Secrets in the Fire Read online

  One day, Mariza came to fetch her earlier than usual.

  ‘You’re going to meet Master Emilio,’ she said.

  ‘Who is that?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘He’s the one who will be making your new legs,’ Mariza said.

  Master Emilio was in a room full of arms and legs and feet and hands. Sofia thought the room was creepy at first. But Master Emilio laughed as he shook her hand, reminding her of Totio, and he said that everything would be all right. He was going to make a couple of really nice legs for Sofia. He would make them out of plastic and she’d get black shoes.

  Then, with some help from Mariza, he carefully removed her bandages. Sofia saw the wounds on her knees for the first time. They still hadn’t healed. She felt sick and looked away. Master Emilio was busy with a tape measure, writing down numbers in a notebook. Then the two of them replaced the bandages.

  ‘You’ll have to practise walking again,’ said Master Emilio. ‘It’s going to be difficult. But you’ll succeed.’

  Sofia nodded.

  ‘You do want to learn how to walk again?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sofia said.

  But deep inside she didn’t know what she wanted. There were days and nights when she thought only about Maria: Maria who was dead and who would never again exist. Even if she got a couple of artificial legs, she would never be able to run again, never be able to dance. She would have to use crutches.

  Maybe it would have been better if she had died too? Her legs were already waiting for her under the ground.

  She didn’t tell anyone about her thoughts. Not Mama Lydia, not José-Maria, not Doctor Raul.

  Early one morning, Doctor Raul came into her room.

  ‘You’re going to move today,’ he said. ‘We need this room for other people who are more ill than you.’

  As usual, he had squatted down next to her bed.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘No one can make such nice legs as Master Emilio. It’s time for you to learn how to walk again.’

  ‘Am I going home?’ Sofia asked.

  Doctor Raul shook his head.

  ‘That’s too far away,’ he answered. ‘You have to stay here in the city for a while yet, until your legs are ready and you can walk properly. It’s too far to drive to pick you up every day.’

  Mariza came to get Sofia late in the afternoon. She wheeled her outside in the rusty chair to where a car stood waiting. They carried her into the car.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Mariza said.

  The car rushed through the city. Sofia was scared. She had no idea where she was going. What if she just disappeared amongst all the people, she and her wheelchair? No one would ever find her.

  She tried to take notice of the direction they took. But the myriad of streets just confused her. In the end, she couldn’t even work out in which direction the hospital lay.

  The car finally turned in through the gates of a big compound containing several large buildings. The car stopped and the driver lifted out Sofia and the wheelchair.

  ‘This is where you’re going to live,’ he said. ‘Every morning a car will come and take you to the hospital. That’s where you’ll learn how to walk.’

  Then the car drove off. Sofia sat in her wheelchair. In her lap she had an orange that Miranda had given her.

  She looked around.

  There were no people to be seen.

  She was alone. The sun was about to set.

  It would soon be night.

  She had been abandoned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SOFIA SAT IN her wheelchair all night.

  The stars shone and twinkled above her. From time to time she slept. She had pulled the blanket over her head and every time she woke from her restless sleep she wondered where she was.

  Forgotten, she thought. Rejected. They needed my bed at the hospital. Lydia will never find me again. The wheelchair will sink into the ground.

  Sofia wasn’t afraid of the dark. But she was scared because she couldn’t move. When darkness fell she had tried to wheel the chair, but the wheels were so crooked that they were impossible to move. For as long as she could, she kept trusting that someone would come. But once it was dark and the many sounds of the city gradually died away, she realised she was going to stay there the whole night.

  She thought she might be able to lift herself out of the chair and crawl across to one of the trees that grew close to the building. But she stayed where she was. Her leg stumps itched underneath the bandages.

  She sang throughout the night to keep herself company. If she sang really loud, Maria might be able to hear her from where she was under the ground. She sang all the songs she could remember. She sang loud and long, fast and slow, again and again. It reduced her fear of being alone. It also helped her to avoid thinking about what would happen when the night was over.

  She remembered how things had been when she was very young. Hapakatanda had sometimes shown her and Maria the stars at night. He’d shown her how you could see formations that looked like animals. He’d also told them that everyone should choose their own star.

  ‘There is a star for every person,’ he said. ‘It will shine for as long as that person lives. When they die and go to live with their ancestors, the star disappears.’

  Sofia remembered that she had asked if you buried shooting stars. Her question had surprised Hapakatanda.

  ‘I never thought about that,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you do.’

  After the long night, dawn finally arrived – a pale pink stripe in the darkness just above the horizon. And suddenly it was full day. The city was alive again. Sofia could hear buses and cars in the distance, and a radio was playing inside a house.

  Finally a woman arrived. She was big and fat. She stopped in front of Sofia where she sat in her wheelchair.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘Why are you sitting here?’

  ‘My name is Sofia. I arrived yesterday.’

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘But you weren’t supposed to come until today. Have you been sitting here all night?’

  Sofia nodded.

  The woman clapped her hands angrily.

  ‘That hospital is so disorganised!’ she said. ‘How can they come and simply leave you here a day early?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sofia said.

  ‘And you’ve been sitting here all night?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sofia said.

  ‘Poor child,’ said the woman. ‘Let me show you where you’re going to live. Then you’ll get some food. My name is Veronica and I work here.’

  She took a firm grip of the wheelchair and started pushing. The crooked wheels lurched across the uneven yard. They went through a gate into another compound. There was a rectangular building with a verandah and a long row of open doors. Veronica pushed the wheelchair. There was someone sitting outside every door. Sofia noticed that they were all old and ill. Many had dirty bandages around various parts of their bodies; others were missing legs or hands or fingers. There was a bad smell and Sofia wondered what she was doing there. At the end of the verandah Veronica stopped outside a closed door.

  ‘This is where you’ll be living,’ she said, and opened the door.

  Sofia looked into the dark room. There were two old steel beds without mattresses.

  ‘Am I going to live here on my own?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘When you’ve learnt how to walk, you can go home to your mama,’ Veronica said. ‘You’ll get something to eat soon.’

  Sofia lowered herself down from the wheelchair. It was as if she’d become little again, as she’d been before she learnt to walk. She crawled over the doorsill and sat on the floor looking around. There was nothing in the room apart from the beds. A piece of wood covered a hole in the wall where a window had been. A rat scurried out from a corner and disappeared through the door.

  Sofia slid across to the bed. The moment she’d arrived in the room she knew she wouldn’t be able to crawl because that would hav
e torn the bandages. The only way she could get around was to slide on her backside. She managed to get herself up onto the bed and lay down on the rusty steel springs. They rubbed at her back and neck, but she was so exhausted after the long night in the wheelchair that she was too tired to think, and she fell asleep straight away.

  When she woke up, her whole body was aching. On the floor beside her bed there was a plate with cold maize porridge and a piece of pork rind. She slid down onto the floor and took the plate with her to the doorway. An old man without eyes went past outside the door. She watched him as he disappeared through a door at the far end of the building. Sofia guessed that was where she should go when she needed a toilet.

  She was hungry, but the food tasted so awful that she had to force herself to eat it. It might be forbidden to leave food on the plate. Maybe they’d punish her by making her sit in the wheelchair for another night.

  When she finished, she put the plate aside and stayed sitting in the doorway. She looked sadly at her dirty bandages.

  Sofia didn’t want to live in the dark room. She wanted to go home to Mama Lydia and Alfredo, even if she couldn’t walk. Why should she live here amongst a lot of old, sick people she didn’t know?

  There isn’t even a fire here, she thought. There are no flames that I can sit and stare into.

  They haven’t taken only my legs away from me.

  They’ve also taken the secrets of the fire.

  How long she stayed sitting there in the doorway, she didn’t know. When Veronica came waddling to fetch the empty plate, she could tell that Sofia was miserable. Although she had lots to do – because it was she who did the cooking for everyone that lived in the home, for the old and the poor and the ill – she sat down, drew Sofia close and held her.

  ‘Right now you’re unhappy,’ she said. ‘You have no legs, you can’t walk. Your sister is gone and you don’t know anyone here. You’re wondering what’s going to happen. And you had to sit all by yourself for a whole night in your wheelchair. The food doesn’t taste too good either, even though I do the best I can with the little I’ve got. You’re sad and you have no idea what’s going on. Am I right?’

  Sofia was firmly held in Veronica’s big arms. She answered with a feeble nod. But she felt comfortable. She could feel Veronica’s heart.

  ‘It’ll be easier in a couple of days,’ Veronica said. ‘And you must learn how to walk again. You need to stay here so you can get your new legs.’

  When she left, Sofia felt slightly better. Not a lot, but it was something.

  The following morning, Veronica woke her early. Sofia’s body ached from sleeping on the steel springs. At one stage during the night, she’d been woken when a rat ran across her body.

  ‘If only you just had a mattress to lie on,’ Veronica said. ‘But we have nothing here. We should be thankful there’s food.’

  Sofia slid across to the pump in the yard and washed herself. Then she crawled into the wheelchair. Veronica wheeled her to the outer yard, where a car came to pick her up.

  At the hospital, Sofia was taken to a large hall with mirrors along one of the walls. On the floor there were a variety of wooden frames, with people of all ages learning to walk for the second time in their lives. Most of them had only one artificial leg; a few had two. Sofia sat in her wheelchair watching them. Would she ever be able to learn?

  Suddenly someone tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned around she saw Master Emilio smiling at her.

  ‘Now’s the time,’ he said, holding up two wooden sticks. There was a strap at the top and a shoe at the bottom of each one.

  ‘You’ll be starting with these,’ he said. ‘First of all, your knees need to get used to the fact that they’re getting new legs. It’ll hurt in the beginning. You’ll get sores. But the sores will heal in a couple of months.’

  While Master Emilio was talking, another man in a white coat had joined them. He was much younger than Master Emilio.

  ‘This is Benthino,’ Master Emilio said. ‘He’s the one who’ll be helping you until you can walk again.’

  Benthino smiled at her.

  ‘Sofia,’ he said. ‘We must become friends. We’ll be seeing each other every day for a long time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sofia said.

  They strapped the two sticks onto her legs. Then they lifted her out of the chair. She felt the pain in her stumps. But at the same time she felt like singing: she was standing again! Benthino gave her two crutches.

  ‘Try to take a step,’ he said. ‘You won’t fall. You’ve got your crutches. And I’m here. If you do fall, I’ll catch you.’

  ‘How do I do it?’ Sofia said.

  ‘Just the same as usual,’ Benthino said. ‘Don’t think about the fact that they’re a couple of legs made of wood. Just walk the way you did before.’

  Sofia took one step. It felt stiff and unfamiliar. It was like the time when she’d tried to walk on stilts. Her stumps hurt and the straps around her thighs pinched and rubbed. Benthino let go of her, and he and Master Emilio went to stand against the opposite wall.

  ‘Come over here,’ he called. ‘Walk slowly. You won’t fall.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Sofia answered.

  ‘You can,’ said Benthino.

  She tried to take a step. If was like lifting something heavy that hung from her body. First one leg, then the other. In her mind’s eye she can see herself and Maria running along the path. Next leg. Lift it, put it in front of the other. They are running. They are playing. It’s a new game that Sofia has invented. Next leg. One step forward. Lean on the crutches, find her balance. They are going to run with their eyes shut. She does what she usually does when she invents a new game. She tries it herself first. Then she tells Maria how to do it. Next step. The wooden stick with the black shoe up into the air and forward, crutches on the floor. She closes her eyes and runs. But the path is wet. She slips and trips; can’t stop. Next leg. The crutch forward, then the leg, lift her body, keep her balance. She opens her eyes. She’s off the path. She’s standing on one leg and turns around and sees Maria. She knows she’s not supposed to put her foot down. But it’s too late.

  Sofia fell.

  Benthino laughed. He and Emilio picked her up, gathered the crutches, tightened a strap that had come loose. Suddenly they noticed that Sofia had tears in her eyes.

  ‘Did you hurt yourself ?’ Benthino asked.

  ‘We were just playing,’ Sofia said. ‘I tripped.’

  Benthino didn’t understand what she meant. He wanted her to keep walking. But Master Emilio put a hand on his arm and said that Sofia needed to rest. He’d seen this before. He realised this was the first time Sofia had understood what actually happened when the landmine exploded.

  ‘We won’t walk any more today,’ he said. ‘Doctor Raul told me you liked to sit out on the street.’

  Sofia nodded. She only half heard what he said. She was thinking about what had happened, and what she had only just understood. It had been a landmine. She had been playing. She’d had her eyes closed while she was running.

  It was she who had stepped on the mine.

  It was her fault that Maria died.

  Sofia went cold. Only monsters killed other people.

  Master Emilio wheeled her out onto the street.

  ‘Benthino will come and get you when it’s time to go home,’ he said. ‘Sit here in the sun and get warm.’

  Miranda was there, and all the other women. But Sofia didn’t want to talk to anyone. She pulled the blanket over her head. She wanted to be invisible.

  She was sitting like that when Benthino came to fetch her. She didn’t reply when he asked why she was sitting underneath the blanket. Even after the car had driven her out to the old people’s home and Veronica had wheeled her to her room, she still sat with her head under the blanket. She didn’t want any food. Not until she had slid into her room and closed the door did she remove the blanket from her head. She felt totally empty; as empty as the dark room where she sat.
All she could think was that she didn’t want to live any more. It was her fault that Maria was dead.

  I’ll never leave this room, she thought. I’ll sit here on the floor until I’m old.

  Evening fell. Veronica brought a plate of food. But Sofia threw the blanket over her head and didn’t reply when Veronica asked if she wasn’t hungry. Veronica left and closed the door behind her. Sofia didn’t even bother to remove the blanket. She sat on the floor without moving, waiting to grow old.

  The door opened again. She thought it was Veronica coming back again.

  But something was different. It didn’t sound like Veronica’s footsteps. Sofia sat under the blanket trying to work out who it was. She heard the person sit down on the other bed. She also heard a candle being lit, and smelt smoke and wax through the blanket. Finally, Sofia couldn’t control her curiosity any longer and she removed the blanket.

  On the other bed sat a girl about her own age. Sofia saw that one of her legs was missing – the left one.

  They looked at each other.

  ‘My name is Hortensia,’ said the girl. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Sofia.’

  ‘Have you lost a leg, too?’

  ‘Both of them.’

  They were silent again. They looked at each other.

  ‘Why are you sitting under the blanket?’ the girl asked.

  Sofia didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m going to live here,’ said Hortensia, ‘while I’m at the hospital learning to walk with a new leg.’

  Sofia couldn’t believe it. Was she really not going to have to live alone any more?

  ‘How long are you staying here?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hortensia answered. ‘A long time, probably.’

  From that moment, everything was different. Sofia no longer had to be alone.

  Hortensia and Sofia became friends. Sofia sometimes thought it was like getting a new sister. Hortensia could never replace Maria, but everything was so much easier now that she was there. At night, Sofia lay listening to Hortensia breathing, and knew that she would still be there in the morning. They went to the hospital together, they practised together, they sat outside together with the women selling oranges. They braided each other’s hair, they invented songs and they talked about everything that went on around them.