Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

  So it was, in this frugal manner, that we survived, she rationing our food and everything else. Water was abundant in Sevilla, yet, somehow, she expected me to perform my morning ablution using just a quart of it. Nor did she give me more than a quart to cool the porous bricks in our room, where we took our siesta lying upon straw mats.

  “Doña Marisa abandoned us,” I murmured drowsily during the hot siesta.

  “She thinks we’re safe with Pinto and Felipa.” Emmerence then groaned. “I hope Antonio doesn’t bother us.”

  “He won’t, because Doña Marisa isn’t here.”

  Emmerence shifted restlessly. “If only she would come for us, then we needn’t write a line to your grandfather.”

  “Let us return to Cádiz.”

  “We can’t without an escort—it’s impossible.”

  Days blended into monotonous days, and soon I knew not which day it was. We rose with the bells chiming for the Angelus Domini, we went to hear Mass before we broke our fast, we scrubbed our clothes and hung them to dry on the roof-top, we worked the ropes and pulleys to stretch the awning over the patio to shield us from the hot sun, we prepared our scanty dinner, we drew the curtains upon the balconies to keep out the heat during our siesta, we swept the patio, we uttered the Ave Maria when the bells chimed in the evening, we lit our oil lamps, we drew back the awning to let in the moonlight, we slept with one eye open and then we rose again to begin the same round of mostly joyless tasks.

  “I say, let us search for Doña Marisa this evening at la calle Sierpes.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Emmerence told me. “You know the danger of it—two young women walking alone there.”

  “O Dios, how monstrously tedious our lives are.” I threw myself onto a straw mat. In my state of idleness, I raised my left foot, and then my right foot, the better to admire my pink toes, and when that eventually failed to fascinate me, I sat up to cheat at solitario, the game of patience. No chocolate, no harp, no Mr. Munro—I felt their losses exceedingly.

  “Don’t be lazy, Sofia. Translate your potion formulas into Latin.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “Well, get the broom then, and sweep the patio.”

  “I shall wilt and die. It’s two hundred degrees already.”

  “Oh, stop exaggerating.” She handed me the dreaded cane broom.

  I was busily pretending to sweep when a gardener hired by Mr. Beauchamp arrived. He had come to tend to the flowers and hedges and the droopy jasmine bower. He shrugged when I asked about the Beauchamps. Surely the fortunate ones wouldn’t cast us off and risk Lord Scapeton’s ire, but I, having my pride, refused to speak to them about it, nor to go a-begging at their door, even for a cup of chocolate.

  One day, I don’t remember which, given the wretched state of my heat-jumbled brain, Don Rafael’s ancient and tired carriage drove up to the gate. Its creaks and groans could be heard a mile off. Don Rafael, along with Doña Marisa and Javier, alighted from it, they each of them wearing long faces, too absorbed in their own troubles to take much notice of me and Emmerence, or the fact that we young ladies had been without any protection for days. In a cart behind them, the cook and a parcel of servants unloaded provisions. Everyone would lodge here for the night—their final night at our family residence.

  Don Rafael dismissed Emmerence with a haughty frown. He stood silently in the patio, staring at what had once been his. No one said a word. “How dare that English merchant—a heathen!—sully the Riva name by living in my ancestral home,” cried he. In a somber mood, he conducted us to the study for a family meeting.

  He gave a quick nod to Javier, who stood behind the massive desk. Even without a horsehair chair, it looked as if he were sitting, given his boyish height. My brother motioned me forward. In an awkward manner, he spoke in a most lugubrious style. It seemed terribly rehearsed to me.

  “My dear Suu-suu—”

  “My dear Javier.”

  This interruption confused him, and he paused to concentrate on his task.

  “As the heir of the noble Riva family, it pains me … to inform you … that we are in serious distress from want of money. I regret … that we can no longer offer you a home.”

  He wrinkled his brow, trying to remember the next part of his speech—a stilted speech obviously written for him by his father. Don Rafael whispered out, “Our misfortunes …”

  Javier continued on, stumbling at his words, “Our misfortunes are great and—and—and—”

  “And what?”

  “—I have applied to Lord Scapeton, your dear uncle, for help, but alas … he has declined my request for another loan. He said … my family must live within our means.”

  “There are more days than sausages, as they say.”

  He grimaced at the word “sausages,” and I abruptly wondered what had happened to his rabbit. Had they eaten the poor thing?

  “Lord Scapeton then discussed our—our—predicament … with an esteemed nobleman, Don Fausto de Bobadilla.”

  “Indeed?”

  “And since his lordship … desires your immediate presence in Madrid, our capital … I ask that you meet with Don Fausto … to convey the urgency of our situation.” He sighed heavily, in that the tedious speech had taxed his faculties.

  “I will do that for you,” and I grinned inwardly, because now I could persuade Lord Scapeton to take me home to England. My father and I would finally be reunited.

  He gaped at me. “You will?”

  “Of course, brother. I shall persevere until you get your loan.”

  “Oh, excellent.” He glanced at his father, who gave him an approving nod.

  “My kind and brave daughter will save our family.” Delighted, Doña Marisa clasped her hands together, which is when I noticed that she wasn’t wearing her orange-diamond ring. Had she sold it, along with my harp and books?

  Later, while we dined on olla podrida, Don Rafael commended me for bearing our calamity with great fortitude and for agreeing to undertake a long journey on behalf of our family. To show his appreciation, he would take us to the opera, La Cenerentola, this evening at the Teatro principal, and afterwards, I could sit up for supper and eat ropa vieja. Eating the remains of the beef from one’s midday meal, and disguising it in a stew for a late supper, was a great favorite of my brother’s—I don’t know why.

  Doña Marisa announced her own surprise: she would take me to a special place before we went to the opera. To get there, we rode in a calesa, just the two of us, under an Andalucian summer moon. I’ve encountered moons of all sorts here in Spain. This one, a maja moon, adorned herself with silver spangles—how muy salada she was. She leapt into the sky at six o’clock, which was when I observed her, partnering with the shifting clouds to dance a bolero.

  Before long, we came to the Alcázar, a place I had never been. But I had seen the royal palace in a dream—its white-marble pillars, its horseshoe-shaped arcades, its arabesque fretwork tipped with gold—where I ruled as queen, wise and witty like Scheherazade from the Arabian Nights. My mother’s particular friend—the great beauty of the three señoras—awaited us at the gate, where we gave a silver bribe to the guard. From there, the señora led us from patio to patio, from arch to arch, from one enchanted garden to another where peacocks roamed and nightingales trilled amidst the magic water-spouts and the heaven-scented thyme, lavender and rose.

  Doña Marisa flirted with the gardener, who snipped two white dahlias for her. She placed one behind my ear.

  “Make haste, María de Padilla,” the señora urged her. “You have forty-five minutes before the queen’s party arrives.”

  “Mamá, why did she call you that?”

  Doña Marisa shushed me. “Centuries ago, Pedro the Cruel and his mistress María de Padilla lived here. They say she bewitched him.”

  From one of the palace gardens, we entered a dungeon. How gloomy it was in this subterranean world.

  “Hurry now!” With giddy excitement, she ran off, and in that mom
ent, I got a glimpse of the girlish charm that had once attracted my father to her.

  Down a long gallery we went, where the square apertures in the ceiling provided dim lighting. I gasped in wondrous surprise at what came next. Heavy vaulted arches loomed over a large oblong bath with marble sides three or so feet high. Red rose petals floated atop the shallow water.

  “What is this place?” I supposed it haunted.

  “The Baths of María de Padilla. They say King Pedro often looked upon his mistress as she bathed.” Doña Marisa began to untie her sash.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Quick, now. Help me with my gown, and I’ll help you with yours.”

  I unbuttoned her. There was no need to unlace her. Doña Marisa rarely, if ever, wore stays during the summer in this sultry southern climate.

  “Someone will see us.”

  She unbuttoned me. “Don’t be shy, niña.”

  “Felipa told me it’s sinful to bathe.”

  “That traitress! Don’t mention her name again.”

  Standing naked before her, and she before me, I felt a strange sensation as though I were looking into a mirror. Our breasts were shaped similarly, as were our hips, arms and legs, though she was rounder, I slenderer. Doña Marisa patted my cheek and she murmured, “O, sweet youth, how I envy you.” She went in first, and then she grasped my hand to pull me into the stone bath.

  “Dos duquesas y un torero,” she sang out a popular ballad about the rivalry of two duchesses who fought over a famous bullfighter. To hear my mother sing in her bright voice whenever she bathed meant all was right in her world, and nothing, not even the sun and the moon and the stars, could change her course.

  Two duchesses are disputing

  the love of a bullfighter.

  lero

  His name is not “Pepe-Illo,”

  lillo

  his name is Pedro Romero,

  lero

  Lillo, lillo

  lero, lero;

  Two duchesses and a bullfighter.

  We had sung three cheerful rounds, standing there in the rose-scented water, when my mother became quiet, deeply quiet. After a while, she asked whether I missed my harp.

  “Truly, I needed the money, and that was why I sold it to someone who expressed a great interest in it.”

  Not wanting to quarrel with her, I said, “Well, then, I hope it brought you a small fortune.”

  Instantly she brightened up. “Ah, sí, many, many pesetas, the equivalent of half a guinea as you say in England.”

  I coughed out, “Half a guinea! In England it is surely worth thirty guineas, second-hand.”

  “Well, it might have been”—she bit her lip—“if your brother hadn’t cut the strings with his sword, and knocked it down while playing bullfight.”

  “Javier slaughtered my harp?” This made me convulse with laughter to the point of tears—I don’t know why, but it did. My mother thought me strange. Really, though, I no longer needed the harp; I was quitting Sevilla, quitting them, quitting girlhood for good. I would be a poised young lady of Madrid and soon of England.

  Slowly we drifted towards the two large spouts at the upper end of the bath. Doña Marisa chattered on about the wonders of Madrid, and I wondered why she was still being so pleasant to me. She said, according to the gossip there, Don Fausto was a lonely widower, very wealthy and a great lover of poodle-dogs.

  Wagging her finger at me, she warned, “Do not become his mistress.”

  I groaned in disgust.

  She continued on, “I give you my consent to marry him. Think of the pin money you’ll get if you do.”

  I double groaned. “Oh, mamá. He must be ancient, all wizzeny and gnarled.”

  “Well-seasoned, yes, but not on the wrong side of fifty … I hope.”

  In a rebellious tone, I declared, “I won’t ever marry.” Whether I actually meant it was something else. Oh! Mr. Munro.

  “No? What about Antonio?” my mother asked, with an anxious look. “I found your secret scraps of paper—‘Antonio, Antonio, Antonio’ written on them.”

  A light shone on her, revealing the truth about her relationship with Antonio. She must be living now with her young lover. What matter? I was completely disenchanted with him, and I told her so.

  We waded back, towards the lower end of the bath. She came to a halt, midway, and I sensed she wanted to speak with me again. Apparently, two Englishmen had visited her. They wished to hear her ending for the tale of The Magic Oranges—the part where she had sought her father. Stunned by this piece of news, that Mr. Munro had come to our home, I cringed just thinking how my mother had probably embarrassed herself. Had she flirted with him?

  “The young señorito, the one with the friendly freckles and pretty blue eyes, desired to be remembered to you kindly.”

  “Kitt Munro.” My heart thumped wildly when I uttered his name. “What else did he say?”

  “Oh, this and that. And then they were gone.”

  Gone? No other message for me? In an instant, lovesick tears filled my eyes, because I had lost Mr. Munro again, and the sharp pain of it caught me unawares. Miserable, I sank to my knees, seized with a fit of crying. My mother knelt awkwardly beside me in the water.

  “There, there.” She patted my back while I wept into my hands. “It’s the English way. The men come to our countries to seek love, and then they leave us, or they come and go as it suits them. Look at what happened to me and your father in Lisbon.”

  “Mr. Munro is Scottish,” I uttered between sobs.

  “Isn’t that English?”

  “No-o-o-o!” I wailed at her. “He’s from Glasgow.”

  She tapped her chin. “Now I think of it, he spoke rather peculiarly. This Glasgow must be a strange country with strange folks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She humphed. “It was he, this señorito, who paid me many pesetas for a broken harp, one that can’t be played.”

  “He did?”

  “Sí, sí! And when I asked him what he will do with it, he said, ‘perch atop it and float down the Guadalquivir.’ I thought he was funning me—Ay! tourists are a curious breed—but now I believe him loco.” She pointed to her forehead and crossed her eyes.

  My mother, so ignorantly amusing, knew not why I wept with laughter. Mr. Munro had remembered my waking dream about the two of us floating downriver on a magic unsinkable harp and he being a flirtatious long-tailed swallow. This pleased me immensely to know that he was somewhere in the world still thinking of me, enough to want a broken harp, one that would probably sink. Only he and I could appreciate the irony of it.

  Brushing away my tears, I became secretly hopeful about Mr. Munro and more so when, at the opera that evening, Cenerentola braved adversity to marry her prince. Emmerence thought the story of Cinderella enchanting. She had been invited to the opera as Javier’s guest.

  Afterwards, when we supped at home, Javier proudly served everyone with ropa vieja, the shredded beef and thinly sliced vegetables that resembled rags. “To my sister,” said he, raising his goblet of wine mixed with water. My brother had grown up quickly during our family crisis, which made me think that mischievous fairies had stolen away Javier when he was an infant and placed him under enchantment for years to live in a tree, and then, feeling bad about it, had recently returned him to us.

  That night, in my happy state, I dreamed of a beautiful girl dubbed Cenerentola by her wicked stepfather, Don Rafael. The handsome Prince Kitt identified Cenerentola by her red-beaded necklace, a bead of which she had given him earlier at the ball where he had fallen in love with her. The prince, who then married her, decreed that Cenerentola must determine her stepfather’s punishment for having treated her so poorly for the past six years. Surprising everyone, she forgave Don Rafael, and thus, goodness triumphed.

  Doña Marisa smothered me with benedictions and tears and motherly advice. It was half past three in the morning and much too early for a plentiful lecture about my bad quali
ties.

  “Vaya con Dios, y que no …” and she bawled into her handkerchief.

  “Oh, mamá.” I wished she wouldn’t cause a scene again, now that Emmerence and I were about to leave.

  She gave me her navaja. I couldn’t believe it, that she would part with it—her trusty knife. She demonstrated how to use it.

  “Remember, you must strike upwards.”

  Quickly I secured it in my garter.

  “Do not lose your Spanish passport.”

  “Yes, mamá.”

  “Behave yourself and don’t utter a word about politics. You must think before you speak—always be pink, pink, pink polite in Madrid society and support the king. Never utter a word about the Constitution.”

  “I shall be the pink of politeness,” I assured her for the hundredth time.

  She waited expectantly. When I didn’t say what she wanted to hear, she pouted.

  So, I said it to please her. “Good-bye, mamá, I love you,” and with those magic words, she became vastly happy. She gave me the wilted white dahlia from her hair. And then we embraced for the last time, our troubled relationship forgotten for a few moments, because who knew when or whether we would see each other next.

  Don Rafael gave me a perfunctory nod. He stood at the gate, silent and darkly brooding, and half-way to his usual arrogant self. I sensed his relief to see me gone for good. Javier, meanwhile, shook my hand.

  “Do not forget your promise to speak to Don Fausto,” he reminded me.

  “I promise.”

  Waving at everyone for the last time, I then got into the wagon. Atop of it lay a lumpy mattress, the wool having clotted into balls the size of walnut shells. Baskets of bread, strings of cured sausages, clay vases filled with water, goat-skins of wine and contraband cargo—the cigars crammed into large wooden cases—took up much of the space inside, leaving us passengers just half of a bench for ourselves, our small portmanteaux and our alforjas, a kind of knapsack made of cotton.

  Don Rafael hadn’t the money for a traveling coach, and so Mr. Beauchamp had helped him to arrange our transportation. This explained why our surly escorts were, by trade, contrabandistas. One was the mayoral, the driver, the others a zagal, the driver’s helper, and an escopetero, the guard.