Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

  “I will, but won’t you be overcome by my sweet scent?” I teased him.

  He grinned in sympathy. “Your family must be great lovers of garlic.”

  “Zia is, and she smoked me nine times using a garlic bonfire.”

  “Pobrecita—you poor thing, to be smoked on your birthday.” Madelina glided forward to embrace me. Joining her was her grumpy brother, Gil Lucena, along with her novio, Julián Paz, they each of them greeting me at a polite distance.

  “I fear no one besides Señorito Kitt will ask me for a dance.”

  “I will dance with you, portuguesa,” offered the brave Julián Paz.

  At that moment, in rushed Ramón Lara. In a dark mood, he stumped towards Madelina, but her brother barred his way.

  “Good evening, señorito,” I greeted Lara in a pleasing manner, hoping to make him agreeable. I once read in a ladies’ magazine that an abundance of cheerfulness can tame the beastliest of men, or failing that, drive them to distraction.

  Lara staggered back, shielding his nose with his arm, ere he hastily withdrew. The fact that my smoky “aroma” had nearly knocked him down made the others laugh without end. The rest of the evening, he kept to himself—when he wasn’t pestering Madelina and her vigilant brother, who never left her side.

  Soon the guitarists signaled for the first dance, a bolero. There would be two couples—Mr. Munro and I, and Julián Paz and Madelina. The guests crowded round to watch us, curious that a Scotsman would attempt a bolero in their country. Mr. Munro accepted the challenge, removing his coat, unaware of how much this excited the women, young and old, who ogled his slender build accentuated by a well-fitted waistcoat.

  “Shall we promenade?” He took my hands in his.

  “Oh yes,” I replied, amazed at his confidence.

  We circled the dancing-floor, then took our positions, standing apart, our castanets ready. To everyone’s astonishment, he swayed with the music, he framed his arms correctly and he stepped gracefully. But, unlike other bolero dancers, he couldn’t stop grinning or laughing with merriment. Towards the end of the dance, with its spritely leaps, he joked with me.

  “I’m inclined to dance the Highland fling.”

  “Ha, ha! Let’s do the fling then.”

  I knew this dance, having fling’d long ago. And so began our impromptu Highland fling, with its hops and kicks and raised arms. But how would we end it with an abrupt stop? Be it instinct or coincidence, we both posed with hands at hips, legs together, feet outward. My partner and I cheered for our own daring selves.

  “Bien parado!” cried the women, fluttering their fans.

  “Well done!” Julián Paz shook his friend’s hand.

  Tito disagreed. “It was the strangest bolero ever seen and hopefully one not to be repeated in my lifetime.”

  Others cheered his sentiment. One could not miss, however, the contemptuous sneer of Ramón Lara, whose displeasure for our Highland bolero and everyone and everything was evident. Had he discovered that Madelina would marry someone else?

  At the midnight hour, I danced a fandango with Julián Paz, whose gentle manners made me understand why Madelina had fallen in love with him. It was after our dance, however, that I observed another side of him. He and Lara exchanged hostile words. Lara must’ve provoked him, because Julián Paz, with a stormy brow, shoved him away. This alarmed me, but I said nothing at the time about what I had seen, and I came to regret it later with a heavy heart.

  It was my birthday and I wished to flirt with Mr. Munro and to dance a seguidilla with Tito, who had finally agreed to stand up with me. It was an important day of my life because now, full-grown, according to my mother, I could sip as much sherry as I wanted and sit up for supper with the grown-ups, and, who knows, attend the theater and laugh at sainetes if Tito escorted me. I spoke of this with Mr. Munro. He grinned at my youthful enthusiasm, and he suggested that we celebrate by seeing an opera. Surely my grandfather wouldn’t object to La Cenerentola, the story of Cinderella. Emmerence could join us, too.

  “Where is Miss Odet?” he wondered.

  “To maintain peace with Felipa, she doesn’t speak to me at a tertulia. Look, she is playing cards with Señorito Horatio.”

  He turned to bow to her, and she inclined her head with a gracious smile.

  At three o’clock in the morning, the tertulia came to an end. Though Madelina’s party had taken their leave an hour before, Mr. Munro had remained behind to sit with me. We talked the entire time about a thousand different things, including his travels in Spain.

  “What a perfect day it was when Julián and I rode up into the Sierra Nevada.”

  I gasped in wonder. “Do tell me more.”

  “I will, if you tell me about your ride across the Bernese Alps.”

  A cultured young man, he always encouraged me to speak, and he gave me his undivided attention. It made me blush.

  “Though I was just five, I remember everything about it—how I nearly died when our mule lost its footing.”

  On and on we went, listening intently to one another’s tales of romantic adventures, and when, bashfully, I described my imaginary one, about the two of us atop my harp, floating down the Guadalquivir, and how he had become a swallow, he said it was by far the loveliest thing he had ever heard. It made me feel as though I were the most interesting and important person on earth. In him, I saw what I ought to be. He became my lodestar.

  Felipa, who sat beside us, had grown tired of her chaperone duties. She snored loudly. “Let us find Hopper,” Mr. Munro whispered in my ear. We found him dozing in the card-room, but instead of awakening him, Mr. Munro drew me close, our lips inches apart.

  “Violets,” he murmured. “You smell of wild violets.”

  It was true. Miraculously, I no longer reeked of garlic. A sweet and wistful scent of violets had permeated my every pore.

  I closed my eyes in anticipation of a passionate kiss, when, suddenly, a great commotion arose in the patio.

  “Dios mío!” exclaimed Tito. “Are you certain?”

  Everyone rushed towards him, anxious to know what had happened.

  The servant repeated what he had heard. “A suicide! Señorita Madelina flung herself from a balcony.”

  “María santísima!” Tito clutched his forehead.

  I squeaked out, “No, that’s impossible. She is in love with Julián Paz.”

  “Where did it happen?” asked Mr. Munro, his countenance very pale.

  “La calle Siete Dolores—Street of Seven Sorrows.” The servant crossed himself.

  “Julián’s family resides on that street. Why would Madelina be there at this time of night, unescorted?” reasoned Mr. Munro.

  I sensed his dread, however. Bad news is always true, yet something told me Madelina was in trouble. Everyone began to talk over one another. While that was going on, I wrapped myself in a shawl, determined to find this Street of Seven Sorrows to save my friend.

  “Niña mía, return at once,” demanded Tito, who then ordered his servant to find a calesa for him at this impossible hour.

  Mr. Munro chased after me in the plaza. “Wait! Do not go alone.”

  He caught my hand and we ran down the well-lit main streets, sliding and stumbling now and then on the slippery cobble-stoned pavement. A mist of doom enveloped us, and a few times we lost our way and we argued about which direction to take. We ventured down a dark alley, and then another, when we came upon an ugly Gaditano scratching himself, and I knew without a doubt it was the rhinoceros-man—a portentous sign. At the next street corner, some people in an excitable mood scurried past us.

  Mr. Munro eyed them with disdain. “They must be going to the Street of Seven Sorrows.” Our steps heavy, we followed these curious onlookers who love a tragedy and gossip.

  Indeed, a large crowd had gathered at the scene, reminding me of the bloodthirsty spectators at the Plaza de Toros. Mr. Munro pushed people aside so that we could see what had happened. Oh, Madelina. There, crumpled on the street in a d
isheveled state, was the belle of Cádiz, her white veil and gown slashed with blood. What made her do this? How could she leave us this way?

  Angry waves pounded the ramparts nearby. The agitating sea became louder, most insistent, ready to sweep away Cádiz, ready to annihilate humankind. Its fury drowned my ears, with a roar of a thousand oceans. Then, most inexplicable, it turned quiet, the sea now silently miserable. I thought I had gone deaf.

  During this eerie pause, a resurrected ghost slowly raised its head, and it wailed to the heavens. It was Madelina. Her brother, who guarded her, stood grim and motionless, because splayed underneath his sister lay her Julián, faceless. I don’t know why or how, but his face had turned into a soft glowing moon, and the moon whispered to me, “Hasta la eternidad, portuguesa.” We shall meet in eternity.

  Mr. Munro’s hand turned cold in mine, and his entire being quivered in agony. He fell on his knees beside Julián Paz’s body. Covering his face with his hands, he sobbed mightily at the loss of his great friend. The only thing I could think to do, now that my brain had slowly begun to work again, was to cover Madelina with my shawl, hoping it would give her loved one some privacy in death. I hated how the people swarmed round her to get a look at the silent moon-man.

  A great rumbling of voices drew near. The authorities had come with a hand-barrow, and they removed Julián Paz’s mangled body from the pavement the best they could, leaving rivulets of blood behind. While they were at this gruesome business, I felt someone was looking at me. Ramón Lara stood partly in the shadows, wearing a soft grin of joy. Instantly he became ugly. He shot me a dark, penetrating, hateful look.

  “I am not afraid of you, Ramón Lara,” said I, my red beads flashing hot. “You are sinvergüenza—shameless.” Filled with rage, I boldly cast him the evil eye. Everyone knows that the evil eye cast by a woman is more powerful than a man’s, and I dare say Lara felt it, because he slunk off into the shadows like the weasel he was.

  “Niña mía, there you are.” Tito strode forward, and he wrapped me in his arms. “Let us go home.”

  I mumbled into his chest, “I want to stay with Señorito Kitt.”

  “No, niña. You have seen too much sorrow tonight.” He handed me to Emmerence, who had accompanied him.

  He rejoined us after he had spoken briefly to the authorities. Inside our crowded calesa where I sat on Tito’s lap so that we could all fit, he muttered that it couldn’t have been a suicide when the victim had been stabbed in the back and then thrown off the roof-top. I stammered out, “In … the back?” Seized with panic and remorse, I told him how Ramón Lara had been lurking at the scene of death and how he might’ve murdered Julián Paz, given their heated argument at our tertulia. I, being foolish, hadn’t mentioned their quarrel to anyone at the time.

  “It’s all my fault.” I sobbed into my hands, afraid now to tell Tito about the exchange of evil eyes I had with Lara.

  “Nonsense!” cried Tito, but then, after a while, he became circumspect. “Niña, you must forget about the quarrel. Say nothing. Do nothing. Pretend the bad never happened.”

  “But it did happen—”

  “No! Do you want old Señor Paz, the father, to challenge Ramón Lara, a younger and stronger man? The Laras are rogues! They cheat and throw dust into a man’s face, or tread on his foot to throw him off balance, or kick him in the plums, or worse yet, give him the embrace of Judas, pretending they no longer wish to quarrel, while they bury a knife into his back.”

  Had Ramón Lara tricked his victim by giving him the embrace of Judas? It frightened me that Mr. Munro might also challenge Lara. Things being so, I vowed to keep quiet—I would have bit off my tongue than put Mr. Munro in mortal danger.

  I grasped my friend’s hand. “Emmerence, pray do not leave me tonight.”

  “I will stay with you,” she assured me.

  “Felipa will be jealous.”

  “Oh, she doesn’t frighten me.”

  Her quiet courage always amazed me. I hadn’t thought much lately about how strong her character was. Tragedy would never break her faith. She approached life with calm resignation and resolution, whereas I was strong-willed and high-spirited, one who resisted evil and fought back.

  I sighed, unable to get Lara’s wickedness out of my mind. It seemed to me that there’s a littleness, a real meanness, that can consume a man, unhinge him even, when he thinks he has been wronged. The consequences are dangerous for everyone.

  “Still, I say, it’s not right that Ramón Lara isn’t punished for this.”

  “You don’t have proof of what he has done,” Tito pointed out, “and even if you and a thousand others had proof of his guilt, he and his powerful and wealthy family would still deny it and they would bribe the escribano, the notary-public, to falsify a mountain of evidence that reflected favorably on his case. In this system of corruption and slow justice, most culprits, even the murderers, are seldom found guilty.”

  “It is hopeless, then,” said I.

  “Nay.” Emmerence clasped the cross of her rosary. “Let us hope that he will ask God for His forgiveness.”

  Tito drily replied, “To be sure he will, by paying for twelve Masses for the victim’s soul, as murderers often do, and he will get good absolution that way.”

  Morning came, and a funeral Mass was held. As was the custom, given the climate and fear of contagion, the body of Julián Paz was taken immediately to the burial ground one mile from the city, to be attended by members of the Holy Brotherhood, who, being the police and not clergymen, simply muttered Paternosters and Ave Marias. The poor and friendless, who had recently died, lay heaped one upon another in a covered cart, attended by no one.

  Afterwards, dinner prepared by a fonda was brought to the Paz home, and we, the guests of the family partook in a somber meal to honor the memory of Julián Paz. Platefuls of bacalao and a stew of prawns with rice quickly disappeared because, there not being much for people to say in such a joyless time, there was every good reason to eat. Tito ate his plate of food and then mine. Death always made him hungry, as I’ve said before.

  Mr. Munro ate nothing. He stood miserable and helpless amongst the mourners, there not being enough straw-bottom chairs for sitting in the meanly-furnished home. Julián Paz’s five brothers, they each of them pensive, huddled together in grief. His parents were inconsolable.

  The morning next, Mr. Munro called on us. He came to make his adieu. Mr. Hopper had insisted that they quit this place of sorrow and cruel violence, and thus, they would go to Sevilla. They must leave soon. Mr. Munro wished to speak with me privately, and he asked my grandfather for his permission. Tito hesitated, but in the end, he agreed to it as long as Emmerence accompanied me.

  “Emeraaanza?” Felipa stamped her foot. “I am the girl’s dueña.”

  Tito gave her an ugly eye. He called out for Emmerence.

  Felipa took me aside to whisper fiercely in my ear, “You must get him before he leaves and finds someone else. If he doesn’t propose, we’ll set loose an enchanted demon to penetrate his heart and make him suffer in agony for you.”

  Her brazen instructions to get him by any means repulsed me. Pushing her away, I hastened to the entrance where Mr. Munro stood waiting. He offered me his arm, and we walked out into the plaza, with Emmerence padding after us at a discreet distance. The glare of the morning light was sharp and unremitting, the day strangely calm—no wind, no clouds, no birds, the sky a canvas of lonesome blue. Mr. Munro and I settled upon a low stone seat.

  “I am very sorry for your loss,” said I, softly.

  “Julián Paz was the best of guides these last nine months. He had become like a brother to me,” he replied in a mournful tone.

  “A brother of your soul.”

  “He saved me one time, when we were climbing the Rock of Gibraltar, and a macaque jumped on me. He laughed in his light-hearted way and he tossed a banana to the Barbary ape, who found the fruit vastly more interesting than me.” Mr. Munro half-smiled, half-winced at the memor
y.

  “It’s true then. He must’ve been an angel,” and I began to weep.

  He gave me his handkerchief, one scented with his earthy blend of dark honey and fresh rosemary. Dabbing my tears, I knew not what to do with the handkerchief, when he mentioned that I might keep it for him. It occurred to me, though, that I wouldn’t get a chance to return it. Like so many travelers who came and went, he would never visit Spain again. He would resume his life in Glasgow. He would work for his uncle, marry a pretty Scots girl and raise a dozen children—all blessed with golden-brown hair and gentle dispositions.

  With a bruised heart, I fingered his parting gift that lay in my hands, because now I understood what it meant and why he had come to say a final good-bye. I was forever connected with the tragedy of Cádiz. “Sofía mía,” said he, his countenance filled with rue and despair, and that was the last thing he said to me. He squeezed my hand twice to convey how sorry he was about it. A great aching silence followed, and I began to shiver through and through despite the morning hour being warm and bright and clear.

  “Oh, my goodness me,” Emmerence uttered loudly near us.

  We rose in alarm. “Look there,” and she pointed with her chin to something in the plaza, a haunting specter of some sort dressed in black. At first, I knew not who it was, this elderly woman slightly bent and dressed in the coarse Augustine habit but without a wimple. She plodded past us in a trance, not speaking a word, as though she had lost her wits and didn’t recognize anyone.

  “Madelina?” I couldn’t believe it. Her hair shorn and completely white, she had aged twenty years it seemed.

  Her grieving brother, Gil Lucena, trudged behind. In a low voice, he explained that Madelina had determined to wear the habit as penance for two years; for, she believed that if it had not been for her flirtatious behavior as the belle of Cádiz, a madman wouldn’t have killed her Julián. Ere he took his leave of us, he shook Mr. Munro’s hand. His pained eyes slowly roved from Mr. Munro to me and the handkerchief crumpled in my hand. Then, rendering his countenance inscrutable, he turned away.