I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel Fitzwilliam

by Robin Kobayashi

  My second truth, thinks I, though I am not inclined to admit it, is that I rather enjoyed cousining about with Pico. I wished to be a star, orbiting his bright star. Whenever he drew near, I gravitated towards him no matter how hard I tried not to. Yes, yes – I know what you are feeling. Shocking is it not? When we departed Rotterdam, I knew not what had happened to that rascal Pico. I knew not whether I would ever see him again, yet an inward feeling told me that I just might.

  Near Nijmegen, an ancient frontier town, I espied a set of dark-haired, nut-brown people and a familiar assortment of painted wagons and old horses. As we drove by the gipsy encampment, I observed Pico ‘a-grooming and a-grubbing’ the gipsy duke’s horse. My heart full, I almost cried out Pico’s name. How wildly happy I was to see someone known to me after having travelled a hundred miles of dusty road in a strange country and feeling strange myself, for no one looked like me or spoke like me or thought like me. When the officials at Nijmegen gate stopped our carriage, demanding to inspect our passport and luggage, I jumped out of the basket seat where Josefina, the maid, lay sleeping, and I scurried to the gipsy encampment.

  ‘Pico! Pico!’ I waved at him in high spirits.

  ‘Soofia-Eee?’ Pico started at the sight of me. ‘Wheer yer goin’?’

  ‘The Land of Cuckoos.’

  ‘Cuckoos?’ Pico sighed. ‘I canna goo wi’ yer.’

  The sudden appearance of the duke broke into our happy reunion. He swore in gipsy-talk – ‘Boro Duvvel!’ (Great God!) – and demanded that I pay him five sous for this bengel, this little blackguard, if I wished to buy him. I hastily dug into my waist-coat pocket, and I withdrew the five sous I had earned as a rope dancer. The duke, with raised brow, wondered how I, a wee foot-boy, had any money. ‘Ja,’ cried he, and with a wave of his hand, he dismissed his horse-keeper boy. Pico gave a whoop, and before you could say Pico Robinson, he seized his bundle of things, and the two of us ran off like hares to Nijmegen gate.

  Inside our carriage Josefina fanned the sickly Doña Marisa, who pressed a handkerchief to her damp forehead. Señor Gonzalez, on seeing me dawdling near the carriage, let down the glass, and he ordered me into the basket seat again. ‘We shall cross soon into the Rhineland,’ warned he. What luck, I told myself. Now I would be rid of Josefina and her frightful temper, even if for a short while. The carriage jerked to a start, when Pico, who had been lurking behind a tree, scrambled into the basket seat. Once we had safely crossed the border, I learnt why Pico had gone off with the gipsies.

  Pico recounted how the duke had captured him the day when he had been hiding behind one of the gipsy wagons – the day when Señor Gonzalez had come to retrieve me after my rope dancing act. ‘He accused me of being a chore, a thief,’ said Pico. The duke, however, found nothing suspicious on Pico’s person, and so he invited Pico to join him and his dog on a hunt for hedgehog. He captured two hedgehogs, each of which he wrapped in clay, and he placed them in the centre of the fire to cook them. When the meat was done, he broke the clay casings, now stuck with hedgehog bristles, and he showed Pico how to eat the white meat with his fingers.

  ‘Gah!’ I stuck out my tongue.

  ‘It tastes chicken-y,’ Pico assured me.

  After Pico had supped on hedgehog, a gipsy fortune-teller read his palm and pronounced him kosko bokht – good luck – and thus, the gipsies welcomed this gadje, this foreigner, to live with them. He slept on straw that night and every night in the gipsy way. He ate rabbit stew with the potatoes that he had pilfered from the farmers’ fields. He foraged for dead animals, having learnt that the gipsies preferred animals to have died by the hand of God and not by man. And once he had proved himself worthy, he minded the duke’s horse – a great honour, indeed.

  ‘I sold Waterloo teeth an’ stuff an’ I made a cart-load o’ munny fer the duke,’ bragged Pico. The day came, however, when his bokht or luck ended. He had grown tired of picking apples for a Dutch farmer, and so he began to sling stones at the apples hanging in a tree. The duke had to pay the angry farmer five sous for the spoilt apples.

  ‘The duke wanted me to be gone.’

  I nodded. ‘He sold you for five sous.’

  ‘Yer munny saved me,’ Pico’s voice quavered. I thought he would surely cry at that moment, so I did what I hoped would put him to rights again.

  ‘Want you a stroopwafel?’ I offered him my last stroopwafel that I had been saving.

  ‘Yi, Hendrik,’ Pico snatched the stroopwafel from me. ‘Mmm…tastes chicken-y.’

  We laughed into our hands and quietly so. But our mirth-making and chatting had attracted the attention of those sitting within. At the next stage-house in Cleves, where the servants loaded our luggage onto a German post-wagen, Señor Gonzalez began to thrash the shrubbery with his bastón, his walking-stick. Having flushed his prey, Señor Gonzalez seized Pico by the lug, and the two of them began to tussle.

  ‘Minha Senhora! Minha Senhora!’ I banged on the door of the diligence with my fist, pleading for my lady’s help.

  ‘Voto a Dios!’ thundered Señor Gonzalez. ‘I shall take this boy to a foundling hospital in Cologne.’

  ‘No, you shan’t.’ Doña Marisa’s angry shout startled him, for she had alighted from the diligence. ‘His fate is to be our foot-boy, at least for now.’

  She had no sooner issued her command, than it began to drizzle. Señor Gonzalez hastened to hand his lady back into the diligence, he fearing for her wellbeing. ‘Foot-boys! I wish for my foot-boys,’ she demanded from within. With an impatient sigh, Señor Gonzalez ordered us into the conveyance, while the other servants – the valet and the maid – were made to sit on the box with the driver.

  Doña Marisa fanned herself for a long while, her eyes intently fixed on me. ‘Foot-boy, you remind me of a young girl I once knew.’

  ‘Did she play a drum?’

  Doña Marisa laughed. ‘No, but she believed in the magic of the world.’

  ‘Magic?’ I sat on the edge of the seat, eager to hear more about this young girl who believed in magic.

  ‘Ah, sí, a whimsical magic. There was once an industrious Gallego water carrier in Lisbon,’ Doña Marisa began. ‘He bought one small barrel, filling it up with water from a fountain. Balancing the barrel on his shoulder, he trudged up and down the steep streets of Lisbon every day, selling a cup of water here, a cup of water there, until he saved enough money to buy a second water barrel, a third barrel and then a fourth.

  ‘This Gallego had married a lindissima named Jacinta, who came from a wealthy family, but she had fallen from grace, and together they raised one daughter, Marisa, and two sons, Gaspar and Gustavo. The Gallego treated his daughter poorly, for the daughter was not of his blood. While his two sons sat idle, he ordered his daughter to fill up the barrels with water from the fountain and to drag a small cart from street to street, selling cups of water to the town-folk.’

  ‘It isn’t fair,’ cried I.

  ‘I shall challenge that old Gallego to a duel,’ Señor Gonzalez shook his fist.

  Doña Marisa tapped his arm with her fan to silence him. ‘One day while Marisa’s brothers lazed about the water fountain, taking snuff, they ordered her to check their heads for bugs.’

  ‘I’m the champion of bug finders. Sister Matilde told me so,’ bragged I.

  ‘Pah!’ Pico elbowed me, and I elbowed him, and soon our bout of elbowing turned into a monstrous row.

  ‘Silencio!’ Doña Marisa ordered us to behave. ‘Now, Marisa set about to do their bidding, checking their heads for bugs, when a handsome officer from Inglaterra requested a cup of water. Ashamed of her dirty hands and her avid bug hunting, she blushed as she handed the officer a cup of water. “I thank you, water maiden,” he winked at her. He mounted his Lusitano, and he rode away.’

  ‘Humph. A British officer…’ Señor Gonzalez muttered to himself.

  Doña Marisa continued her tale. ‘Marisa sat alone for a long while by the fountain, ruminating on the handsome officer’s features – the
darkness of his blue eyes, the crookedness of his grin – when, of a sudden, a fish landed in the fountain. Apre! The fish told her that he had swum a great distance by aqueduct and that he was ever so tired of swimming, and if she carried him in a pot of water to the river Tejo, he would place the officer under enchantment. Having done what the fish asked, she returned home where her father beat her for not having prepared their dinner.’

  ‘He beat her?’ I gasped, my eyes wide with fright.

  Señor Gonzalez curled his lip. ‘The old man is a dog. I shall tear him apart, limb by limb…’

  Doña Marisa shushed her cortejo. ‘Several months later, her father opened a caza de pasto where she worked as a tavern-maid. One evening, the officer strolled into this public-house where he drank many a cerveja, and just as the fish promised, the officer became spell-bound with this lovely maiden.’

  ‘The magic fish kept his promise,’ rejoiced I.

  ‘Humph. A magic fish…’ Señor Gonzalez muttered to himself.

  Doña Marisa held up her hand to silence everyone. ‘But in the morning, the enchantment was broken and the officer left her without a word, although he did leave her five réis. With a sad heart, she strolled down by the packet stairs leading to the Tejo, hoping to find the fish. Apre! The fish appeared, and he promised to place the officer under enchantment again.’

  I clapped my hands. ‘I knew the magic fish would come back.’

  Doña Marisa cast an anxious look at me. ‘A year and a half went by, and during that time, Marisa found herself with child, and she gave birth to a baby girl named Sofia. When she and the officer met for the third time, in the midst of a war, he became enchanted, indeed, and nothing could break the enchantment the officer felt when he held his own child. Alas, the officer mysteriously disappeared one day, and they knew not where he went and if he would ever return or if he was even alive.’

  ‘Did Marisa ever find him? Please, please tell me more,’ I bounced on the seat.

  ‘What dost think?’ Pico gaped at me in disbelief. ‘Yer papa was lookin’ fer you in Lisbon.’

  I sat there thunderstruck. The British officer in the story was none other than my papai? I began to puzzle my wits together. ‘The water girl, Marisa, loved the officer. But the officer loved the baby Sofia. And the baby Sofia was me, because the officer was my papai and Marisa was my…was my mamãe? Then papai looked for me. And he married Mrs Wharton, my mamãe in Scarborough.’

  ‘That villano! I shall defend your honour, mi amor, and challenge this villain to a duel.’ Señor Gonzalez sliced the air twice – ‘whissshhh, whissshhh’ – with an imaginary sword.

  ‘Basta! Enough, all of you,’ cried Doña Marisa, and she chided her cortejo for his love of duelling. She claimed she needed to rest, her story-telling having tired her. So close her eyes she did all melancholy-like.

  I gazed at Doña Marisa, my heart thump-thumping, knowing now that she was my natural mother – the beautiful, the perfect Marisa Soares Belles of my dreams. Oh, how I wished to ask her more about my mysterious beginnings, the kind of questions I couldn’t ask my papai, who, for some reason, became cross whenever I mentioned her. Soon, however, Doña Marisa fell asleep, and at the next stage-house, Señor Gonzalez banished us children to sit on the box with the driver. There was nothing for it then but to bide my time and not upset Doña Marisa, and perhaps, with any luck, she would tell me another story.

  With the weather having turned warm, the horses plodded along, needing frequent rests. ‘Dios mío!’ muttered Señor Gonzalez. He claimed that the German post-wagens were the slowest carriages on earth. When he demanded that the driver go faster, the driver shouted ‘Yaw! Yaw!’ and flourished his whip, but the German horses ignored him and continued their slow pace. Doña Marisa uttered a thousand complaints about the heat and dust and slow horses, and I dared not go near her while Josefina attended to her.

  The next day we reached a city called Cologne, a gloomy place with narrow and dirty streets winding their way on both sides of the Rhine. I observed many a sad-looking beggar at the convents and churches, where they lodged in the nooks of the convent walls. When I lived at the Convento do Desterro, I at least had a patch of straw to sleep on.

  Doña Marisa grumbled about the stagnant air and the filth of Cologne. She declared this place disgusting and unhealthful, yet she wished to buy bottles of scent, something called eau de Cologne, which made no sense to me. Why would she want a bottle of scent that smelt as bad as Cologne?

  ‘What a stinkin’, rotten town,’ complained Pico. The two of us sat again with the driver on the stink-box, which is what Pico dubbed it, because the odours that arose from the filthy streets and open sewers swirled round us, making us feel queasy.

  ‘The town-folk are sad,’ observed I.

  ‘Yer canna be happy livin’ in stink an’ poverty,’ reasoned he.

  My heart sank to my toes, for most assuredly the Colognians did not belong to the race of moon-folk. The town-dwellers lived in a wretched state, their countenances sickly from having to breathe in the foul air. Having seen enough of this misery, Doña Marisa wished to push on. So hire a house-boat we did to take us up the Rhine. As our crew bent to their oars against the current, I summoned up my magical powers, telling Wind to help us get on, and I prayed to the angels to guide us and to protect us from crashing into rocks. Several times the current became too strong, however, and our house-boat had to be drawn by a horse or a small band of town-folk on the towing road alongside the bank of the river.

  By and by, Doña Marisa’s health improved, and she declared herself healed. She sat on deck of the house-boat holding court while Señor Gonzalez held her parasol. ‘Holla!’ She gave a friendly shout in German to the mariners who passed us going down the Rhine, and they being a reserved kind of people would silently tip their hat to her or simply stare at her, shocked by her brazenness. With Doña Marisa happy, Señor Gonzalez became happy, and the servants, in turn, became happy that their lady was happy.

  ‘We daren’t be happy unless our lady is happy first,’ Pico drily observed to me.

  Each night on the Rhine, our happy Señor Gonzalez got monstrously drunk from the fine German wine he bought, and he would howl like a dog at the bright white moon. ‘Tonto!’ his lady called him a fool. Pico and I would laugh into our hands until we were found out and scolded by Doña Marisa for not having gone to bed. She, having determined not to suffer another night at an inn with the happy Señor Gonzalez, declared we would lodge on the house-boat instead, it being secured at a landing-place. The following morning, while everyone still slept in their cabins, I sat on the after-deck with my drum, willing myself not to beat it. Heigh-ho! Desperate to do something, I began to count the number of boats on the river, when…

  Lo there, on the tow road! I espied an English gentleman with a crisp gait and commanding presence walking down river. Like a true officer, he gave a brusque wave to his driver, and just before he got into his carriage, I called out to him – ‘Holla!’ – but my voice drowned in emotion. I strapped on my drum, and I beat it in 4/4 time. P-rum p-duh p-rum p-dah, pa-da dum-dum da-dahhh. If he was my papai, then surely he would recognise the drum signal, for was not ‘Tree on the Hill’ our special song? I had no sooner beat eight measures, than Josefina stumbled on deck, heaping upon me a thousand curses.

  ‘You no good penny,’ her ferocious shout startled me. Wild with fury, she threatened to toss my drum into the river.

  ‘Minha Senhora! Minha Senhora!’ I shrieked in terror, as Josefina, who had gone mad, chased me round the deck.

  ‘Silencio!’ Doña Marisa commanded from her cabin, clearly annoyed. ‘Josefina, come here and dress me.’

  Josefina gifted me with the evil eye ere she disappeared into her mistress’s cabin. Safe now from that bruxa, I searched for the carriage I had sighted on the tow road, but the carriage was long gone. I dared not tell anyone of the Englishman who resembled my papai, so I prayed to God instead. Holla! God! Would you be so kind as to send down
Sister Lisbet? I must needs speak with her. And I waited and I waited. To my dismay, she, too, seemed to be long gone.

  I sat on deck and wept, lost in my miserable thoughts and home-sickness. Then I remembered what my mamãe in Scarborough had mentioned about happiness, and if I truly wished for it again, I would be happy once more. Seized with inspiration, I beat my drum while I sang ‘Tree on the Hill’, ignoring the complaints and groans and curses below deck, and for a whole five minutes, I believed myself happy.

  Later that day, we disembarked at Bingen, where Señor Gonzalez hired a carriage to convey us to a place called the Black Forest, or Schwarzwald. We spent many days on the road until we reached Karlsruhe, and from there, we drove into the forest. Apre! To my surprise, the forest was not black but rather green, green, green, with fragrant pines and grassy dales. Could this green paradise be a moon world? I thought it just might be, for no one begged in the villages, the streams abounded with trout to eat and the forest-folk drank spa water in Wildbad for their health.

  On our way to visit the mystical lake at Wildsee, we came upon a little peasant girl with red-stained lips, hands and feet, carrying an earthen jug of wild raspberries. She sold berries for two kreutzers to Señor Gonzalez, who wished to please his lady. The girl ran alongside us as our carriage drove off, and she tossed up some berries to me. What kindness there is in the Black Forest. As I waved good-bye to the girl, she scooped up some berries from her jug, and she crammed them into her mouth to eat.

  We children were left to do as we wished in Wildsee while Señor Gonzalez and Doña Marisa strolled through the forest, romanticking themselves and feeding each other wild raspberries. ‘Let us bathe,’ suggested Pico, for it was unusually warm. We raced each other to the lake, whereupon we jumped into the cold water. There, immersed in our watery play-ground, I practised the tricks that my avô had taught me, such as swimming like a carp and turning somersaults like a dolphin. Near the bank of the lake I espied a slender man, deep in thought. I swam up to him, mermaid-style. The imp in me performed an aquatic somersault, splashing him with water. Once I came up for air, I burst into a fit of giggles.