Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

  ’Tis believ’d that this Harp, which I wake now for thee,

  Was a Syren, of old, who sung under the sea;

  And who often at eve thro’ the bright billow rov’d,

  To meet on the green shore a youth whom she lov’d.

  But she lov’d him in vain, for he left her to weep,

  And in tears all the night her gold ringlets to steep,

  Till Heav’n look’d with pity on true love so warm,

  And chang’d to this soft Harp the sea-maiden’s form …

  My performance done, I sought my rewards: tea and bread and butter. But Madelina Lucena, with her winning sweetness and expressive eyes, beckoned me to her table. I hadn’t known she was there, accompanied by her mother. Our families always exchanged pleasant greetings after Sunday service, and that was the extent of our acquaintance.

  The belle of Cádiz! I couldn’t help but stare at Madelina. Her beauty was so great—la flor de la canela, the height of perfection. Enchanted, I hadn’t given a thought about her other tea companions, who had risen from their seats.

  Madelina’s mother introduced me first to Señorito Paz, a handsome young man, whom I recognized as the angel in the plaza earlier today.

  With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Ah, la portuguesa, I lay myself at your feet.”

  “I kiss your hand, sir,” was my reply, and I reddened.

  The señora motioned to the others. “I’m told that you already know our friends—Señorito Hopper and Señorito Munro. They are lodgers here.”

  Oh, double mortification! My heart nearly froze at the mention of their names. Surely, they, and everyone at the table, knew what I was about, dedicating my composition to Mr. Munro, and how much I adored him and thought endlessly about him and wished him to be mine.

  “Good evening, señoritos,” I uttered in a faltering voice.

  Mr. Munro helped me to the chair situated between him and Madelina, and I surmised he had previously been sitting next to her since the seat radiated a warmth. Madelina had hundreds of admirers, and now Mr. Munro had become her No. 1 admirer, eager to join her party at the theater afterwards. How childish, how awkward I felt, having never seen a play and the sainetes, those one-act burlesque sketches, at the Teatro Principal on Calle Ancha. I saw how it was. Mr. Munro would declare his love to Madelina, and they would laugh together at comic operas for the rest of their days.

  My jealous heart sank to my toes, and then it rose to my throat, before it sank again. While my unruly heart misbehaved, I became distracted by the fascinating curves of Mr. Munro’s lips as he spoke and, in my amorous state, I failed to pay heed to my tea cup. Ay me! I nearly knocked it over. Everyone at the table had seen my clumsiness.

  Madelina spoke up, “Sofia-Elisabete, how lovely your jasmine is.”

  Still flustered, I stammered out, “My grandfather … he says I must wear white blossoms.”

  “It becomes you.” She smiled at me.

  “Do you really think so?” It cheered me to receive her approval. “My dueña says I’m too brown to wear white.”

  “Nonsense! Do you not agree, Señorito Munro, that Sofia-Elisabete must wear white?”

  “Indeed, she must,” and he met my eyes. “You and your charming freckles look very nice.”

  Had he emphasized the words “nice” and “freckles” on purpose? Quickly I turned away, hoping to hide my crimson freckled cheeks. Did he know that I wore freckles to worship him? Oh, stupid, stupid girl. Of course, he did. If only I had some fern seed, I could dust myself with it and become invisible.

  I scarcely recollected any conversation after that. I was struck dumb, afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of spilling my tea, afraid of gazing too many times at Mr. Munro. It wasn’t until later, during the walk home with Tito in the bright evening sun, when a rush of youthful tender feelings and emotions overwhelmed me, such that my heart smarted with despair. I squeezed my eyes shut to prevent the childish tears from rolling down my cheeks, but roll they did, and I let loose an agonizing wail.

  “Who dares to make my princesita unhappy?” Tito scowled. “Is it El Munrodor?”

  A string of sobs was my response.

  “I will give him la Mamalucca a thousand times.” Tito sliced the air with an imaginary sword.

  I bawled out, “No, Tito! Do not hurt Señorito Kitt.” La Mamalucca was a fatal cut of the sword—a technique Tito had learned in Genoa.

  “Point of honor I will. It’s a matter of pundonor that no man may hurt my granddaughter.”

  “Please, Tito, do not be pundonor-ing for me,” and I brushed away my tears, not knowing that I had smeared my artfully-placed freckles in the process. “I am a worthless silly girl, fated to be a bitter spinster, living on your roof-top, to mind the chickens and mice and frogs.”

  Tito gaped in horror at the sight of ugly me. “You and your muddy-track face seem to think I shall live forever, to care for you.”

  “Oh, Tito. Shan’t you?”

  “No! I’m an old man on the verge of antiquity, with baggy eyes and a long nose that gets longer each year.”

  “You’re not that old.” I knew he was two and sixty, because he always reminded me of it. Here, in Andalucía, longevity is well known. Quite a few old folks lived into their eighties and nineties, even reaching one hundred. Tito wouldn’t dare leave me yet.

  “On my demise, everything I own will belong to my nephews in Buenos Aires,” muttered Tito, who, in the past, had never revealed much about his business dealings in the Americas.

  “I didn’t know they were in Buenos Aires.”

  “My nephews have settled there, to manage our affairs. The war with Napoleon changed everything. If not for our expeditions to Río de la Plata, I would have been bankrupt.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Bankrupt.”

  “Well, what do your nephews do there?”

  “One of my nephews oversees a horn-rolling factory. Perhaps you ought to be a bitter spinster in Argentina, making horn rolls for him?”

  “A horn roller? Surely you jest.”

  He sighed the way old folks do whenever they remembered the golden past.

  “There was a time when fifteen hundred vessels entered the bay of Cádiz each year. Thus far, the Correo de Cádiz reports no more than fifty in the last few months. The days of glory here are long over, as are mine.”

  “Pooh, nonsense. I found the rawhide and wool and other things in your laboratory.”

  “My nephews ship these goods to the free port at Gibraltar,” he curtly explained, “and then, with wits and luck, and the help of my ‘brotherhood’ and a pack of one hundred mules, I get the goods over the sierra.”

  Wits and luck? A brotherhood of smugglers? It was true then—Tito had become one of them to survive. I gulped down my huge disappointment. As a child, I believed that the world of commerce would stop spinning without him—he, the greatest Genoese trader in the history of Cádiz. I believed that his character, so strong and impenetrable, would triumph over any challenge, but now I wasn’t sure. Had the force of circumstance weakened him? Or, had the force of his character molded circumstance?

  I pushed these weighty questions from my mind, because I, afflicted with lovesickness, much preferred to brood about Mr. Munro and only him. Antonio seemed a thousand miles away, and I suspected that he, a fickle flirt, hadn’t pined for me at all when I left Sevilla. Could he not have sent me a love-letter somehow, or even come to Cádiz to see me? But he hadn’t, and most likely never would.

  How quickly things changed after that evening when my awkward self had been on full display before Mr. Munro. I had been on the look-out since daybreak, standing on my balcony, hoping for a glimpse of him, when a happy coincidence occurred. Two horsemen on black Andalucians trotted up to Tito’s house. My heart a-throb, I thought I would surely die from excitement. I gave them the usual morning salutation here.

  “May your days be happy, señoritos.”

  Julián Paz replied, “May you have the
m also, portuguesa.”

  “Good morning to you.” Mr. Munro raised his hat.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We are for Xeres,” he told me.

  “Xeres! Will you visit Gordon’s?” Everyone knew the Scottish wine merchants, the Gordons, or rather, the Spanish Gordons. They had intermarried with the Spanish since the mid-eighteenth century, when Arthur Gordon, at age twenty-five, fled here to escape the repression of Catholics. His noble family had been staunch Jacobites.

  “Indeed, we shall taste the wine from the fountainhead, just as their cousin Lord Byron did.” Mr. Munro grinned at me. “I say, can you ride a horse?”

  “Oh yes. I am very expert at it.”

  They laughed good-naturedly at my Andalucian-like boast.

  “Side-saddle or astride?” Mr. Munro asked.

  “I prefer astride as do some Spanish ladies.”

  “Will Don Luis allow you to ride out tomorrow, to Isla de León?”

  This cheered me. “If he says yes, I shall place a thousand red roses on the balconies.”

  “Well and good, Sofia-Elisabete.”

  “Well and good, Señorito Kitt.” I gave them an enthusiastic wave good-bye.

  Tito, who was inclined to make his princesita happy, said I could go riding, but I must find a chaperone. Emmerence didn’t ride. Neither did Felipa. There was nothing for it but to beg Pinto, that lying scamp.

  “Tío Pinto, what say you to a jaunt tomorrow?”

  He frowned. “Is Felipa going? Is she?”

  “No. She doesn’t ride.”

  “I don’t ride, I don’t ride either.”

  “How about riding a donkey?”

  “What! And look like Sancho Panza riding an ass?”

  “Por favor, it’s a mere five miles to Isla de León.”

  “Dios mío! That’s ten miles round trip, sitting on an ass. I shan’t survive.”

  So, I begged again. “I need a chaperone or else I cannot ride with Señorito Kitt.”

  Perhaps he felt sorry for me, or he was just hungry.

  “Suppose”—he stroked his moustache—“suppose you get me Don Luis’s sherry, his best Amontillado, and some cigars, plenty of Havannas, and a saddle-bag filled with La Mancha ham (oh, sweet ham!) and chorizo (Zia’s spicy sausages!) and bread and olives and sweetmeats (Don Luis’s dried fruit!), I’ll try to divert myself that way.”

  “Yes, yes, Tío Pinto.”

  “But tell Felipa I’m the body-guard; she’ll fall into a fit of frenzy otherwise,” and he gave the wink to me.

  So it was that, on the morning of my big adventure, the balconies of Tito’s house bloomed with a thousand yes’s. Unlike before, I cared not that Mr. Munro knew how much I worshipped him. Why shouldn’t a girl declare her love first? Why shouldn’t she dive into love’s warm waters with youthful exuberance? Tito’s rules for proper conduct remained strict, however, and thus, I dressed in Spanish black, but this time I wore special petticoats for riding, an embroidered jacket and a wide-brimmed hat with low crown. Even my hair had been plaited and tied neatly with a black bow to please Tito.

  “You must never be alone with this Scotsman, nor let him take your hand. The Scots, like those English, are always wanting to kiss a lady’s hand,” he warned me.

  “A true Spanish lady does not give her hand to a man,” I assured him. When he wasn’t looking, I dabbed my neck with more of my violet love potion.

  Very soon, Mr. Munro and a groom arrived with the horses and a donkey. Once Tito was satisfied, after having minutely examined my horse, he permitted me to ride. It took three of them to help Pinto mount his donkey.

  The tide being low on the narrow isthmus that connected Cádiz to Isla de León, I chased Mr. Munro over the peaks of the sand-hills, dodging the tufts of wild broom, and onto the wet sands, he galloping on a bay Andalucian, I on a grey. What a picture it must have presented to morning strollers as we two daring riders wearing wild grins raced by in the otherwise calm seascape—the waves folding one after another upon the shore, the puffs of violet clouds shape-shifting in the sky, the blue-green depths reaching towards Africa.

  A mile later, we slowed our horses to a walk and then wheeled round. Where was Pinto? Searching with my pocket spyglass, I located him sitting astride his Asno Andaluz, a large salt-and-pepper donkey. He didn’t seem in a hurry, drinking wine from his bota—a leathern sack—and popping olives into his mouth. A congregation of fat plovers surrounded him with curiosity.

  “Look! Pinto is eating sausages now.” I handed the spyglass to my riding companion.

  “The sea-air must have increased his appetite.”

  “Sea-air or not, Pinto has a prodigious appetite,” I told him, which made him laugh.

  He helped me to dismount. Silently we led our horses to the smooth white sands, from where we watched the spoonbills feast on insects. We stood close together, inhaling the curiously dry air mixed with a moist sea-breeze. A rustling of paper caught Mr. Munro’s attention. I had filched some of Tito’s sweetmeats and had wrapped them carefully in paper.

  “Which one is your favorite?” I held out a selection of dried fruit.

  “This one,” and he began to eat it.

  “A peach, is it? You surprise me, but then, so did your thievery of Tito’s sweetmeats.”

  He grinned. “I thank you for not telling tales to Don Luis.”

  Mr. Munro told me about the gooseberry tarts he loves and which he often steals from the kitchen at home and how his mother never reprimands him but blames the dog instead. It was a family joke. I exclaimed with joy, “Gooseberry is my favorite!” And we shook hands affectionately. He spoke glowingly of his family—his parents, his older brothers Dillon and Brodie, his younger sister Margaret, their faithful dog Dryden—and his home on Blythswood Hill in Glasgow. His fondness for his family made me wish he would take me home with him.

  “Why did your parents name you Kitt?”

  “They named me Christopher after my uncle. My abbreviated name is Kitt.”

  “Oh!” I replied, pleased to know his real Christian name at last.

  Mr. Munro continued on, telling me how his father had become a wine-merchant and his uncle a tobacco-merchant. Upon his return to Glasgow, he would work for his uncle; it was expected of him. He spoke with pride of the merchantmen and steam-boats navigating the river Clyde and the great sea beyond. When at home, Mr. Munro escorted his dear sister to the Theatre Royal and the Assembly, where she impressed everyone with her charming manners, amiability and good sense. Sometimes he rambled alone on Broomielaw Quay, and every morning he took Dryden for a romp on the Green. I wondered why he never spoke of his studies.

  “Where were you at school?”

  “I was at Stonyhurst.”

  “Did you go to a university?”

  My question ruffled him for some reason.

  “My father is against my going to a Scottish university. He says my being tutored by Hopper is sufficient.”

  “I wish I could go to a university in England, but women are not allowed.”

  “Young men like me are not welcomed at Cambridge or Oxford.”

  “Why not?”

  He regarded me for a moment. “I refuse to take the Oath of Supremacy and to renounce my Catholic faith.”

  I had been completely ignorant that he was Catholic. I, in my naїveté, had assumed he was a member of the Church of Scotland. A thought entered my brain, and I wanted to know if he agreed with me.

  “My father has warned that exclusion of Catholics and other people breeds alienation and hostility.”

  “Indeed, it does,” was my companion’s dismal reply.

  I then confided to him that I was the natural daughter of a heroic man, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and how my father searched for me, a foundling in Lisbon, but later found me at a convent in York. Eventually, we settled in Scarborough, where he and my stepmother raised me. My father educated me on his own, and he encouraged me to think for myself and to ask questions.

 
; I paused, wondering whether my personal history had unsettled Mr. Munro. He looked at me in earnest, very steadily, and with such kind eyes, and that’s when I knew he truly had a liberality of mind. And I was glad of it, not to be judged unfairly for who I was.

  “You must miss England,” said he, compassionately.

  Willing away my tears, I told him, “I yearn to be again in Scarborough, where I am known to all as Miss Fitzwilliam. It has been six longish years since my father brought me here.”

  “Why hasn’t the colonel come back for you?”

  “He became ill,” and I explained what little I had been told about my poor father.

  “You seem uneasy.” He must’ve noticed me fidget.

  “Things have gone terribly bad of late. My stepfather, Don Rafael, detests me more than he does my mother, Doña Marisa. I want to stay with Tito, but my mother won’t let me.”

  He shot me a worried glance. “What will you do then?”

  “If I must, I will fly with the swallows to Madrid, then to Zaragoza, and from there, over the Pyrenees and onwards to England until I reach Scarborough.”

  “You’ll need a passport then,” said he, half-teasingly, half-seriously.

  I pondered the truth of it. “The world of swallows is without boundaries; they need no passports.”

  “A world without boundaries—how incredibly strange that would be,” he mused to himself.

  He turned to me with a questioning glance, but his natural reserve subdued him of a sudden. Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew a pomegranate blossom, one that had fully opened and burst into life, and he secured it to my hat-band. How happy this made me, that he remembered my choice of blossom from when I had defied the rules to roam the city alone.

  Silent as a secret still, he removed his hat, to fumble with it, and I, being curious, wished to know what he would not tell me. He lingered close, his breath upon me, willing me to understand him. And there, on the lonely strip of sea-shore, without a chaperone to stop us, without boundaries and rules and oaths that dared to obstruct matters of love, two hearts of perfect similitude stole away for a long moment’s embrace.