Only Sofia-Elisabete

by Robin Kobayashi

  Cenerentola I became on my first evening in society. I wore an elegant gown of tulle, with diamond ornaments of white satin—the height of French fashion amongst young ladies, we were told. The gown, with its puffed sleeves and close-fitting bodice and scooped-out neckline, along with a pink sash to accentuate my waist-line, revealed nothing inappropriate and everything appropriate for a young maiden such as I. Adorning my neck was a pearl necklace of several strands fastened in front with a diamond snap.

  “Sofía, you are the Star of Madrid!” Don Fausto handed me into his carriage where, to my surprise, a white poodle-dog named Perla awaited us. This large dog, well-shorn, with strange hieroglyphics on the upper part of her coat, wore a red morocco collar with bells, a sky-blue waistband and a bizarre arrangement of poodle curls, pearls and bows—a kind of poodle pouf—atop her head.

  “I thank you for the compliment.”

  “Are you happy with your evening dress?”

  “Oh yes, Don Fausto,” I told him. “His lordship has excellent taste in fashion and jewelry.”

  Don Fausto’s carriage and four (not four horses but, rather, four long-eared mules, very fat, shaved and adorned with bells, tassels and long plumes) drove slowly down the center lane of the Prado and then turned round. He indulged his dog by letting her hang out the carriage window, so that she could stare impudently at the other whiskered poodle-dogs who strolled with their masters.

  Though royalty and most of the nobility had fled north for the summer, there were still some fashionables and their equipages for us to ogle. Madrileños from all quarters and classes converged on the Prado that Sunday evening in August, and I observed a great variety of costumes and manners—military men tricked out as majos, stout Biscayan nursemaids in their bright kerchiefs and green petticoats bordered in red, Frenchified dandies with curled mustachios, peasants in their leathern gaiters. Near the entrance of the Prado, we alighted from our carriage to join the walkers and pink-dyed poodles on the broad foot-paths.

  His knees rattling, Don Fausto leaned heavily on his walking-cane. Before long, he sought a rush-bottomed chair in the shade of lofty elm-trees. The water-sellers there did a brisk business, selling fresh water, barley-water and ice-water, while waiters from an ice-house sold flavored ices and sherbets. Sipping my glass of ice-water, I glanced under my eyelashes at the three young officers who had been following me—they with their hot eyes and silent pleas and love sighs. This amused me, and I looked sidelong at them, enjoying myself, until Lord Scapeton brusquely took ahold of my arm.

  “Do not ignore your family’s benefactor,” he scolded me. “I expect you to do the pretty, be polite and act courteously, or I shall send you back to Seville.”

  “Yes, my lord,” I replied, demurely. The thought of living again with Don Rafael unsettled me. Surely his lordship wasn’t serious about it?

  Don Fausto greeted some acquaintances of his. These nobles, seating themselves before him, discussed in detail yesterday’s “excellent entertainment” at the Plaza de la Cebada, where five men suspected of liberal tendencies had been executed, two by hanging, the others by garrote. Someone commented that assassination by an Exterminating Angel, one of the ultra-royalist secret societies, would be highly preferable to being carted (or “drawn” as they say here), hanged and quartered. Even death by garrote, he said, would be better than hanging. The others glanced at him suspiciously, as though he might be sympathetic to the liberal cause. No man, it seemed, could be trusted.

  Their discourse quickly turned to the weather, a dull topic to be sure, but much safer than politics, where to utter certain truths might reflect badly on Ferdinand VII. My grandfather had been right that truth-telling was not tolerated. His voice came to me: Say nothing. Do nothing. Pretend the bad never happened. The Madrid newspapers, from what I had read in the Diario and Gaceta, were heavily censored. In fact, the king had recently condemned some newspaper-men to labor in the galleys on the African coast because they dared to imagine a world without church, royalty or army. No one was permitted to think freely.

  While the old nobles fiercely debated the state of hotness, I couldn’t help but think them ridiculous, until I began to suspect that they spoke in ciphers—the hot sun being the king and the miserable wind being the demons of change. I wanted to hear more, but Perla became restless. And so, with Don Fausto’s permission, I led her away when Emmerence and I returned our glasses to the water-seller. Even from this distance Don Fausto’s words boomed in my ears. “No! Es absolutamente imposible!” and he blasted his friends in an impossibly rapid Castilian. But they, for whatever reason, rejected his ideas about the weather.

  Next to us a group of youths had assembled, their greetings abounding in high animal spirits. Laughing merrily amongst them stood a señorita, about sixteen, with bright red lips, a pale complexion and striking ojos arabes—these prized Arabian eyes being large, dark, almond-shaped. She wore Spanish black, her velvet mantilla devoid of lace. With prideful scorn, she tossed a fiery look at me for having stared at her. No doubt she thought me vain because of my finery.

  “Look, tía,” she spoke loudly to a dumpy woman, “that tall girl, with her nose in the air, is queening it with her silly poodle.”

  Her aunt cast me a censorious eye. “Her feet are so large. What ugly pieces of furniture!”

  They tittered in undisguised mirth. Emmerence touched my elbow, wishing us to remove ourselves, but I refused to be intimidated by such rude creatures. A dignified silence I maintained.

  The señorita with the lively ojos arabes went on, “Her eyes are deep blue, her mouth is heart-shaped, her hair is light chestnut, yet her features are not regular. Despite her flaws, she thinks her looks are so killing.”

  Her aunt gave a derisive laugh. “Her fine white-lace mantilla makes her skin appear darker. Even her dueña—such ivory skin!—is prettier than her.”

  Not done with abusing me, the señorita beckoned a young man to her side, she whispering behind her fan at him and glancing furtively in my direction. He looked over at me, curious to see who this conceited queen was. I nearly fainted at the sight of him. His lambent eyes could easily break someone’s heart. Soft blue-grey they were, just as I had remembered them.

  Mr. Munro! I thought he and Mr. Hopper had returned to Glasgow. What was he—the most amiable, the most considerate, the most gentlemanlike person—doing in Madrid in the company of such ill-mannered people? Once the shock of it, our mutual discovery of each other had passed, he tipped his hat to me. Our long wistful gazes must have annoyed the señorita.

  “Querido mío, I beg of you, let us return to Las Delicias.” She fanned herself prettily. “It was much cooler there and ‘umbudgeous’ as you say in inglés.”

  “Umbrageous,” Mr. Munro corrected her, absently.

  She purred out, “Por favor-r-r, you must serenade me again with your sweet song about posies—a posy to your own dear Teresa,” and she proceeded to slaughter the Scottish song.

  Fortunately, he interrupted her caterwauling.

  “We shall hear better singers at the theater.”

  “Let us go then to the theater,” she persisted, completely missing his teasing joke. “You promised to take me this evening.”

  “Soon, Teresa. I wish to take the air here a while longer.”

  She affected a pout, though not for long. A fickle girl, she flirted with another young man of her acquaintance, hoping to make her favorite jealous. But Mr. Munro hadn’t noticed it. Free of her, he came forth to speak with me and Emmerence. Though I trembled with nervous anticipation, I must own how dispirited I had become, believing that he had fallen for another and serenaded her with the song he had once sung to me.

  Dissembling calmness, I murmured the usual politenesses and I inquired where he was lodging.

  He said, “Hopper and I had been suffering at a wretched fonda, a place that San Poncio, the protector against bed-bugs, had forgotten. One day, we observed an old señora affixing a white placard on the side of her balcon
y.”

  “We’ve seen those on balconies and lattice-windows. I’ve wondered about them.”

  “The placard signifies a casa de huespede, or lodging house, with a furnished room to let.”

  They resided there at number 12, Calle de la Salud near the Puerta del Sol, which, it turned out, wasn’t actually a gate but the façade of a church. Their landlady lived alone, her sons having fled the country to avoid persecution under Ferdinand VII. The old señora was quite fond of her caged crickets, who sang to her in the evenings, and of her quails’ soothing qua-qua-qua as they strutted round in an open osier coop.

  “On Sundays, her doting god-daughter always brings sweetmeats from her father’s shop. That is how we came to know Teresa Blanco,” he explained.

  “Where is Mr. Hopper?” asked Emmerence.

  “Hopper betrothed himself to Pilar, an elder sister of Teresa.”

  “I am all amazement,” said I.

  “Oh, aye, the betrothal took everyone, including Hopper, by surprise, given the man’s reclusive nature and the fact that he had barely spoken three words to Pilar. They married one week ago, and they are, at present, in the north for a wedding trip. Everyone wishes them happy.”

  “They fell instantly in love,” I remarked, with a blush.

  Mr. Munro nodded. “Love and friendships happen quickly when you’re abroad.”

  We stared at each other.

  He continued on, “Horacio, as he is called by the Blancos, had scarcely become a novio, when he became a casado—affianced to newly wedded in a matter of minutes, he joked, all because of his desire to purchase ‘a Pilar,’ one of the marzipans at Confitería de Blanco, a confectioner’s shop on Calle del Desengaño.”

  Emmerence smiled. “Enticing marzipans are sold on the Street of Disenchantment?”

  “Indeed”—he returned her smile—“the very enticing mazapán Pilar. The confectioner Lope Blanco had named his sweet creations—the mazapánes, the turrónes, the dulces—after each of his five daughters, three sons and six grandchildren. But Blanco misunderstood when Hopper insisted several times, ‘Por favor, I want a Pilar,’ thinking Hopper had come to offer his hand in marriage to Pilar, his second eldest daughter.”

  “Surely they cleared up the misunderstanding?” Emmerence wondered.

  “They did, but Blanco hoped to ‘marry her off’ as he said. He is a poor confectioner, one who supports a large family. They live crowded above the shop, along with their few boarders.”

  Had Mr. Hopper been trapped into marriage? Teresa’s peal of laughter seemed to confirm it. She belonged to a boisterous and rough set of Madrileños accustomed, no doubt, to causing a scene. Encouraged by her lusty cheers, the young men in their snuff-brown cloaks took to playing bullfight, and shouted curses at one another, heedless of the frowning priests who passed by on the foot-path. Mr. Munro sighed silently at them, his chest rising and slowly falling. His forbearance brought to mind his kind patience with me.

  “You have formed new acquaintances, yet, in all essentials of mind and manner, you are the same,” I ventured hopefully.

  Mr. Munro glanced at old Don Fausto, whose absurd and loud prolixity on the subject of weather embarrassed me.

  “You have formed new acquaintances, yet you are different—a girl fast blushing into woman. What a dazzling beauty you are, resplendent in jewels, with a grand poodle at your side,” was his quiet reply.

  I became self-conscious of my extravagance. Gone was my red-beaded necklace, at Lord Scapeton’s insistence. Gone, too, were my girlish ringlets. My tresses had been formed into sophisticated full clusters of large curls, these curls surrounding a tall Apollo’s knot looped with pearls. To cover my head, I wore a gossamer white-lace mantilla as delicate as those worn by fairies.

  Our flirtation came to an end, however, when Lord Scapeton rudely separated us.

  “Come away,” he demanded. “Don Fausto wants his poodle.”

  “Yes, your lordship.”

  He gave Mr. Munro the cut. In his lordship’s privileged world, with its sense of entitlement, there were those who were of noble blood and those who were not—the poor, whom he never tolerated, and the merchants and traders, whom he barely tolerated.

  Instantly I colored from mortification. There was nothing for it but to take Lord Scapeton’s arm and be the dutiful niece. Unable to say a proper good-bye to Mr. Munro, I dreaded what he thought of me and my poor manners even though Emmerence had murmured our apologies.

  Minutes later, Mr. Munro and his two female companions prepared to depart, setting off early for the theater at Teresa’s insistence. He wore a pensive look. His preoccupation and inattention didn’t suit her, however. Much to the amusement of her aunt, who, being the chaperone, waddled between them, Teresa made a mock grimace. Her lack of respect for him raised my ire.

  Just as the trio were about to pass in front of us, the church bells rang. Immediately the world stopped. The carriages and horsemen came to a halt. The walkers on the avenues stood still. We, the Catholic devout, uttered an Ave Maria. In the quiet moment before the world started up again, Teresa made a loud pronouncement.

  “My dear Munro-o-o,” and she slowly fluttered her lashes at him. “Our minds are perfectly compatible.”

  He stood motionless, his hat still in hand, ready to attend to her—politeness, amiability and self-possession being part of his creed.

  Teresa chattered on, jokingly, “My mind is so empty, it needs to be filled with something, and yours so full, it needs to be emptied of something.”

  “There’s truth in that,” he replied, solemnly. But the depth of his response either eluded her or didn’t concern her.

  She simpered out, “Novio mío, you must fill my mind with the beautiful love-poem that you’ve written.”

  “Alas, I didn’t write any of it.”

  “Of course, you did. You read these words at Pilar’s wedding feast.”

  “I recited the verses from memory.”

  “Memory …” She deliberated this for a moment but without success. “Ah, sí. How could you not remember the words that you’ve written?”

  He stared at her in wonderment.

  Teresa’s aunt reminded them about the theater. As they walked off leisurely, Teresa threw a taunting backward glance. Jealous love, her vital force, imbued her with hatred for me. She had known all along that I stood there in the shadows of an elm, observing and listening to them. Her triumphant sneer indicated so.

  Somehow or other, she amused Mr. Munro with her vacant mind. And he, probably fascinated by her blend of feminine charm and domineering spirit, had become her novio. But how could he care not a jot about her wildness and impetuosity? It didn’t make sense. With me, he had discouraged extreme behavior and lack of moderation.

  A melancholy tear tumbled down my cheek. I realized then that, no matter how finely I dressed, how lovely I attempted to be, it meant nothing in the end—it guaranteed nothing in this world, and certainly not true happiness. Yet, despite the cruel pain in my heart, I still loved Mr. Munro, confused though I was by his actions.

  “Poor old fellow,” remarked Lord Scapeton.

  The insufferable heat, made worse by discussing it ad nauseam, had made Don Fausto ill, too ill to play at cards. The old nobleman begged our forgiveness to forego the pleasures of a tertulia. Might he indulge us instead with a drive, the windows let down, to see and be seen before twilight turned to dusk?

  “Surely the señoritas wish to view the clock at the Puerta del Sol, soon to be illuminated?”

  “They do, indeed,” his lordship replied for us.

  Being of fragile mind from my encounter with Mr. Munro, I murmured my assent without thinking. Don Fausto handed me in, and then, ignoring Emmerence, he hobbled into the carriage, with the aid of his walking-cane, to sit to my right. Perla, her royal poodle highness, joined us next. Don Fausto nearly crushed me, because the pampered poodle, who took up so much space, sat near the open window on her side, eager to see and be seen.
r />   “Pardon my presumptuous poodle,” and he spat out those triple p’s in a big stink.

  Ducking my head out the window on my side, I desperately swallowed fresh air.

  The whole thing seemed indecorous to me, in that our sitting together made Don Fausto and I appear affianced. Lord Scapeton acted unconcerned, though. He sat across from us, and Emmerence next to him. She, too, had hesitated, confused by the improper seating arrangement. Had she blushed inwardly, sitting alongside his lordship, the object of her admiration? Regardless, those two readily immersed themselves in conversation of architecture, a common interest for them. I looked away, not caring to join their intellectual exercise.

  Outside, a busy street scene came into view—the coffee-houses, the ice-houses, the blind guitarists, the promenaders, the beggars, the comely orange-sellers, the relic-sellers, the fire-sellers, the gaudy calesas drawn by mighty Andalucians, these horses pale silverish-rose, with long thick tails that brushed the ground. The gossip-mongers, of which there were a multitude, whispered behind their fans, for they had noticed Don Fausto and me sitting close together. It made me want to disappear, to disintegrate into a dusky particle of air.

  Night came on thereafter, the moonless sky turning bandit-black, with no shining stars to guide me in my sad vulnerable state. Still, the complete darkness inside the carriage concealed me from prying eyes. I had no sooner got my wish of it, to vanish from view, when something uninviting crawled onto my lap. Its pincers dug into my skin. Scorpion! I tried to shout the word, but it stuck in my throat. Taking aim, I swatted the scorpion with my closed fan, which is when I discovered it was really someone’s sharp fingernails.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” cried Don Fausto, jumping in his seat.

  This excited Perla, who barked out the window to no end.

  At the Puerta del Sol, where a loud military band distracted the others, that rogue pinched me again. I rapped his knuckles with my fan, though no one inside heard it. Undeterred, my persecutor became even more persistent, like a bothersome fly in need of a good slap. I raised my fan—once, twice, thrice!—but he dodged each blow, taking great satisfaction in his rakish game. As soon as the band marched off, I spoke my mind.