‘What do you get when you cross a stubborn mule with another stubborn mule?’ asked he.
‘Uma mula estúpida,’ replied I in Portuguese.
‘A stupid mule? No, no, no. When you cross a stubborn mule with another stubborn mule, you get nothing – nothing at all. A mule cannot be crossed with another mule. So therein lies the joke.’
I shrugged at him.
Señor Gonzalez sighed. ‘When two stubborn people, just like two stubborn mules, come together, nothing is ever resolved, and as the story goes, what begins ill comes to a bad end. Do you see my point?’
‘Agora sim, Señor Gonzalez.’ My response of ‘to be sure’ seemed to satisfy him.
The sun having set, we gathered on the balcony at the inn to listen to a musician who roved the street below, strumming a mandolino. Señor Gonzalez encouraged me with a slight nod, and thus I approached Doña Marisa. She, wondering what we were about, scowled at us with a suspicious eye. Speaking in Portuguese, I scolded her, telling her that she was a stubborn mule (como uma mula!), and if she was monstrous cross towards a stubborn mule like me, well, believe you me, she would end up with nothing (nada!) and it would be very bad for her (muito mal!) – oh, and Señor Gonzalez had tipped me the wink about this. Doña Marisa gasped at my impertinence. She turned to her cortejo, narrowing her eyes at him.
Señor Gonzalez raised his hands in submission. ‘Ay! That was not my point. She has misconstrued my meaning.’
‘Humph,’ returned she.
Pico snickered at me. ‘I dunna know what yer said, but yer both in the suds now.’
The next morning Emmerence took me to the ancient Church of Santi Gervasio and Protasio where I said my novena. When I had done, she asked me if I was truly sorry and wished to stop quarrelling with Doña Marisa, given my outburst yesterday. ‘Agora sim,’ I half-assured her and myself. Her eyes widened in astonishment at my coolness, and thus I hung my head, ashamed of having lied inside God’s house. I held my breath, waiting for an avalanche to crash into the chapel, but God had spared me this time.
‘Look over there,’ whispered Emmerence, nudging me on the arm. A sad woman, her head bent low and covered with a black mantilla, prayed with her rosary in hand. It took me a moment or two to recognise Doña Marisa, who sat there alone as frozen as a marble statue. With the feeling of a true penitent, I resolved to wash my hands in a magic spring, and if there wasn’t a spring here, then a magic lake just might do. Emmerence and I sallied forth to Lago Maggiore, where I knelt to cleanse my hands in the cold, blue water, and I prayed to God to help me wash away the bitterness in my heart and to let my heart be pure. By the bye, God, please help me find the moon world, for surely it will cure Doña Marisa’s sadness.
The time had come to get on, yet Señor Gonzalez still refused to believe my tale about the banditti on the road. ‘Es imposible!’ said he, but I detected a twinkle in his eye. He, having heard enough of my cries and angry pleas, hired two private boats that conveyed us and our carriages to Sesto, at which point our guide quitted us to return to the Valais. From there we continued our journey by the great military road to Milan.
Señor Gonzalez joked with Doña Marisa that Milan is a city where the wealthy Italian matrons and their cicisbei or escorts frequented the shops during the day and La Scala in the evening where they sat in their boxes gossiping or playing at cards. Given that he travelled as Doña Marisa’s escort, Señor Gonzalez believed the two of them would be most welcomed here. We set off then to see the sights, including the white marble palace of the Milan Cathedral, when something singular happened.
‘Arre, burriquito, arre!’ I kicked my heels into Señor Gonzalez’s sides.
‘Aieeee! That hurt,’ Señor Gonzalez chided me, for he had become my beast of burden as we climbed up the staircase of the cathedral. There, perched on his back, I inhaled the singular scent of a Spanish man, who brought to mind a hodgepodge of tobacco and red wine and oranges and figs.
The difficult climb of more than five hundred steps had tired Doña Marisa, and so I kept her company while the others roamed the rooftop of the cathedral, the better for them to view the spirals, carvings and sculpture. Near us stood a finely dressed Englishman sketching one of the fretted spires. His handsome profile suddenly being revealed to us, Doña Marisa gasped, and she spun round, holding her belly. With alacrity, she draped herself with her black mantilla, her head bent as if in deep prayer. When the light-haired gentleman with the noble mien passed by us, he slowed his step to stare at her for a moment or two, and then he went on his way. I believed he was as baffled as I about Doña Marisa’s belly, which seemed a bit swollen to me.
‘Doña Marisa, did you eat too much maccaroni?’ I stared at her roundish belly.
She grinned at me, pleased I had spoken in English. ‘Sí, I ate too much maccaroni,’ she patted her belly.
‘Jesus likes maccaroni, thinks I. He told me so at The Last Supper when I dreamt of it last night.’
‘The Last Supper?’ Doña Marisa wrinkled her forehead. ‘Ah, sí, the fresco we saw at the convent yesterday.’
‘Jesus said unto me, “I hunger.” So I served him up a dish of maccaroni. And then he told me to serve up a dish of maccaroni to the poor. “Verily I say unto you, you ate up all of the maccaroni,” complained I to Jesus.’
Doña Marisa smiled into her hand. ‘What did Jesus do?’
‘Like magic, dish after dish of maccaroni appeared, and so I fed the poor. Methinks it was a miracle.’ I nodded to her.
On the ninth day of my novena, I met with Doña Marisa in her sitting room, where we exchanged pleasant buongiorno’s. ‘Sofia-Elisabete, I wish to find la luna,’ said she, and my heart warmed at her use of my true, chosen name. Having recalled her promise about la luna, I shared her wish to find a real moon world because none of the places we had journeyed to – what with everyone fighting, begging or walking about with sad faces or goitres – resembled the society of the moon-folk in the least.
Doña Marisa revealed that ere long we would be nearing la luna, and we would know it when we reached the sea, but it would be difficult to find la luna. If we prayed hard enough and puzzled our wits together, we might succeed, and succeed we must. Would I help her find la luna? I nodded, and feeling most knightly, I knelt on bended knee and pledged my loyalty to Doña Marisa in her quest to find la luna, the chivalry of which diverted her.
‘I have a surprise for you, my little knight, and I hope I have done right this time. Did you know that here, in Italia, it’s considered fashionable and diverting for the ladies to dress as men when they attend the theatre?’ Doña Marisa winked at me. ‘Well, now, you can dress as a real Spanish majo, just like Señor Gonzalez. We majos and majas in Spain are a proud, defiant people, and that is why we wear our national costume.’
With great pride, she displayed a brown capa, soft brimmed hat, untanned shoes with green silk strings, white leather knee breeches, a red silk sash, a short waist-coat and a velvet jacket covered with rich embroidery, silver buttons, spangles and ribbons, all made for a tiny child like me. My eyes became round as saucers.
‘How do you say the clothes are beautiful?’
‘Say, “qué preciosas”.’
‘Qué preciosas!’ I fingered the delicate embroidery on the jacket. ‘Doña Marisa, please teach me the bolero?’
‘Sí, I promised you that I would. Many children in Spain dance the bolero.’ Doña Marisa smiled broadly, her eyes as bright as spangles. ‘The bolero is an elegant, sprightly dance, and the steps should be performed with, as the dance instructors say, violencia – violence.’
Doña Marisa, she being a proficient in all things bolerología, taught me the art of the bolero, theatrical-style. When, in the beginning, I became annoyed at my clumsy self for turning the wrong way, she stressed the importance of doing a bolero well, but that it made no sense to attempt the bolero if one’s heart was not in it.
She corrected my posture, the frame of my arms, the movement of my hands and t
he position of my heels, toes and legs. She taught me how to do leaps, crosses, turns, beaten steps, sliding steps, advance and retreat steps and something called mata la araña or killing the spider where a sliding step ends with one foot extended in a point.
One day she demonstrated a paseo – a graceful walk – and we promenaded together round the room several times. Another day she taught me a bien parado, she preferring a sudden stop with her arms raised in a graceful attitude and her left foot suspended in the air. I, however, preferred a defiant pose with my hands on my hips, my head held erect and my body tilted slightly backwards.
But my favourite part of learning the bolero was snapping the castanets. The right hand held the castañuela hembra or female castanet with its higher, subtle pitch, while the left hand held the castañuela macho or male castanet to create a deeper, heavier sound. Sometimes I snapped both castanets together; other times each of my castanets got a single beat. And then there was the rapid fire of beats to produce a trill.
‘Olé!’ cried I, rapidly rolling my four fingertips on the female castanet, followed by one quick snap on the male castanet.
Doña Marisa sobbed into her hand for several seconds.
I spun round to stare at her. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘Oh, hija de mi alma. You are the daughter of my soul, for you possess the spirit of a true bolero dancer.’
‘Truly? Am I good enough to dance the bolero with you?’
‘Sí, I shall take you tomorrow evening to meet the Marchesa Castiglione.’ Doña Marisa caressed my face. ‘Such rhythm. Such gracefulness. You astonish me when you’re a…’
‘A hoyden? My papai court-martials me when I do hoydenish things.’ I wondered if he would court-martial me for having learnt the bolero against his wishes.
‘A court-martial?’ She wrinkled her brow.
‘My papai sits behind his desk, scowling at me. He says I’m a bad soldier. He sentences me to fatigue duty or a good flogging with the cat o’ nine tails, or he sends my drum to gaol.’
‘A flogging? Ay! Dios mío.’
‘Oh, but he never flogs me. My mamãe told him that if he did, she would use the cat on him.’
She gave me a wan smile when I mentioned my mamãe in Scarborough. ‘Hmm. Perhaps I shall like this Mrs Fitzwilliam.’ And, having said that, her countenance brightened somewhat.
The following day I rehearsed the bolero again and again as if seized by witchcraft until Doña Marisa cried out ‘Basta!’ and she ordered me to rest. At dusk, she made me bathe in warm water scented with the essence of orange blossoms. Once that unpleasant task had been completed, because I disliked sitting still in a tub of water, I stood in front of the looking-glass, proud of my majo costume and the green ribbons woven into my short hair.
‘Che bella bambina. How pretty you are.’ Emmerence embraced me, and she wished me luck. In the carriage ride to Casa Castiglione, Doña Marisa fussed over me, applying rose-coloured salve to my lips. ‘All this to dance the bolero for Milanese society,’ grumbled Señor Gonzalez, reaching for his castanets. Together we practised snapping our castanets, he having taught me the secret of playing them with a majo attitude.
At Casa Castiglione, Doña Marisa introduced me to the friendly Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald, he being the escort of the ancient lady known as the Marchesa Castiglione. Doña Marisa whispered to me that the two lovers had been separated by war, and twenty-five years later, they had reunited. ‘Qué romantica!’ she pressed her hand to her heart. Gah! How silly she looked.
To be sure, the ever devoted and besotted colonel showered a thousand attentions on his lady, the Marchesa. When he had done romanticking her, he led Señor Gonzalez to a salon where the people known as the literati engaged in a heated discussion about something tiresome called politics. Left on our own, Doña Marisa and I drifted to another salon turned into a dancing room, where three couples danced a waltz.
‘Ah, the lovely and fiery Doña Marisa. We meet again.’ A handsome Englishman kissed Doña Marisa’s hand. I recognised him as the light-haired gentleman we had seen atop the cathedral roof – I was sure of it.
‘Lord Scapeton,’ uttered Doña Marisa with a clenched jaw.
‘Does little Rafael know you’re mixing with gli italiani now?’
Doña Marisa gasped. ‘You mock Don Rafael, and this after he gave you what you really wanted.’
Ignoring her complaint, he turned to scrutinise me. ‘Well, well, who is your cicisbeo now? Ha! The Spanish keep getting shorter and shorter. I dare say this one is a nano, a dwarf. You, elf-boy, are not fit to hold a candle to me.’
‘This bella bambina is my daughter,’ Doña Marisa spoke with pride.
Lord Scapeton gave a contemptuous laugh at my boyish attire. ‘Do you have a name bambino?’
‘Go on. Speak your name,’ Doña Marisa urged me.
I did as I was told. ‘I am Sofia-Elisabete Fitzwilliam.’
He gaped at me. ‘Imposter! Who are you, really?’
‘My papai is Colonel Fitzwilliam, and my avô is Lord Matlock,’ declared I, with a proud spirit.
‘What nonsense,’ retorted he.
Something of his countenance and bearing struck me at first sight – something familiar to me. Was it his sharp, beak-like nose? The grumpy tone of his voice? Likewise, Lord Scapeton, having become keenly uncomfortable, must have detected something disturbing in my phiz.
‘What are you doing here?’ He towered over me, casting me a menacing eye, but I stood my ground.
‘We are dancing the bolero for the Marchesa,’ boasted I.
‘You dance the bolero?’
I nodded. ‘Doña Marisa taught me, just like the nuns at the convent taught her.’
Lord Scapeton sneered at Doña Marisa. ‘O, ho! And now, finally, it comes out. The noble Doña Marisa once belonged to that kind of sisterhood, plying her trade.’
With an arched brow, a defiant Doña Marisa placed a protective hand atop her maccaroni-filled belly, and this, for whatever reason, raised his ire. His eyes flamed up like red-hot coals. And that is when he whispered something to her, as if he had spat on her. It must have been a low word because Doña Marisa looked as if she would explode into a thousand angry pieces. So I did what any child would do to defend her mamãe – I kicked this scoundrel in his shin.
‘Olha maroto!’
‘You loathsome brat,’ thundered he. ‘You’re as crazy as your boorish father.’
So I did what any child would do to defend her papai – I kicked this villain in his other shin. ‘Yow!’ He grimaced in pain. Just then, the guitarists began to play up, on a signal given for the next dance – the bolero. I grasped Doña Marisa’s trembling hands out of fear she would slap this blackguard and she would thereafter be sent to gaol or be hurled down to Signor Dante’s nether world.
‘Minha Senhora, would you do me the honour to dance the bolero with me?’ asked I in the polite manner in which Señor Gonzalez had taught me.
‘Con muito gusto,’ returned she in Portuguese, reminding me of my homeland far away.
‘Sì, sì. Donna Marisa, you and your daughter must honour us with a performance of the bolero,’ urged the Marchesa, who, along with her guests, had been enjoying this piece of choice entertainment. La nobiltà milanese whispered amongst themselves about the cicisbeo inglese, he being spiantato, which I later learnt from Emmerence meant that the former escort of Doña Marisa was a cast-off, a penniless person. This made no sense to me. Lord Scapeton, with his rich clothes, gold signet ring and perfectly dressed hair, certainly didn’t look penniless.
Ignoring the whispers and stares, I summoned up my majo attitude to lead Doña Marisa in a graceful paseo. We concluded our promenade at the centre of the dancing room, where we stood facing each other, six feet apart. Mirroring one another using opposite feet, we each extended a foot and a curved arm, and we commenced to dance to the sprightly tune. Oh, how we dazzled the dancing gods with our graceful leaps and quick, firm steps – such violencia – and the rat
tling of our castanets that marked the rhythm.
In the heat of our dancing duel, Doña Marisa and I exchanged an arched look, our own story being acted out on this stage – she challenging me, I responding to her in kind – reflecting our oft times fiery relationship. Then Doña Marisa sought me, her lips curved into a smile, and we came together nobly and gracefully, but quicker than a thought, she abandoned me, and thus we separated in anger, turning away from each other.
We came together once more to make things right, bursting into a sequence of rapid footwork, our beaten steps in rhythm with the staccato trills of our castanets – ta-ria-ria-pi. The hoyden in me relished this finale and the clashes of our castanets, and I longed for this joy and mirth to last for ever. But all things must end, and with an abrupt stop, we froze with a grand flourish, our arms raised in a triumphant attitude, our left feet suspended in the air. ‘Olé!’ cried the guitarists. ‘Bien parado!’ cheered Señor Gonzalez. A large crowd had gathered round to watch us, but I hardly noticed them now, for Doña Marisa and I had danced com coração e alma, with heart and soul, and with each beaten step, we had moved closer together.
Chapter Twelve
La Luna
MY FIRST ROSOLIO DROPS, thinks I, became my fond acquaintances on this journey to a moon world. But like all sugary sweets, they proved in the end to be fickle friends; at least that’s what I’ve come to believe. They tempted you with their sweet aroma and bright colours, and when you gobbled them up, they gave you ten seconds of happiness before they forsook you, vanishing without a trace. And if you ate too much of them, they would make your belly hurt or rot your teeth or make you fat like the Prince of Wales. Can anything sweet be faithful and wholesome?
In the wake of our triumphant performance at Casa Castiglione, Doña Marisa and I created a sensation as a dancing duo. From casa to casa, we performed our brilliant bolero, and after our fifth such performance, Doña Marisa exclaimed, ‘Basta! We must leave this place to find la luna.’ A fit of packing ensued, and once the servants had fastened our travelling-trunks and what not onto the carriages, we set off for our destination, it being some place near the sea. On the second day of our journey, as we traversed the Apennines, I begged Doña Marisa to tell us about la luna.
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