Pirouette

There was once a little woodsmaid, made of wood. She lived with her father – a carpenter – in a wood cabin on the edge of … a forest.

Her father and his wife always wanted to have children but were unable to, for all the typical reasons. After his wife died, the old carpenter became very lonely; he only ever saw people when they came from the nearby towns and villages to commission his work, so any relationships he had were strictly business.

Gregório – for that was the carpenter’s name – had been so devoted to his wife, and they’d been so happy living on their own, that he’d forgotten how to be gregarious. In the absence of human interaction, he would talk to the birds and animals of the forest, but they were relatively unresponsive; Gregório was no Doctor Dolittle. So he did what any lonely carpenter would do in such circumstances: he made himself a surrogate child with some off-cuts from a cupboard he’d been commissioned to produce by a local nobleman.

He decided on a girl because his wife had always wanted one, and because it required slightly less wood. It took him just a couple of days; he was a master craftsman so there was no messing about. While she was still just a head and torso, he attached to the jaw a length of string which could be run through a hook on the ceiling. With a bit of tugging, Gregório was able to make the jaw move in time to words he said on behalf of the doll (for that’s what it was essentially) – rather like a ventilokist’s gummy. He spent many an hour chatting with her – or rather, chatting with himself, of course. He found it quite therapeutic; the doll always agreed with everything he said, which, he had to admit, wasn’t always the case with his wife, however much she’d loved him.

The almost-finished item was lovely, the wood polished to a brilliant shine. The last thing to add were the hands (check) and feet (check). But no sooner had Gregório attached the feet than the little doll started to whirl around the room like a dervish, freed from her woody limbo and apparently full of the joys of spring.

The old carpenter watched on stupefied as the strange little bundle of sticks performed a variety of intricate dance moves, including several particularly well-executed pirouettes. At length, she seemed to have got some of the frantic joie de vivre out of her brand-new system and slowed down to a stop.

“Where am I?” she asked, gazing around the main room of the cabin with her amber eyes.

“H-h-home!” stuttered Gregório.

“Wonderful!” said the doll, trying to smile but finding her wooden jaw too rudimentary for anything more than a gape, adding: “What is your name?”

“Gregório,” said Gregório, recovering a little from the shock of what he'd just witnessed, “but you can call me ‘father’.”

“And what is my name, father?”

Gregório stroked his chin; he hadn’t thought of that. Then he remembered the dancing.

“Pirouette!” he exclaimed confidently.

“What a lovely name!” Pirouette responded and started dancing again, the happiest she’d ever been in her whole life – all five minutes of it.

Pirouette’s beginning was not unlike that of a similar but much better-known soul made of wood – the difference being that the famous boy was really rather naughty, whereas Pirouette was a little angel. She soon made herself at home and wanted to help in and around the cabin. Gregório was very happy that she was happy, but not so much at the damage she was causing in her enthusiasm – dropping dishes, for example, on account of the hands that the carpenter had made for her, mitten-like and without opposable thumbs .

After a couple of days of breakages, Gregório suggested that Pirouette go out into the forest to explore the vicinity, which she did, beaming as much of a wooden smile as she could.

She wandered along the paths and trails, taking advantage of any clearing she came across to break into dance. She met lots of animals, who were very interested in her and came closer than they ever did to Gregório. But as much as she loved them – except perhaps the foxes, who were more interested in marking their territory on her than anything else – she knew deep down that there was something missing from her existence.

However, she felt an enormous sense of peace and security in the forest, surrounded as she was, after all, by her original extended family. Whenever she passed a certain type of tree, though – of the maple variety – she felt compelled to stop and hug it ... because the carpenter's cupboard had been made of that wood. (Incidentally, this is where the practice of tree-hugging originated.)

At one point during her exploration, while she was dancing in a clearing, she felt that she was being watched. On the edge of the tree-line, the leaves of a lovely silver-birch sapling whistled gently in the breeze. It was no maple, that was true, but Pirouette found herself glissading towards it anyway.

After some hesitation, she plucked up the courage to hug it, feeling as she did so (though this may have been wishful thinking on her part) that the hug was reciprocated – in spirit rather than with arms, because the sapling had none.

She wasn't quite aware of it yet but she’d fallen carved-head-over-carved-heels in arboreal love – at first sight, to boot. When she could finally summon up the will to part from the silver birch, she skipped and danced all the way back to the cabin, spilling out her adventures to Gregório, though practising reticence when it came to one particular detail.

In subsequent days, she re-visited the spot, dancing, hugging her captive audience, and falling deeper and deeper into that sublime chasm called passion.

But all good things, and so on… A few weeks after her beginning, Pirouette went to the clearing to find the leaves on the silver birch wilting; there had been a severe drought in the region, the result of a slow shift in climate trends. She was no botanist, but she knew instinctively what to do.

She realized, though, that she couldn’t carry out her plan on her own, so one evening, after watching Gregório scoff down his rabbit stew and potatoes, she said:

“Father, I’ve met someone.”

Gregório, picking a bit of rabbit meat out of his teeth, frowned.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“A tree. He’s lovely!”

Gregório was perplexed; he never imagined he coule have this kind of father/daughter conversation with a wooden doll.

“How do you …?” Gregório wanted to ask how Pirouette could be certain of the tree’s gender, but he could sense her excitement and sensitively changed course mid-question. “… speak to each other?”

“Well, we don’t,” Pirouette explained. “We just … connect.”

“I see,” the old man said, though he didn’t really. “I’m happy for you, my little Pirouette.”

“Thank you, father. Now … I need your help.”

She explained the state of the tree and what she wanted to do about it. The next day, they went into the forest to collect various ingredients including moss, bracken, herbs, mud from a stream, deer dung ... and brought them back to the cabin. Gregório boiled some water in a large cauldron in the fireplace, into which Pirouette added the stuff they'd collected, stirring all the while (the carpenter had to go outside at one point on account of the smell from the dung), and singing to herself, imagining how pleased the sapling would be with the TLC.

Eventually, the mixture reduced to a runny mulch. Pirouette plunged her hand in to test it and gaped in satisfaction; it was just right. Gregório ladled the stuff into a large bucket and followed Pirouette to the tree. After the normal introductions, father and daughter set about laying the mulch around the trunk of the sapling.

“I hope it works,” Gregório said.

“Oh, it will,” Pirouette replied, certain of her instincts.

The little doll didn’t sleep that night, anxious for the morning to see the effect of her concoction.

But at dawn, Gregório burst into her room.

“Come quick, my love,” he cried, and they rushed to the porch.

There, in the west, beyond the silhouette of the closest trees, was a glow in the sky – seemingly a reflection of the natural glow in the east.

“What is it, father?” Pirouette asked.

“Fire!” Gregório said, and his daughter shrieked; her tree was due west of the cabin.

The carpenter had to hold her back – there was nothing they could do, and Pirouette would go up like tinder if she got too near the blaze. Fortunately, there was an easterly wind so the cabin was spared from the conflagration.

“Why … how …?” Pirouette croaked.

“The forest is very dry. Perhaps lightning?”

After the fire had run its course, Pirouette went missing. Gregório found her in the clearing, hugging the charred remains of the silver-birch sapling, tiny drops of sap oozing from her eyes. His heart broke to see his daughter so sad. But then he had an idea.

When Pirouette returned to the clearing the next day, she found only a stump where her tree had been.

“My tree’s gone!” she cried to Gregório.

“Ah, that must be the charcoal-gatherers,” her father said, explaining the value of burnt wood. He wondered if he were being cruel to keep the truth from Pirouette, but he wanted to surprise her.

A few days later, Gregório found Pirouette on the porch; she’d been dejected ever since the fire.

“Hello, my darling,” the old man said, gathering up his dear doll and rocking her in his arms. “Now tell, me: What would make you the very happiest you could be?”

Pirouette didn’t have to think.

“To have my tree back,” she said with a crack in her voice.

“Well, then,” Gregório said. He set Pirouette down and fetched a package from inside the cabin.

“What is it, father?” Pirouette asked, her grief smothering any excitement she might have felt.

“Open it!” Gregório said, making a great effort to hold back his excitement.

Pirouette did just that and let out a gasp.

“Father!”

Inside the package was a doll made of polished black wood, glinting in the morning sunlight.

“My tree!” Pirouette exclaimed – her instinct again.

Gregório nodded and flashed a smile now, elated that his daughter would perhaps find happiness again.

“But …” Pirouette said, with dismay now. “Where are his feet?”

“Ah,” Gregório said. “Come with me.”

He took Pirouette and the new doll through to the main room of the cabin.

“Give him to me,” he said.

He placed the doll on the table and from a box produced two feet in the same shiny-black wood.

“Wait for it…” the old carpenter said.

He attached the feet to the doll, set it on the floor and … it started dancing, whirling around the room like a dervish.

Pirouette clacked her hands with delight and joined the black doll, the two performing magical movements together in perfect synchrony.

And from that day on, joy and love reigned in the old carpenter’s cabin on the edge of the forest.