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 wondered 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 grow. 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.’

‘Listen, my girl. We’re on a long march to Calais that will take us three more weeks. When I led my soldiers on a long, forced march, and we travelled on foot, we were lucky if we even got a pail of cold water at the end of it.’

I buried my head into papai’s chest, miserable at the thought of just a pail of water at the end of three long weeks. Several days later, my misery increased ten-fold when we came upon Vienne. On the approach to this ancient town, it presented agreeable and charming, but once we neared the centre of it, the dirt and filth and untidy homes and beggary made me wonder if Napoleon had cast a spell of deep gloom on the town-folk.

We stopped at a wretched inn, where we ate coarse food and thereafter slept on lumpy beds. That night, papai cried out in his sleep – ‘Riflemen! Riflemen!’ – the first of many nightmares he suffered on our journey home. I patted his head until he calmed, after which he turned on his side and wept quietly into his pillow. When I asked him at day break what he had dreamt of, he mentioned the war, something gruesome he had seen near Fuentes de Oñoro, a town on the border of Spain and Portugal, and he would say no more.

‘Papai, did Napoleon cast a spell on you to give you bad dreams?’

‘Humph. You might say that,’ he rubbed his forehead with worry.

My eyes became round as saucers. ‘Will he put a curse on me?’

‘He cannot do you harm,’ papai assured me.

Papai and MacTavish exchanged a knowing look. They began to draw the charges of their double-barrelled pistols and load them afresh, something they did each morning as was their habit. Nevertheless, I feared that Napoleon meant to do us harm, and I blamed the evil emperor for cursing my papai. The curse of the emperor! My ire heightened just thinking of what the emperor had done to papai. No wonder papai suffered from melancholy and gadded about with Mr O. P. Umm.

Grieving for my papai and his troubled heart, I followed him silently to the filthy dining room where we ate sour bread with butter and drank sweetened tea served up by a sulky landlady. Oh, how I missed the magic oranges at Villa La Luna and how Señor Gonzalez would tease me at breakfast that an orange is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night. But I dared not bother my poor papai by asking for an orange here in this God-forsaken place.

Later that day we arrived in Lyons where papai spoke to some of the town-folk, who blamed the English for letting Napoleon escape from Elba. They said the English didn’t like the terms of peace and wished to stir up another war, and so that’s what happened. Papai also heard violent arguments between those who liked the king, Louis XVIII, and those who liked Napoleon. ‘Buonaparte is still very popular with some of the French people,’ warned papai. I shuddered with fear at the thought, and I remained on my guard for the evil emperor.

The next morning, as we prepared to depart Lyons, we observed some French soldiers carrying a wounded soldier, the bright red blood staining his uniform. Papai learnt that a duel had been fought with another soldier, their weapons being swords. With a grimace, papai told us the duellists had fought over something ridiculous, such as a hasty word or a minor insult, and this unfortunate soul, now covered in blood, was not one-and-twenty. I clasped my hands in prayer as the poor soldier sank into the repose of death.

Upon our arrival in Dijon, the town-folk’s devotion for Napoleon had seized them with great fervour, for many of the shops sold images of Napoleon on plates, cups and candle-holders. ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ the shop-keepers would cry to passers-by. Even some of the workmen carried spades and hammers with the image of Napoleon on their tools in trade. At our inn, a framed picture of Napoleon adorned each room, the better for this stregone, this sorcerer, to spy on us. Later, when we supped, papai complained that he would suffer from indigestion, because every time he ate a forkful of food, the image of Napoleon on the plate would stare back at him.

The next morning, having finished my meagre breakfast of cold tea and sour bread, I was seized with a real fit of the fidgets, and so papai ordered Pico and me to visit the Necessary House and to be done with it as soon as we could. Believe you me, no one wants to linger there. When we had done, Pico and I amused ourselves with a bout of fisticuffs, he teaching me how to deliver a sharp blow with a manly spirit. ‘Yer a strong girl,’ acknowledged Pico, cradling his left arm where I had rapped him with my fist. Two crabbed-looking boys gathered nearby to observe us, the older one chewing on a straw. The rascals staged a mock fight, acting foolish and dandyish and leaving no doubt of their dislike of us foreigners.

‘Rosbif!’ The older boy spat out his straw.

‘Frogs!’ retorted Pico.

‘Rosbif!’ The younger boy gave us an ugly gesture of his hand.

Not knowing what his gesture meant, I turned myself into a lion and roared – rrraaaawwrr! – and I clawed my hands in the air. My snaps and snarls, for whatever reason, upset this hot-headed boy, and quicker than a thought, he attacked me, pumping his fists into my sides.

‘Aieeee! Aieeee!’ yelped I in pain.

‘Defend yerself,’ urged Pico.

And so I did. I rallied with a mighty roar that shook the heavens. Taking good aim, I gave a punishing hit to my foe, who thereafter tumbled onto the ground.

‘Well done, Soofia-Eee!’ Pico cheered me on.

Some of the town ruffians gathered round in search of entertainment, their clamour attracting a wide crowd as my foe and I returned hit for hit. Of a sudden, someone lifted me up, tucking me under his arm, while I wriggled and kicked. ‘Manso! Be still!’ ordered papai. MacTavish, meanwhile, had seized Pico by the lug. ‘Yow!’ cried Pico, as he struggled to free himself.

We hastened to our cabriolets, an ugly crowd at our heels. ‘En route! Hi!’ The postillions crac-crac’d their whips, the horses squealed and our cabriolets rumbled off, departing Dijon in a cloud of white dust.

We had no sooner got away, than someone behind us fired a pistol – poomb. ‘Duck down,’ papai ordered me. So obey him I did, curled up on the seat, my heart thump-thumping with fear that Napoleon would attack us. I goggled my eyes at papai, who turned round to fire off a warning shot with his double-barrelled pistol, the loud report ringing in my ears. On seeing me quake from head to toe with fright, papai assured me that this had stopped the angry mob from pursuing us; nevertheless, he remained on his guard for what seemed a long while, instructing me to be quiet.

When papai finally deemed us safe, he gathered me into his arms, where I clung to him until he had calmed my fast-beating heart. He examined my injuries from the fight with the French boy, wiping the blood from my nose and thereafter cleaning my face with the liquor in his flask. Shaking his head slightly, he fingered the tears in my clothes to determine if they could be mended by MacTavish, but there was nothing for it, I would need to wear the other set of clothes I had brought with me. Papai cupped my face with his hands.

‘Where, oh, where did my little girl go?’ his voice trembled with sadness.

I frowned. ‘Go? Nowhere, papai.’

‘Changeling!’ he accused me. ‘I want the real Sofia-Elisabete returned to me.’

‘I am Sofia-Elisabete,’ declared I.

‘Impossible! My sweet little girl would never have engaged in fisticuffs with a ragged urchin.’

‘But papai, he called me rosbif.’

Papai groaned. ‘Do you even know what that is?’

I shrugged.

‘It means roast beef.’

‘Roast beef?’ My eyes widened.

‘It’s just a word that the French soldiers use for the English.’

‘Just a word?’

Papai gave me a stern look. ‘The next time you and Pico take a freak to fight the French on French soil over a stupid word – well, you’ve got to restrain yourselves.’

I scratched my head, wondering how I could restrain myself when threatened by a rude, hot-headed French boy.

Papai tried again. ‘My dear child, you cannot follow up on every mad freak that comes into your head. It can be dangerous. Do you understand?’

I hung my head in disgrace, wondering why I got into a bout over English roast beef and French frogs. I recalled the surly look on the boy’s face and that of Pico’s. Ai! The evil Napoleon must have cast a spell on us, making us hate each other, when we neither of us were truly roast beef or frogs. But if one believes in a lie, it becomes one’s truth, thinks I.

In Langres, papai took me to a kindly French doctor, who dressed my wounds. The doctor said my red, swollen eye would turn black for a fortnight before the bruise would fade. He suggested a good inn for us, and there, I bathed in warm water. The landlady, on seeing my wounds and bruises, scowled at papai, and no matter how hard papai tried to convince her otherwise in his bad French, she was sure he had beat me.

‘She believes I gave my own daughter a good drubbing,’ he muttered to himself in disbelief.

‘Papai, I’m ready for you.’

Papai picked up the clothes that MacTavish had set on a chair, when he realised that it was my majo costume.

‘Where are your foot-boy clothes?’ he demanded to know.

I shrugged. ‘Those are my clothes.’

Papai grunted. ‘Did not you pack your livery?’

‘You said I cannot be a foot-boy for ever. I wish to be a majo now.’

And that is why for the remainder of our journey through France, I wore a spangly majo costume. I don’t know what the town-folk wondered at first – me, the majo girl, or me, the pugilist with a black eye. Pico thought it grand to have a black eye, it being a badge of distinction for having defended good old England, and he envied all of the attention I received. But the best thing of all to him was the spectacle of the French women giving the evil eye to my papai; for, they assumed that he, being an English brute, had beat me. Pico said the ridiculousness of it somehow reminded him of the bizarre comedy we had seen once at the puppet theatre where the puppets rioted and beat each other with sticks.

Having deemed me fit for travel, papai announced we would quit Langres on the morrow. That night, papai shouted in his sleep. ‘Frogs! Frogs!’ He swung his arm round and round as if he brandished a sword. I seized the glass of water set on the small table near the bed, and I poured the cold water on papai’s face. ‘Pfft,’ sputtered he. With a moan, he rubbed his face, and then he fell silent, but I knew he laid there awake and troubled. That morning, I kissed his hand, and I greeted him with a blessing.

‘A bênção meu papai.’

Papai chucked me under the chin. ‘Oh, how I missed your blessing each morning and night.’

‘What did you dream of?’

Papai became thoughtful. ‘I dreamt I was battling the enemy during the war.’

‘Did they call you rosbif?’

He fingered my black eye, lightly tracing its purplish edges. ‘I do believe they did.’ And he half-smiled at me, wearing those sad, crinkling eyes of his.

Near Troyes we entered a kind of ‘desolate nether world’, which was how papai described it. All that remained of the village were roof-less houses and black-burnt beams. The ragged villagers peeped at us from behind the ruins, their sickly countenances and hopeless despair piercing my heart. ‘Cossacks set fire to their village during the war,’ explained papai, ‘and they believe the Cossacks will return. They know not or refuse to accept that the war has ended.’ I kissed the cross on my necklace, and I said a prayer for these poor souls.

That night, papai screamed ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ in his dreams. He pointed his finger as if he brandished a pistol, firing at the enemy. This time I knew how to act, thanks to the memory of when my mamãe Marisa had swooned on the bridge in Nervi. She had gifted me with a phial of orange-blossom scent to remember her always. I placed this phial under papai’s nose, and sure enough, it brought him out of his fitful dream. He lay awake troubled, no doubt reliving what must have been a terrifying battle during the war, and so I clung to him until he began to breathe easy and he patted my hand.

Papai determined we would quit the countryside and take the great road to Paris, and from there, to Calais. MacTavish heartily agreed, because in every village we passed, the ‘withered crones’ sat in front of their houses peeling onions, and if he had to see one more fright, one more ugly onion-peeler, he would turn into a madman. With a secretive smile to papai, MacTavish declared he would march to Paris and vanquish anyone who stood in his way of true love and a good-looking woman. ‘Vive l’Amour!’ his eyes beamed with excitement.

I tugged at papai’s coat. ‘I don’t want to go. The emperor scares me.’

‘You needn’t worry,’ papai patted my head. ‘Buonaparte is exiled on St. Helena.’

‘I wish for my own pistol then.’ An image of myself wielding a gun to protect my papai somehow appealed to me in an exciting kind of way, for I was keen to be an excellent markswoman like my mamãe Aggie.

‘Silly gooseberry,’ cried papai. ‘What you wish for is a pretty frock. Your dear papai shall purchase you one. You shall wear the very height of Parisian fashion.’

I stamped my feet – left, right, left, right. ‘I don’t want to be tall. I want to be a majo for ever.’

‘When we reach Paris, your majo days are done,’ papai shook his finger at me.

And that is why I blamed that evil Napoleon for making me dress as a girl again, because if he hadn’t cast a spell on me to turn me into an ogress who fought with her fists, I could have been a majo for ever. In Paris, papai dragged me to a dressmaker, a Madame de Montreux, where I suffered through three fittings to turn me into a little angel dressed in white, albeit an angel with a black eye and an impudent manner.

On my last day of majo-ness, whilst we waited for my clothes to be done, Madame de Montreux suggested with a wink that papai visit the menagerie to view the heavenly creatures. There, in the Jardin des Plantes, Parisian ladies dressed in white gowns and elaborate bonnets promenaded with their coxcombical poodles, who were beribboned and perfumed like their mistresses. Some of these stylish ladies strolled together arm in arm, tittering and fluttering round papai, who, being the perfect gentleman, gave them a tip of his hat and greeted them with a jolly ‘bonjour, bonjour, bonjour!’

‘Mon Dieu,’ papai murmured to himself when he observed one of these heavenly creatures lifting her gown to reveal her white-stockinged ankles.

I tugged at his sleeve. ‘Papai, I want to go to chapel.’

‘Now? Are you not enjoying the menagerie?’

‘There are no wild animals here,’ complained I.

This diverted papai, who led me to Notre Dame, near which some squalid children begged for alms, but the passers-by, including the ladies and gentlemen dressed in the height of fashion, ignored them. Papai struck up a conversation with a British officer to determine the news of the day, while I pondered how I could help these poor, starving children. What to do? I, Sofia-Elisabete, must beg for alms again. Isso! Exactly!

I dropped my majo hat onto the ground to collect the coins, whereupon I promenaded round it twice in a graceful paseo. I positioned myself, extending a foot and a curved arm, and with a snap of my castanets – ta-ria-ria-pi – I danced a solo bolero. Soon, I attracted a wide crowd, and when I ended my bolero with a sudden stop, a bien parado, the sous rained down on me. I gave out the coins to the poor children. ‘Merci!’ they each cried, and they ran away.

‘Olé!’ papai cheered me.

I cast down my eyes, preparing myself for a court-martial. But to my surprise, papai knelt to kiss me on my forehead.

‘I’m proud of you, and I know your mamãe would be as well.’

I tilted my head to the side. ‘Which mamãe? Mamãe Marisa or mamãe Aggie?’

‘Why, both of them would be proud. You’re the luckiest girl in the world to have two mamães.’ Papai wiped his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief.

‘Papai, is that why you’re crying?’

‘O, filha da minha alma,’ he called me the daughter of his soul. ‘I’m happy and relieved that the fairies have returned my Sofia-Elisabete to me.’

I opened my mouth to protest that I hadn’t gone anywhere, when papai declared I could remain a majo if I promised to wear my white muslin frock with blue silk sash and matching bonnet in Scarborough. ‘Would not your mamãe Aggie wish to see you in stylish Parisian dress?’ I pondered his question. I believed my mamãe Aggie would rather see me in my stylish majo costume, but I dared not voice my opinion. ‘Huzzah! Papai for ever,’ cheered I, content for now in my majo-ness.

We didn’t stay longer than three days in Paris, which suited me. The din of the city never ceased from day break to mid-night, and thus I hardly slept, whereas papai snored soundly despite the screeches and shouts and neighs and squeals and rumblings of carriages and pealing of bells. He, who could not sleep in the quiet of the countryside with the mournful blare of an alphorn now and then, found it the most natural thing in the world to be lulled to sleep by constant, loud noise. And I wonder now if those noises drowned out the nightmares swirling round in his head?

On the road to Calais I observed women with faces as brown as leather ploughing the fields, old peasants wearing cocked hats and a genteel-looking woman with a bright white cap and gold earrings riding astride a horse, just like a man. Ragged urchins accosted us at each town, some of them selling cakes, but papai would not buy any cakes for me. ‘Hola, ho!’ our postillion cried out whenever we drove by a drunken man tottering down the roadside.

Several days later we reached our destination at Calais, where we sat idle at Hotel de Bourbon, waiting for favourable winds to carry us across the water to Dover. Having grown tired of doing nothing, Pico and I played at Mora, the noise of which drove papai and the other lodgers to distraction. Another day we amused ourselves by following a servant from room to room as he skated round with a small brush fastened to each foot to clean the boards, that is, until he locked us inside the brush closet, for he had gone quite distracted with our endless questions about his skating habits.

At noon, we supped on soup and bouilli, a kind of meat and vegetable stew, and on meagre days, when no meat was to be had, we supped on fish or omelette with fried beans or sallad. I hadn’t savoured a dish of maccaroni in many weeks. In the afternoon, we drank boiled tea sweetened with coarse sugar and mixed with a goodly amount of boiled milk. Oh, how I missed my cioccolato italiano. I have since come to the conclusion that meagre food makes you cross, because the English travellers here argued endlessly over the hotel charges, and they complained of the number of toadstools sprouting in their rooms – either that or the disagreeable smell of aniseed from the French brown soap used by the hotel.

One evening, I eavesdropped on the landlord and papai while they drank a glass of capillaire, a ‘disgusting syrup’, which is what I heard my papai mutter once. ‘Très bon, très bon,’ papai lied to please his host. This landlord, Monsieur Rignolle, who went by the name of Lapin for some reason, bragged that he had many a lover and thus ‘many a bâtard’.

‘How many children do you have?’ asked papai.

‘I make twenty-seven of them,’ returned Lapin with cool indifference.

‘Twenty-seven?’ papai’s voice squeaked.

Lapin shrugged. ‘I send them to foundling hospital.’ He yawned just then, as if his children meant nothing more to him than, say, a cart-load of vegetables or legumes.

An image entered my mind of the despicable Lapin with his twenty-seven chickpeas, each of the chickpeas having a tiny, sweet face, and he tossed them one after another into the foundling turnbox wheel. A dark cloud of troubled thoughts passed over me, and before I could stop myself, I turned into an ogress, ready to pounce on this rogue.

‘Olha maroto!’ scolded I from the doorway.

Papai scowled at me and my clenched fists. ‘Miss Changeling? Pray ask Sofia-Elisabete to return at once. Now go and do my bidding,’ said he in a harsh tone.

Papai’s censure stung me to the quick. I took to my heels, running out of doors, to search for myself, but no matter where I looked, I could not be found. Distressed at the thought of losing papai’s good opinion, I trudged back to the inn where he awaited me in ill-humour.

‘Well, now, have you returned to your senses?’ His brow darkened.

I hung my head. ‘I can’t find me.’

‘Are you certain you’ve looked everywhere?’

I nodded. ‘I’ve looked high and low.’

‘O fie!’ papai growled out, casting me a severe look.

‘Papai,’ I inched closer to him so as to fidget with a button on his coat. ‘I know why mamãe Marisa left me in the roda when I was a bebê.’

This piece of news unsettled him, and his countenance softened. ‘Indeed?’

‘She said she did a bad thing.’

‘To be sure she did.’

A hint of suspicion tugged at my heart again – that dim feeling of doubt and hurt that lives inside of you, taking shape without your knowing it or wanting to know about it. I peered into his dark blue eyes, whereupon I blurted out, ‘Papai, did you forget me?’

This home question deeply affected him, and he swallowed hard.

‘I never forgot you.’ Papai drew me to his breast. ‘I wasn’t man enough at first to come and look for you. I was a lost soul. Will you forgive my weakness?’

I knew papai spoke the truth, because Sister Lisbet had once described him as ‘so very lost’. And that is why I grasped his hand now to kiss it. ‘A bênção meu papai.’

Mid-morning the next day, the pilot of the Princess Augusta sent word that we would up anchor in half-an-hour. The whole hotel was in confusion as we lodgers bustled about to pack our things. After papai had settled our bill with the landlord, we hied to the dock, my papai carrying me and our portmanteau and hat-box. Pico lagged on the pier until papai ordered, ‘Come, lad, quick march.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that Pico dreaded going home to Edwinstowe where a day of reckoning with his father could no longer be put off. MacTavish grasped Pico by the scruff of the neck to prevent his escape, and when they came on deck, he tied down Pico until we were safely out at sea.

‘Gad zookers,’ complained Pico. ‘I’m not a criminal.’

‘Ye sud ha’e taken the twenty thumps wi’ the Colonel.’ MacTavish rapped Pico on the head.

Ere long papai’s complexion turned a shade of green as we pitched about on the sea, and he got sick over the side of the packet-boat. MacTavish positioned papai on deck near a pail, and each time papai got sick, so did the dandy next to him, and then the matron next to the dandy, and then the matron’s portly husband, and so on, they each of them taking a turn at it – what an odd thing it was – until it seemed that most every passenger had sickened with this malady related to the sea.

I placed a rosolio drop on papai’s tongue to soothe him, and he moaned his gratitude, his eyes half-closed. Then, abruptly, he reached for the pail, and the dandy next to him did the same with his pail, and the matron next to him, and you can guess the rest. I resolved to relieve papai’s and everyone’s suffering, and so, having told Wind to make haste and push us to Dover, I pressed my tiny hands on papai’s forehead, praying with all my might. Hola, ho! God! Please help my dear papai. Que milagre! Like a miracle, papai’s head sank upon his breast, and he snored for the remainder of the sea journey, as did the dandy and then the matron, &c.

The sun now being low in the sky, we sighted the British shore and the lofty white cliffs. ‘Huzzah! Old England for ever,’ shouted a sea officer with pride and relief. ‘Huzzah!’ echoed MacTavish, rousing papai from his peaceful slumber. In a wistful mood, papai gulped down French courage from his flask. He, having noticed my curiosity, offered me some.

‘Papai, I am not yet six years old,’ I chided him.

‘Humph.’ Papai offered his flask to the dandy next to us.

‘I dare say I’m more than six years of age.’ With a whoop, the dandy gulped down the wicked liquor, and when he had done, he honoured us with a loud belch.

‘Well, I never!’ protested the matron next to the belching dandy.

I began to giggle, when papai covered my mouth with his hand to shush me.

‘Papai, where do memories go?’ I shan’t ever forget this silly dandy, methinks.

He paused to reflect on the matter. ‘Well, now, everyone has a sea of memories. Some memories sink to the bottom of the sea, where you hope they never resurface, while others you wish to keep afloat for ever, but they eventually sink as well over time, unless you go and fish them up.’

I do believe I gathered up many memories from my adventure on the continent – some of them joyful such as rope dancing with the gipsies, some of them frightening such as nearly falling into an abyss, some of them hurtful such as being told why my natural mother had abandoned me in a foundling turnbox wheel. Would they all sink inside of me, down to my toes, never to be thought of again by me?

Oh, how I longed to hold my mamãe Aggie and to recount my adventure to her before any of it faded from my memory. I imagined that she, being a forbearing and sympathetic soul, would understand why I had gone off, and she would deem my adventure a fortunate misfortune, because should not a child know from whom she sprung? If not for my quest to find a perfect moon world – a world that turned out not to exist – then I would not have discovered my natural mother and the truth of my mysterious beginnings.

We put ashore at Dover, cheered by the lingering rays of the setting sun, when a chaotic scene ensued with passengers and porters and customs-officers. ‘My girl, I am quite recovered, now that I’m back on English soil, and I shall be reunited with my dear wife,’ rejoiced papai, his eyes bright and shiny. ‘They say you must quit your home to appreciate it when you return.’ Determined to share in his happiness, for I wished to be at home once more in Scarborough, I straightened my majo jacket, and I flung my brown capa over my left shoulder in the way I had seen Señor Gonzalez do with his capa whenever he summoned up a manly resolve. I promenaded down the pier in a graceful paseo, rattling my castanets – ta-ria-ria-pi.

But then, the distant blare of an alphorn beckoned me, and I began to pine for the past, and it pained me to think that everyone I had met on the continent would forget me, for I surely would never forget any of them. I turned round one last time, imagining I could see far into a continent at the horizon now blurred in a vapour of violets and oranges and reds and yellows. Lo! There I am, dreaming atop the tower at Villa La Luna. There I am, riding a mule with my beau Oskar Denzler in the Gemmi pass. There I am, dancing the bolero with Doña Marisa at Casa Castiglione. Enough, I told myself, and with a sorrowful heart, I bid everyone and everything there adeus.

Finis