smokingboot

Hmm. Well, here is my last story for a while. Work calls, Scotland is waiting, and I think I have blown away the stalemate in my head over the project.

This last one does not translate well to LJ, though I think it does better than story number 2, the one I wrote all those years ago. LJ is better for short sentences and vignettes. This is too rich and too long, and the narrator's deficiencies do not help. It is also very much a story written in daylight. I write better at night; things are more limpid and more clear, but also need to be shorter. Still, this is what it is, and it might as well take its place by its brethren.

La Muneca Pequena

My uncle lived on a plantation by the river.

This story is difficult, muy complicado, because I have not yet learned enough to write properly. But here is where it begins; my uncle lived on a plantation by the river, and it was beautiful.

I was born on my uncle’s estate. Tia Josefa used to talk about the big fight they had when it happened. It ended with Tio Augustin telling her, ‘You’re right,’ and letting her take me away to Buenos Aires. Some years later she sent him a letter saying; ‘You were right,’ and not long after, she told me to pack all my things; I was going to visit my uncle and I might be there for a while.

Tia Josefa had been unlucky with the money my uncle gave her.

When her husband ran away, she needed it to pay off his debts, and she put what was left into her laundry business.
That did well at first, and we were OK, but then the favela went very bad; the gangs got big and the police were careful about coming in, and you could see the men carrying guns around any time.

It was when my cousin said something about me in front of the other boys that things really changed; He said the only work for a little black girl in Buenos Aires was whoring or cleaning floors. He was all big on himself that day because Teheri’s gang had paid him and he had bought himself some new nikes. Josefa hit him around the back of the legs and promised him worse if he ever spoke like that around me again. And she took his nikes away. But she still went quiet afterwards, and her face was pursed up. And that was when she wrote to Tio Augustin.

My uncle’s house was far from Buenos Aires. We took the train, but for the last part we travelled up river, and the first time I saw the house it was from the back of the boat. How beautiful it was! White and gleaming under blue-green willows and yellow palms. You could make out flashes of colour in the branches. There were lots of parrots and maybe even monkeys here, and I was excited. I was afraid to see it, and him, even though Josefa told me not to be. ‘You were born here,’ she said, ‘You belong here, and your uncle is as gentle as a lamb. Be sure you are no trouble.’ I did not want to be any trouble, and when I saw the huge walls and the iron gate and the house with the fountain in the courtyard, I was so scared of being a bad girl, of letting him down, I almost thought about running back to the station.

But no-one could feel that way around Tio Augustin for long. He was so big and strong, like a lion. He had a big flat face and tilted eyes and thick hair he combed away from his face. He kept it short, so you could see his cheekbones and jaw and the way his eyes always smiled, and the way his teeth were so white.
And he was tall and broad, and when he took me in his arms, I could smell his cologne, all cool even though the sun was bursting right above us, and his shirts were crisp and beautifully pressed.

Even if he had not been my uncle, I would say he was very handsome. My aunt thought so too, but you could tell she did not approve of him. He approved of me though. He had beautiful eyes, as dark as ebony wood, and you could not tell from his skin if he was Indian or Spanish or Negro or White because he was all of them. And that made me happy because so was I.

‘How she has grown,’ He smiled, ‘Mira mi muneca pequena!’ Look at my little doll! And that was best of all, because everyone had always called me that; the Little Doll. He knew my name.

He ask me about what I had learnt. Well, I said, I could read and write and count but then the lessons had had to stop, and that was that. Then he asked me what I would like to learn. I said English and German and Computers, so I would not end up cleaning floors in Buenos Aires. And he puffed on a cigar and made a chewy face under his moustache and said I was never going to clean floors anywhere, and he swung me around until we were both dizzy. ‘And what do you think of your Tio Augustin, eh? What do you make of me, little doll?’ And I told him straight out.

‘You are an encantador!’ I shouted smiling, and Tia Josefa nearly had a fit.

‘Don’t you speak such rubbish to your uncle!’ she said, and to Tio Augustin she added,

‘She is a very little girl still and her head is full of nonsense.’

‘Yes,’ he nodded smiling, ‘But it is not full of Buenos Aires nonsense.’ And he gestured to some money on the table and a pretty watch and bracelet nearby. It made me feel hot and funny suddenly, to realize that he had put it there to see what I would do.

Tio Augustin wanted Josefa to stay with us, but she wouldn’t. She had the rest of the family to look after, she said, and he shook his head and tried to offer her money, but she wouldn’t take it. ‘Be good to your uncle,’ she said as she kissed me goodbye, ‘And don’t argue with him or trouble him with questions.’ And they held each other’s hands and kissed each other on the face very awkwardly. I thought she was being silly. The family was going to go the way of every other family in the favela; all that was left for her was work and soap operas and my cousins getting into trouble. And for that, she was leaving paradise...

It was paradise. It was green and endless, like Eden, and my uncle didn’t even make me wear sandals or tell me to beware of bugs and snakes, though he made me bathe every single day once in the morning and once when I came in, so I wouldn’t get the house dirty. And the house never was dirty. It was white and gold, and the steps were cool tiles and there was a swimming pool, all turquoise with a dolphin mosaic at the bottom. My uncle had many different kinds of soap, and they made a great foam and they were all very perfumed, like flowers.

My uncle loved flowers. The plantation was full of them, in fact, growing flowers and trees was all he seemed to do, and at first I could not understand it; How did my Uncle make money? I wondered if he grew coca or coffee on the plantation, but no, he said, that was too dull for him. He grew wonderful amazing plants and he collected rare specimens, he told me, from all across the world, and he mixed up chemicals and ingredients and made fertilizers. There was only one part of the plantation I couldn’t go, and that was where he kept his greenhouses. He only kept me out because it was so much glass, he said, but I knew there were some very important and precious plants in there, because he spent so much time with them.

The servants stayed out of those greenhouses too. The servants were nice to me but worried about me and asked me if I was lonely. Of course, I wasn’t, because there were others on the plantation, but Tio Augustin asked me not to mention those to anybody, even the servants. And when Sister Angoustia from the village came to talk to my uncle about me going to school in the autumn, so I would have other friends to play with, my uncle agreed very seriously, and looked across at me and winked.

The others were beautiful.

My uncle liked beautiful men. The servants shrugged, but some of them looked a bit unhappy about it. ‘Mariposas’ they called them, ‘Butterflies,’ and they called my uncle the butterfly collector, saying he caught them down at Puerto Aquin and brought them back home to pin them.

I hated it when they said that and it was so stupid too. My uncle went on business trips, but he didn’t come back with those men, and they didn’t come in on the boat or by car. So how did they get here?

And another thing. You could tell just by looking at them they didn’t come from Puerto Aquin, or anywhere else down the coast. They were too beautiful for that, even if you only looked at their eyes. Some had blue eyes, some had purple eyes, some had eyes that were mottled and orange. They all had different hair too, with soft, perfumed smelling little flakes that caked around their ears and mouths and eyelashes. There was a lot of it, and you sneezed if you got very close.

I tried to talk to one once, as it sat by the pool. It stared at me and opened its mouth, but nothing came out. It had no teeth, but a lovely smile anyway.

Of course, in the end, I asked my uncle about them. He looked at me for a long time and said, ‘Well now. Let me see. Where do you think they come from?’

‘I don’t know,’ I told him, ‘The servants say Puerto Aquin.’

‘The servants?’ He went a bit red. ‘What did they tell you?’ So of course, it all came out, about the butterfly collector and everything. He looked terrible, he kept going pale and then reddening again and I wondered at my uncle. Did he think no-one saw anything? ‘Those servants are paid to be discreet,’ he said, ‘I pay them very well...’

But everybody talks, I thought. Is it important?

He thought it was important. He fired them all.

After that, he got a woman and her son in once a week to clean the house, and when they were around, the others disappeared. But after that they came out, and there were lots of them, and they loved to play. They had very soft ears and you could poke a stick in a long way without them worrying. Their skin was soft everywhere except their feet, where it was strange and knotty, fibrous, my uncle called it. I tried to teach them how to talk but it didn’t really work. They were a bit stupid, maybe. I learnt their signs though, and they were very gentle, so we were all OK.

And of course, my uncle knew I knew, and so he might as well tell me everything. He took me to the greenhouse at night. There were lots of cicadas chirruping, though the days were getting cool.

‘Soon,’ he said, ‘You will go to school. And you won’t tell anyone about this at all, not even Sister Angoustia, yes?’

I nodded. I did not really want to go to school. I wanted to stay and play with the others always. The greenhouse smelt of earth and a thick muddy sugary fertilizer he had got from the foot of the Carabaya mountains in Peru. Almost anything would grow in it,he said. Here, he grew his orchids. And the others.

Some were pink and purple, some were pure white, some were deep blue or yellow with great patches of green. They were all fleshy and soft, and among them were the very big ones and the very small ones. He only had one very small one left, a dried husk dropped a long time ago. For all it was empty, it still shone like chocolate. He squatted down, making sure his trousers did not get dirty on the earth. I sat.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘They grow. And you can keep them on the stem until they are big. Or you can cut them off the branch when they are small and let them fall to the ground, and leave them alone, see what happens to them. Most die. But if any survive, these are the rarest and the best. Powerful and beautiful and clever and loving...’

And Tio Augustin looked at me and I understood.

‘The ones you keep until they are fully formed are not so clever, or strong but very exotic.’

‘And you like lots of these around,’ I said, looking at my uncle. He went a bit red again.

‘Don’t you? They are very gentle aren’t they? They wouldn’t harm anyone…’

I could feel the funny look settle on my face, the look the servants gave him, and I was angry with myself for having the feeling that goes with the look.

‘What happens to the ones that don’t work out?’

‘They go into the earth and we start again.’

‘And some you sell.’

‘Yes, chica,’ He spoke very gently. ‘Each of these is worth a great deal of money. But I only sell to those who will look after them very well.’

‘What happens to the little ones?’

‘I have only had one survive. And she is the treasure of my life. I will not make any more little ones, ever.’

That night I slept in the greenhouse. I knew then what was meant to happen, but I couldn’t think. The others sat around me combing my hair and touching my face until they faded into sleep. They didn’t know. My uncle came to find me in the dawn, and carried me back to my room. I was shivering, covered in dew, and he was shaking too.

‘I am afraid you don’t love your old uncle anymore.’ He said.

I hugged him and told him I loved him more than anything else in the world. ‘But I think you should give the servants another chance,’ I said. He never did though, and that was silly. Instead he got new servants in, and they never said anything to anybody. My uncle was very clever but he had been an encantador too long, and there were things he didn’t understand. I could remember Buenos Aires. People talk and angry people never shut up.

Those people he fired were all angry, and the trouble was, he had too much money for them to forget. I went to the school in autumn, and sister Angoustia sent me home with a letter saying it would be better if I had private lessons, but she never offered to send anyone to teach me. The new servants started leaving, because going into town got so bad; the housekeeper told me she was frightened because they kept talking about burning the house down. When I told Tio Augustin, he laughed and said he was not afraid of mobs with torches. But he was not really laughing, and he was thinner too.

And all the time I was thinking. On the day the last of the new servants left, I thought very hard, as though I was still in Buenos Aires, and I went into town. There in the café-bar was Hino, who used to drive my uncle’s car. He was very drunk, and I bought him some more, and he let me because he felt sorry for me, he said. It was not my fault, after all, that I was a pervert’s daughter.

‘You are growing up fast,’ he said, and I smiled at him to let him know how fast I was growing.

‘There’s a storm coming, Muneca!’ He said, waving his glass around, ‘And that bastard you live with is a rotting tree. Soon the lightning will strike and – Paff!’ He slammed the beer on the table, I looked up to see if the others were laughing at Hino being so drunk but they weren’t. ‘As god is my witness! Ah,’ he shook his head, ‘That that old degenerate should be so rich when good people have nothing…it makes me sick! All he cares about are his freaks and his plants, that dirty fucking –‘

‘You should not talk in front of the girl that way,’ Said the barman.

‘She has to learn sometime,’ Hino replied, ‘Maybe she knows too much already.’ I could feel my eyes pricking and I had to go. Before I left, the barman called me over.
He had a very kind face.

‘Muneca,’ he said, ‘Do not take too much notice of Hino. But maybe…maybe it would be good if you went back to see your tia Josefa …just for a while, until things calm down around here. People are funny, you know?’ And the moment he said that, I knew I mustn’t wait any more.

That night, a fire swept through the plantation. It started in the house and moved out burning through the trees right down to the riverside. They told me later you could see it on the television, the plantation ablaze and later, after the firemen had finished, the ruins of the house. It had not been burnt to the ground, but the building was gutted. I looked at the dolphin at the bottom of the pool. It was all black.

My uncle was dead. It had started in his room. It did not look so good for Hino. They said he had gone crazy and torn my uncle’s heart out. Hino was so drunk he couldn’t talk much sense, he just kept crying and saying he didn’t do it, but no-one was listening. Arson was bad and murder was worse, but to mutilate my uncle like that...Hino’s defense was going to put in a plea of insanity, but we knew it was over for him.

They wanted me to start thinking about the will and the money. They kept telling me I was one of the richest people in Argentina, and that I should go back with them to the city. But I told them I would come later.

They went away and I was left with the moon shining over my home. Everywhere I looked I remembered the others all playful and kind. The fire had swept away from the greenhouses and though some of the trees around were scorched, the glass was fine. The others were there, frightened, but OK, I told them, don’t worry, I will look after you, we will be OK.

In the corner where the soil is thick and churned, there is still a smell of blood, so I covered it with fertilizer. I kissed my finger tips and pushed them down into the earth until I could touch the new seed.

Early days, yes, and it all still hurts. But I promise you, something is growing.

copyright Debbie Gallagher 7th July 2004 right here and now berblahberblahberblah...