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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Children's Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
Meet Zezé, Brazil's naughtiest and most loveable boy, his talent for mischief matched only by his kindness. When he grows up he wants to be a 'poet with a bow-tie' - and to stop making his parents angry with all his mistakes. For now he entertains himself playing pranks on the residents of his poor Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood, and when he has troubles he tells them to the talking orange tree in his back garden. That is, until he meets a real friend, and his life begins to change...My Sweet Orange Tree is a worldwide classic of children's literature, whose cheeky, resilient hero has won the hearts of millions of young readers.
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Seitenzahl: 220
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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For
Mercedes Cruañes Rinaldi
Erich Gemeinder
Francisco Marins
as well as
Helene Rudge Miller (Birdie!)
Nor can I forget
my ‘son’
Fernando Seplinsky
* * *
For those who have never died
Ciccillo Matarazzo
Arnaldo Magalhães de Giacomo
* * *
In loving memory of my brother Luís (King Luís) and my sister Glória. Luís gave up on life at the age of twenty, and Glória, at twenty-four, didn’t think life was worth living either.
Equally as precious is my memory of Manuel Valadares, who taught me the meaning of tenderness at the age of six.
May they all rest in peace!
and now
Dorival Lourenço da Silva
(Dodô, neither sadness nor nostalgia kill!)
Table of Contents
Part One
AT CHRISTMAS, SOMETIMES THE DEVIL CHILD IS BORN
Chapter One
THE DISCOVERER OF THINGS
We were strolling down the street hand in hand, in no hurry at all. Totoca was teaching me about life. And that made me really happy, my big brother holding my hand and teaching me things. But teaching me things out in the world. Because at home I learned by discovering things on my own and doing things on my own; I’d make mistakes and because I made mistakes I always ended up getting beaten. Until not long before that, no one had ever hit me. But then they heard things and started saying I was the devil, a demon, a sandy-haired sprite. I didn’t want to know about it. If I wasn’t outside, I’d have started to sing. Singing was pretty. Totoca knew how to do something besides sing: he could whistle. But no matter how hard I tried to copy him, nothing came out. He cheered me up by saying it was normal, that I didn’t have a whistler’s mouth yet. But because I couldn’t sing on the outside, I sang on the inside. It was weird at first, but then it felt really nice. And I was remembering a song Mother used to sing when I was really little. She’d be standing at the washtub, with a cloth tied about her head to keep the sun off it. With an apron around her waist, she’d spend hours and hours plunging her hands into the water, turning soap into lots of suds. Then she’d wring out the clothes and take them to the clothes line, where she’d peg them all out and hoist it up high. She did the same thing with all the clothes. She washed clothes from Dr Faulhaber’s house to help with the household expenses. Mother was tall and thin, but very beautiful. She was brown from the sun and her hair was straight and black. When she didn’t tie it up, it hung down to her waist. But the most beautiful thing was when she sang, and I’d hang around, learning.
Sailor, sailor
Sailor of sorrow
Because of you
I’ll die tomorrow …
The waves crashed
Dashed on sand
Off he went
My sailor man …
A sailor’s love
Lasts not a day
His ship weighs anchor
And sails away …
The waves crashed …
That song had always filled me with a sadness I couldn’t understand.
Totoca gave me a tug. I came to my senses.
‘What’s up, Zezé?’
‘Nothing. I was singing.’
‘Singing?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then I must be going deaf.’
Didn’t he know you could sing on the inside? I kept quiet. If he didn’t know, I wasn’t going to teach him.
We had come to the edge of the Rio–São Paulo Highway.
On it, there was everything. Trucks, cars, carts and bicycles.
‘Look, Zezé, this is important. First we take a good look one way, and then the other. Now go.’
We ran across the highway.
‘Were you scared?’
I was, but I shook my head.
‘Let’s do it again together. Then I want to see if you’ve learned.’
We ran back.
‘Now you go. No baulking, ’cause you’re a big kid now.’
My heart beat faster.
‘Now. Go.’
I raced across, almost without breathing. I waited a bit and he gave me the signal to return.
‘You did really well for the first time. But you forgot something. You have to look both ways to see if any cars are coming. I won’t always be here to give you the signal. We’ll practise some more on the way home. But let’s go now, ’cause I want to show you something.’
He took my hand and off we went again, slowly. I couldn’t stop thinking about a conversation I’d had.
‘Totoca.’
‘What?’
‘Can you feel the age of reason?’
‘What’s this nonsense?’
‘Uncle Edmundo said it. He said I was “precocious” and that soon I’d reach the age of reason. But I don’t feel any different.’
‘Uncle Edmundo is a fool. He’s always putting things in that head of yours.’
‘He isn’t a fool. He’s wise. And when I grow up I want to be wise and a poet and wear a bow tie. One day I’m going to have my picture taken in a bow tie.’
‘Why a bow tie?’
‘Because you can’t be a poet without a bow tie. When Uncle Edmundo shows me pictures of poets in the magazine, they’re all wearing bow ties.’
‘Zezé, you have to stop believing everything he tells you. Uncle Edmundo’s a bit cuckoo. He lies a bit.’
‘Is he a son of a bitch?’
‘You’ve already been slapped across the mouth for using so many swear words! Uncle Edmundo isn’t that. I said “cuckoo”. A bit crazy.’
‘You said he was a liar.’
‘They’re two completely different things.’
‘No, they’re not. The other day, Father was talking about Labonne with Severino, the one who plays cards with him, and he said, “That old son of a bitch is a bloody liar.” And no one slapped him across the mouth.’
‘It’s OK for grown-ups to say things like that.’
Neither of us a spoke for a moment.
‘Uncle Edmundo isn’t … What does cuckoo mean again, Totoca?’
He pointed his finger at his head and twisted it around.
‘No, he isn’t. He’s really nice. He teaches me things, and he only smacked me once and it wasn’t hard.’
Totoca started.
‘He smacked you? When?’
‘When I was really naughty and Glória sent me to Gran’s house. He wanted to read the newspaper but he couldn’t find his glasses. He searched high and low, and he was really mad. He asked Gran where they were but she had no idea. The two of them turned the house upside down. Then I said I knew where they were and if he gave me some money to buy marbles, I’d tell him. He went to his waistcoat and took out some money.
‘“Go get them and I’ll give it to you.”
‘I went to the clothes hamper and got them. And he said, “It was you, you little rascal!” He gave me a smack on the backside and put the money away.’
Totoca laughed.
‘You go there to avoid getting smacked at home and you get smacked there. Let’s go a bit faster or we’ll never get there.’
I was still thinking about Uncle Edmundo.
‘Totoca, are children retired?’
‘What?’
‘Uncle Edmundo doesn’t do anything, and he gets money. He doesn’t work, and City Hall pays him every month.’
‘So what?’
‘Well, children don’t do anything. They eat, sleep and get money from their parents.’
‘Retired is different, Zezé. A retired person has already worked for a long time, their hair’s turned white and they walk slowly like Uncle Edmundo. But let’s stop thinking about difficult things. If you want to learn things from him, fine. But not with me. Act like the other boys. You can even swear, but stop filling your head with difficult things. Otherwise I won’t go out with you again.’
I sulked a bit and didn’t want to talk any more. I didn’t feel like singing either. The little bird that sang inside me had flown away.
We stopped and Totoca pointed at the house.
‘There it is. Like it?’
It was an ordinary house. White with blue windows. All closed up and quiet.
‘Yeah. But why do we have to move here?’
‘It’s good to stay on the move.’
We stood gazing through the fence at a mango tree on one side and a tamarind tree on the other.
‘You’re such a busybody, but you have no idea what’s going on at home. Father’s out of a job, isn’t he? It’s been six months since he had the fight with Mr Scottfield and they kicked him out. Did you know Lalá’s working at the factory now? And Mother’s going to work in the city, at the English Mill? Well there you go, silly. It’s all to save up to pay the rent on this new house. Father’s a good eight months behind on the other one. You’re too young to have to worry about such sad things. But I’m going to have to help out at mass, to pitch in at home.’
He stood there a while in silence.
‘Totoca, are they going to bring the black panther and the two lionesses here?’
‘Of course. And old slave-boy here is going to have to take apart the chicken coop.’
He gave me a kind of sweet, pitiful look.
‘I’m the one who’s going to take down the zoo and reassemble it here.’
I was relieved. Because otherwise I’d have to come up with something new to play with my littlest brother, Luís.
‘So, you see how I’m your friend, Zezé? Now it wouldn’t hurt for you to tell me how you did “it” …’
‘I swear, Totoca, I don’t know. I really don’t.’
‘You’re lying. You studied with someone.’
‘I didn’t study anything. No one taught me. Unless it was the devil who taught me in my sleep. Jandira says he’s my godfather.’
Totoca was puzzled. He even rapped me across the head a few times to try to get me to tell him. But I didn’t know how I’d done it.
‘No one learns that kind of thing on their own.’
But he was at a loss for words because no one had actually seen anyone teach me anything. It was a mystery.
I remembered what had happened a week earlier. It had left the family in a flap. It had started at Gran’s house, when I sat next to Uncle Edmundo, who was reading the newspaper.
‘Uncle.’
‘What is it, son?’
He moved his glasses to the tip of his nose, as all grown-ups do when they get old.
‘When did you learn to read?’
‘At around six or seven years of age.’
‘Can five-year-olds learn to read?’
‘I suppose so. But no one likes to teach them because it’s really too young.’
‘How did you learn to read?’
‘Like everyone else, with first readers. Going “B plus A makes BA”.’
‘Does everyone have to learn like that?’
‘As far as I know, they do.’
‘Absolutely everyone?’
He looked at me, intrigued.
‘Look, Zezé, that’s how everyone learns. Now let me finish reading. Go look for guavas in the backyard.’
He pushed his glasses back up his nose and tried to concentrate on reading. But I didn’t leave.
‘What a shame!’
It was such a heartfelt exclamation that he moved his glasses back down his nose.
‘I’ll be darned. You’re persistent, aren’t you?’
‘It’s just that I walked all the way over here just to tell you something, sir.’
‘OK then, tell me.’
‘No. Not like that. First I need to know when your next pension day is.’
‘Day after tomorrow,’ he said with a little smile, studying me.
‘And what day is after tomorrow?’
‘Friday.’
‘Well, on Friday could you bring me a Silver King from the city?’
‘Slow down, Zezé. What’s a Silver King?’
‘It’s the little white horse I saw at the cinema. Its owner is Fred Thompson. It’s a trained horse.’
‘You want me to bring you a little horse on wheels?’
‘No, sir. I want the sort with a wooden head and reins. That you stick a tail on and run around. I need to practise because later I’m going to work in films.’
He laughed.
‘I see. And if I do, what’s in it for me?’
‘I’ll do something for you, sir.’
‘You’ll give me a kiss?’
‘I’m not big on kisses.’
‘A hug?’
I looked at Uncle Edmundo and felt really sorry for him. The little bird inside me said something. And I remembered what I’d heard people say so many times, that Uncle Edmundo was separated from his wife and had five children. But he lived all on his own and walked so slowly … Maybe he walked slowly because he missed his children? And his children never came to visit him.
I walked around the table and hugged him tight. I felt his white hair brush my forehead. It was really soft.
‘This isn’t for the horse. What I’m going to do is something else. I’m going to read.’
‘Come again, Zezé? You can read? Who taught you?’
‘No one.’
‘You’re lying.’
I backed away and from the doorway I said, ‘Bring me my horse on Friday and you’ll see if I can read or not!’
Later, when it was night time and Jandira lit the lantern because the power company had cut off the electricity because the bill hadn’t been paid, I stood on tiptoes to see the ‘star’. It was a picture of a star on a piece of paper with a prayer underneath it to protect the house.
‘Jandira, can you pick me up? I’m going to read that.’
‘Enough with the tall tales, Zezé. I’m busy.’
‘Pick me up and I’ll show you.’
‘Look, Zezé, if you’re up to something, you’ll be in trouble.’
She picked me up and took me behind the door.
‘Go on, then, read. This I want to see.’
Then I read, for real. I read the prayer that asked the heavens to bless and protect the house and to ward off evil spirits.
Jandira put me down. Her mouth was open.
‘Zezé, you memorized that. You’re tricking me.’
‘I swear, Jandira. I can read everything.’
‘No one reads without having learned to. Was it Uncle Edmundo? Gran?’
‘No one.’
She went to fetch a page from the newspaper and I read it without any mistakes. She gave a little shriek and called Glória. Glória became nervous and went to get Alaíde. In ten minutes, a crowd of neighbours had gathered to see the phenomenon.
That was what Totoca wanted me to tell him.
‘He taught you and promised you the horse if you learned.’
‘It’s not true.’
‘I’m going to ask him.’
‘Go ahead. I don’t know how to explain it, Totoca. If I did, I’d tell you.’
‘Then let’s go. You’ll see. When you need something …’
He grabbed my hand angrily and began to drag me home. Then he thought of something to get revenge.
Serves you right! You learned too soon, silly. Now you’ll have to start school in February.’
It had been Jandira’s idea. That way the house would be peaceful all morning long and I’d learn some manners.
‘Let’s practise crossing the highway again. Don’t think that when you go to school I’ll be your nanny, taking you across all the time. If you’re so clever, you can learn this too.’
* * *
‘Here’s the horse. Now, let’s see this.’
He opened the newspaper and showed me a sentence in an ad for a medicine.
‘In all good pharmacies and drugstores,’ I read.
Uncle Edmundo went to get Gran from the backyard.
‘Mother. He even read “pharmacies” correctly.’
They both started giving me things to read and I read everything.
Gran started muttering that all was lost.
Uncle Edmundo gave me the horse and I hugged him again. Then he held my chin and, in a wavering voice, said, ‘You’re going to go far, you little monkey. It’s no accident your name’s José. You’ll be the sun, and the stars will shine around you.’
I didn’t get it, and wondered if he really was a bit cuckoo.
‘That’s something you don’t understand. It’s the story of Joseph. I’ll tell you when you’re a bit bigger.’
I was crazy about stories. The harder they were, the more I liked them.
I patted my little horse for a long time and then I looked up at Uncle Edmundo and said, ‘Do you think I’ll be a bit bigger by next week, Uncle?’
Chapter Two
A CERTAIN SWEET-ORANGE TREE
In our family, each older sibling brought up a younger one. Jandira had taken care of Glória and another sister who’d been given away to have a proper upbringing in the north. Totoca was Jandira’s little darling. Then Lalá had taken care of me until not long ago. For as long as she liked me. Then I think she got sick of me or fell madly in love with her boyfriend, who was a dandy with baggy trousers and a short jacket just like the one in the song. When they used to take me for a ‘promenade’ (that’s what her boyfriend called a stroll) on Sundays, he’d buy me some really yummy sweets so I wouldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t even ask Uncle Edmundo what ‘promenade’ meant or the whole family would find out.
My other two siblings had died young and I had only heard about them. They say they were two little Apinajé Indians, very dark, with straight black hair. That’s why they were given Indian names. The girl was called Aracy and the boy, Jurandyr.
Then came my little brother Luís. Glória was the one who looked after him the most, then me. He didn’t even need looking after, because there wasn’t a cuter, quieter, better-behaved boy in the world.
That’s why when he spoke in that little voice of his without a single mistake, as I was heading out into the street, I changed my mind.
‘Zezé, are you going to take me to the zoo? It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain today, does it?’
How adorable. He spoke so well. That boy was going to be someone; he was going to go far.
I looked at the beautiful day with the sky all blue and didn’t have the courage to lie. Because sometimes, if I wasn’t in the mood, I’d say, ‘You’re out of your mind, Luís. Just look at the storm coming!’
This time I took his little hand and we went out for our adventure in the backyard.
The backyard was divided into three games. One was the zoo. Another was Europe, which was over by Julio’s neat little fence. Why Europe? Not even my little bird knew. We played Sugarloaf Mountain cable cars there. We’d take the box of buttons and put them all on a string. (Uncle Edmundo called it twine. I thought twine were pigs, but he explained that pigs were swine.) Then we’d tie one end to the fence and the other to Luís’s fingertips. We’d push all the buttons up to the top and let them go slowly, one by one. Each cable car was full of people we knew. There was a really black one, which was Biriquinho’s. It wasn’t unusual to hear a voice coming from over the fence, ‘Are you damaging my fence, Zezé?’
‘No, Dona Dimerinda. See for yourself, ma’am.’
‘Now, that’s what I like to see. Playing nicely with your brother. Isn’t it better like that?’
It might have been nice, but when my ‘godfather’ the devil gave me a nudge, there was nothing better than getting up to mischief …
‘Are you going to give me a calendar for Christmas, like last year?’
‘What did you do with the one I gave you?’
‘You can go inside and see, Dona Dimerinda. It’s above the bag of bread.’
She laughed and promised she would. Her husband worked at Chico Franco’s general store.
The other game was Luciano. At first Luís was really scared of him and would tug on my trousers, asking to leave. But Luciano was my friend. Whenever he saw me, he’d screech loudly. Glória wasn’t happy about it either, and said that bats were vampires that sucked children’s blood.
‘It’s not true, Gló. Luciano isn’t like that. He’s my friend. He knows me.’
‘You and your critter mania, talking to things …’
It was hard work convincing Luís that Luciano wasn’t a critter. To us, Luciano was a plane flying at the Campo dos Afonsos air base.
‘Look, Luís.’
And Luciano would fly happily around us as if he understood what we were saying. And he did.
‘He’s an aeroplane. He’s doing …’
I’d stop. I had to get Uncle Edmundo to tell me that word again. I didn’t know if it was ‘acorbatics’, ‘acrobatics’ or ‘arcobatics’. One of those. But I couldn’t teach my little brother the wrong word.
But now he wanted the zoo.
We got quite close to the old chicken coop. Inside it, the two fair-feathered hens were pecking at the ground, and the old black one was so tame that we could even scratch her head.
‘First let’s buy our tickets. Hold my hand, ’cause it’s easy for children to get lost in this crowd. See how busy it gets on Sundays?’
Luís would look around, see people everywhere, and hold my hand tightly.
At the ticket office I stuck my belly out and cleared my throat to sound important. I put my hand in my pocket and asked the woman, ‘Until what age is entry free?’
‘Five.’
‘So just one adult then, please.’
I took two orange-tree leaves as tickets and we went in.
‘First, son, you’re going to see how beautiful the birds are. Look, parrots, parakeets and macaws of every colour. Those ones over there with the colourful feathers are scarlet macaws.’
His eyes bulged with delight.
We strolled about, looking at everything. We saw so many things that I even noticed Glória and Lalá behind everything else, sitting on the bench peeling oranges. Lalá was eyeing me … Could they have found out? If they had, that zoo visit was going to end with a big paddling on someone’s rear. And that someone could only be me.
‘What’s next, Zezé, what are we going to see now?’
I cleared my throat again and resumed my posture.
‘Let’s go and see the monkeys. Uncle Edmundo calls them simians.’
We bought a few bananas and threw them to the monkeys. We knew it wasn’t allowed, but the guards had their hands too full with such a big crowd.
‘Don’t get too close or they’ll throw banana peel at you, pipsqueak.’
‘I really want to see the lions.’
‘We can go in a minute.’
I shot another look over to where the two other ‘simians’ were eating oranges. I’d be able to hear what they were talking about from the lions’ cage.
‘Here we are.’
I pointed at the two yellow, very African lionesses. Luís said he wanted to pat the black panther’s head.
‘Are you out of your mind, pipsqueak? The black panther is the most terrible animal in the zoo. She was brought here because she’d bitten off and eaten eighteen tamers’ arms.’
Luís looked scared and pulled back his arm in fright.
‘Did she come from a circus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which circus, Zezé? You never told me that before.’
I thought and thought. Who did I know who had a name for a circus?
‘Ah! She came from the Rozemberg Circus.’
‘Isn’t that a bakery?’
It was getting harder and harder to trick him. He was growing smart.
‘That too. We should sit down and have our lunch. We’ve walked a lot.’
We sat down and pretended to be eating. But my ears were pricked, listening to what my sisters were saying.
‘We should learn from him, Lalá. Look how patient he is with Luís.’
‘Yes, but Luís doesn’t do what he does. It’s evil, not mischief.’
‘So he’s got the devil in his blood, but he’s so funny. No one on the street can stay angry at him, no matter what he gets up to …’
‘He’s not passing me without getting a paddling. One day he’ll learn.’
I shot an arrow of pity into Glória’s eyes. She always came to my rescue and I always promised her I wouldn’t do it again.
‘Later. Not now. They’re playing so quietly.’
She already knew everything. She knew that I’d gone through the ditch into Dona Celina’s backyard. I’d been fascinated by the clothes line swinging a bunch of arms and legs in the wind. Then the devil told me that I could make all those arms and legs come tumbling down at the same time. I agreed that it would be really funny. I found a piece of sharp glass in the ditch, climbed up the orange tree and patiently cut the line.
I almost fell down with it. There was a cry and people came running.
‘Help, the line snapped.’
But a voice coming from I don’t know where yelled even louder.
‘It was Seu Paulo’s kid, the little pest. I saw him climbing the orange tree with a piece of glass.’
* * *
‘Zezé?’
‘What, Luís?’
‘How do you know so much about zoos?’
‘I’ve been to a lot of them.’
It was a lie. Everything I knew, Uncle Edmundo had told me. He’d even promised to take me to the zoo one day. But he walked so slowly that by the time we arrived, it wouldn’t even be there any more. Totoca had been once with Father.
