Amaranta Read online

  Amaranta

  Martha Faë

  Translated by Karen Cleary

  “Amaranta”

  Written By Martha Faë

  Copyright © 2015 Martha Faë

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Karen Cleary

  Cover Design © 2015 Paco Regueiro

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Amaranta

  Prologue

  THE END

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  Amaranta

  MARTHA FAË

  Illustrated by Paco Regueiro

  Translated by Karen Cleary

  “Amaranta”

  Written By Martha Faë

  Copyright © 2015 Martha Faë

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Karen Cleary

  Cover Design © 2015 Paco Regueiro

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  For my nephews and nieces – Ximena, Fabio, Ainara and Dante - for always reminding me how much fun it is to be young

  Prologue

  **

  At five in the afternoon light poured in through the horseshoe-shaped window of an old attic room in Madrid's San Andrés Street. It was that time of day when children go home from school. Joyful shouts, a parade of backpacks dancing across the worn cobblestones, and packets of crisps opening with that cheerful pop that soap bubbles would make if they were not so shy and dared to sing.

  In the room, on a small bed with a shapeless headboard, slept a drawing book with a hot chocolate stain on one of its bottom corners from the last rainy day of autumn.

  At 5:15 one of the sunbeams poking their noses through the window did one of those kinds of things that only happen when no one is looking. It opened its eyes very wide, looked one way and then the other, and then stealthily crept across the wall and deeper into the room. It worked its way up to the ceiling and then paused there, right above the book. Quiet, very quiet. A blink or two. A breath. The sunbeam swelled, filling itself with all the air it could, puffing out its cheeks and holding its breath. Then it whooshed downwards in a trail of sparks. Specks of dust twinkled like fireflies as the book surrendered, slowly opening its cover to show the first page.

  Amaranta doesn’t know this, but that was the strange and magical way we learned all about her extraordinary tale.

  1

  **

  My Family And Me

  (8½ Years Old)

  We all have one relative who knows a lot about life and thinks that with just one simple thing we can learn to stay at home happily and without complaining when it won’t stop raining outside. I have my auntie Marita, and a long time ago she gave me my simple thing. It was a book without lines or margins, without anything in it at all - completely blank. She brought it wrapped in newspaper tied with a red ribbon (that’s how auntie Marita is). When she gave it to me and I looked up at her with my enormous eyes like big pools, she automatically answered my silent question:

  “The value isn’t in the object,” she said, “but in what you do with it. It’s a question of creativity and originality.”

  There are a lot of creative and original people in my family, and whoever doesn’t believe it can come and see for themselves. As my Gran says, ‘the proof is in the pudding’, and here is mine.

  When I was five I wanted to be a princess – and I mean PRINCESS - in big letters, and with everything a princess should have, including (of course) a bed with a crown-shaped headboard. After watching the days go by and realising that my family were creative and original but not very bright when it comes to noticing the obvious, I decided to clearly draw what it was that I wanted. Then, with my blueprint in hand, I entered the kitchen. Dad was reading the newspaper, and holding a cup of coffee in his left hand. I left the picture there on the table and that was all it took – not long afterwards I had my headboard... And that was where all the trouble started.

  But anyway, I’ll get to that soon enough. For now let’s go back to the present.

  If at five years old I was capable of designing my own headboard, it was obvious that at eight years (and six months) old I would find something to do with the book that my auntie Marita had given me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I’d make it an illustrated autobiography of myself, starting from the beginning (because Gran always says that’s where every story should start).

  My head is like a large, round ball. But not round like children’s heads are normally, not at all. My head is absolutely, completely, definitely round, which I neither like nor dislike - it’s just the way it is. My hair... Ah! My hair is metamorphic. That’s a very strange word meaning it completely changes shape without anyone knowing why. At the time I started my autobiography I had an uncontrollable bush of anarchic curls shooting out in every possible direction. The metamorphic thing was explained to me one day by Mum, but the anarchic thing... Well I know my hair is that because that’s what Dad always says every time it’s his turn to brush it.

  My eyes are like two enormous pools, and when I say enormous, I mean huge. I used to think it would be better if they weren’t so big, especially because underneath each eye I’ve always had bugs. Not bugs like the insect kind or the kind where you’re sick for a few days, but dark, round bugs from not sleeping. That’s the way it is, you can have bugs from not sleeping too. Every morning I used to wake up with big, dark panda eyes and my Dad would say “Look at the size of those bugs!”

  The poor man always got an elbow in the ribs from Gran or Mum. Then the adults would start talking in that low tone of voice they think no one else can hear, about complexes and other strange things. I never bothered to ask what they meant because I was sure it would be something really boring.

  2

  **

  About Clothes And Democracy

  After saying what I look like I should probably say where and when I was born. But in autobiographies people write about whatever they feel like writing about – I know this because I heard Mum say so one day. So now I’m going to talk about clothes and about what is and what is not democracy.

  According to what Dad told me, democracy means that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and to choose. In my house this happens sometimes, but then other times it doesn’t. Here are some examples. We’ll begin with my favourite dress, which was a present from Mum, and which Gran improved. When Mum brought it home it was short, light blue, and had nothing special about it. Gran said it was much too boring for a girl like me, so she went to the shop to buy purple fabric, cut out an enormous X, and then sewed it onto the dress (clear example of democracy because they let her have an opinion and her opinion counted). I was delighted because, as always, Gran was right. The dress was much better with the X in the middle.

  Then came the moment when I wanted to have an opinion as well. I asked for tights with multicoloured stripes – what better to go with my dress? Gran said I could wear them if I liked. Mum said that “just because Amaranta is a child that doesn’t mean she should dress like a clown”. Auntie Marita said that the best thing in life is a “happy medium”. Result? There was democracy for everyone except me. The adults began to talk non-stop and there was no room for my opinion, so now I wear black and white striped tights which are “fun and elegant at the same time”, according to Mum, and “a happy medium” according to my auntie Marita. What can I say
? I still would have preferred them multicoloured.

  3

  **

  My Room

  Dad did the best he could with the headboard, although you needed quite a bit of imagination to see that it was shaped like a crown. But it’s my room, anyway, and I liked my Princess headboard. I have a new headboard now, and next to it are some fantastic glittery stars I made when everything that happened was over. I mean after the events at the end of my story... I mean when my adventure ended... But we’ll come to that soon enough.

  As well as the bed and the stars, I also have a carpet with multicoloured squares on it, and a poster of two frogs, which my auntie Marita gave me last year. Actually, if I tell the exact truth, I should say that the poster was given to me by my bitter auntie Marita, because ever since that day, that’s what she’s been called by Dad.

  The poster has two frogs on it, one normal and the other a prince. My auntie said I should look at them closely every day, so I do. I look at them from my bed; I focus on the crown, the snouts, the little feet... When she gave it to me she said I should observe and learn from it so that when I grew up I wouldn’t be tempted to kiss just any old frogs that don’t turn into princes. I didn’t understand this at all, and my auntie was going to explain it to me, but Dad said she was bitter and asked if she would kindly keep quiet. And that was the moment when she earned her nickname forever, as Gran said.

  I have to say that my bedroom is perfect, but with just one clarification: it’s perfect during the day. Because during the night... And there it is - another thing that has changed. Now it’s fine, including at night, but when I began my autobiography this always happened:

  “Aaaaaaaaah, noooooo, nooooo! ”

  (uncontrollable screams)

  Always in the middle of the night. My screams drowned out the sound of my parents’ bare feet running to my room. I couldn’t even focus on the moonlight that filtered in through my window, breaking through the darkness and making a silvery crisscross shape on the wooden floor. The lamp would be turned on as the tears welled up inside my lower eyelids, growing and growing as if they were overloaded sacks about to burst. My eyes were piled up with stubborn tears that refused to fall. They all crowded together in my eyelids, and pushed and shoved at each other, desperately clinging onto my eyelashes with everything they had. They kept on resisting until one would give up and fall away into the emptiness, and then the rest would all leap out together. They fell so fast that soon Mum and Dad would be moving their toes as if they weren’t toes at all, but little fish.

  “Amaranta, sweetie, calm down. Breathe,” one of them would say.

  “It was just a nightmare,” said the other.

  “No, it’s here! It’s under the bed!” I shouted, terrified.

  My parents searched, they looked under the bed, but never found a thing. I assure you that they searched properly, but what entered my room in the middle of the night had learned to be quicker and smarter than anybody. It would hide just at the moment the light came on.

  4

  **

  I Know Every Doctor In The City

  As if I didn’t have enough problems with not sleeping at night, one day I had to start meeting doctors. It was like playing snakes and ladders. We went from one doctor to the next and then right back to the first again. Bit by bit, Mum and I went all over the whole medical board of Madrid, until we’d met every doctor there was to meet in the city and at last the game finished.

  Doctors, doctors... I think we saw about three million billion or possibly more. At home we were all tired of it. Mum said they were all the same, but I tell you she was wrong there. Right from the beginning I saw all the differences. They are different, even if they’re the same in their differences.

  There are only three types of doctors. There’s the giraffe type, with a really long body and tiny little head. They’ve got big eyes and they blink a lot. They bend down to look at you from their tall height and fan you with their long eyelashes. They move their jaw around as if they’re chewing soft plants or something. Meanwhile, they think about which pill they’re going to give you. When they’re not talking their mouth looks tiny, but when they open it you can see that they’re exactly like giraffes and their whole mouth area is really big. Now imagine a giraffe, but imagine it properly. Now imagine you go as close as you can to it and suddenly you can hear it talk. Do you think you would understand what it says? Well you can’t understand a word Doctor Giraffe says either. And it’s not because you’re not an adult and they are, because Mum doesn’t understand a word either.

  The next type of doctor is the koala. Unlike the giraffe, these are short and potbellied. Their offices are usually quite nice, with little plants and some sort of toy to keep you occupied. They seem affectionate - they hug you and talk to you in a friendly voice - but watch out! They only seem affectionate. As soon as you relax with them all they want is to stick a needle in you. One little second of distraction and zap! An injection. Cuddly Doctor Koala wants to fix everything with needles.

  The last type of doctor is the snake. These doctors are thin and wrinkly, and I’ll tell you a secret: they don’t care about anything. They don’t look down on you from any great height, and neither are they interested in pretending to be nice. All these doctors do is blah, blah, blah. You get to their office, you sit down, and then starts the blah, blah, blah. You can understand what they’re saying if you listen, but they’re really boring. One interesting thing about them is that they have two voices. One is a cartoon voice, which they use with you, and the other is an adult voice, which they use with Mum.

  One important thing: Doctor Snake loves drawings. They’re terrible at drawing, but they don’t care, they love pictures. Sometimes they ask you to draw, and sometimes they show you their own drawings. And watch out if they show you a really bad one – they have to ask you what you see then, because even they can’t tell what they’ve drawn. I’d be embarrassed, to be honest.

  The last Doctor Snake we went to see asked me to draw at least three pictures. After I finished each one she peered at it through her big glasses and examined it, sticking her tongue out a little bit - you know, like snakes do.

  “The child clearly has an overprotection problem,” she said in her adult voice. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but you shouldn’t always give in to her...”

  Give in to me! I felt like rolling my eyes like Dad does when he doesn’t believe something, but instead I just kept quiet and carried on drawing. Doctor Snake had asked me to draw my nightmares. I had already explained to her several times that it was not a nightmare but something that was real and that came into my room and jumped right onto my face. But here we were again, back to me drawing my nightmares.

  “So the patient believes there are monsters under the bed?”

  “No, I don’t believe it,” I said without looking up from my drawing, “I know it. And they’re not monsters – it’s just one thing, though I don’t know what it is.”

  “Amaranta, please,” said Mum, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  “The patient is at a very complicated age. In my opinion this is not pathological at all, but rather a desire to attract attention. She is no longer a little girl who has to be looked after all the time and she’s finding it difficult to take that step toward being more independent and having to stand on her own two feet. Do you understand?”

  Mum nodded as if she understood, but under the table she was twiddling her fingers and she only does that when she’s thinking about what to make to eat.

  “If we observe the drawings done by the patient–”

  “Amaranta,” said Mum. After all the effort my parents put into choosing a name for me that they liked, there was no question of letting the doctor carry on calling me ‘the patient’.

  “Of course... Amaranta. If we observe Amaranta’s drawings we can see there is no clearly defined shape...”

  Obviously! I thought. It’s impossible to draw something that you’ve never
actually seen.

  “And so I repeat: I believe it’s all a trick to attract attention.”

  So this doctor wouldn’t be any help either. I had already told everyone at home that we needed a detective rather than a doctor. At first no one really listened, but later they promised that this doctor would be the last. So I went on drawing. I knew that Mum was running out of patience and soon we’d be at home and eating croquettes.

  5

  **

  The Story Of My Hair Before Its First Metamorphosis

  We went home on the train. When we got on we met Linda, Bo Wang’s mum and owner of the Chinashop below our apartment. Dad says that it’s just a shop like any other shop and that it’s not right for us to call it a Chinashop even if the owners are from China. Dad also told me one day that Linda isn’t really called Linda, but Lyn Mae, and Linda is the name she picked for whenever she speaks in our language. I think Linda and all the other Chinese people in my neighbourhood are really lucky to be able to speak in two different ways and choose another name if they want to. Only if they want to, of course, because my friend Bo chooses to be called Bo Wang all the time. It must be great to have two lives, so that when you get bored of one you can go over to the other one and then you can always come back later.

  When we saw Linda on the train she was carrying Bo’s little brother in her arms. He’s a baby with little chubby cheeks. He was asleep and his mother was looking down at him. He was so peacefully fast asleep that all you could see were two little lines where his eyes should be.

  “I bet he doesn’t have nightmares, does he, Amaranta?” asked Mum.

  “No, Mum,” I replied.

  I don’t know if it was because of all the doctors, but Mum seemed to have forgotten that what happened to me at night was real and not a dream. While she hugged me on the train I looked at Linda’s baby with his hair so straight. Then I realised that, in a way, I had two lives, too; I just didn’t remember the other one. Gran told me once that when I was born my hair was so straight that hairclips and bobbles would always slip out and you couldn’t do anything with it. Now you can’t do anything with it either, but only because if you do manage to get a comb in my hair, you’ll never get it out again later. According to Gran, since I started having trouble sleeping all the dreams I haven’t been able to have from being awake all night have been getting trapped in my hair and turned into impossible curls that no comb can untangle. She said they’re waiting for the day I go back to sleeping all night and then they’ll all line up and leave me one by one. Of course it’s perfectly natural that they don’t want to give up their little dream lives – where’s the sense in that? I asked Gran how they would all know who arrived first and who came later.