The Seven Sisters

“I was the sister who had never left.”

Maia’s situation at the start of the novel is a cautionary tale in The Danger of Being Guided by Fear. Mourning the loss of Pa Salt, Maia reflects on her decision to live with him at Atlantis well into her thirties while the rest of her sisters spread their wings and started lives of their own. Although Maia has a successful career, she has avoided forming close adult relationships and lives in isolation. Her character arc tracks her growth as she learns to open up to others and embrace a more fulfilling lifestyle.

“Never let your fear decide your destiny.”

This is the quotation that Pa Salt has dedicated to Maia on the armillary sphere. Consistent with Pa’s eccentric and secretive ways, the armillary sphere has only a short message and a set of coordinates for each daughter. Maia realizes that this quote was aptly chosen and acknowledges that Pa is trying to warn her about the dangers of fear from beyond the grave.

“We all hold secrets inside us, but please believe me when I say that family is everything. And that the love of a parent for a child is the most powerful force on earth.”

This is a line from the letter that Pa Salt wrote to Maia before his death. He wrote one for each daughter, leaving them with his lawyer to distribute at the designated time. When Maia reads this line, she worries that Ma betrayed her trust and told Pa about Maia’s unintended pregnancy. Ma did not betray her trust, but at the conclusion of the novel, Maia realizes that Pa knew her secret anyway. The Power and Limitations of Family is a central theme in the novel, emphasized in passages like this that underscore the force of family ties.

“As the launch carried me smoothly across the water to Geneva, it suddenly struck me that I had no idea whether I was running away from my past or toward it.”

Terrified at the thought of Zed showing up at her house to talk to her, Maia takes an impulsive trip to Brazil to follow the clues that Pa Salt left her about her past. Maia’s motivations underscore The Past’s Influence on the Present, as she allows her guilt and shame over past decisions to guide her. Her flaw of letting her fear drive her is also at play in this scene.

“And, there, standing completely alone, I felt a sudden surge of energy passing through my veins, and a sense of lightness and release. This is part of me, and I am part of it.”

Soon after arriving in Rio de Janeiro, Maia realizes that she has a long-buried or innate connection to the place. Even before she learns anything about her family history, she feels the power of returning to the place of her birth. These are her first steps on her journey of self-discovery.

“Nothing can ever be certain, because the voices one must hear from to confirm the story definitively are no longer with us. As an historian, you have to learn to put the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together to create the whole picture.”

Floriano, who is a historian in addition to being a novelist, encourages Maia to persist even when there are barriers to her discovering her family roots. Here, Floriano is also reminding Maia that some details are inevitably lost to history, so historians must fill in some gaps. Fortunately for Maia, she does not have to fill in many gaps in the end because Yara gives her Bel’s letters, so she is (in a way) able to hear from Bel herself.

“During Bel’s seventeen years on earth, she had come to understand that Antonio was descended from Italian immigrants, who had arrived in Brazil to work on the many coffee farms on the verdant, fertile land surrounding the city of São Paulo. Antonio’s own father had been not only hardworking but also clever, and he had saved diligently to buy his own parcel of land and start his own business.”

Bel’s immigrant father has made a lot of money and now wants to be accepted fully by Rio de Janeiro’s aristocratic society. This is a driving motivation for him and leads him to put a lot of pressure on Bel and her marriage. This dynamic underscores the power and limitations of family; Bel comes from a loving family and yet is asked to sacrifice or compromise on her desires for her father’s ambition.

“Bel sighed and walked out of her mother’s dressing room, wanting to scream that it didn’t matter what the Aires Cabrals thought of her parents or her, because she would not be sold like a parcel of flesh to anyone.”

Bel is a passionate young woman who longs for some independence. She is surprised by the rapidity of her engagement to Gustavo once her father and Gustavo set the wheels in motion. The experience makes Bel feel dehumanized, like a piece of meat rather than a woman with needs and desires. This tension between social and familial pressures and her longing for freedom is the central conflict in Bel’s narrative.

“Having never been kissed by any man before, Bel had long been curious as to what it would feel like. In the books she’d read, women normally went weak at the knees during the experience. Well, she thought, […] her knees certainly didn’t feel weak. In fact, when he drew away from her, she decided it had not been unpleasant. It had simply been…nothing. Nothing at all.”

When Gustavo kisses Bel, she doesn’t feel magic or excitement. She is disappointed but figures that she can accept settling because kissing him doesn’t feel bad. However, her lack of enjoyment foreshadows their sex life, in which Gustavo often causes Bel pain by being in a hurry or being inattentive. As time goes on, physical intimacy with Gustavo becomes increasingly unpalatable for Bel.

“You see, Bel, the Cristo is not a statue, He is simply a building dressed like a human being. He must withstand the harsh winds that circle around Him, the rain that will pound on His head. Not to mention the bolts of lightning that His Father in heaven sends down on us mortals here on earth to remind us of His power.”

Here, Heitor de Silva Costa is speaking to Bel about his project building the Christ the Redeemer statue. Bel is impressed by the thoughtful, passionate way that Heitor talks about the project. The Cristo statue is an important presence throughout the novel, both as a plot device and as a symbol of enduring love.

“Her fingers moved a few centimeters forward of their own volition, instinctively wishing to run themselves through the long, wavy chestnut hair, to stroke the pale skin of his cheek, trace the shape of his perfect aquiline nose and the full pink lips concealing his even, white teeth.”

Bel is physically drawn to Laurent from the moment she sees him. This foreshadows their eventual intimacy and also contrasts strongly with Bel’s reaction to Gustavo. On her first meeting with Gustavo, Bel also noticed his hair, but his is thinning, while Laurent’s is thick and touchable.

“She sat back in the chair, wishing she could share with her parents her true feelings about the city she was growing to love, about the new freedoms she was enjoying and the people she was meeting. But she knew they would not understand. More than that, they would worry that they had made the wrong decision in allowing her to go.”

In Paris, Bel has her first true taste of personal autonomy. She loves having the freedom to make new friends, take art classes, and soak in the bohemian energy of Paris’s Left Bank. Unfortunately, she knows that her family back home would not celebrate this freedom of hers. Thus, her internal desires continue to conflict with social pressures.

“I have had in my mind the image of a closed rosebud, just before it begins to open and blossom into a perfect flower. The moment between child and womanhood, on the threshold of the latter and contemplating the delights it might hold.”

Here, Laurent is describing the inspiration behind his statue of Bel. She is insulted that he thinks of her as a child, but both he and she know that she is indeed very naive and young. Later, Bel is grateful that Laurent’s sculpture of her is so pure and innocent looking because it won’t make anyone suspect that they are in love.

“Perhaps one day, when you see the Cristo monument on the top of Corcovado Mountain, you will tell your children how you came to be present as it was created.”

These are Heitor’s words of farewell to Bel before she leaves Paris. The statement echoes the importance that the Christ the Redeemer statue carries in the novel and in Bel’s family story. It also foreshadows Maia’s interest in that very story, although she has to uncover it in Bel’s letters rather than hearing it told aloud.

“The contrast with Laurent could not have been more marked. His insubstantial physique, coupled with his small and pointed features, made me understand why Bel and Maria Elisa had likened him to a ferret. But I could see there was kindness in his eyes.”

These are Maia’s thoughts when she sees Gustavo and Bel’s wedding photo. Here, the novel draws an explicit contrast between Laurent and Gustavo, who are foils to each other. The novel also asserts Gustavo’s kindness and his love for Bel. These are significant aspects of his characterization and set him apart from characters like Luiza, who never exhibits any kindness. Gustavo does not treat Bel well, but the novel does not characterize him as malevolent.

“‘There is the belt of Orion’—Laurent pointed to it—‘and close by are the Seven Sisters in a cluster together. With their parents, Atlas and Pleione, watching over them.’”

Here, Laurent is speaking to the young boy whom Bel rescued from the street and who was taken in by the Landowski family. This is a clue, or an “Easter egg,” for the rest of the series. The young boy will grow up to become Pa Salt, and this is his introduction to the constellation that inspires his adoption and naming of his daughters.

“As Bel remembered this conversation, she also thought of her automatic revulsion at the thought of Gustavo touching her in the ways her mother had subtly described. Rising from the chair to return to him, she only hoped that it was first-time nerves and that after tonight, it would be as her mother told her.”

Bel has these thoughts on her wedding day as she prepares herself to have sex with Gustavo for the first time. Bel’s physical relationship with her husband is important in the novel’s discussion of Self-Discovery Through Personal and Bodily Autonomy, as Bel does not enjoy any bodily autonomy in her marriage. Society and Gustavo expect that she will always willingly have sex with him simply because she is his wife. He is often rough or inconsiderate with her when they are being intimate.

“Her spirits had been lifted enormously by the thought of a home that was truly hers. Given her current misgivings about her marriage, it gave her a much needed sense of security.”

Bel’s parents give her ownership of the family house in the countryside, and they do so in such a way that it will remain hers rather than automatically becoming Gustavo’s. This is a generous gesture and a positive example of the power of family. Bel’s need for a sense of security despite her recent marriage also underscores her lack of autonomy.

“It was as if her life before that afternoon in February at Laurent’s apartment had been no more than a dull, gray existence without meaning. Now, when she woke up in the morning and lay thinking of Laurent, every part of her body tingled with adrenaline. The blue of the sky beyond her bedroom window seemed almost dazzling in its brightness.”

Bel defies convention and expectations and seizes self-discovery and autonomy by initiating an affair with Laurent. Her love for him, as well as the wonder of seeking pleasure through ownership of her body, makes Bel feel more alive and more fulfilled.

“Even though he’d known Izabela didn’t love him as he loved her, he had hope that her affection for him would grow once they were married. But he’d felt her reticence toward him—especially when they made love—from the start. And these days, every time she glanced at him, he saw something akin to pity in her eyes, which turned occasionally to blatant dislike.”

Part 4 includes sections from both Gustavo’s and Laurent’s perspectives, granting the reader access to their thoughts. Here, Gustavo is thinking with regret about his relationship with Bel. This train of thought leads him to resolve to treat her better and stand up to his mother. Ironically, that resolution also nearly leads him to discover Bel’s affair when he seeks to surprise her at her dressmaker’s when she is with Laurent.

“If the tile could not be placed onto the Cristo, then at least it would serve as a perfect memory for Laurent of the moment in time they had once shared together.”

The Christ the Redeemer statue (and its soapstone tiles) is a symbol of enduring love. Many of the women who helped adhere the tiles to the statue inscribed the backs of the tiles with the names of and prayers for their loved ones. Bel inscribes a tile with her and Laurent’s names and sends it with Loen to communicate Bel’s intention to break up with Laurent and stay in Rio with Gustavo. This tile is eventually handed down to Maia.

“‘I know it would have broken his heart.’

‘So instead, you broke your own,’ Floriano countered.”

This exchange between Main and Floriano is an example of the frank yet empathetic honesty that Floriano uses with Maia. In this conversation, Maia has just revealed her secret—that she had a son whom she put up for adoption—which she has never told anyone else. Floriano’s thoughtful reception of her story is an important step in their relationship and in Maia’s journey toward self-forgiveness.

“Everything I wore was sober, designed to help me melt into a crowd. Here in Rio, I knew women celebrated the sensuousness of their bodies and their sexuality, whereas I had spent years hiding mine.”

After opening up to Floriano and spending a wonderful day with him, Maia decides to embrace her beauty by wearing a colorful and sexy dress that he bought for her. Here, she is thinking about how much that dress contrasts with her usual clothes. Maia’s embrace of her beauty indicates that she is emerging from her tendency to let fear guide her and deciding to let hope and love motivate her instead.