Nocturne (English version)

5 - Scissors, an escape plan, blueberries

  She struggled greatly to spill the contents of the bag over the trapdoor from which she had sprung.

  "You could even give me a hand, don’t you think?"

  We always start with the wrong foot.

  I approached to help her carry the heavy bag toward the step.

  "As I suspected. These scissors are absolutely inadequate: they don’t cut well."

  "But they are the only ones I have," I sighed.

  "Don’t worry. I was expecting that a little, so I brought a pair myself. They are my sister’s, so don’t break them. If I as much as scratch them she would notice. When I go back tonight I’ll have to put them back where I got them, but when I leave I will bring them away with me. So we won’t have to buy a pair. Actually, I brought some paper too, so you can help me make a list of things to remember. If you can’t write don’t worry, I will. An escape must be planned in every detail, leaving nothing to chance."

  A pair of gleaming scissors were extracted from the bag, along with some paper that looked like letter paper and some strange things used to write. Some travelling uncle of hers had sent them from England. They were the latest discovery, even though it seemed to me that they were made for soiling, rather than writing: ink stains everywhere.

  Before proceeding with the solemn haircut, it was absolutely necessary that she explained me her plan, to be really sure that it might work. It was like that: on the yellowy paper there was the drawing of a house, a bit tilted if we want to be picky: the builder hadn’t done a good job. Suspended in midair, perhaps in the act of levitating or flying, there was also a line with some protrusions.

  "Those are the arms and legs," she protested, "and it is clear that this is me! It just means that I will get out of the window, as I have done so far" she explained.

  The flying line with arms and legs was carrying a sort of suitcase and had an arrow pointing the way, or at least that was the intention.

  "The suitcase is needed. Clothing, things like that."

  Since I did not have any women clothes, I was happy she had thought about that detail.

  In the following picture there was a tower. And it didn’t look like mine. For a moment I feared that she had changed her mind, but she insisted that it really was my tower.

  "But there's no clock!" I complained.

  "Do not be picky. It’s the tower from behind. Behind there is no clock. Happy now?"

  "If you say so..."

  Here, a line with some protrusions (still her) was hovering in the air. The following pictures were more confusing, though: in one, the line with limbs was holding a record and was probably in a kitchen, which by the way didn’t resemble mine at all. In the last one there was water.

  "It means, blockhead that you are, that I'll stay here for a while, and cook some pies for you. Then, when they resign and stop looking for me, I'll go toward the sea."

  I nodded. The drawings were pretty bad, but the plan wasn’t, explained like that. Especially the part in the kitchen.

  "What else did you bring me?" I could not stand it anymore. I smelled the sweet scent coming from the bag, but she showed no signs of wanting to talk about it and, even worse, extract it.

  "If you don’t tell me what you think about the plan, I won’t let you taste today’s sweet," she said haughtily, crossing her arms and raising her chin. Not only that, she turned her back to me disdainfully.

  "The plan is fine. If you leave out the part where you levitate in the air."

  "Don’t joke!"

  "I'm not joking. But tell me the truth. What will you do when you're at sea? You will become a pirate yourself maybe?"

  "I don’t know. I don’t believe that women can do that. I want to go to the sea because I have an uncle there. The one who sent me the nibs and ink. He's old now. But he travelled a lot and eventually decided to settle in one place and find a home. He writes home every month. But only to me. He never writes to my sisters and my mother. He tells me about his travels, the adventures he lived and the wonderful things he has seen. He invited me to visit him one day. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. Now he has settled and he’s responsible for the maintenance of a lighthouse. From the tower to the lighthouse. It sounds like a promotion. I could work with him. Not bad uh?"

  I don’t know. What maintenance is needed, for a lighthouse? For sure it is not like dealing with a clock and its gears. It is far less sophisticated. Stuff for sailors, mind you, soaked in the smell of seaweed and saltiness. Here it must be much nicer.

  "But here I would become the wife of a terrible tyrant. It's disgusting. Really. Better the lighthouse."

  "Meanwhile, though," she said, her smile widening, "try these!"

  Circular cakes, six or seven inches in diameter, excessively leavened, with a mushroom-like bulge on top, covered with blueberries and chocolate.

  The blueberries disappointed me a bit; for chocolate, however, I still have some enthusiasm.

  "It’s impossible that you don’t like blueberries!"

  "I do, I do, but..."

  "But?"

  "Have you ever looked into a blueberry?"

  "Again? Stop it, for good! What's wrong inside the blueberries?"

  "Nothing. Only that as a child I thought they were all so dark as they are outside. They taste so blue, so purple, that there should be a lot inside. Instead I found out that inside they have no colour. So you can’t understand where all that blue and purple flavour comes from. That's it, that's what I had to do with the blueberries, there is nothing else. But I eat them, and I will eat your cakes too."

  "What a fool you are! Colours have no taste. This is a special recipe. My uncle sent it. He says it’s used in England, where he was. They are called muffins. Try them. Then we’ll proceed with the haircut."

  The scissors glittered smartly, comforting me a little. They looked like scissors that knew how to do their job. I was hoping they wouldn’t disappoint my expectations like blueberries had done. Those in Martina cakes didn’t taste so much of blue, maybe because they were baked along with dough and chocolate. And not even a trace of purple. Does it evaporate? "Come here," says the chocolate. Blueberries sometimes obey, sometimes don’t. But when they do their taste is fabulous. I surrendered to the muffins completely. I also surrendered to the scissors and her inexperienced hands who didn’t know how to untangle my hair, tugging them angrily.

  She complained about the light, a couple of candles stuck in a six-armed candlestick. And about the mirror, too small. Luckily she had her own scissors, otherwise...

  By the time I ate the fourth muffin, she was almost done. I savoured the muffins slowly, mind you. From a certain perspective – seen from below – they too looked like small round moons. I had always thought that there was nothing better than the moon. But Martina had made me discover the moon with blueberries and chocolate.

  It took an eternity but finally she handed me the mirror, exulting satisfied: "That's it. Finished. Now it's much better."

  The mirror was indeed small, so I could not see my new hairstyle from every angle. But I was sure that if I said that she would get angry, so again I tried with the smile tactics.

  "You should not smile so often. It makes you look silly. And with that broken tooth..."

  I smiled more. She had said often, not wide. The width of the smile had nothing to do with that. Meanwhile, I had had the chance to determine that if the bag she had brought with so much effort on top of the tower were full of muffins, there would be about three hundred twenty-five. Approximately eighty full haircuts and one left at a fourth for fatigue.

  "No, obviously it’s not full of muffins. There are my things inside. Some, let’s say. You don’t think I can take away all my stuff in one night, do you? I need clothes, nightgowns, cake pans and perfumed essences. Some books too. And then the music box of when I was little and my stuffed teddy bear, I cannot abandon it. And I think we should take a look at your kitchen, to see what we might need."

&nbs
p; "If you take away all those things from home, won’t they notice?"

  "Oh, no. Impossible. No one is going to know if I remove some clothes and things from my drawers. A little at a time, of course. From what I see, we should also add candles to the list. And maybe a larger mirror. Some soap. And I don’t think we need to look in your closet to figure out that you don’t have a decent suit. I am going to steal one from dad, even though he is much bigger than you, in width I mean. Shorter too, now that I think of it. Never mind, I will fix it myself. We can always find some cloth. If I can, I will bring you a new hat too. In the bag, meanwhile, I have a couple of dresses, a rolling pin, cookie cutters and a hat, but that’s mine. How late it is! I have to go immediately. Take care of my things and be warned: next time you have to show me your home. I need to know where I’m going to live, don’t you think? And then I will start to arrange my things, so when I decide to move here they will be all settled. And your hair is so much better now," she concluded with a satisfied look.

  Before I could formulate my idea, she had already dissolved in the dark.

  Not even this time I had offered to walk her home: the tufts of hair on the floor drew my attention. I tried to imagine myself without that amount of hair, to determine if the image the mirror had sent me was right or not.

  I had to buy a larger mirror. Tomorrow I’ll go to the junk shop down the road, I promised myself, and buy a huge mirror. What a surprise for little Martina. If the mirror was big enough, and she small enough, perhaps she could be reflected entirely.

  I thought it was very strange; when I am next to the moon, I always know how we look. I always look the same next to the moon, I don’t even need to make sure of that.

  But I wondered how I could look next to Martina. It wasn’t like with the moon, not really.

  There were no more muffins, anyway. Too bad.