The Black Doll

On tip toe, on tip toe, so as not to wake Mercy up, the couple enters the bedroom. They are smiling and holding hands like two kids. Father walks behind, trying to avoid stumbling. Mother does not stumble because she knows the way. Father works very hard, to buy things for the home, and he can't see his daughter as often as he would like to!

Sometimes at work, he smiles by himself, or he suddenly seems sad, or his face lights up: and it is because he thinks of his daughter; his pen falls off his hand when he thinks thus, but immediately he begins to write, and he writes so fast that it seems as though the pen were flying. And he puts a lot of flourish in his penmanship, and the Os turn out as big as the sun, and the Gs long as a spade, and the Ls are below the line, as if they were getting nailed into the paper, and the Ss fall at the end of the word, like a leaf of a palm tree. It is because he has written while he has thought a lot about his daughter!

He says that every time he smells the flowers in the garden he thinks about her. Or sometimes, when he's working with figures, or translating a Swiss book to Spanish, he sees her slowly approaching, and like in a cloud, and she sits next to him. She takes his pen, so that he can rest a while, she kisses him on the forehead, she pulls his blonde beard, she hides his ink bottle. It is a dream, just a dream, like those daydreams that one has without sleeping, in which one sees beautiful dresses, or a live horse with a long tail, or a carriage with four white goats, or a ring with a blue stone. Just a dream, but the father says it's just as if he had really seen it, and then afterwards he feels stronger and he writes better. And the girl leaves, she leaves slowly through the air, which seems made up of light, she leaves like a cloud.

Today the father did not work very much, because he had to go to a store. Why would he have to go to a store? And they say that a large box came in through the back door. What could be in the box? Who knows what it is! Tomorrow it will be eight years since Mercy was born.

The maid went to the garden and surely she pricked her finger, because she wanted to pick a very beautiful flower for a bouquet she had arranged. The mother says yes to everything, and she wore her new dress, and opened the cage of the canary. The cook is making a cake, and cutting the carrots and turnips like flowers, and he returned the cap to the laundress, because it had still a stain which was almost unnoticeable, but, "Today, today, laundress lady, the cap must be spotless!" Mercy did not know. But she did notice that the house was like the first day of sunlight, when the snow melts, and the trees get their first leaves. She was given all of her toys that night, all of them. And the father came home early from work, just in time to see his daughter sleeping. The mother hugged him when he arrived, and she really hugged him! Tomorrow Mercy will be eight years old.

The bedroom is half lit, like the light from the stars, which comes from the night light, with its lightbulb in opal color. But sunk in the pillow the small blonde head can be seen. Through the window a mild breeze blows, and it seems that the butterflies which cannot be seen are playing with the golden hair. The light shines on the hair. And the mother and the father come in walking on tip toes. The play dresser tumbles! Oh, this blind father, who stumbles on everything! But the girl has not awakened. The light now shines on her hand; her hand looks like a rose.

It is not possible to reach the bed because it is surrounded by all the toys, on tables and chairs. On one chair is the chest her grandmother sent her for Christmas full with almonds and candy; the chest is upside down, as if it had been shaken, to see if an almond would shake out from a corner, or if some candy crumbs were hiding in the lock; that is, surely, the dolls were hungry! At the other end is the china, a lot of china and very fine china, and each plate is decorated with a fruit, one plate with a cherry, another with a fig, and other with a grape; now the light shines on the plate, on the fig plate, and they seem like sparkles of a star; how could this star have ended up on the plates? "It's sugar!" says the crafty father, "That it is, surely!" says the mother, "That's because the dolls were sweet-toothed and ate the sugar!" The sewing kit is on another chair, and open wide, as if someone had been really working; the thimble is squashed from sewing so much!

The seamstress cut a lot, because the only thing that remains of the calico that her mother gave her is a round piece with pointed borders, and the cuttings are all over the floor because the seamstress goofed up, and there is the cloth half sewed with the needle stuck in it next to a drop of blood. But the living room and the great set is on the night stand, next to the bed. The corner, there next to the wall is the bedroom of the china dolls, with the mother's bed with a flowered blanket and next to it a doll in pink dress in a red chair; the dresser is between the bed and the crib with its little rag doll, covered up to her nose and the mosquito net on top; the dresser is a little brown cardboard box and the mirror is a real mirror like the ones that the poor lady at the candy store sells at two for a penny. The living room is in front of the lamp table and in the middle it has a table with the base made of an empty spool of thread and the top is made of mother of pearl with a Mexican jar in the center like those that the water dolls of Mexico have; and around it are folded little pieces of paper which are the books. The piano is made of wood with painted keys and it does not have a turning stool which is the common kind, but with a back, made from the box of jewelry with its bottom lined in blue and the cover sewn on one side for a back and lined in rose with a lace on top.

There are visitors, of course, and they have real hair, with robes in lilac silk with white squares, and gold shoes; and they sit without bending, with their feet on the seat, and the older lady, the one who wears a gold hat and is on the sofa, has her foot lifted because otherwise she slides from the sofa; and the foot stool is a box of Japanese straw turned upside down; they are sitting together in a white rocking chair with their arms very stiff. the two china sisters. There is a framed picture in the living room which has is propped up by a perfume bottle, and the picture is a girl with a red hat and carries a sheep in her arms. At the base of the bed, next to the night stand is a bronze medal from a party that there was with the French ribbons; the medallion is decorating the living room with a great bow in three colors with the picture of a beautiful Frenchman who came from France to fight for the liberty of men, and another picture of the inventor of the lightning rod, with his grandfatherly face that he had when he crossed the sea to petition the kings of europe to help him to free his land; that is the living room and the great set of Mercy. And on the pillow, sleeping on her arm, and with the mouth faded from the kisses, is her black doll.

The birds from the garden wake her up early in the morning. It seems that the birds greet each other and they invite her to fly. A bird calls, and another one answers. There is something on the bed, because the birds get like that when the cook works in the kitchen coming in and going out, with his apron flying on his legs, and the silver pot in both hands, smelling like burnt milk and sweet wine. There is something in the house, because otherwise, why is her new dress there at the foot of her bed, the little dress in pearl color and the lilac ribbon that they bought yesterday, and the lace hose? "I tell you, Leonor, there is something going on here. You tell me, Leonor, you were in my mother's bedroom yesterday while I went out for a walk. My bad mother, who didn't let you go with me, because she says I have made you ugly from so many kisses, and you don't have hair because I have combed you too much! The truth, Leonor, you don't have much hair, but I love you like that, without hair, Leonor; your eyes are the eyes I love, because with your eyes you tell me that you love me; I love you very much, because they don't love you; let's see, sit here on my knee, because I want to comb your hair! Good girls comb themselves as soon as they get up; let's see, the shoes, that bow is not well tied! And the teeth, let me see your teeth; the nails; Leonor! those nails are not clean! Let's see, Leonor, tell me the truth, listen, listen to the birds, it seems they're having a ball; tell me, Leonor, what is going on in this house?"

And Mercy dropped the comb from her hand when one braid was finished and the other one was tousled. What was happening, she was seeing. Through the door the parade was coming in. First was the maid with the special ruffled apron for festive days, and the platter for the table on visitor's days; she was bringing in the chocolate, the chocolate with cream, the same as on New Year's day, and the sweet breads in a silver basket; then in comes the mother with a bouquet of white and blue flowers; not even one red flower, not even one yellow flower! And then comes in the laundress, with her white cap which the cook did not want to wear, and a banner that the cook made with a diary and a baton, and the banner said below a crown of thoughts: "Today Mercy is eight years old!"

And they kissed her and they dressed her with the pearl colored dress, and they took her, with the banner behind, to the father's library, who had his blonde beard very well combed out, as if it had been combed very slowly, and rounded up the ends, and put each hair in its place. Every so often he would peek through the door, to see if Mercy was coming, he would write, and he would whistle, he would open a book, and he would stare at a picture, at a picture which he always had on his table, and it was like Mercy, like Mercy with a long dress. And when he heard footsteps, and a deep voice that was playing music through a paper cone, who knows what he took out of a large box? and he went to the door with a hand behind his back; and with the other arm he picked up his daughter.

Then he said he felt like in his chest a flower bloomed, and like a palace lit in his head, with blue tapestries with gold fringe, and a lot of people with wings; then he said all that, but then nothing was heard from him. Until Mercy jumped into his arms and she wanted to climb on his shoulder, because in a mirror she had seen what the father carried in his other hand. "The hair is like the sun, mother, the same as the sun! I already saw it, I already saw it, she has a pink dress! Tell him to give her to me, mother, she has a green dress, a velvet dress! The stockings are like mine, in lace like mine!" And the father sat with her in the rocking chair, and put the silk and porcelain doll in her arms. Mercy started runnning, as if she were looking for somebody. "And I'm staying home today because of my daughter", her father said to her, "and my daughter leaves me alone?" She hid her head in the chest of her good father. And for a long long time she did not raise it even though truthfully the beard was itchy!

There was a walk in the garden, and a lunch with a foamy wine below the grapevine, and the father was very talkative, every once in a while taking the mother's hand, and the mother was like taller, and she spoke little, and everything she said was like music. Mercy took a red dahlia to the cook and she attached it to the chest of the apron, and for the laundress she made a crown of carnations; and for the maid she filled her pockets with orange flowers, and she put a flower in her hair, with two green leaves. And then, carefully, she made a bouquet of forget-me- nots. "Who is that bouquet for, Mercy?" "I don't know, I don't know who it is for, who knows if it is for anybody!"

And she put it at the edge of the small stream, where the water ran like a crystal. She told a secret to her mother, and then said to her, "Let me go!" But her mother called her "Fickle", "And your silk doll, don't you like it? Look at her face, she is very beautiful; and haven't you seen her blue eyes?" Mercy had seen them, and had her sit at the table after lunch, looking at her without smiling; and she showed her how to walk in the garden. The eyes was what she looked at; and she touched the side of her heart; "But, doll, talk to me, talk to me!" And the silk doll did not talk to her. "So you have not liked the doll I have bought you, with her lace stockings and her porcelain face and her fine hair?" "Yes, my dad, I like her very much.

Let's go, Mrs. Doll, let's go for a walk. You would want carriages and servants and you would want chestnut dessert, Mrs. Doll. Let's go, let's go for a walk." But as soon as Mercy was where nobody could see her, she left the doll by a trunk, facing the tree. And she sat alone, to think, without raising her head, with her face between her two little hands. All of a sudden she started running, in fear that the water might have flushed her bouquet of forget-me-nots.

"But, Servant, take me quickly!" "Mercy, what do you mean, 'Servant'? You never call the maid a servant like that, like an offense!" "No, mother, no, I'm just too sleepy; I'm so sleepy!. Look father's beard seems like the woods; and the cake on the table seems to dance around me, and the little banners are laughing at me; and it seems to me that the carrot flowers are dancing in the air; I'm so tired and sleepy; good by, Mother! tomorrow I'll wake up very early; you, dad, wake me up before you go out; I want to see you always before you leave for work; oh, the carrots! I'm so tired! Oh, mother, don't throw away my bouquet! Look, you damaged my flower! "So my daugher gets angry because I hug her!" "Hit me, Mom!, Dad, you hit me! I'm so sleepy".

And Mercy left the library, with the maid who was carrying the silk doll. "How quickly the girl runs, she'll fall! Who is waiting for the girl?" "Who knows who awaits me!" And she did not speak with the maid; she did not ask her to tell her the story of the hunchback girl who became a flower; she only asked for one toy, and she put it at the foot of her bed; and she petted the maid's hand, and she fell asleep. The maid lit the night light, with it opal lightbulb; she left on tip toe; she closed the door very carefully.

And as soon as the door was closed, two little eyes shone at the edge of the sheet; suddenly the blonde cover rose; on her knees on the bed, she flicked the night light to its maximum light; and she flung over the toy that she had put at the foot of her bed, over the black doll. She kissed her, she hugged her, she squeezed her against her heart. "come here, poor little one, come, those bad guys left you here alone; you are not ugly, no, even though you only have one braid; the ugly one is that one, the one they have brought today, the one with the eyes that don't talk, tell me, Leonor, tell me, did you think about me? Look at the bouquet I brought you, a bouquet of forget-me-nots, the most beautiful in the garden, there, on my chest! this is my beautiful doll! And have you cried? They left you so alone! Don't look at me like that, because then I'll cry! No, you are not cold! Here, with me, on my pillow, you will be warm! And they took from me the dessert I brought you so that it would not make me sick! There, there, well wrapped up! Let's have my kiss, before you go to sleep! Now, let's turn the light down! And let's sleep, hugging each other! I love you, because they don't love you!

End of story