EBB Tide

Lavinia was sitting in the back of A Tertulia, the little bar that was still being remodeled. It was dark now, almost time to leave, but she found herself looking at another handwritten page. She had yet to figure out how the contents of the box seemed to be increasing, and in a sense she didn’t really want to know.

Even people who never read poetry, as well as those who say immediately that they don’t understand it if they hear the word poem, have heard the first line of what Lavinia knew was a sonnet, if for no other reason than the fact that it had fourteen lines. Why had this poem become so famous? She’d always wondered about that.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

That was the first, the oft-quoted, line. It was merely a question that anybody could ask, whether or not it was a poet who asked it. It was perhaps an innocent, childish question, asked by a person not afraid to ask it, maybe someone thinking of innocent, childish answers. Except the author was neither of these and the answers were far more serious.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not mince words. That was quite clear. She was a woman whose father had strangled her every move, her every thought, until she was forty years old. Lavinia felt a sudden, unexplained sadness.

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

No passion here, nothing really from Romanticism. Too calm. Too quiet. Too spread out between sunlight and candle light. Where was the passion? What could this writer from England, or rather her poem, possibly have to do with the other items in the box? The items seemed to have been sent to Santiago by women, but they had been lost, hidden, ignored for decades. Important enough to send across an ocean, but then forgotten? 

Maybe Pilar had been trying to help Lavinia understand this when she’d explained how the Galician Rosalía de Castro had been so misunderstood, even by readers who should have known better. There was a pattern here, but perhaps the threads could be untangled. It was not proving to be an easy task.

Elizabeth was not finished:

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

Women weren’t free, Rosalía had written. Women weren’t pure. Women certainly weren’t allowed to feel passion. That is, unless it was passion of a religious nature. This poem talked about freedom, however. There was no sense of restriction and the writer indicates she has repurposed her old passions, her old beliefs, to create an open relationship of adult love. Not for saints and prayers, but for another person.

There was something odd, indeed, about the sonnet the more she read it. Lavinia had no idea when it had been published, but a quick search indicated it was one of the Sonnets From the Portuguese, published in 1850. Not written or translated from Portuguese at all, it had in fact been written in Italy. Elizabeth in exile, in a way, because she had been disowned by a domineering father. (Not that she seemed to mind a whole lot. She’d found a better life.) Elizabeth, at forty, in love, but no longer with her childhood saints. Her poet husband in love with her:

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

This was not your everyday love story, then. Elizabeth clearly had something to say, and had said it. She asked her question, bluntly, then answered it. Which left Lavinia wondering, just as she had wondered about all the things in the little box that by now seemed to be elastic, because so many things and words fit inside it:

Why is this here?

Why had this poem been disguised, along with the other 43 sonnets, as translations from Portuguese? Just because Elizabeth loved the work of Camões (and must have known the language)? Just because her husband didn’t want her to title her book Sonnets translated from the Bosnian? Just the fact that Elizabeth had wanted to use Bosnian in the book’s title was quirky and not a little odd.

Lavinia’s thoughts wandered, urged in several directions by the search concerning the author’s life and work. Was it true that The Letters of a Portuguese Nun, published in 1669, could never have been written by a real nun, Mariana Alcoforado? Only men could write those things, so somebody had posed as a female. A woman wouldn’t go against religious strictures, now would she? The sonnet she balanced carefully on her fingertips because the paper was old, seemed to indicate women did have ways of thinking and writing that were not ‘proper’.

Lavinia was about to put the sonnet back in the box, but she noticed there was another sheet of thin, translucent paper was slightly adhering to it. It wasn’t another sonnet, was it?… But it was, and this one was titled “To George Sand: A Desire.” She knew Sand was a woman, so the title was confusing. A desire?

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,

Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions

Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance

And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:

This was beyond Lavinia’s comprehension, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Elizabeth and her sonnets. There was something odd in the term ‘self-called’. Sand had named herself. She had verbally dressed herself as a man.

When she got back to her bedsit in the San Pedro neighborhood, Lavinia was still feeling puzzled. These things had been sent for a reason, that she knew. She might not be able to assign them all dates or authors, and maybe she wouldn’t even be able to figure out where they had originated from. Some were lightly bound together, while others had been lying loose in the box.

“Pilar, what do you know about Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” It was a simple e mail, and Lavinia didn’t expect her friend to have an answer. Not with any detail.

“Not much. Why?” It was the expected response, but maybe there was more. An explanation was needed.

“I was going through the box again today…”

“You’re spending a lot of time with one little box and in that bar.” Pilar chided her, good-naturedly. She was well aware of what her friend had been doing, which was why she sometimes inquired about the work for the sabbatical. That did not have to do with any bar or box.

“Can’t help it. I just found two poems by her. She’s a very well-known British writer, but I never cared much for the Romantics and I certainly didn’t study them.”

“Which poems did you find?” 

(Why was Pilar asking, if she didn’t know much about the poet?)

Lavinia sent the titles immediately. Her friend indicated she’d respond in a minute, and when she did, she had read the poems, not in English, but in a translation she located online. Pilar was brilliant, but her skills in that language were somewhat limited.

“You recall our discussion about Rosalía?” Of course Lavinia did. 

“Did you know she admired George Sand immensely?” Lavinia did not know that, but she shivered when she read the question on her screen It was late, and the temperature had dropped considerably, as it always did in Santiago.

“Why do you think she felt that way?” Lavinia did not know the answer to that, question either. After all, as Pilar knew, she was not used to working with literature, at least as far as analyzing structures and themes. Then her whole back stiffened and she looked again at the most recent words on the screen of her laptop. She had remembered something, probably because of Elizabeth’s sonnet.

“Sand was a really well-known writer in her day.” She ventured. 

“Yes,” responded Pilar, “and she smoked cigars when women couldn’t use tobacco.”

“Not anything to brag about or make a person famous…” Lavinia was more interested in the sonnet that had called Sand a large-brained woman and a big-hearted man. That didn’t make sense.

“George Sand also cross-dressed frequently, but she never applied for the required government permit so she could do that. She just went out and walked around in trousers, smoking” 

Now Lavinia was starting to understand the words ‘defiance’ and ‘roar’ that were in the sonnet. She had been famous for breaking the rules. However, it was late by now and Lavinia still needed to check on some things for her sabbatical research. That was the real reason she had come to Santiago - to study the work and travels of an American photographer. Ruth Matilda Anderson hadn’t dressed in pants and on her first trips had been accompanied by her father, who must have kept a close eye on her. (Poor Ruth.)

Before they signed off, the two friends had agreed to get together in a couple of days. Nevertheless, Lavinia was still thinking about Elizabeth’s sonnets, about Sand, and also about the Galician writer a lot of people had called Santa Rosalía, Saint Rosalía. As if by cloaking her in religious attire she could be allowed to appear in public. There was a lot hidden in this whole matter. Clothes didn’t make the man, but did they make the woman?

***

It was time. Time to get out the other articles of clothing she had brought with her. Time to put them on and see how they would help her with her research. The clothing was nothing out of the ordinary: a pair of pants, a very plain shirt, a well-cut vest, and a hat of dark felt that looked best cocked to one side. No handbag, although a book bag could work if slung over the shoulder properly. No make-up. Definitely no cigar or any form of tobacco. Lavinia drew the line at that.

It was four o’clock in the morning when the attire had been put on, examined in a small mirror, and removed. Lavinia laid everything out carefully over the back of the sofa. She also looked at her shoes and decided one of the two pairs she’d brought was more appropriate, more solid. Those she also set by the couch, before climbing back in bed. Tomorrow - or rather, in the morning, which was only three hours away - she would begin to find some answers.

***

It was close to nine o’clock when he stepped outside and made the decision not to carry an umbrella around. Surely such a glorious day as this didn’t bode rain and the umbrella could end up languishing in a corner stand of a store or restaurant. He hung a simple canvas bag over his left shoulder and headed out for coffee and a croissant. After that, he had errands to run. First, there was a matter to take care of at the bank. Then, his cell phone needed to be charged, because the card showed only five minutes left for calls or internet. Then there was the post office. After that, he would be free to do what really interested him.

As he walked by the window of a barber shop, he checked to see his hat. He really liked it and thought it gave him an almost rakish look. He wasn’t quite sure what rakish meant, since it was an old-fashioned word, but he liked it anyway. It meant something good, in his case.

He knew some people had been watching Lavinia, although he wasn’t sure how many there were and had no idea why. He hoped there were no more than a couple of pairs of eyes doing that, because otherwise it might be hard to protect her. Not that she needed a lot of protection, but he figured he could be of help.

“Bo día. Good morning.” He greeted the server who brought him his coffee. The server smiled at his customer and briefly thought he was rather good-looking. She especially liked that hat, set as it was at a suggestive angle.

“Ola. Hello,” he said to the teller at the bank, who easily helped him work out an issue with the balance in his account. 

The matter was not complicated, and in ten minutes he was on his way to the little store facing the Alameda, where he could add a good amount of credit to his phone card. That took longer than expected, but once the transaction was completed, he turned a sharp left and went down the ever-busy Rúa do Franco to the post office. People didn’t write letters much any more, he thought sadly, but he’d promised to send a couple of post cards and needed to get stamps. You could also buy stamps in the tobacco shops, but he hated the smell of those places. Why did people smoke, anyway?

Now the day could begin in earnest. The easiest thing to do was to start taking photos with his cell phone. Everybody did that in Santiago. The city always seemed to be posing for visitors. He was a visitor as well, but he was watching people as much as he was looking at the city sights. He wanted to see if anybody was following him. Nobody was.

He decided to go to the outdoor market off to one side of the city, knowing it would be full of people shopping for fresh fish, greens, and local cheeses. He also thought about getting some pictures of little San Fiz church, which was at the entry by one side of the market. Anything to keep walking. On the way, near the Mazarelos Gate of the Casco Vello, the Old City, he passed a small restaurant that had aluminum tables wobbling atop the cobblestones. Pigeons were scouring the crevices between the stones for morsels of bread, chips, and, occasionally, potato omelette. The pigeons weren’t picky, and tourists loved feeding them, despite the waiters’ attempts to shoo the dirty birds away.

There were two women he knew sitting at a table beside the door of the restaurant. Dany and Sabela were deep in conversation, their mineral water and tonic forgotten. Nevertheless, they looked up at him briefly, then returned to the topic that obviously was more worth their attention. Apparently they hadn’t really noticed him and had only looked up because he walked by only a few inches away from their table. Now that he thought about it, they had seemed a bit perturbed at the interruption, as if their conversation had absorbed them.

From the market it was about a six-minute walk to the cathedral. He knew the Pórtico da Gloria was being restored and wasn’t visible, but it didn’t matter. It was on the way to the intimate little Fonseca Square. Off the square was a street running slightly down hill and leading to an old fountain that had emerged when workers were repairing the pavement. Something was always bubbling beneath the surface in Compostela. The figures in the Pórtico would probably be hidden for a few more years while the twelfth century masterpiece was being returned to its original glory.

He stood, looking up at the Churriguresque façade that hid the figures that flanked Saint James, the column where the devout placed their fingers and prayed, the little statue of the artist, Mestre Mateo. Everything was hidden, disguised, invisible. It was sad, in a way. Suddenly, there were two hands on his shoulders. Somebody had come up behind him. He didn’t move.

“Bo día, Lavinia. Wishing you could see the Pórtico? You know my namesake sits up in the tympanum, by the jamb to the left of Santiago? He’s the one who’s famous for his smile.”

He turned around. She turned around. It was Daniel Campo.

“How did you know it was me?”

She waited for an answer, but there was none.

… that thou to woman's claim

And man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace

Of a pure genius sanctified from blame

Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace

To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.

George, Elizabeth, Rosalía. How many more? How many voices trying to be heard? Voices that surely did not belong to angels but to women who were always fleeing from a shame they did not deserve. 

The little box in the little bar was overflowing.