I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel Fitzwilliam

by Robin Kobayashi

  Confused, I spun round. I peered into the darkness of the orange grove, where a shadowy figure sat on his haunches, fanning himself with his hat.

  ‘Are you a g-g-ghost?’ I trembled, believing him to be the spirit who haunted the grove.

  ‘Humph. Not yet I am,’ replied he in a gruff voice.

  I froze with fear, imagining he might be a stregone, one who could disguise himself in any form, whether it be man, beast or otherwise.

  ‘Come here,’ urged he in a sorrowful tone, beckoning me with his hat, ‘and be quick about it.’

  My curiosity heightened, I advanced, but then an inward voice urged caution, and thus I retreated. How long this mysterious stranger had been watching me I knew not. I looked round for the best route of escape, having determined to run for it, and so I did.

  ‘Must you run away and crush my heart into a million pieces again?’ he shouted after me, his voice breaking.

  I came to an abrupt halt, my heart thump-thumping. ‘Papai?’

  ‘O, ho! Now you remember me,’ said he in a half-joking, half-serious manner. ‘Vem cá. Come here, you silly gooseberry.’

  Could it really be him, my best beloved papai? Had I truly forgotten the sound of his voice? As if God had sensed my bewilderment, the sun escaped its dark prison and illuminated the orange grove for me. Now, on bended knee, with his riding-coat slung over one arm, papai eyed me curiously. With a loud yelp of recognition, I bounded into the grove to where he awaited me, and like a wildly happy puppy-dog, I threw myself into his solid embrace.

  Be it said we wept a thousand tears. Oh, how I chided him for taking a monstrous long time to find me. Did not he hear my drum beatings for our special song to guide him along the way? He nodded in reply, my words of reproach having overpowered him, until finally he uttered the magic phrase ‘Tree on the Hill’, and he explained that Luca had let him inside the gate. There, smothered at my papai’s breast, I inhaled his manly perfume, that familiar scent of cloves and cinnamon and heavy dew and bark and musty earth.

  I pinched my nose. ‘Papai, you smell.’

  ‘I dare say I have not bathed since you ran away several months ago,’ joked he with tears in his eyes. ‘I have traipsed through five – no, six – countries on the continent searching for you, and I would traipse through a thousand more.’

  Feeling guilty for the trouble I had caused him, I fidgeted with a button on his waist-coat. ‘I was searching for one of the moons. I looked and I looked. But I couldn’t find it – the one that Domingo Gonsales flew to with his gansas.’

  ‘One of the moons?’

  I nodded. ‘The moons wear all sorts of colours – orange, grey, blue…’

  Papai pressed a finger to my lips. ‘The earth has one moon, and that is all.’

  ‘Truly?’ I gaped at him.

  ‘One moon. One earth. One sun.’

  My heart sank to my toes on hearing this piece of bad news.

  Papai sighed. ‘Now, why would you want to go to the moon?’

  I fidgeted anew with a button on his waist-coat. ‘To help you.’

  ‘To help me?’

  ‘On the moon, everyone is happy, and no one ever gets sick.’

  Papai gave a soft groan, and he stilled my hand. ‘My dear child, there is no utopia, no perfect world. The bishop who wrote of Domingo Gonsales’ travels was only dreaming of such a place on the moon.’

  Ai de mim! There it was – the shocking truth, the finality of which I had to accept. The story of the moon and the moon men and moon children had all been a big lie. And somewhere along my journey, I had refused to own it whenever I came across misery, poverty, disease or hatred. Oh, how cruel was my disappointment after having deceived myself. My spirits sank with grief and despair at ever finding a cure for papai’s illness, what with my moon hopes being dashed to pieces.

  Papai traced the circle of a full moon on my palm. ‘Do not you understand?’

  I gazed into his dark, watery-blue eyes. ‘But I don’t want you to get sick again. I don’t want…you…to make…mamãe sad,’ I choked with sobs.

  ‘Nor take away your drum?’

  I nodded, wiping my face with my sleeve. When, after a few minutes, I had calmed myself, he spoke again.

  ‘Most days, I am the happiest man on earth, and thus I am amiable and all that is good and noble. Then there are days I am the unhappiest man on earth, overcome with misery and doubts, and thus I say or do terrible things that I come to regret later.’

  I considered this for a moment or two, and with a serious tone, I declared, ‘Papai, methinks you’re a contradishin.’

  My pronouncement made him start, but then he turned over in his mind what I had said. Grave as a judge, he placed me on his lap. There, under the orange-tree, we sat in perfect quietude, he kissing my forehead with great tenderness.

  I knew not how long we had sat there, when I heard Doña Marisa calling for me. ‘Sofia-Elisabete! Where are you? It’s time for maccaroni.’ I urged papai to join us before the maccaroni disappeared. With a slight grimace, he put on his riding-coat and hat. Together we walked hand in hand down the gravelled walk – he with a heavy step, whereas I with a light step, now that I made up a proud pair with my papai.

  ‘Doña Marisa! Doña Marisa! My papai has come at last.’ I romped towards her in celebration, and she, with her shiny eyes, drew me into a tight hug, caressing the crown of my head.

  ‘Well, well, the British lion has found our den,’ Señor Gonzalez struck a defiant pose with his hands on his hips. He turned to whisper something to his lady.

  ‘Colonel Fitzwilliam, you are come,’ said she with a frowning brow. ‘Welcome to Villa La Luna.’

  Never one to feel intimidated by a cool welcome, papai grasped her outstretched hand to kiss it. ‘Doña Marisa, you’re just as handsome as the time I had met you in Lisbon and we danced the valza, and oh yes, you lied to me then, sending me to the wrong convent to find Sofia-Elisabete. I wonder why?’

  ‘I know you’ll never believe me, but I did it to save us all from harm,’ replied she.

  Papai scowled at her when, out of the corner of his eye, he detected Pico slipping away. ‘Pico? Pico Robinson! My boy, when I get through with you, you shan’t walk for three days,’ thundered he.

  ‘Please, Colonel…’ Pico pleaded for his life.

  ‘Go and get me a stick. Make haste, boy.’

  Surely papai was joking. An awkward silence followed, when Doña Marisa cleared her voice to introduce papai to Señor Gonzalez, her cortejo, and Emmerence Odet, her interpreter and my companion. Papai grunted at both of them.

  It was then that Pico shuffled back from the orange grove. He handed a small branch to papai, who scoffed at it and snapped it over his thigh, breaking it in two.

  ‘Go and get a bigger one. I promised your father that if I found you, I would give you twenty thumps on your backside.’

  Struck with horror, I clung to papai’s leg. ‘Run, Pico, run!’

  ‘Yer canna save me this time, Soofia-Eee.’ Pico’s shoulders slumped.

  ‘I shall run away then,’ threatened I.

  Papai humphed. ‘Well, if you must, you must, but I shan’t traipse through any more countries searching for you.’ He shook me off, and I fell on my seat of honour.

  I gasped at his lie. ‘But you said that you would.’

  ‘O fie! I’m too weary now.’

  Doña Marisa interrupted our quarrel, demanding that papai put an end to his nonsense. She, being the grown-up, claimed full responsibility for deceiving Pico and me into running away with her to la luna. Surprised by her confession, papai gaped at her, as did I. He gave up, for the moment, but he threatened to punish Pico in some other fashion once he thought of something good involving muck, and much of it; otherwise, papai could never face his brother Tom again for having shunned his manly duty.

  ‘Ay!’ exclaimed Doña Marisa. Having heard enough of his ‘manly gibberish’, she beckoned everyone upstairs to the loggia where a festive table had b
een set for our mid-day meal.

  Having sensed my papai’s ire, I grasped his hand to drag him upstairs to the loggia, because once he ate the magic maccaroni, his humour would improve – I was sure of it. We sat at table, where papai scowled at Doña Marisa, until I nudged him to serve me ‘a heap of tasty maccaroni, please’. With undisguised glee, I took hold of some maccaroni on my plate, twisting and pulling it. Then came my best trick. Holding the strands of maccaroni high above my head, I leant back and opened my mouth wide to devour the doughy, cheesey goodness. ‘Ha! Ha!’ laughed I, proud of my achievement.

  Papai gaped at me. ‘Gad zookers! You’ve turned into a savage, eating maccaroni like an Indian sword swallower.’ With a huff, papai scissored up my maccaroni with his knife and fork. He scolded me for being a hoyden, saying I could never mingle with polite society again eating that way. His mouth half-opened, he was about to tell me something else, when he noticed Señor Gonzalez scribbling in a small journal-book, and the oddity of it made him forget what he had wished to say. Vexed, papai told me to have at it again, but this time with a fork, which he placed in my hand. I frowned at my mangled maccaroni, for it never did taste the same after that.

  On a sudden, papai turned gentleman, helping Doña Marisa to more wine. ‘I thank you no,’ replied she, patting her belly. Papai gaped at her roundish belly, he having not noticed it before. He turned to Señor Gonzalez with a questioning look, but that man held up his hands and shrugged at him.

  Papai fumbled with the decanter, nearly spilling its contents. ‘I thought my brother was funning me about it. I met up with Scapeton in Milan.’

  I had no idea why the grown-ups looked at one another in a peculiar way. ‘I kicked him good and hard,’ boasted I.

  ‘Ha! You are my daughter.’ Papai turned to grin at me.

  ‘That’s what he said. He told me you’re a bore. I don’t think you bore people to death. I think you’re the most jolly-ish papai in the world.’ Papai must’ve liked that compliment because he chucked me under the chin.

  Doña Marisa invited the ‘most jolly-ish papai’ to lodge with us at Villa La Luna, and he said he would because the wrong sort of persons hung about the inn in the village, eating maccaroni with their hands and going barefoot. Papai winked at me, and he placed me on his lap, calling me the right sort. I picked up a strand of maccaroni from his plate, and I stuffed it into his mouth as his reward.

  ‘Mmm…lemon, olive oil and cheese.’

  ‘Ninetta makes everything taste good in her magic kitchen,’ said I with pride.

  Papai gave me a greasy gooseberry kiss on my cheek, and I erupted into giggles. He was about to do it again when he noticed Señor Gonzalez scribbling away at a furious rate. When Señor Gonzalez glanced up to spy on us, papai fixed him with a questioning stare.

  Later, that afternoon, I crept into my papai’s room where his man, MacTavish, assisted him with his bath. Doña Marisa had complained of papai’s manly odour, and thus she had ordered Ninetta to prepare hot water for papai.

  ‘Viva! MacTavish,’ I greeted my old friend.

  ‘Aweel, aweel, are ye done trampin’ aboot?’

  ‘Ay.’ The two of us exchanged broad smiles.

  At the dinner hour, I came upon papai at the top of the stairs. He gaped at my majo costume but gathered his wits to compliment me. ‘You seem, ah, very spangly this evening,’ observed he. When he noticed my coloured lips, he wiped off the rose lip salve with his pocket-handkerchief, telling me that I was too young to wear such a thing and that I was already rosy and pretty without it. He bent down to kiss my forehead, and in that moment, I glowed inward and outward from my papai’s attentions. Hand in hand, we descended the great staircase to join the others in the dining-room.

  After supper I entertained everyone with a solo bolero dance while Doña Marisa and Señor Gonzalez snapped their castanets to mark the rhythm. I began with the paseo, the promenade, and when I came to a stop in the centre of the room, I extended a foot and a curved arm. Soon, I became lost in the joy of the dance, with its graceful leaps and quick, firm steps, and rattling of castanets – ta-ria-ria-pi. At the end, when I froze in a defiant pose with my hands on my hips, my body tilted slightly backwards, Señor Gonzalez cheered me with ‘Bien parado!’

  From where he sat, papai held out his arms to receive me, and I sensed the trace of trouble on his face. I hung my head, ready to be court-martialled for dancing the bolero against his wishes.

  ‘You are astonishingly good but too young to be dancing with…with…’ stammered he.

  ‘Violencia?’

  ‘Yes, violencia.’ He tapped my nose. ‘You must promise me to dance the bolero only for family and never in public again.’

  ‘Oh yes, papai.’ Relieved, I stood on my toes to kiss him good-night.

  Snug in bed, I dreamt of marionettes dancing a sprightly bolero, when they began to shout ‘Olé! Olé!’, sounding very much like Señor Gonzalez. I cried out, ‘No-no-no’, but I couldn’t save my fanciful dream. My marionettes had been dashed to atoms. Emmerence, having grown used to Señor Gonzalez’s drunken bouts, slept through it all, while I, a restless soul, got out of bed. I shuffled into my papai’s room. Just then, Doña Marisa’s musical clock struck eleven o’clock as I crawled into papai’s bed.

  ‘The devil take those cuckoo clocks,’ thundered he. ‘I’m murdering cuckoos tomorrow.’

  Five minutes later, the eerie blare of Señor Gonzalez’s alphorn sounded not once, but thrice. The man must have drunk a goodly amount of red wine in the course of the evening. Bwwaaarrrhhhmmm.

  ‘What the deuce was that?’ Papai bolted upright in bed.

  ‘Alphorn,’ murmured I. ‘Señor Gonzalez plays it when he’s drunk.’

  ‘That crazy Spaniard…Sofia-Elisabete, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Please, papai. I missed you terribly.’

  Papai groaned. ‘Vem cá. Come here.’

  And so I did, and he kissed me good-night.

  Papai had discovered hidden small lakes in the heights above Nervi while he had traipsed in the mountains searching for me. He hired a mule to carry the two of us up a steep path, and when he located the trail that he had marked a few days ago, he led me deep into the woods. ‘Lo there!’ He pointed to small pools of bubbling blue-green water surrounded by hugeous slabs of rock. After watering the mule, he tied it to a tree.

  We followed the banks of the various water pools until we found a picturesque one with a waterfall. ‘It’s magic water,’ I half-whispered, wonderstruck. Papai determined the best place for us to do flying boulders, given the number of rocks lying on the bottom of the pool, after which I practised the swimming tricks that my avô had taught me. It seemed an age ago since I had swum in Wildsee, where I had met my friend Herr Fouqué.

  ‘Herr Fouqué called me Undine.’

  ‘Oh yes, our good friend Baron de La Motte Fouqué.’ Papai grinned. ‘Did you know he’s a popular writer? He wrote Undine, a beautiful fairy tale, and I had him sign a copy for you.’

  ‘Señor Gonzalez is a writer.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Papai eyed me with disbelief. ‘What has he written?’

  ‘He wrote of a wheel of cheese and a hairless hare, and he made them talk.’

  Papai laughed. ‘I shall purchase these books and have him sign them.’

  ‘Oh, but you shan’t find them under his manly name.’ I shook my head.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Lady Le Buggo and Madame de Coccinelle wrote them.’

  Papai convulsed with laughter, slapping the surface of the water with his hands as if I had told a good joke. He drifted to the bank where he clambered up a slab of rock, declaring it the perfect thing. ‘Vem cá. Come here.’ He beckoned me to the rock, and he lifted me onto it. There, atop our slab, papai stretched out in the sun to warm himself. He patted the hard surface next to him, and so I joined him, stretching myself out. When he placed his hands behind his head, I did likewise, which amused him.

  ‘Papai, did
you fight Napoleon?’ My question surprised him.

  ‘I did, indeed.’

  ‘Was he a bad emperor?’

  ‘He was the master of lies, and he used the power of lies to control everyone and everything in his empire. Thankfully, he is no longer emperor.’

  ‘If he’s no longer emperor, where do the lies go?’

  Papai paused to think. ‘They mix with the truth, where it shall take a long time to untangle them, if it can be done.’

  This intrigued me, and I wondered if my own lies mixed with the truth such that I could no longer recognise the truth or even the lie.

  Papai turned his head towards mine. ‘Listen, my girl. It’s time for us to return home. We must get on before the snowfall makes the roads impassable.’

  This troubled me. ‘I want us to stay here for ever at Villa La Luna.’

  ‘Do not you miss your avô and your mamãe?’ He gave me a curious look. ‘They wish you to come home. They miss you terribly.’

  ‘Can they not come here instead?’

  ‘Your avô has many responsibilities in England, as does your mamãe. Many lives depend on them.’

  ‘I have sponsabillies here,’ insisted I. ‘I’m a foot-boy for Doña Marisa.’

  ‘Indeed? What does a foot-boy do?’

  ‘I fan her. I run errands. I fetch her food. I dance the bolero with her.’

  Papai humphed. ‘You cannot always want to be a foot-boy. Life is not all mirth and play. The time has come to return home.’

  Hot tears tumbled down my cheeks. How could I give up Doña Marisa and Señor Gonzalez and Emmerence and my way of life at Villa La Luna? I turned away to weep. Papai patted my back, calling me his dear little girl whom he could not live without, and begging me to think of my mamãe Aggie and my pug Tin-Key, both of whom were heart-broken and miserable without me, but his pleas made me sob louder. Why, oh, why could they not come here to live with me?

  ‘Come – let’s get on,’ papai sat up.

  I shook my head. When I refused to leave the rock, he carried me down against my will. ‘Não, não, não,’ protested I. Slung over my papai’s shoulder, I kicked and I kicked. Oh, why did I ever think these small lakes were magical when they made me feel wretched? They must be hidden lakes of sorrows, and thus I dubbed them for ever in my memory.