I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel Fitzwilliam

by Robin Kobayashi

  To my amazement, papai didn’t mention our leave-taking that evening. But to be safe, I hid in the orange grove the next morning, climbing into one of the trees. I had been on the look-out for a long while, when I needed desperately to relieve myself. I was about to climb down, when I heard familiar voices, and to my great horror, papai and Doña Marisa stood underneath my tree, romanticking each other; for, papai had been placed under enchantment.

  ‘Must your cortejo play his alphorn every night?’ complained papai.

  Doña Marisa sighed. ‘He is worried that I’m still in love with you. That’s why he gets drunk in the evening.’

  ‘Well, are you, Marisa?’ Papai gave her a lopsided grin.

  ‘I shan’t deny that my heart warms whenever I think of the handsome British officer who loved me first and is the father of my child. But you – you never truly loved me, did you?’ Doña Marisa cast down her eyes.

  Papai leant forward to kiss her tenderly on the cheek. I covered my mouth with my hands to stifle a squeal.

  With a broad grin, Doña Marisa cupped his face with her hands. ‘Qué milagro! What a miracle! The spell is broken, because at the moment, all I can think of is my Sábado and what he’s thinking of and hoping he thinks of me.’

  Papai returned her smile, and he held out his arm. Once the two erstwhile lovers strolled away, I pulled down my majo breeches to water the orange-tree. Oh, relief at last. My business done, I climbed down part of the way and thereafter dropped to the ground.

  ‘Ai!’ cried I in surprise, when papai seized me by the scruff of my neck.

  ‘I don’t know which is worse,’ he chided me, ‘– you being a savage and watering the tree from on high, or you being an eavesdropper and listening to a private conversation.’

  ‘Olha maroto! I shall tell mamãe that you kissed Doña Marisa.’ I shook my finger at him.

  ‘O, ho! Threatening a superior officer, indeed. Prepare to be court-martialled, soldier. I’m confiscating your maccaroni today.’ He turned me round for a forced march back to the villa.

  That evening, papai announced to everyone that he and I would leave Villa La Luna three days hence, as would Pico, who would be delivered up to his parents in Edwinstowe. Doña Marisa burst into tears. ‘I knew how it would be. You have come to take away my daughter,’ cried she. Doña Marisa begged papai to let me live with her. She was my true mamãe, she argued, and a mother and daughter should never be separated.

  With a stern look, papai ordered us children to retire for the night, and we would talk more of this on the morrow. My anxiety heightened, I half-heartedly kissed papai and Doña Marisa good-night. Emmerence put me to bed, and when I knew for certain that she had fallen asleep, I gave her the slip, because I had more important things to do than sleep tonight. Having crept down to the doorway of the drawing room, I observed my papai and Doña Marisa argue; for, papai’s enchantment had been broken.

  ‘I thank you for sending me a tress of her hair.’ Papai glowered at her.

  ‘You are most welcome,’ replied Doña Marisa.

  ‘How dare you cut off her hair. I am of separate minds on whether to punish you for stealing away my daughter,’ thundered papai.

  ‘Hmm. I wondered when you would become angry at what I had done. But you, sir,’ Doña Marisa shook her finger at him, ‘have never apologised for what you had done – deserting us in Lisbon all those years ago.’

  ‘I shan’t argue about that now.’ Papai folded his arms.

  Doña Marisa tossed up her chin. ‘Listen, I am her mother, and she belongs with me. My daughter has a prodigious imagination and a natural curiosity of the world, and here at Villa La Luna, she will be brought up in a liberal manner, with the freedom to explore…’

  ‘Freedom? Why, she has turned into a little savage.’ Papai scoffed at her. ‘You live with a man who is not your husband. You are with child by a man who is not your husband. And now you’re wealthy and titled, yet you’re the same as you always were.’

  Doña Marisa rose in defiance. ‘You condemn me and my Spanish customs, yet your English customs are no better – a mistress here, a mistress there, a love child here, there, everywhere. I know you “ran riot” in London at one time, and thus you were no better than I was at that young age,’ retorted she.

  Papai bit his lip and turned away.

  ‘A ha! Your countenance belies you, and I begin to think you’ve done something unspeakable in your past.’

  ‘Whatever I have done or not done is between me and God.’ Papai grimaced. ‘But it does not change anything. Sofia-Elisabete will return home with me where she will learn to behave like a proper young lady and where she will receive the best education.’

  ‘Ay, Dios mío!’ Doña Marisa stamped her foot. She railed at him in a blend of Spanish and English, in which she proposed that I should choose where I wanted to live.

  I covered my ears, not wanting to hear another word. Looking round and finding no one in the passage, I ran up the stairs of the tower, away from the all-knowing grown-ups. Safe now in my fortress and consoled by the starry night sky, I curled up with my imaginary pug-puppy, and I recited in my head a bed-time story – the one I knew by heart because it was my own story…

  There once lived a tiny girl named Sofia-Elisabete in the mountains near Monchique, Portugal. A foundling she was for more than three years until she set out in the world guided by her guardian angel, Sister Lisbet, to find her papai, he being a colonel in the British Army. One day they found each other in York, and thereafter they lived as father and daughter for the whole world to see.

  She, however, learnt that she was a love child – a child born out of wedlock – and that her mother had abandoned her at a convent in Lisbon. This troubled her, but she hid her curiosity about her real mother deep in her heart. Thereafter, her papai married a lovely and kind lady named Aggie, whom Sofia-Elisabete called mamãe, and the three of them lived happily in the town of Scarborough.

  Until one day when her papai started to gad about with the evil Mr O. P. Umm, who made him melancholy and turned him into an ogre. Sofia-Elisabete ran away, having been placed under enchantment by a beautiful Spanish maja named Doña Marisa who promised to take her to la luna – the perfect world in a moon – a place where no one ever gets sick or sad and where there is no hunger or hatred. In the beginning, she earnestly believed her papai would come and get her, because those are the rules, you know, when your papai loves you and you run away from home, and besides, this moon would cure her papai and he would never be ill again.

  And so her extraordinary adventure began, travelling hundreds and hundreds of miles from England to Rotterdam, Cologne, the Black Forest, Zürich, Brieg, Milan and Genoa, as she searched for the perfect world in a moon, but where instead she came across misery, poverty, disease and hatred. She persisted in this quest for a perfect moon world, refusing to accept the truth of her observations. She never did find it, because it turned out to be a fanciful world, a dazzling lie.

  But along the way she discovered her real mother, Doña Marisa, and the reason her mother had abandoned her. Her heart filled with bitterness as she struggled to understand and accept her mother’s love and abandonment. Then, once her heart became pure, she became reunited with her papai, this after months of separation, but the consequence of it all was she would have to choose one parent and abandon the other.

  She, the lonely orphan turned lucky child, had become an unfortunate child again, this time to be wrenched apart from those whom she loved. If she chose to live at Villa La Luna, she would undoubtedly pine for Scarborough, and if she chose Scarborough, she would pine likewise for everyone and everything at Villa La Luna. Her story didn’t end perfectly ever after, and she has come to believe that endings never turn out the way we really want them to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Changeling

  MY FIRST AND LAST STREET-FIGHT, thinks I, was a monstrous set-to that nearly began a riot. Struck with dismay by my boisterous behaviour, papai wondere
d what had become of his sweet little girl – the one he bought chocolate for, the one who wished to be a nun someday. Papai became convinced that the fairies, having stolen away his true child, determined to leave a wild and unruly one in my place. I, the fairy child, had nothing in common with the real Sofia-Elisabete, said he, what with my boyish clothes, shorn hair, insolent manner and black eye. With his sad countenance, his eyelids crinkling, papai gave me a mournful look. ‘I went to sleep one day under my pine tree, and I awoke several months later, the father of a completely different child,’ lamented he. When I asked him where the fairies had taken me, he eyed me with suspicion, insisting I knew full well where I had gone.

  ‘Mamãe Marisa! Mamãe Marisa!’ I scurried to the entrance of Villa La Luna where Doña Marisa sobbed into a handkerchief. ‘I forgot something.’

  Doña Marisa suffered from shock to see me, for I had already bid everyone a long and tearful adeus. ‘Minha Sofia-Elisabete? What did you forget?’

  ‘I forgot to…I wished to…’ My hums and haas diverted her.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I forgot to give you a proper good-bye. A bênção minha mamãe.’ I kissed her hand to bless her, which made her sob again.

  Doña Marisa held out her arms, and the two of us embraced, she kissing my cheeks one after another, when I heard papai cough in the distance, no doubt upset by my dawdling. I took one last look at Villa La Luna, committing it to memory. ‘Uf widerluege,’ cried Emmerence as she and Señor Gonzalez waved good-bye from the loggia. And so I bid my good friends adeus for the hundredth time, waving my cap at them. With the heaviest of hearts, I turned a right-about-face, the hot tears tumbling down my cheeks, and I ran back to where papai awaited me.

  I hear you cry, ‘Why did you choose to return to England with your papai?’ What happened was this. That night in the tower, when I had escaped from the all-knowing grown-ups, I had the great fortune of speaking with Sister Lisbet. I scolded her for having ignored me of late, but she explained that she served as guardian angel for many an orphaned child, and she had been ever so busy these past few months finding homes for them. ‘I suppose so,’ mumbled I, betraying my grudging heart.

  We puzzled our wits together to solve my dilemma. Should I live with papai or Doña Marisa? We gazed into the starry heaven to locate the two brightest stars, and having found them, we tugged at the stars to bring them closer. Papai had two stars orbiting him, they being me and my mamãe Aggie, whereas Doña Marisa had four stars orbiting her, they being me, Señor Gonzalez, Emmerence and my unborn half of a brother.

  Papai’s star flickered, while Doña Marisa’s star remained bright and strong. ‘Papai is ill, thinks I.’ Worried, I thought it best to stay with papai. But then Doña Marisa’s star flickered, and it must have done so when she grieved for me. What to do? Sister Lisbet wrapped me up in her red capa, and together we flew towards a bright white moon – higher and higher and higher. She pointed to the earth below, all blues and browns and white swirls on one side and darkness on the other side, and as the earth spun like a teetotum, the light side moved into darkness, to be ruled by the moon and stars, while the dark side moved into lightness, to be ruled by the sun.

  ‘Night and day, night and day, the two halves of the earth take turns being warmed by the sun.’ Sister Lisbet inclined her head towards me, when she began to fade.

  ‘Wait!’ called I, but she had gone. I closed my eyes, praying for the answer, when I found myself snug in bed.

  I shook Emmerence awake to tell her of my dream. She, thoughtful and sensible as always, reasoned that my parents should both raise me, taking turns to do so.

  ‘It takes a year for the earth to revolve the sun,’ noted she.

  ‘Isso! Exactly!’ cried I.

  A miracle occurred when my papai reluctantly agreed to my crazy plan, as he called it, although he proposed a longer period instead – three years in Scarborough, followed by two years in Nervi, and round and round I would go, each parent taking a turn to raise me. ‘How would we know if it could really work if we didn’t ever try?’ pleaded Doña Marisa with tears in her eyes.

  I thought the whole thing brilliant, until I began to pack my things, and the unsettling thought of quitting Villa La Luna for three years put me in ill-humour. Papai ordered me to travel very light, and so there was nothing for it but to leave all of my playthings and treasures behind, including my prized drum, the cuckoo clock that Herr Faller had made for me and the clogs shaped like little canoes that the twins Niesje and Kaatje had gifted me with. I wept and stamped my feet – left, right, left, right – over the loss of my drum, but papai stood firm with his arms folded.

  It was no secret that papai disapproved of my boyish attire, and thus he demanded that I dress in girl’s clothes for our journey home. But I had only one such thing in my possession, namely, the blue petticoat with red bodice and white cambric shirt from the Black Forest. What to do? A ha! I knew how to act. On the morning of our departure, I dressed in my foreign costume with bright red bollenhut, knowing it would vex my papai, and to be sure it did.

  ‘Heaven and earth! What are you wearing on your head?’ Papai gaped at the gigantic red tufts of wool on my straw hat.

  ‘It’s a Black Forest hat. What say you of it?’

  ‘I say, you shall leave that ridiculous costume here,’ ordered he.

  ‘But papai, I wish to…’

  ‘Permission denied. No child of mine shall be seen in public looking like a looby.’

  ‘Yes, papai,’ I hung my head to hide my impish grin.

  Dressed now as an English boy of quality, I ran into the orange grove to bid adeus to my favourite orange-tree. But a most disturbing sight awaited me there – the sight of Pico and Emmerence romanticking each other. Gah! Curious as ever, though, I hid behind a tree to listen to them. Pico asked her to think on him whenever she chanced to see a crescent moon in a starry night sky, and she said she would. He vowed that when he became a first-rate seaman, he would come back for her. Together they would be sea gipsies, roaming the high seas, battling pirates and duelling with those plaguy Americans.

  ‘Ai!’ cried I in surprise, when papai seized me by the scruff of my neck.

  ‘Eavesdropping again?’ papai chided me.

  ‘Shush, papai. I heard Pico say…’ whispered I.

  ‘There’s nothing worse than a busy body, tattler or backbiter,’ admonished he.

  I scratched my head. ‘Which one am I?’

  Papai groaned as he steered me away with one hand atop my head, and so I never did get to say good-bye to my favourite orange-tree.

  We journeyed through the land of Napoleon, the country called France, in two cabriolets – papai and I in one, MacTavish and Pico in the other. The French postillions wore gigantic jack-boots, and each morning we gathered round to watch the spectacle of them being hoisted into their boots. ‘En route! Hi!’ They cracked their long whips – crac-crac – making the horses squeal, and away we went. Sometimes on the great road we would pass barns on wheels, these straw-thatched diligences conveying people and their dogs from one town to another. I wished to ride in a barn, but papai dismissed that idea, because he had been ever so busy ‘murdering fleas’ last night at our inn, and he imagined a passenger in a diligence would suffer likewise from flea-hunting.

  I wrinkled my nose. ‘Papai, I stink like a horse.’

  ‘Well, now, you bathed three days ago. I dare say you’re good for another sennight.’ He winked at me.

  I scratched my flea bites. ‘Papai, I itch.’

  ‘Vem cá. Come here.’ Papai applied salve to my arm.

  Feeling wretched and filthy, I counted the days until my next bath – yes, I, who disliked bathing. But when you’re travelling on the road and covered with white dust and stinking like a dirty horse, you begin to pine for a warm bath scented with the essence of orange-blossoms. The sweet memory of my mamãe Marisa bathing me on our last evening together made me melancholy of a sudden. She had tugged at my hair to help my hair g
row. A habit with me now, I reached up to my hair to give it a good tug, when I noticed papai eyeing me with curiosity. Struck with horror, he grasped my head to search it for bugs, and having found none, he kissed the crown of my head with relief.

  One rainy day in the town of Avignon, papai burst into our room at the inn, worked up to a pitch of great excitement. With a waggish grin, he waved something in his hand. Apparently, at the bookseller’s shop, he bought two books written in French by a certain Madame de Coccinelle, or Señor Gonzalez as we know him. Papai beckoned me to sit on his lap, while he read out loud a few choice passages from Adventures of a Wheel of Cheese in his bad French, but each time he convulsed with laughter and couldn’t finish. I pleaded with him to read it to me in English, and so he did.

  ‘’Twas a cold and windy day,’ papai began, ‘when the wheel of cheese rolled into the town of Marseilles, but it stank as bad as a fusty old piece of cheese, and no one would get near it. The only person who befriended it happened to be the gruff proprietor of a cheese-shop. “How much for a slice of you?” the cheesemonger demanded to know. “I beg your pardon,” cried an indignant wheel of cheese in its muffled voice. “I’ll give you four sous,” offered the man. The wheel of cheese scoffed at him, mumbling “How ridiculous!” as it rolled out of the shop, whereupon the cheesemonger set his dog on it, and the dog, with a growl and snap, growl and snap, chased it out of town. “Aieeee!” howled the wheel of cheese as it bounced down the bumps on the roadside.’

  ‘How droll,’ declared papai.

  ‘I like the wheel of cheese.’

  Papai was all wonderment. ‘Indeed?’

  I nodded. ‘I want the wheel of cheese to be happy and not be eaten up by anyone.’

  ‘Humph. A stinking wheel of cheese sketched as a hero?’

  ‘All good heroes smell.’ I kissed his forehead. ‘Papai, I stink as bad as a wheel of cheese.’