Puri assumes Don Fernando has arrived. Instead, Silvia approaches Angélica, and they shake hands coldly. Puri asks Martin about Silvia, and he evades her questions. She guesses he knows more than he lets on. At Martin’s suggestion, they leave for the cantina.

At the bar, Martin confesses that he exaggerated about his amorous pursuits, and he asks Puri about her marriage and husband. Cristóbal, the son of her mother’s long-time friend, made her happy, but she realizes that she was not in love with him. Puri discusses her grandmother and her invention, a machine that roasts cacao beans, and Martin tries to draw it out on a paper napkin. As the bar closes, he gives Puri a ride back to the hacienda on his horse, but she can’t make it further than his house because she is Suffering from nausea. At his house, she asks him to help take off her corset so she can breathe more easily. Succumbing to their desire, they have sex.

Puri wakes up in bliss, but Martin suddenly tells her to be quiet. Angélica has arrived at the house and is angry, suspecting that Silvia went home with Martin. She rushes into the house and checks each of the rooms, finding Puri dressed as Cristóbal. She complains of a toothache, vouching for Martin. Puri quickly understands that Angélica and Martin are lovers, which explains Angélica’s absence when Laurent plays cards and Martin’s dismissive attitude toward Laurent. Angélica offers to have Laurent take Puri to the dentist, but she demurs. As Angélica and Martin talk outside, Puri leaves on her own, feeling devastated.

She walks to Vinces and encounters Tomás. She asks him to take her to Guayaquil, where she plans to check on the watch. She also discusses Mayra with Tomás; he fired her for going through his papers, which he had previously caught her doing and warned her not to do again.

Puri eventually finds the watchmaker’s shop in Guayaquil. She shows the two watchmakers there—one older and one younger—the watch, and they express wonder and surprise—the watch was stolen in 1914 or 1915 by a beautiful girl who sang beautifully. She worked for her stepfather in a group of thieves. The men recovered everything but the watch that Puri has. Puri offers to buy it, and the father remembers the girl’s name: Elisa.

Returning to the hacienda after spending the night at Tomás’s house, Puri sees Angélica, who has been crying. Puri tells Angélica that Tomás took her to a dentist in Guayaquil, and then they share tea. Angélica explains the situation with Martin—she tells Puri in coded terms that Laurent enjoys his male lovers, and she can be with Martin. Their arrangement works, even though Laurent tried to stop seeing men when they first married. She had planned to break off their engagement, but Martin slept with Silvia, and Angélica married Laurent out of spite. She goes to Soledad to get herbs to avoid pregnancy. Angélica acknowledges that Martin can’t be faithful but still feels that he belongs to her.

At breakfast, Puri is lost in thought about Elisa and Martin. Julia serves her coffee and a croissant as Martin approaches. He tries to explain, and Puri stops him, announcing what Angélica told her everything. She abruptly leaves and Martin follows, walking as fast as he can without running. She asks the stableboy to saddle Pacha, and she mounts her quickly. Surprised by Puri’s quickness, Pacha rears up and Puri falls off, bumping her head. She awakes in Julia’s room, and Julia tells her a doctor will arrive soon. Julia tries to take off Puri’s suit but Martin stops and dismisses her.

With Julia gone, he explains about the chessboard in Don Armand’s safe: Don Armand won the land and house in a bet over chess with his father, who was obsessed with the game. Puri accuses Martin of using Angélica and her to get the land back.

Having slept until two o’clock in the afternoon, Puri walks down the stairs and finds the family assembled: Alberto, Catalina, Angélica, and Laurent. Tomás joins them and announces that Cristóbal’s body has been found. They all ask who she is, and Laurent accuses her of scamming them for Armand’s fortune. Puri finds his accusations ironic. She announces that she’s Maria Purificación. She explains she donned a disguise because she feared they were trying to kill her. As Julia approaches with cups of espresso, Puri turns to her, calling her Elisa and urging her to confess.

The family reels from this news. Elisa tells Angélica that she was trying to safeguard her own inheritance and save the estate from falling into the hands of someone who had not been there and had not taken care of their father. Elisa admits that Don Armand didn’t talk to Tomás about changing the will, but she knew Angélica would take care of her. Mentioning Puri’s European lineage, Elisa claims her grandfather was European, but all Armand cared for was his Spanish daughter. As Tomás tells Elisa she has committed a crime, she lunges forward to attack Puri. Alberto holds her back, and Puri leaves the room, looking once more at her father’s portrait.

Puri flees the hacienda, going to Don Fernando’s house, where she explains the entire story. She makes a deal with him—if he lets her stay until the inheritance clears, she will renegotiate the border. He agrees, and they spend dinners and days together. Don Fernando tells her about bullfighting and his travels. Neither speaks about him punching her, but Puri recognizes that the episode haunts their relationship.

She visits Tomás, who tells her the authorities have detained Elisa in Guayaquil and that her siblings have contested their father’s will, alleging he was not of sound mind and body when he wrote it. Puri goes to Panama to attend her husband’s burial. She regrets her brief affair with Martin and her choice to leave Spain.

At her husband’s funeral, Puri’s pain and grief flow freely. She hugs the casket, and she’s told that Cristóbal’s body was found on the shore by a Jamaican fisherman. He died almost instantaneously when he hit the water.

Back in Tomás’s office, Puri discovers that her siblings’ lawsuit has been dismissed. La Puri is hers, the patrimony that Armand felt he owed her for abandoning his wife and child and payment for her grandmother’s knowledge, upon which built his wealth. Tomás tells her that Elisa received nothing because Armand doubted her paternity, considering her mother’s reputation for having many lovers.

Entering the house once more, Puri feels uneasy—none of the furnishings hold any significance to her.

Martin visits the hacienda and speaks to Puri. She wears a black gown, one of the dresses she bought in Panama for her mourning period. She asks whether he wants to continue working on the plantation. As he pours himself a drink, she proposes to increase his salary. He tells her no and that it is over. She assumes he means his relationship with Angélica or with her. Instead, he informs her that the cacao plants are diseased, and the region’s cacao boom has come to an end. She weeps and wails, beating his chest, before running away.

Puri investigates for herself, talking to workers and seeing the diseased plants. She links this decay to her ruined family. As she walks to Don Fernando’s plantation, she sees the sad exodus of workers leaving the diseased region. She finds Don Fernando experiencing symptoms of mental distress, walking around his living room and speaking to himself. He blames Angélica still, claiming she has paid Soledad to hex his crops.

Returning to the hacienda, she remembers that her siblings fired the cook, and she rocks herself to sleep.

Puri goes to visit her siblings in the modest house where they now live instead of the plantation home. They haven’t fired their cook as she originally thought—Alberto offers her fruit tea, and Rosita brings it. Catalina wears a pink dress, and Alberto is dressed casually. Puri notices how young he is.

Angélica returns and speaks to Puri coldly. Alberto confronts Angélica, blaming her for the lawsuit and damaging their family. Puri apologizes for her deception, wishing instead she had been honest and forthright from the beginning. She also says the inheritance should have been equal—a wish Angélica dismisses knowing the state of the plantation. Puri leaves the key to the plantation, giving them back their home.

Puri stays behind in Vinces after the siblings sell the hacienda to Don Fernando, who plants new trees. Along with other Europeans, Angélica and Laurent leave for Europe, going on a tour of the continent. Angélica and Puri recognize their similarities and achieve a truce as she and Laurent leave.

Puri’s grandmother’s roaster arrives safely, and she uses it at the café she buys with her share of the inheritance. Mayra works as her assistant, having married Alberto so they can raise their son, Armandito, together. Martin sells Puri cacao beans at a discount from his newly purchased plantation in Colombia, having sold his belongings in Vinces and apologized to Puri.

Puri and Catalina live together, each enjoying the sister that they didn’t have growing up. Elisa begins to make amends, sending Puri a letter apologizing with the doll she once gave to Catalina. Puri places the doll next to Cristóbal’s typewriter under the counter. She finishes by mentioning her son, whom people assume is Cristóbal’s. She wonders why she could carry Martin’s child and not her husband’s.