Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

  “You wretch!” I shouted at him, struggling mightily to free myself.

  He called me a low word, which is when I saw the rhinoceros in him.

  “Unhand me, you stinking rhinoceros!”

  He slapped me in the face, and I gave him two. This stunned him momentarily that a crazy girl disguised as a boy, dared to fight back. Before you could say Sofía la Loca, I took to my heels, for surely the great oaf would pursue me, which he did, crashing into walls, overturning carts, huffing, puffing and spitting out epithets. With my superhuman speed, I ran off, out of his reach. A spectator—a little fire-boy eating monkey nuts—cheered me on.

  “Run, mamá! Run!” He struck his combustible rope against the ground, the sparks flying everywhere.

  I panted out, “Please—fire-boy—the plaza—where is it?”

  The boy tittered. “Good fire!” and he whipped the ground again, with his rope.

  “La Plaza de San Antonio?” I asked him.

  “La plaza!” cried he in wild excitement, and he grasped my hand to pull me along.

  We sped down one street, and then another, turning left, then right, right again, then left. My sides ached horribly from running so hard.

  Pointing to the big deserted square, he said, “Here, mamá.”

  “I’m not your mamá.”

  He giggled into his little hands. Puzzled by his childishness, I gave this tattered boy the four cuartos from my sash.

  “Good-bye, mamá,” and he skipped away, the coins jingling happily in his hand.

  I shuffled into the plaza, where, in front of the Church of San Antonio, I removed my hat and sank to my knees, my head bent from want of breath. Soon, but not very soon, a deep calm came over me, and I mumbled a prayer in Portuguese, grateful I had survived my ordeal.

  A gentle voice asked, “Portugués, may I help you?”

  Thinking perhaps it was God Himself, I raised my eyes. An angel in the guise of a handsome señorito stood before me.

  “Não,” I responded in Portuguese, shaking my head.

  He patted my shoulder in a brotherly way.

  “Vaya usted con Dios,” and he strode off, humming a bolero.

  No one else was about as far as I could see. With renewed determination, I scurried to the narrow street abutting the side of Tito’s house. There, the shuttered window of Tito’s laboratory stood wide open. Had I actually left it that way in my zeal for adventure? I had no sooner vaulted onto the window sill, my one knee balancing precariously on the stone ledge, than another rascal accosted me.

  “What ho, thief!” He seized my free leg.

  “Let me alone!” I shook him off with a violent kick, but before I could scramble through the window, he grabbed my foot to pull me down. I landed hard on the ground, bruising my seat of honor.

  “Ugh,” I grunted in pain.

  “Get up, you miscreant.” The stranger knocked off my hat.

  “Pax.” I shielded my face with my arms as I rose to my feet.

  “Pax?”

  I peeked at him. “Señorito Kitt?”

  The level of his gaze slid down to my chest.

  “Good Lord!” He turned away at once.

  What ho, forbidden fruit! Bursting through a gaping tear in my shirt, a ripe grapefruit presented in puris naturalibus. Oh, how my face turned a hundred colors! How I died a thousand deaths! Frantic, I pounced upon my felt turban hat, and I used it to cover my naked breast. That was when I noticed Mr. Munro’s deepening blush, and this lessened my embarrassment to know that he, too, was flustered.

  He stammered out, “Señorita Belles … what are you about?”

  “Sofia-Elisabete,” I corrected him.

  “Sofia-Elisabete, have you taken leave of your senses? It’s a crime here for a girl to dress as a boy.”

  “Pish!” My courage rose to defend myself. “I have grown tired of being kept in, so I went to see the sights during the afternoon siesta.”

  But he would have none of it. “It is not proper for you to be on the streets without a chaperone.”

  “I am a respectable girl,” and I grasped my torn shirt, praying that it would magically mend itself.

  “From what I’ve seen, the respectable Spanish girls always remain within, doing needle work or some such womanly task.”

  I groaned at that idea. “Have pity on me, sir. My life is tremendously dull. I rarely leave the house most days except to go to church in the morning.”

  “But danger is everywhere and nowhere in this country.” He cast a wary eye about and behind him. “What if you had met with trouble?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Something tells me you did.”

  “Pooh, nonsense. Nothing happened.”

  There must be an unlucky star for every lie that is told in the universe. Mine was a ponderous rhinoceros who had hunted me down. It roared. It stamped. It charged upon us, vociferating, “Go to the deuce! Go to the deuce!”

  “Santa Isabel! The beast has found me.” I clambered into the window opening. “Do hurry and follow me, señorito.”

  Mr. Munro lifted himself onto the window sill, and with astonishing athletic grace, he swung his legs over. Quickly he closed the shutter from within, and not a moment too soon. I gathered that he had done this sort of thing before, and I confess I liked him for it.

  His eyes wandered in awe about the room, at the weirdness of it all, until he noticed, amongst the clutter, my shift and other clothes strewn on the floor. Hastily I picked them up to cover myself.

  “Dear me! A naughty fairy must’ve tossed my clothes into a heap,” I shamefully lied.

  Blushing anew, he averted his gaze.

  “Señorito, will you wait for me in the patio?”

  He said, “Yes, but bring your chaperone,” and then he stood about, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  As I walked off, I could not help but gaze upon him over my shoulder, spellbound by the long lashes of his downcast eyes, such lovely lashes flecked with gold. I had not taken more than five steps when I crashed into the barrel of sweetmeats.

  “Ugh.”

  “I say, are you hurt?” He checked his amusement.

  Bent over the barrel, I mumbled out a response. He must have thought me downright silly, but I didn’t care at the moment, because I enjoyed being the sole recipient of his attentions. What girl wouldn’t?

  There must be a lucky star for every unlucky one. My dueña and Emmerence still took their siesta, which meant Mr. Munro and I could speak alone. Having thrown on some clothes and whatever else to make myself presentable, I hastened to the staircase at the far end of the gallery. A rumbling of deep voices floated up from the patio, followed by bursts of big jolly laughs. Ay me! My unlucky star had returned.

  Downstairs, Tito was entertaining Mr. Munro with a chameleon—a pot-bellied half-lizard, half-toad creature—who clung to a rope that hung in the corridor. The chameleon descended to the bottom of the rope and, with a grave air, calculated the distance to the ground, then turned about on its funny-looking fingered paws and crept upwards, only to find it could not crawl on the ceiling. Back and forth on the rope the confused reptile went. Tito placed another chameleon on the rope, and the moment the two chameleons met, their eyes bulged and rolled in horror at the sight of each other, and that was the best part of the joke.

  “You had better hide the chameleons before Don Fulano eats them,” I told Tito.

  Startled, he hadn’t heard me come upon them.

  “Niña mía!” Tito scowled at me in my maja costume.

  “Those are interesting gems that you wear.” Mr. Munro, wishing to be a peacemaker, admired my necklace. “Sometimes they present brown, other times red in the sunlight.”

  “They are andalucitas.” I proudly patted my beads.

  He leaned forward. “What flower is that in your hair?”

  “It’s a pomegranate blossom.” I adjusted the fiery orange-colored blossom that was folded behind my ear.

  “How vibrant, full of life—muy salad
a,” he murmured, gazing into my eyes, and I knew he wasn’t speaking of my blossom.

  Tito broke into our flirtation. “Oh yes, like that bee inside the blossom—”

  “What!” I exclaimed. The naughty bee hummed round and round my person, bouncing off my nose ere it flew away, attracted by the jasmine vine that clung to a colonnade.

  Tito swooped upon me. “Do you have any other surprises for us? Anything you want to tell me?”

  I shook my head, though not without a sense of doom.

  “Niña, you must never venture out alone!” he thundered.

  “Oh, señorito,” I addressed Mr. Munro. “You told my grandfather.”

  Tito spat out, “He told me nothing. I took a siesta today in my laboratory, a place forbidden to you, when I was rudely awakened by a rhinoceros (imagine!) swearing outside my window.”

  I groaned aloud. How had I not seen or heard Tito slumbering there?

  “Now, then, I must have your solemn promise that you won’t leave the house without a chaperone.”

  I hung my head.

  “I insist upon it!”

  “Yes, Tito, I promise.”

  “And keep out of my sweetmeats. If you were a boy, I would rap your knuckles for stealing.”

  “Oh, Tito, you would not.”

  “Would I! What gluttony—you’re as bad as that fatty, Pinto.”

  “I ate only a handful or two.”

  “A ton of them were missing.”

  “Impossible, Tito.”

  But a side glance at Mr. Munro, who had turned red as a love-apple, confirmed my suspicion about his thievery. What ho, fellow thief! Such a mild-mannered young man, yet he could be as bad as I was, when it came to craving sweets. Neither of us said anything to my grandfather.

  Tito continued to rant, “Dressing as a servant-boy, roaming the city alone, pilfering my sweetmeats—what is next? You have been only two days here and have grown tired of your old Tito.”

  “No, Tito, it isn’t true,” and I flung my arms round his neck.

  He tickled my cheek with his furry beard before he freed himself. “Well, what did you see? Where did you go?”

  I gasped out, “Tito, I saw Pinto buying cigars from the bandit chief—the one who always robs us. Pinto has money—he swindled Don Rafael—”

  He shrugged. “Even if your stepfather caught Pinto in his lie, Pinto would explain it away with more elaborate lies. He’s the prince of mendacity, though he acts a fool.”

  “But … lying is wrong.”

  “Is it? Tell me—how many lies did you utter today?”

  “Why, only one … a mere peccadillo …” My thumping lie set my cheek a-blush.

  I saw how it was: expert liars live to tell thumpers, completely unashamed of tricking out the truth. Pinto, that lying rascal, would never be punished for stealing money. It still didn’t seem right to me. What a ridiculous price we paid for some of our relations, and nothing, it seemed, could ever change that.

  Tito turned to Mr. Munro. “And you? From what I have seen, the British are grand equivocators.”

  “I never put my trust in the ambiguities of others,” was Mr. Munro’s firm reply.

  Tito’s eagle eyes narrowed. Did he suspect Mr. Munro for stealing the sweetmeats? He said to me then in a sharp tone, “Granddaughter, go to your room—”

  “Oh, Tito, please. I don’t want to go.”

  “Of course, you must go.” He laughed of a sudden. “How can you forget that we are taking tea this evening at Wall’s fonda?”

  “Ay! I thought it was tomorrow.”

  “This Englishman, Mr. Wall, wants you to play your harp at his inn. You need to practice so that you don’t embarrass me.” He laughed again.

  Oh, Mr. Munro! The opportunity was gone to know him better, and I had so many questions that needed answers. For example, why did he smell so good, like a mixed sensation of Spanish dark honey and fresh rosemary? Who dipped his eyelashes in gold dust? Where did he get such irresistible freckles? Could I borrow some of them? Seriously, there must have been a thousand important things I longed to know. I wasn’t completely giddy-brained.

  Tito once said that this harp, which came from Marseille, cost him a million pesetas, and that he paid another million pesetas to his “brotherhood,” who carted it from Gibraltar, hiding it underneath sacks of potatoes. But, of course, I never quite believed him. He was habituated to hyperbole.

  I had been practicing on the harp for two hours when some men arrived to cart it to Wall’s fonda. For tea that evening, I wished to wear the dainty white gown that Tito had gifted me with—the one that made me look grown up—but he demanded that I cover myself with my black basquiña and mantilla. Later, when I appeared before him wearing a bright red carnation in my hair, he replaced it with a posy of white jasmine—white for purity, said he, with a meaningful look.

  “Dios mío! What are those brown dots painted on your cheeks?”

  “Dear Tito, I am wearing freckles this evening. They are very much in vogue.”

  “Ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head with disapproval.

  At half past five o’clock, he escorted me to Wall’s fonda on Calle San Servando, an inn known for its comforts, cleanliness and civility, and frequented by English travelers. Mr. Wall, in his majo costume of white jean, greeted us in his well-kept patio while his Spanish wife served tea using her Wedgwood tea-equipage.

  Tea and bread for me, however, would have to wait. I excused myself so that I could tune my harp before the servants carried it into the patio. Mr. Wall’s wife bustled up to me afterwards, where I paced half-hidden in the corridor, exercising my fingers and musical memory for my latest fantaisie impromptu. She clasped her hands in supplication.

  “Por favor, Señorita Belles, do not play your horse-y music again.”

  “Do you refer to my energetic composition, ‘The Wild and Bucking Andalucian’?”

  “Sí, sí, it upset our English lodgers.” She wrung her hands. “You must play something nice! A nice soft melody! Make everyone feel nice!”

  I laughed inwardly, recalling how her lodgers had found fault with my unorthodox music, branding it strange and lawless.

  “Do not worry, señora. I promise to play something nice for you this evening. I’m in a nice frame of mind.”

  “Bien, muy bien!” Happy now, she led me to the patio.

  Positioning myself at the harp, I kissed my beads for luck. The señora smiled at her lodgers.

  “My dear guests, Señorita Belles will perform for us, something very nice.” She turned to me with pleading eyes.

  “I shall play a new piece called ‘El Munrodor.’”

  She wrinkled her brow. “El Munrodor? Whatever does it mean?”

  “It means ‘the one who is nice.’”

  Someone murmured with amusement.

  My fingers poised at the strings, I closed my eyes for several seconds, to conjure up a gentle waterfall dancing upon the rocks, a mile high in the Sierra de Cazorla, the source of the great river, the Guadalquivir. I found myself sitting astride the saddled neck of the harp, slowly ascending from the depths of an emerald pool, I striking chords with my fingers and toes, and singing the legend of the daughter of the river, “Soy la hija del rio y de la niebla, y cantando paso al mar” (“I am the child of the river and mist, and I sing as I flow to the sea”).

  In this happy manner, I drifted north into a majestic tributary, then southwest in a serpentine course through rugged hills. Down the river I went, where the terrain became smoother, to flow with the tranquil current through the land of earthen pots in Andújar, through the groves of olive trees in Montoro, through an arch of the old Roman bridge at Córdoba where a friendly tortoise swam alongside me, and then on to Sevilla, past the bridge of boats, past the rows of fragrant acacia and the sweetly-scented orange and lemon groves, past the sandy plains that stretched to the horizon, past the lazy cows and sheep and the fierce Andalucian bulls, past the shining pyramids of salt twenty fee
t high, until I found myself in a marsh where a colony of bright flamingos lounged in the waters.

  Mr. Munro waded into the tidal marsh to join them. He stood upon one leg, posing like the other flamingos, and it made him laugh at his own silliness. All at once, the flamingos took flight, bursting into the sky with their showy, black-trimmed, rosy-pink wings—a thousand V’s and upside-down W’s hurtling overhead. Mr. Munro, having sighted me, cried out “halloo,” his arms shaped into steely-blue wings. “Let us journey together,” he sang sweetly, admiring his glossy feathers. He plunged into the waters, and emerged as a swallow with a spritely long tail, soaring high, diving low, whirring and singing, when, quick as a flash, he darted towards me to alight on the crown of my harp. Had his aeronautics pleased me? Would I accept him? “Oh yes,” I replied, “but you must love only me and no other swallow.”

  We floated into the mouth of the river, where the currents were strong, I gliding my toes on the golden strings of our musical bark, he warbling in his soft warm voice, “O my Luve is like a harp that’s sweetly played in tune.” A balmy breeze swept us to sea, and so, I raised high my mantilla to make a sail, guiding us into the bay of Cádiz, past the tangle of ship masts, past the naked sea-bathers, past the urchins angling for St. Peter’s fishes. Mr. Munro fluttered his wings and he settled upon my shoulder, to sing tenderly in my ear, “So nice art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in luve am I.”

  I had been resting my forehead against my harp, exhausted from my watery journey, when a peal of thunder broke into my rhapsodic waking dream. Stunned, I rose from the harp-chair, ready to flee for cover, but my shaky land legs prevented me. Somehow or other, I summoned up an appreciative nod to the friends and strangers who clapped their approval, several of the women dabbing their eyes with their laced handkerchiefs, the señora of the fonda amongst them. She embraced me, praising me for being a nice harper, and requested that I honor her lodgers with a nice song. Unprepared I was to sing. Fortunately, something dropped into my mind—a popular song about a harp, for which I was encored.