But I hid my curiosity about her, along with my suspicions and doubts as to why she did not want me, deep in my heart where they remained safe from my papai, and oh yes, from myself. Now that I knew why she had abandoned me and how Satan had befriended her, I discovered that she had not always been kind, not always been loving, and I wondered yet again how the tiny crescent-shaped scar on her left temple got there, a suspicion of which I locked inside of my heart.
Señor Gonzalez, who took pity on me, went searching for me after I had fled the refuge. There, out of doors, the rain had stopped, and the sun ever and anon peeked behind the dreary grey clouds. Señor Gonzalez removed his capa, and he wrapped me up in it to keep me warm.
‘Each of us is a contradiction, and Doña Marisa is no exception,’ posited he. ‘Do you know what I mean by that?’
‘Não,’ replied I, reverting to Portuguese to comfort myself.
‘We each of us contain conflicting qualities.’
This confused me. ‘Não entendo.’
‘Take yourself, for example. You appear to be an artless and charming girl, yet you can be cunning and mischievous. You appear to be a dainty little thing, yet you enjoy being a daring girl, dancing on a tight rope and diving into a cold lake.’
‘Sim?’ I wrinkled my forehead.
He pointed to the road. ‘Look round us at the Simplon pass. Napoleon built this noble road, this remarkable feat of engineering, yet he could be cruel and destroy villages and the people who lived there.’
‘O diabo!’
‘The devil he can be,’ Señor Gonzalez nodded. ‘Now, let us think on Doña Marisa. She can be a noble woman, yet she can be childish. She can be caring and generous, yet she can be selfish and unkind. One cannot reconcile – make sense of – these contradictions. They just are.’
I struggled to make sense of what could not be made sense of, but my wee brain could not grasp this thing called contradictions. I remained in ill-humour, refusing to speak to Doña Marisa at first, and when I deigned to speak to her, I did so in Portuguese – sim for yes, não for no, &c. It seemed that whenever I spoke in Portuguese, it irked her, and I wonder now if she wished to forget her past life of poverty in Lisbon – a life that had once included me.
A hint of suspicion tugged at my heart as to whether my papai had wished to forget me and the war as well. I had lived for three years at the Convento do Desterro, and yet papai never came for me during that time. He blamed the war for having separated us. He searched for me in Lisbon at one point, while the war still waged, but what of the years before then? Had he forgotten me during that time? Could it be that neither of my parents had wanted me when I was a bebê?
Doña Marisa requested that I join her in the calash, just the two of us, as our party continued on the descent to Domo d’Ossola. I sank into the seat next to her, where I sat brooding, my eyes cast down.
Doña Marisa patted my hand. ‘Minha Sofinha, why must you be stubborn this way, speaking in Portuguese? Hmm?’
I snatched my hand away from hers. Only Sister Matilde had called me by the tender endearment of Sofinha, a name that had made me, a lonely orphan, feel loved and wanted.
‘Me chamo Sofia-Elisabete,’ said I, and I folded my arms to make my point.
‘I named you Sofia, and Sofia you shall always be.’
‘Não,’ I shook my head. ‘Me chamo Sofia-Elisabete.’
Doña Marisa sighed. ‘Listen, you were much safer at the convent than with me. Don Rafael was a bad man with a bad temper, and I came to live in terror of him. I worried that he would do you harm. I sent Josefina to the convent to deliver a note, in which I urged the nuns to take you somewhere far away. I gave them a generous donation. And I gave them your real name. Do you understand why I did that? I wished that I might find you again someday.’
‘Mentirosa!’ I called her a liar, and I said a mamãe should love her child and not send the child away.
‘Eu amo-te, minha Sofinha,’ she half-whispered in Portuguese as she smoothed my hair.
I drew back upon hearing that she loved me, and I sensed she wished that I loved her. How was it that she could both love me and abandon me? I shook my finger at her, lecturing her that a child needs her mamãe and that a mamãe protects her child; at least that’s what my mamãe in Scarborough had told me. She, Aggie Fitzwilliam, had once declared that she would have walked a thousand miles and crossed a thousand bridges if it would have saved her own son, because nothing could be stronger than a mamãe’s love.
Doña Marisa coloured. ‘Ay! Perhaps you should return to this…this ancient mamãe in Scarborough who enjoys scampering about in the countryside.’
Angered by her mocking and superior tone, I told her that I loved my mamãe in Scarborough – the best mamãe in the world. Doña Marisa’s cheeks turned crimson, and she chided me for being a most ungrateful, unkind child. Our strained conversation, having turned into angry shouts and taunts, was overheard by everyone – our travelling companions, the driver, the servants, the guide, the peasants passing by. Even the two mules for our calash flattened their ears, and they half-whinnied, half-brayed as only mules can do.
A grim-faced Señor Gonzalez approached us, no doubt disturbed by this latest quarrel, and he signalled the driver to stop. Doña Marisa alighted from the calash, whereupon she tossed up her head, and angrily so, ere she stalked off in a sullen mood. I sat alone in a miserable state, until Emmerence got into the calash to comfort me and to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
‘Have you ever prayed a novena?’ asked she in a gentle tone. I shook my head. In times of difficulty she would make a novena – a daily, devotional prayer for nine days. She believed it would help me, and so she uttered a simple prayer to the Holy Ghost to guide me on the path of love, mercy and forgiveness.
Oh, Holy Ghost,
Bend my stubborn heart,
Melt my frozen heart,
Sweet’n my bitter heart,
And guide me, for I have lost my way.
I repeated the prayer after her, but half-an-hour later, I confess that my heart froze with bitterness once more, and the sacred words had been forgotten. Oh, how I fervently wished to see my papai again, to be at home again with him and to speak with him in my lingua matriz, my mother-tongue, as we often did and with such ease. But no thanks to Doña Marisa’s recent revelations of how she had abandoned me, my embittered heart was far from pure; ergo, it would be a long time before papai would find me now, and how could I forgive her for that?
Chapter Eleven
Majo Girl
MY FIRST BOLERO, thinks I, was when I leapt so high that, with my outstretched hand, I could have thumped a crescent moon to make it sway to and fro. Dancing is a salve to the soul, they say, because it can heal almost anything – sorrow, melancholy, illness. I can swear to the truth of it, having suffered heartbreak in the Simplon pass when I learnt why Doña Marisa had abandoned me as a bebê. But little did I know then how dancing would help heal the breach between Doña Marisa and me.
We entered the valley of Ossola on a colossal bridge that connected two mountains, the river Doveria flowing below. ‘Qué magnifico!’ cried Señor Gonzalez, and he declared the two arches of the bridge at Crevola divine. In the town of Domo d’Ossola he found us lodgings at Hôtel d’Espagne, where he observed that we must be in Italia now, for the great Spanish Hotel had stone floors, painted ceilings and the filthiest of rooms and necessaries. Not understanding his meaning, I wondered why a Spanish hotel had been built here. Señor Gonzalez described how the medieval town of Domo d’Ossola, with its ancient loggias, arcades, ornamented arches, balconies and fortified walls, had once been ruled by Spain for two centuries.
A signora with eyes as black as olives and a red silk handkerchief tied round her head, beckoned us to the sala, the dining room. ‘Sedetevi, per favore,’ she motioned to the chairs, and she hastened to serve Señor Gonzalez and herself a goodly amount of red wine. ‘Alla salute!’ She toasted to his health, and he to hers. With a broad gri
n, she served us up generous portions of vermicelli soup. I sank into my chair, poking at the skinny worms floating in my bowl of minestra. Oh, how I missed my old friend Mr Maccaroni, whom I had not eaten up in months.
‘Mangiamo!’ the signora urged, setting down a gigantic platter of steaming maccaroni tossed up with cheese and olive oil. ‘Maccaroni! Maccaroni!’ cried I, my belly grumbling, my attention riveted by the mound of maccaroni before me. But Pico got to it first. To my surprise, he turned gentleman, and he served us up a heap of maccaroni. ‘Mangiamo,’ insisted he.
Emmerence stared at her plate, not knowing how to eat what was for her a strange dish. At a table near us, I observed an Italian merchant using his hands to twist and pull the maccaroni, which he crammed into his mouth. Intrigued by his style of eating, I tossed my fork and did the same. And that is how I learnt to eat this doughy and cheesey goodness in the Italian way.
In the course of the evening, after we children had gone to bed, the haunting blare of an alphorn – and one poorly played – disturbed our dreams. The mournful eeriness of it, though, far from lulling me back to sleep, kept me now entirely awake. I trampled over Pico to reach the window where I beheld the tranquillity of the vale during the moonlight hour.
Bwwaaarrrhhhmmm.
Emmerence yawned into her hand. ‘Is that Señor Gonzalez’s alphorn?’
‘I’d rather he howl at the moon when he’s drunk,’ grumbled Pico, covering his head with a pillow.
‘Um bêbado!’ I called Señor Gonzalez a drunkard.
No thanks to his drunken, mid-night rambling, Señor Gonzalez set about half-asleep the next morning to hire two gendarmes to protect us, or should I say, Doña Marisa’s jewels and cuckoo clocks, from the banditti who roamed in the hills. These two gendarmes, being Italian, rather enjoyed slapping each other on the face and calling each other a fool (sciocco!) or a rogue (mariolo!), and after a half-an-hour of bandying insults, they would kiss and embrace each other like the greatest of friends. ‘Tontos,’ muttered Doña Marisa. We set off then with our buffoons and a sluggish Señor Gonzalez, who armed himself with a brace of pistols and his sword.
To my surprise, the countryside abounded with goitrous cretins lazing in the groves, and I felt a thousand sorrows that the people of Italia should also suffer from this horrendous disease. Could not some magic eggs cure them? Alas, we had eaten them up in Simplon, and there were no more to be had. Doña Marisa had seen the cretins as well, and she fingered the centre of her neck, still anxious that she would find a lump there. To please her lady, Emmerence examined my neck, prodding it for lumps. She declared me lump-less and healthy. Doña Marisa gave me a tentative smile, but I turned away in a pout. I felt my heart harden and a chill in the air.
We crossed a handsome bridge over the Toce, when suddenly Señor Gonzalez slumped onto his mule, the dustman having come for him. And so our men tossed him in our carriage where his snores vibrated like the music of an alphorn. ‘Tonto!’ cried Doña Marisa. Vexed with her cortejo, she removed a small enamel box from her reticule, and she began to cover her face with a heavy layer of white dust. When she had done, she smeared a scarlet-coloured jelly onto her lips, making herself ghoulish, indeed.
‘Emmerence, you must speak Italian and tell the banditti that I’m a witch and that I shall eat them up if they don’t less us pass unharmed. Entiendes? Do you understand?’
Emmerence gulped. ‘Yes, Doña Marisa.’
‘Ánimo! Courage! Let us hope that the banditti are fools, just like our gendarmes and Señor Gonzalez,’ said she.
‘Não vás,’ I begged Doña Marisa not to leave me, surprising us both with my outpouring of concern. A sense of terror overcame me as I recalled the stories our innkeeper had told us of the banditti attacking innocent travellers. Why, just a sennight ago, the banditti had murdered an English gentleman in a gun fight when the latter refused to give up his gold Napoleons, which he had hidden in a secret drawer. And a month before that, the banditti had stolen away the wife of an Italian nobleman, but the nobleman refused to pay the ransom because he never did like his wife that much. Unfortunately for him, his spiteful wife resolved to take to the mountains – andare in campagna – which meant she turned bandit, and with the aid of the banditti, she seized her husband’s carriage, robbing him of his valuables, money and the outer-clothes that he wore, and thereafter ordered the bandits to drag him in the mud.
Just then, we heard two shots in the air, and a band of masked banditti, who had come riding down the hills, surrounded us. They began to lay hold of our men as prisoners, punishing them with blows and kicks, and all this time Señor Gonzalez snored on, for nothing would waken him now. Doña Marisa covered herself with her black mantilla, whereupon she alighted from the carriage, grasping Señor Gonzalez’s sword. The bandits murmured disgusting words of pleasure at the alluring Signora in their midst, and they commenced to fight over who would get her. Tearing away the handkerchief from his face, the bandit chief, the one whom they called capo-brigante, advanced towards her with a sinister eye. My heart filled with dread that this blackguard would harm Doña Marisa.
‘Attenzione!’ warned Emmerence in Italian. ‘Lei una strega.’
‘Uah! Uah!’ laughed the bandit chief, his two front teeth black with rot. He drew a small dagger from his belt, and he pointed it at them.
‘Tengo hambre,’ screeched Doña Marisa in Spanish. ‘Ahora te como!’
‘Ho fame,’ interpreted Emmerence. ‘Adesso ti mangio!’
With a fierce attitude, Doña Marisa flung her mantilla aside to reveal the wild fright she had become, her scarlet lip jelly having smeared onto her teeth. She spun round – to the left, then to the right – brandishing her sword and bursting into demonic cackles. Believing her to be the spectre of a witch, the bandit chief started back with terror, for a coward he really was. ‘Alla speranza di Dio!’ He begged for God’s help, grasping the medals and relics he wore round his neck. He thereafter vaulted his horse with alacrity. ‘Andiamo!’ he ordered his fellow bandits to make haste, and they, being struck into a panic, rode off with him in a frenzy, disappearing into a swirl of dust.
Safe now from these marauders, I heaved sobs of relief in rhythm with Señor Gonzalez’s tranquil snores. ‘Tonto!’ I slapped him on his cheek in the Italian way, but he slept on in a peaceful dream. Emmerence returned within, convinced that a miracle had saved us from the bandits. Pico, however, turned glum as he rode past us, grumbling that our brief clash with the banditti had sorely disappointed him after hearing the tales of wild bandits.
A brave Doña Marisa rode a mule until we reached Ornavasso, ‘the better to guard our carriages’, said she, and I have no doubt her gruesome face scared off many a witless bandit. ‘She is a heroine,’ declared Emmerence when some barefoot peasants dropped to their knees on the road and crossed themselves, much to Doña Marisa’s pleasure and amusement. So that is how the legend of Donna Marisa senza paura – Doña Marisa the fearless – spread throughout the land.
Afterwards, in Ornavasso, no matter how many times I tried to persuade Señor Gonzalez that Doña Marisa had turned herself into a bruxa while he had been sleeping, he refused to believe his beloved lady had turned into a hideous hag. And although I was all amazement at Doña Marisa’s derring-do, I wondered why she had lacked the courage to choose me over the evil Don Rafael and why she hadn’t cast a spell over him when he had hurt her. My thoughts in a tangle, I began to brood again, muttering to myself in Portuguese.
Señor Gonzalez dismissed the two dunderheads he had hired to protect us from the banditti, and he thereafter made arrangements with some boatmen to take us and our prized possessions down the Toce to Lago Maggiore, where our carriages would meet us in the town of Baveno. Emmerence, having never been inside a boat before, was wild to ride in one. She squealed with delight whenever the sprays of water drenched us or a fish swam alongside us.
The friendly fishes brought to mind the day my papai and I had befriended two dolphins when we had journeyed
by coble to Filey Bay. With a secretive smile, I began to jodel in Portuguese a tune that would surely make papai laugh: oh-lah pa-pai ah-deh-oosh. My ode to papai must have vexed Doña Marisa. She demanded that I speak English again or else she wouldn’t take me to the palaces on the Borromean Islands.
‘Nunca,’ I refused to speak English ever again.
She glared at me. ‘Ay! Josefina will mind you while we visit the islands.’
Ora essa! Well, I never! I spent the next day locked inside my gloomy bedchamber at our inn, the Croix de Malthe, while my companions got to visit noble palaces and rich gardens on Isola Bella and Isola Madre. ‘I shan’t feel sorry for myself. I shan’t,’ I muttered to myself as I stamped to and fro in the room.
I imagined myself a princess yearning for her best beloved papai, but my evil mamãe had locked me away in a tower. I leant out the window with a tragic air, breathing in the sharp scents of forest-trees, olive-trees and vineyards. Sadly, my brave papai never came to rescue me. And when my gaoler, Josefina, brought me some sustenance – a wretched piece of crust and worm-filled soup – I knew that the minestra had been poisoned, yet I ate it anyway. Don’t you know – a pining princess has to maintain her strength to do all her pining?
But my pining turned into childish resentment, and my resentment turned into childish revenge. I had no sooner thought of a brilliant and devious means of escape, than everyone had returned from their jaunt to the islands. When my gaoler released me from the tower, I bounded to the lake where I set about to kick some pebbles. Señor Gonzalez chanced upon me; at least that’s what he wanted me to believe, because I had seen him lurking behind a tree.
As we strolled the shore of the lake, Señor Gonzalez said he would tip me the wink. I shrugged at him, and so he explained he would reveal a secret to help me. He said that while Doña Marisa could be stubborn now and then, her temper improved after she had time to ponder things. He believed that she and I were similar in that we both could be stubborn, and it reminded him of a joke he had heard once about two strong-minded politicians.
I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel Fitzwilliam Page 14