Dear Esteemed Editors:
I would like to address a rumour you published recently and have allowed to spread. That is corrupt journalism. I am here to clarify the few facts you’ve gotten right and debunk the filthy lies. That is, if you have the courage to publish this letter in its entirety.
It is not uncommon for politicians to meet sudden and brutal deaths while campaigning in this country. Just look at your own trashy rag’s history if you doubt me. So many have been wickedly poisoned, kidnapped, beaten, or—like Papa—slaughtered in broad daylight by thugs wielding machine guns. Yes, Isaías Poblano was an incredibly powerful man. But he understood the risks. The plight of the destitute and disadvantaged weighed on his conscience and he felt, with all his wealth and power, a responsibility to do something about it.
I didn’t realize how much Papa loved me until the assassination. Looking back now, I marvel at how naïve I was. He was always good to me, a kind, generous man who stopped at nothing to protect me. Growing up, I never understood the nature of his business. I knew he owned numerous plantations where he grew “the product” as everyone called it. I didn’t know exactly what “the product” was, but I knew it was expensive and highly coveted, especially abroad. Papa’s enterprise earned him not only great wealth but also dangerous adversaries eager to usurp his empire. The estate where we lived was a fortress, surrounded by high walls installed with surveillance cameras and patrolled day and night by armed guards—his soldiers, as Papa liked to call them. Unlike your own daughters, my childhood was far from ordinary. I grew up a lonely child but I was never alone. There was always at least one sentry standing guard outside my wing of the house.
It is true that Isaías Poblano was not my biological father. I have asked Papa’s trusted friend and first lieutenant, Dano Monk, and he has confirmed it is true. He knows because he was there, at Papa’s side the whole time.
My real father was a mole from a rival company sent to infiltrate Papa’s business. He had been a simple low ranked soldier whose name had been lost in time and he was not missed by his company. The man had begged Papa to spare his life; he had a young wife and a newborn child to support. The only reason he had volunteered for such a dangerous job was so he could feed his family. He must have been very persuasive. Papa took pity upon him. He had his throat slit, which was a much more merciful death than the original execution Papa had planned.
Papa and his entourage flew his helicopters over the mountains to the village where the man had lived. They stormed his house and found a young woman sitting up in bed, dead cold, her eyes still open and a tiny infant suckling at an empty breast. Dano swears that at that moment Papa fell madly in love with her. He fell to his knees and wept for the loss of such beauty and innocence. He had his men gather the villagers and ordered an elaborate burial, which he paid for. Even then, his reputation was notorious and no one dared refuse him. Years later I learned that he had fresh flowers delivered to the grave each year on the anniversary of her death. He took the purple silk scarf from around his neck and wrapped the infant in it. He and his entourage marched to the Abbey of San Isidro and had the child baptized and named Sophia Rose Victoria Poblano where I officially became his daughter. Hermana Anita, one of the nuns from the convent, accompanied Papa and me back to the compound to serve as nursemaid. It was there where I was educated and grew up amid the luxury and splendor of our estate, Laguna de Perlas.
Our house was huge, as you can imagine, nestled between two forested mountains and accessible only by helicopter or a narrow winding road. The main part of the house had two kitchens, a music conservatory, a ballroom where Papa and his many strings of mistresses hosted lavish parties; rare works of art adorned the walls and stained-glass windows let in glorious kaleidoscopes of light. Papa had a wing built especially for my nursery, complete with a large bathroom, a playroom and comfortable sleeping quarters for Hermana Anita. It was filled with toys and dolls and fine clothing shipped in from Paris or London. Glass doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the central courtyard which was a lush splendor all to itself. A kidney-shaped saltwater pool dominated the centre, complemented by rocks and plants arranged to make it look like a natural wellspring in the middle of a rainforest. A waterfall churned and cleaned the pool. We had two parrots named Cleo and Ramses and a tortoise with a scarred shell named Old George. At night creatures scurried and squawked in the brush and insects chirped.
That pool always held a special fascination for me. Papa arranged a swim instructor to come to the house and give me lessons. I took to the water as naturally as air. By my third lesson I was gliding and splashing, unafraid of the deep water or the caverns and grotto behind the waterfall. The swim instructor never returned for a fourth lesson and I was glad.
Swimming became a ritual. Every day after my tutor, Señor Pedro, left I would eat a quick lunch and dive in. Though the briny water stung my eyes, I explored all the secret cavities of the pool, even the metal door behind which the machinery that operated the waterfall hummed. Hermana Anita would sit under a parasol in a deck chair by the ivy-covered wall and watch me. She was a nervous woman, convinced some sort of tragic evil would befall me if I deviated from the word of God. She was exceptionally thin with sharp cheekbones tenting the papery skin of her face and dark eyes. Even on the hottest days, I never saw her without her habit and black vestments. To this day I cannot tell you the colour of her hair.
It was Hermana Anita who first taught me to read, and not Señor Pedro, who was so old he often dozed off during lessons. She taught me to play piano in the conservatory, for she was a gifted musician, but only hymns; any other music was wicked. She took me to mass every Sunday and taught me to read scripture and prepared me for my first communion, a traumatic experience that broke all ties between us.
I was horrified to learn that first communion involved eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood. It reminded me of the stories Papa had told me of cannibal tribes who roamed the wilderness in search of victims. I’m sure he was only spinning tales to keep me from wandering away from the estate, but the thought of me being the cannibal was shocking and repulsive. Even when Hermana Anita took me to the rectory and showed me the wine and wafer I would be given, I could not be mollified. She insisted that once blessed, they would turn into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus.
While most girls anticipate their first communion with giddy excitement or quiet religious observance, I dreaded its coming. A seamstress was summoned to the house and made a glorious dress of white lace studded with tiny pearls. I was given silk lace gloves and a wispy veil until I looked like a tiny bride.
“You are a bride,” Hermana Anita would say from her corner of the sewing room while I endured yet another fitting.
The day of my first communion was drizzly and thick with mist. Papa sat between me and Hermana Anita in the back of his limousine; my stomach roiled relentlessly during the drive down the mountain to the cathedral in town. I couldn’t see through the veil over my face and the inside of the car was hot, even with the air conditioner running.
The ceremony went ahead as it usually does, with hymns and incense and rows of people falling to their knees in exaltation. When my turn arrived, Papa escorted me down the aisle and I kneeled at the altar. Papa lifted the veil to reveal a doddering old priest holding the Eucharist to my face.
“The body of Christ.”
“Amen.”
The logical part of my mind told me it was just a bland thin cracker made of flour and water that dissolved quickly and stuck to the roof of my mouth. When the wine was poured between my lips, I knew I was just tasting fermented grape juice. But Hermana Anita had convinced me that it was human tissue and blood. I could not reconcile the two. I rose and Papa led me back up the aisle to our reserved pew. I could not stand on my own. My stomach reeled and my mouth flooded. Distorted people swam in and out of my field of vision. I was suffocating and I couldn’t take anymore. Before we reached our seats, I opened my mouth and the blood and body of Christ spewed out in one violent wave. Dark red wine splattered over my white patent leather shoes and splashed across the hemline of my dress; it drizzled from my chin and soaked the bodice, dripping from the gold crucifix Papa had given me.
The music stopped. People turned their heads. Women screamed and crossed themselves; everyone gasped. Papa, ever the vigilant one, scooped me up in his arms and barked orders to his men as he rushed me out the church.
The reception in the ballroom that was to be held in my honour was cancelled and Hermana Anita left that night. I heard her arguing with Papa behind the bathroom door while I sat in the bathtub and tried to wash away the humiliation. I could hear her ranting about my wickedness; I was a witch, cursed by the devil himself. She would no longer tolerate being in the presence of such evil. May God have mercy on my soul. No one dared argue with Papa or defy his orders. She is the only person I knew who got away with it. I cried as she left with her small satchel of belongings in one hand. I grabbed her robe and begged her not to go. She had been the only mother I had ever known. I promised I’d be good, I’d say my prayers, I’d even stay out of the pool. But she uncurled my fingers and turned away.
“I will pray for you.” It was the last thing she ever said to me as she stalked to the limo waiting to take her back to the convent. I never saw her again, but I’ve heard that she is retired now and leads a quiet life giving music lessons to other people’s children.
Though I was heartbroken after Hermana Anita’s departure, I found her absence liberating. No longer did I live beneath the shadow of an implacable god, fearing punishment for the slightest infraction; no longer was I bound to rituals and restrictions—I could eat meat on Fridays, I could learn to play secular music; I needn’t attend mass three days a week. I was free.
It didn’t take long for Papa to find a new governess. I heard many years later that she had been a mother and grandmother of a large sprawling family, who, one by one, had succumbed to the skirmishes between Papa’s forces and other producers of “the product”. Alone, she agreed to work for the Great Poblano; she had nowhere else to go.
Her name was Mama Louella and she was the antithesis of Hermana Anita. She was plump, almost completely round, with a thick bosom and heavy legs criss-crossed with a network of blue veins. She loved to eat, especially sweets, and I was finally allowed to indulge in pastries without Hermana Anita chastising me for the sin of gluttony. She was uneducated so Señor Pedro came by an extra day per week; by then I had already become skilled at the piano and the harp and a little violin. In the afternoons following my lessons, Mama Louella sat knitting in Hermana Anita’s old deck chair, now bulging under her weight, while I swam laps. I found solace in the pool, spending long hours gliding back and forth, perhaps a hundred laps a day. I made a game of how long I could hold my breath under water, releasing slow bubbles of air to conserve oxygen. Mama Louella never worried that I would drown or get hurt; she never admonished me for exposing myself in a bathing suit or that I should better spend my time reading scripture. By midafternoon, Mama Louella dozed off, her knitting needles dropping stitches and her flabby chin bouncing against her breasts to the rhythm of her breathing. I would need to shake her awake to remind her to prepare for dinner.
Although it may sound like the perfect childhood, I was incredibly lonely. I had no friends my own age; I was secluded from the rest of the world. Even when Mama Louella took me to the market in town once a week, I was kept away from the other children. There would always be a guard in dark glasses and a walkie-talkie trailing us.
The only companion I was allowed was a pale wisp of a girl named Dineen. Her father was one of Papa’s senior officers. He would bring Dineen to play with me while he and Papa discussed business. She was a spindly twig of a girl, pale as a stick of chalk. Her hair was so blond it was almost white—even her eyebrows were white. She was always impeccably dressed in crinoline dresses with patent leather shoes and white socks that reached her scabbed and knobby knees. Her voice was high pitched and squeaky and she had the same bland personality as her appearance.
We played hopscotch; I showed her my dolls and we took turns cradling them in our arms and served imaginary tea with my tea set. We eventually ran out of things to do as she showed little interest in anything I had and she never spoke about herself. I tried to coax her into the pool for a swim but she shook her head, raised her arms defensively and backed away as though the pool had suddenly burst into flames. She would have none of that so we spent the afternoon sipping lemonade under a parasol, barely speaking, until her father came to collect her. I wondered what sort of adult she would grow up to be; later I learned that she is the docile trophy wife of Papa’s old friend Dano, one of a long succession of wives.
I longed for companionship my own age. I envied the children I saw in the marketplace when Mama Louella took me to town. They seemed so happy, even the poor ones. They laughed and dashed between the stalls, kicked balls in the streets, exchanged small gifts like trading cards. The lucky ones wore school uniforms and carried leather satchels on their backs. They actually went to a real school, with teachers and blackboards and textbooks, and most importantly, other children. How I longed to attend a real school like that. But whenever I asked, Papa vehemently shook his head and explained it would be too great a risk; I am an easy target for rival gangs. It is safest for me to remain in the compound.
One Friday afternoon, I accompanied Mama Louella to town. Fridays were always busy at the marketplace and the crowds were thick with people haggling at the fishmonger’s and at the green grocer’s stalls with their pyramids of fresh produce. Mama Louella waited impatiently for her turn in the queue. Sensing my restlessness, she gave me a few coins to buy candy at the sweet shop behind the stall. A group of schoolgirls my own age skipped happily past. I had seen them before, dressed in uniforms of blue plaid skirts and white blouses with small bow ties at the collars. They wore their hair in braids tied back with ribbons in the same plaid pattern as their skirts. That day, each child carried a bag of marbles. They gathered in front of an alley between two shops where they drew a circle in the pavement and proceeded to play a game shooting their marbles out of the circle. I used the money to buy a dozen marbles tied in a small mesh bag from the toy vendor. The redhead was clearly winning and everyone laughed and cheered for her. When one of the others noticed me, the chattering came to a sudden halt. They all turned; four pairs of eyes bore into me; no one said anything.
Not even I knew what to tell them. What could I say?
“Hello, my name is Sophia. May I play with you?”
The words sounded silly and limp. I held out the bag of marbles so they could see I had brought my own. The cheap plastic mesh burst apart in my hands and all dozen marbles spilled onto the ground, rolling between the cobblestones and dropping down a nearby sewer grate. The girls erupted into laughter; two of them pointed and the rest scrambled to retrieve some of the marbles before they were lost.
I was mortified. I turned and ran to find Mama Louella, their laughter ringing at my back. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t further my humiliation with all those people around me. I found Mama Louella packing her shopping bag with golden ripe bananas and buried my face in her skirt so I could let the tears out.
“There you are!” Mama Louella said. “I was afraid you’d gotten lost.”
I am lost, I wanted to tell her. I am lost because I have no friends.
Even Papa noticed my distress that evening. Cook had prepared us a delicious supper, which we ate together in the dining room, but I barely touched my food. Afterward, as we sat together in Papa’s study, he asked me what the matter was as I tapped a few doleful keys on the piano.
“Oh, Papa!” I wailed and leaned into those big strong arms that had always provided me with comfort. “I’m so lonely. No one wants to be my friend. Even the children at the marketplace laugh at me.”
Papa held me close. He stroked the back of my hair and cooed, “Dear little, Sophia, I’m so sorry. I’ve been so preoccupied with business I’ve forgotten what a big girl you are now and that you should be others your own age. But you understand, it’s too dangerous. Our enemies are everywhere.”
“I don’t care,” I replied. I was willing to risk a kidnapping if I could just have one friend.
“I will find you a friend,” Papa declared. “It will be the most wonderful friend a girl could have. I promise.”
When Papa resolved to do something, it got done, either by his own hands or those of his soldiers. I have never known him to not follow through with a vow.
A few weeks later I was awakened in the dead of night by a tremendous roar and a fierce gust of wind that blew the balcony door open. Mama Louella ran screaming from her room in a pink nightgown, spongy hair curlers bouncing from her head like a fat Medusa. Helicopter blades chopped the sky outside and I heard Papa shouting orders.
“Sophia! Come!”
I never disobeyed Papa, trusting that he would allow no harm to come to me. But this time I was terrified. His helicopters rarely flew over Laguna de Perlas. The last time it had happened, enemy soldiers were threatening to storm the estate and Hermana Anita and I had been ushered to the Safe Room by his guards.
This time, one of them in a bullet proof vest and a submachine gun burst into the nursery and forced Mama Louella and me down the stairs to the pool area. Papa stood on the deck, gazing up at the helicopter hovering about a dozen meters over the pool. He was dressed in his military fatigues, complete with holstered pistols and a beret on his head. He seemed pleased to see me and beckoned me over, but Mama Louella held me close to her flabby bosom and wouldn’t let go.
“Look!” Papa shouted over the roar of the blades and pointed at the helicopter.
A bundle dangled from the bottom. Something wriggled inside as it swung back and forth. I thought I detected an arm flailing from between the folds of the dark burlap cloth, but the force of the wind from the blades made my eyes water and I couldn’t see clearly. The helicopter lowered the sack until it swayed just above the pool. Papa barked out an order and waved his arm to the pilot. Mama Louella screamed again and buried my face in the folds of her nightgown so I couldn’t see what dropped from the bundle. By the time I pulled away, whatever had been inside the sack landed in the pool with a tremendous splash. I thought I spotted a fish tail flapping over the surface and an iridescent shimmer darting beneath the water, straight to the grotto behind the waterfall.
“Viva, Pesce Donna!” shouted one of his men who waved his beret over his head. The helicopter drifted over the trees and out of sight, the empty sack flapping from the end of the ropes.
“What is it, Papa?” My own voice sounded distant and hollow in my ears after the roar of the helicopter.
Papa wrapped me in his warm arms and said, “Sophia, I have brought you a friend.”
“In the pool?”
“Yes.” He pointed to the grotto where several of his men gathered for a look inside.
“Can’t see her,” said one of them. “She must be hiding.”
“Probably gave her a good scare,” joked another and several men laughed.
I couldn’t see anything either, not even with the pool lights on. Whoever or whatever it was had disappeared behind the rock and was probably cowering in terror.
We waited a long time but nothing emerged. Papa’s men dispersed back to their posts and Papa escorted me and a terribly shaken Mama Louella back to the nursery. I slept fitfully that night, wondering what Papa had put in our pool. Was it a fish, or perhaps a dolphin? And how could he possibly believe that they would be a fitting companion for me?
When daylight arrived, Mama Louella was still snoring behind her door. I crept to the balcony and peered down at the pool. Nothing looked out of place. The deckchairs and potted plants were all set up in their usual spots. The pool’s water gleamed still and crystal blue in the morning sun. It all looked so ordinary, I began to doubt what I had seen that night; perhaps it had all been some strange dream. I didn’t bother to dress before creeping down the stairs.
I knelt by the waterfall and peered behind the rocks. Something shiny gleamed near the bottom of the pool. It bobbed in the water and I scooped it up when it rose to the surface. It was an oblong disk, so thin it was almost transparent, and it shone in iridescent colours like a flake of mother-of-pearl. It seemed too large to be a fish scale and too small to be a piece of shell.
Mama Louella began calling me to breakfast and I kept it with me at the table and throughout the day; when Señor Pedro came for my lessons, I slipped it in the pocket of my dress. By then, it had become dry and brittle and began to crumble into sparkling little bits.
Mama Louella was uncharacteristically nervous when I prepared for my usual afternoon swim, certain that some unholy being was still lurking behind the rocks. I assured her I’d be fine and dove in. Several more of the flaky objects littered the bottom of the pool and I collected as many as I could, piling them on the deck by the steps. I completed a few more laps and when I lifted my head from the water, Mama Louella jumped from her creaking chair and waved her arms over her head.
“Get out! Get out!” she screamed. “It’s behind you!”
Something swam past me so quickly, all I saw was a flash of fishtail. I dove under the water to get a better look but it swam so fast it stirred up the shiny flakes until I felt as though I was inside a shaken snow globe. It darted back to the grotto behind the waterfall, a tailfin flapping behind it. I swam after it, but the grotto was so dark I couldn’t find anything or anyone.
By the time I lifted my head from the water, Mama Louella was standing at the edge of the pool, waving a towel and screaming at me to get out.
“What was that?” I asked as she wrapped the towel around my shoulders.
“Pesce Donna,” said Mama Louella. “Fish lady.”
I didn’t understand. “Fish lady?”
“I always thought they were a myth,” said Mama Louella. She ushered me back to the nursery to get dressed.
That evening I asked Cook to prepare fish for supper. Papa was away on business and would not be home until late, so I ate in the nursery with Mama Louella. When she turned away to get another pastry off the cart, I surreptitiously slipped a few morsels of fish into my pocket. It was an agonizingly long wait for Mama Louella to fall asleep that night. The moon rose and unseen insects chirped their night songs in the brush. I sat at the balcony doors, watching the night sentry patrol the pool deck. Mama Louella finally began snoring behind her door and the guard lit a cigarette and wandered off. This was my chance.
I crept down to the pool, making excuses in my head if the sentry should catch me skulking around in the dead of night. But no one was there. I knelt at the edge of the pool and placed the pieces of fish along the edge.
It was a long wait. No one and nothing swam out of the grotto. The sentry didn’t return, or if he had, he didn’t notice me sitting by the edge of the pool with my head nodding. I dozed off several times, snapping myself back to wakefulness each time. When I felt I couldn’t stay awake any longer, I rose to return to my room.
Something splashed. A dark movement glided down the length of the pool. I spotted a fishtail, arms, long stringy hair. I backed away from the pool, afraid that whatever was down there would leap out of the water and pull me down with it. A hand reached up. It had webbed fingers and long dark nails, slightly curled at the tips like claws. The hand snatched the pieces of fish and pulled them down under the water. I inched closer and spotted a fishtail bobbing below the surface.
“Hello?” My whisper sounded loud in the still night.
Nothing happened for a long time. The fishtail slipped out of view and I waited.
Two webbed hands gripped the edge of the pool and Pesce Donna rose from the water.
There have been many depictions of mermaids throughout the world. Normally, they are portrayed as stunningly beautiful young women with plump, enticing breasts and flowing hair. My Pesce Donna was all the more spectacular. Her hair was so dark it blended with the night. She bore the same features as any other woman: two slightly bulbous eyes framed with lashes as dark as her hair; a human-like nose drizzled water over a mouth framed by thick pouty lips. Her complexion was mottled and had a slightly greenish tinge to it. She had three narrow slits on the side of her neck, just below the ears, which I could only guess were some sort of gills. Her shoulders were narrow and her breasts were somewhat small. Scales spotted her abdomen and gradually thickened to a shiny lustrous tail adorned with fins.
We stared, each unable to believe in the other’s existence. Pesce Donna hoisted herself from the water and sat at the pool’s edge, curling her tail around her. She flapped her caudal fin against the surface and I realized the strange shiny objects I had found were actually the cast-off scales from her tail.
She extended her hand as though to show me something. I cautiously inched forward, ready to leap away and flee back to the nursery. I peered into her open palm and saw a thin white fishbone picked clean of its flesh. Pesce Donna was asking for more food. Of course! She must have been famished after her ordeal. Why hadn’t Papa prepared for her feeding and care, arranged to have the best veterinarians tend to her night and day? Surely, he didn’t think I could care for such a magnificent creature myself.
Cook kept the kitchens locked at night ever since he discovered the night sentries stealing food from his pantry. Mama Louella sometimes kept biscuits and chocolate in her room, but I was afraid to go in there and risk waking her. I found some hard candy and chewing gum in my desk drawer. Not enough but it would have to do until morning. I returned to the pool area to show Pesce Donna. She was still sitting at the pool’s edge, swishing her tail through the water. A lizard, so small and unremarkable I wouldn’t have noticed it, scurried across the deck. Pesce Donna lunged at it with both hands. She stuffed it in her mouth, chewed and finished it off in one swallow. I was relieved to see that she could fend for herself.
Mama Louella found me asleep in the deck chair the next morning. She had spent a frantic hour searching the compound for me, but it had never occurred to her to just look out the window.
“There you are!” she screamed and shook me awake. I uncurled myself from the chair, achy from sleeping in such an awkward position all night, and rubbed my eyes against the morning glare. The pool’s water glistened its usual tranquil blue. Pesce Donna was gone, probably back to her grotto behind the waterfall. There was no evidence that she was ever there. I opened my hand and found the empty wrinkled wrappers of my candy and gum but I didn’t remember eating them. So Pesce Donna had a sweet tooth.
Papa was home that day and I burst into his office where he sat behind his desk, casually tapping the keys of his computer.
“Papa! How could you?” I demanded.
Papa peered at me over the tops of his glasses as though he had no idea what I was talking about.
“That creature,” I said. “It’s a real live mermaid. What have you done?”
“So you’ve met your new friend?” he asked. “Sit. I will explain.”
Papa told me how he had bought Pesce Donna from a local fisherman after she had become entangled in his net. Once he hauled her onto his boat, he didn’t know what to do with her so he kept her in an underwater cage near his home. He tried to tell the townspeople of his find, but they all laughed and called him crazy. Pesce Donna had been very good at hiding herself in her prison. When Papa heard the rumor of the fisherman who had caught a mermaid, he went to see for himself. Pesce Donna, for whatever her reasons, allowed herself to be seen by Papa. He immediately purchased her for a hefty sum, making the fisherman a very wealthy man, and had her transported to Laguna de Perlas. He reasoned that she would be the perfect companion for me, since I loved so much to swim.
“But she’s a mermaid,” I said. “She’s not even a real girl.”
Papa tapped his flat hand against his waist and said, “She is a girl from here up. Now, go and play with your new friend.”
Papa dismissed me and that was that. I went to play with my new friend.
Looking back now, I remember the next few years as being the happiest of my life. Each day when I went for my afternoon swim, Pesce Donna emerged from her grotto to join me. We made a game of chasing one another along the length of the pool. We bobbed and splashed. Pesce Donna showed me how she could leap from the water and move along on the base of her tail like a performing dolphin. I had Cook prepare her a seafood meal each day, delicious treats like lobster and fish and shrimp and clams, whose shells she could chew through with her strong teeth. I slipped her pieces of candy and sweet biscuits. We spent lazy afternoons combing one another’s hair and braiding them with seashells and bells and little beads. She never learned to speak, at least not the way people do. I tried to teach her a few words, but her voice was high-pitched and unable to form the proper pronunciations. We communicated mostly through a private sign language we made up. I was delighted to learn that mermaids can laugh.
At night she would crawl out of the pool and sit atop the waterfall with her sparkling tail hanging down in the gushing water. She’d lift her face to the stars and moon and sing, but not in the traditional way that people sing. Since she couldn’t form words, her songs came out in long sweet melodies so profound it would have put the world’s finest philharmonic orchestra to shame. Imagine all the greatest flutes, harps, pianos, cellos, violins all playing together in the most perfect harmonies. It brought tears to my eyes as I sat on the balcony and listened. All the love and longing that people keep hidden within themselves comes flooding out in torrential waves of emotion. The only thing that matters is that doleful siren’s song.
As I am female, the pull of her voice didn’t affect me the way it did Papa’s men. Many night guards were lured to the pool late at night when her songs were most powerful. I watched them from the window, standing by the waterfall and openly weeping, reaching out to Pesce Donna. Not even the obligation to duty could keep these highly skilled guards from succumbing to her songs. When I was about twelve, one guard completely surrendered. He collapsed to his knees on the deck and crawled toward the waterfall. I was taken aback when he stripped off his weapons and uniform; I had never seen a naked man before and his backside gleamed like a peeled apple in the moonlight. He dove into the pool and tried to climb up the waterfall. Pesce Donna stopped singing and slipped into the water, pulling him under. I stepped away from the window, unsure if I should be witnessing such an act. I had heard the legends of mermaids luring sailors to their doom, but the stories seemed like silly superstitions to me. Still, I was worried the poor man would drown so I sounded the alarm.
Floodlights snapped on around the compound. Alarms howled through the loudspeakers and Mama Louella ran screaming from her room. Within seconds, perhaps a dozen guards filled the pool area with their weapons drawn. Papa ran out, tying the sash ’round his housecoat and shouting at everyone. Pesce Donna had abandoned her companion and darted back to her grotto, leaving him floating face front and unconscious in the pool. His comrades pulled him from the water and one began administering CPR. After a few minutes, the man coughed and water gushed from his mouth and nose. From that day, all night guards were required to wear special headgear over their ears that restricted high octave sounds. Papa reprimanded the man and he was assigned to other duties.
I wanted to ask Pesce Donna why she sang on the rocks and why she lured the poor man under water, but I was too embarrassed. She couldn’t express herself anyway. I knew it was some sort of personal ritual that mermaids are wont to do. Now that the sentries couldn’t hear her songs, she seemed especially lonely during the nights. Her singing slowly ebbed until she rarely climbed the rocks to sing anymore. It was a sound I dearly missed.
Several weeks later when I brought her a platter of food—fresh sea bass and whole shrimp with beady little eyes, she sat waiting for me at the steps of the pool. She seemed especially sad that day and I noticed that her tail bore patches of raw skin that festered in several places. I stroked her hair and felt the feverish glow from her brow.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you ill?”
Pesce Donna bowed her head and slipped into the pool, beckoning me to follow. Behind the waterfall, the water rushed down in a rippling curtain. It was dank and cool and the roar of crashing water echoed off the rocks. She guided me to a little crevice that held a basin carved into the rock.
The objects inside the basin looked like the marbles that plopped into the sewer grate that day the schoolgirls laughed at me. Round shiny objects about the size of large grapefruits that appeared full of a gelatinous substance with something solid in the centre. She allowed me to lift one from the water to get a better look. The sphere was slippery and difficult to hold.
Something wriggled inside. In the dim light I spied a tiny head, a curled spine, a pair of stubby arms and a twitching fishtail. I gasped and dropped it back into the basin. Sometime during the past few weeks, Pesce Donna had laid a clutch of mermaid eggs.
All the years I had spent with Pesce Donna, it had never occurred to me how mermaids reproduce. Like all mythical creatures, I just assumed they appeared like magic from the ether, from our thoughts and imaginations. Pesce Donna lowered her head and ran her webbed fingers across the glistening orbs. I had never seen her so sad.
“Are these your babies?” I asked. She nodded somberly and gestured to me in our personal sign language that I had to protect them, care for them myself as she wouldn’t be alive much longer. She swam to her nook at the back of the grotto and curled her tail under her. She appeared pale and lesions spotted her arms and torso. More scales flaked from her tail and drifted through the churning water.
“We must get you and your babies out of here,” I said. “Back to the sea where you belong.”
Pesce Donna lowered her head and wrapped her infected tail tightly around her. I left her there to rest, knowing I had to do something to save her and her babies before they all perished. Like all sea creatures, mermaids are not meant to live in captivity.
Papa was away on business that day and I had to wait until his return late that evening. He came home haggard, as though the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.
“Not now,” he grumbled as I trailed him to his study.
“Papa, this is important,” I said. “It’s about Pesce Donna—”
“I don’t have time to worry about your mermaid,” he cut me off in that dismissive tone of his. But I would have none of that. I refused to leave until he at least acknowledged what I had to say.
“Pesce Donna is ill,” I stated. “And she and her babies need to be taken back to the sea or they will die.”
Papa raised an eyebrow in my direction.
“Babies? What are you talking about?”
I explained to Papa how pale Pesce Donna looked, how she was shedding skin and scales into the pool and the clutch of mermaid eggs in the grotto. We had to do something soon to save them.
Papa sighed and sat down at his desk.
“Very well. I will see what I can do.”
That night Pesce Donna sang her last song. She struggled up to the top of the waterfall and raised her head to the moon. A few notes floated out of her lips, but in her weakened state she couldn’t continue. She lowered her head and fell into the pool.
Screaming and crying, I rushed down to the pool area. Already her body was beginning to disintegrate. Her hair fell away from her scalp. Scales from her tail sloughed off and the flesh beneath melted like sugar in a cup of tea. I was frantic by the time I reached what was left of her. Bits of teeth and scales and fingernails floated in the murky water. I found an empty bucket by the shed and dove in without taking off my nightgown. I swam into the grotto and filled the bucket with her eggs. Papa was waiting for me on the deck.
“I’m so sorry, Sophia,” he said as I raised the bucket out of the water to show him.
“She’s dead, Papa,” I cried, “And they will be next unless we do something.”
Papa pulled me from the water and looked down at the glossy, twitching eggs.
“They are the children of one of your men,” I said. “Show them the same mercy you showed me.”
I had never seen a look like that on Papa’s face before. It was as though everything within him began to dissolve. He hugged me close until I finished crying and promised me he would charter a boat.
I kept the bucket of eggs with me all the next morning when we boarded his helicopter and flew to the coast to meet with a modest yacht named The Bella Luna. The captain’s name was Mayfortune Withers, a native of the northern islands who had become very wealthy providing private tours of the islands that dot our coastline. He had assumed that Papa and I were just another couple of wealthy tourists until he saw me haul the bucket onto his boat. He gave me a knowing wink when he saw what was inside.
We rode out beyond the islands and out to deeper water. It was hot that day; the sun blazed down on us and not even the spray from the sea could cool me. I clutched the railing of the bow with one hand and gripped the bucket in the other. I felt as though my skin was blistering from the heat. I couldn’t hold on any longer. Papa paced the deck and scanned the horizon, shielding his eyes with the palm of his hand. I watched him, knowing it would be the last time I would ever see him. All the gratitude for what he had done for me welled up inside. I would miss him terribly and I still do.
Captain Withers slowed the yacht and I raised the bucket and let the eggs drop one by one into the churning water.
“Goodbye, Papa,” I whispered and plunged headfirst into the sea after them.
The transformation was almost immediate. My legs stiffened and sealed together until a fishtail sprouted from my toes. I wriggled out of my dress and let it float away. Seawater flooded my mouth and out through the gills that opened just behind my ears. Webbing grew between my fingers.
It’s so liberating. You don’t know how free it feels to lunge through the water with all the world’s oceans before you. It’s as though you die and are instantly reborn in a new world with a new perspective. For a few moments I forgot about Papa, frantically screaming above me as the boat’s propellers roared to life. I forgot about our home in Perla Laguna. I even forgot about Pesce Donna and her pups until I noticed them slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea and nestling in a patch of weeds. I gathered them together but I was unaccustomed to using my new tail and found it difficult to swim with them in my arms. Far out to sea, I found an outcropping of craggy rocks with a small cave near the bottom where I tucked the eggs so I could guard them until they hatched.
Now that they were back in the sea, the eggs burgeoned and thrived. Their little bodies grew and squirmed and pressed against the membrane until they finally burst through several days later. Each small mermaid wriggled from her shell and swam away in separate directions. One glanced over her shoulder but I don’t know if she recognized me or if she thought I was just another lump of coral on the sea floor. The way they moved reminded me of a school of tadpoles I found in a large puddle in the garden following a series of spring rainstorms. I showed them to Hermana Anita and she promptly called an exterminator and had them destroyed lest God sends another plague of toads.
Had I been a human girl again, my heart would have been broken by the pups swimming away from me after all I had sacrificed for them. I would have understood how I had broken Papa’s heart by leaping into the sea after all he had done for me. But I knew that social groups among the merfolk are virtually non-existent. They share no loyalty between one another. Rarely will more than two or three congregate and it’s usually to hunt or patrol the shorelines for passing boats and bathers. They communicate only when they must in a peculiar language of squeaks, similar to the sound of a dolphin. Like Pesce Donna, they mate with human men and spend a great deal of time stalking the beaches and luring them with their songs. The victim is usually a lone jogger or a drunkard who wandered away from a beach party or a surfer practicing his skills alone. Those who survive find themselves sprawled in the surf with little memory of his encounter, believing it to be a strange dream or hallucination.
As I was alone on land, I remain alone in the sea. The other merfolk shun me because I was a transformation and not born a mermaid. I’ve travelled the earth’s waters many times over; I’ve seen the fjords of the north and the coral reefs of the south. I’ve travelled to the most remote islands and followed the grandest ships across the oceans. But I always seem to return to the same harbour of my childhood. Many things have changed over the years; a new pier was added and other additions provided more space for the wealthy tourists to dock their yachts. At night I can hear the music from the cantinas and the roar of traffic and once in a while, gunshots, often followed by hysterical screams. I suppose not everything has changed.
The merfolk, as you must imagine, are privy to the mysteries of the sea. All the great ships and galleons and vessels that had met their doom in the oceans, either by storms or warfare, are there for us to explore. I spent a great deal of time searching those wrecks and examining the treasures they contain. The older vessels have deteriorated until they are little more than scraggy outcrops where many sea creatures make their homes, but the more recent ones contain treasures beyond your understanding. Jewelry and doubloons, silver combs and handheld mirrors, cannons and other weapons that humans use to destroy one another, are all free for the taking. But they are of no value to the merfolk. They don’t understand the meaning of those little metal disks with faces engraved on them or why humans would covet them so much. Only I know how these treasures would be prized by the great museums of the world.
You may remember a fierce storm that ravaged the harbour a few years ago and toppled the trees along the shoreline and washed away several of the docks and their boats. I was caught up in the savage waves that crashed against the beaches. It was terrifying. I thought for sure that I would be crushed under the weight of the waves. When the storm subsided, I found myself beached among some low cliffs just south of our town. I looked down and saw my tail splitting in two, revealing my legs for the first time in years. The webbing between my fingers shrunk down into my hands and the gills at my ears sealed shut. I stood on wobbling legs and breathed air again. On land I could be a human again, with legs and lungs and smooth, unmottled skin. I hid in the caves at the base of the cliff until after dark. At dawn I crept out again and stole a dress I found hanging on the clothesline beside a seaside cottage. Then I walked back to town.
Not much had changed in the marketplace during my absence. The same stalls I remembered were still there, though the merchants appeared older and many were noticeably absent. I strolled the cobbled streets, relishing my time on land. The boisterous clamor of merchants haggling with customers, the squeal of children, the roar of traffic, all brought back so many childhood memories. The girls who had laughed at me were probably grown and married now with children of their own. I paused at a newsstand to read the headline of your newspaper and was shocked to see Papa’s face on the cover.
Yes, Isaías Poblano was still alive. He had retired from “the business” many years ago, after selling off his plantations to some of his rivals, and was now running for president under the People’s Social Party. I had never thought of him as someone to get involved in politics, but I knew he always held sympathies toward the less fortunate. My hands trembled and I began to weep for the man who had raised me, had cared for me and had sacrificed so much for me and Pesce Donna. I had no money to buy the newspaper; the vendor took pity on me and let me have it for free. I thanked him and promised I would return the favour some day.
I knew what I had to do. That evening I tucked the stolen dress into the cave by the shore and dove back into the sea where I transformed into a mermaid again. I plundered the sunken vessels for their treasures. I collected as many valuable trinkets as I could and stashed them in my cave where I polished them clean until they shone with their original luster. Bit by bit, I traded them in the marketplace, telling the pawnbrokers I was a widow and forced to sell my family heirlooms in order to feed my children. With the money, I repaid the newsstand vendor and bought a new dress that I hung on the clothesline to replace the one I had taken. I acquired a considerable cache of money that I planned to use to fund Papa’s campaign.
And then he was assassinated.
I am truly alone now, both on land and in the sea. I don’t know how to grieve for something like this. Papa is gone. I visit his tomb regularly and lay strings of shiny seashells upon the lintel over the sealed door. All the while, I plot my return.
I will avenge Papa’s death and woe to those responsible. I have the power of the sea behind me and all its sunken treasures. I am the woman you see in the marketplace, bartering for fresh fish, haunting the pawnshops, leaving alms to the destitute, just as Papa would have done. I will make right all the injustices that plague our country.
Papa’s story is not over yet. If you have ever feared the great Isaías Poblano, fear me, for I am coming soon. Fear me now.
With Great Respects,
Sophia Rosa Victoria Poblano
