The Thunder of Giants Read online

  Noria Blanco chewed her lip. “Very well. But in exchange, you’re going to do something for me.”

  The next day—Christmas Day—Andorra came downstairs to find Manuela Noguerra was joining them for the Christmas feast. “It’s time that we discuss the next stage of your education,” said Noria Blanco.

  Andorra’s weak little heart grew tense. So far, all the stages of her education had involved private lessons with Noria Blanco. The next stage could only mean one thing. “Am I going to school with other children?” asked Andorra.

  “That would be a terrible idea,” said Noria. “Other children won’t like you. No. Manuela has agreed to take part in your education.”

  Andorra’s heart relaxed. She liked this idea; she was terrified by the thought of those little little girls prancing through the schoolhouse with their whispered words. “How long will we do this?” asked Andorra.

  “Until you’re the same size as everyone else,” said Noria.

  “Will that ever happen?”

  “You’ll know soon enough,” said Manuela.

  Noria Blanco announced she would be teaching poise, etiquette, and a woman’s duty to the family tree; Manuela Noguerra would be in charge of language, geography, and literacy. “Your first assignment,” said Manuela, “is to write your mother back.”

  “Is my mama very important?” asked Andorra.

  “Oh, yes,” said Manuela. “She’s one of the most important people in town.”

  Although she hated being taught by Noria Blanco, Andorra came to adore her time with her strange but loyal aunt. Manuela was an ideal teacher who repeated much of what Geoffrey had taught her back in Madrid. Having not lost her romantic ideals, she was the perfect counterbalance to Noria Blanco’s pragmatic ways. Had Noria Blanco taught geography, for instance, Andorra would have seen only a map of the principality, beyond which were all the dragons that cartographers said flew across dangerous lands. But to Manuela, the world had no dragons. On the day of their first lesson, she unrolled a map of the world and pinned down the corners with pieces of shale. Andorra stood over the world and learned for the first time that, no matter how large she became, she would still be one of the smallest nations on earth. There I am, she thought. A prick between France and Spain, one hundred and eighty miles long.

  “Where’s Mama?” she asked.

  “You tell me,” challenged Manuela.

  The not-so-little girl knew her mama was the most important person in town; she didn’t know exactly where that town was. After some consideration, she traced a line that cut through Spain, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and landed in America—South America. Manuela took her niece’s hand—already, it dwarfed her own—and moved it up through Mexico and into the United States.

  “Are there many theaters in the United States?” asked Andorra, saying each word with care.

  “Hundreds,” said her aunt. “Your mama performs in them all.”

  “One day I’m going to see Mama act in America.”

  “Who knows? Maybe one day your mama will return on her own.”

  “I’ll have to stop growing first,” said Andorra.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I know it’s why they left. If I stop growing, maybe they’ll return.”

  “Your father isn’t gone. He’s in the west wing.”

  “Nobody is in the west wing,” said Andorra, releasing one of her secrets into the world. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen it myself.”

  A shiver went through the loyal Manuela. “Your parents didn’t leave because of your size. Size is not a terrible thing. My grandmother believed that giants were good luck.”

  A giant! It was the first time anyone had ever used the word to describe Andorra—at least in her presence. “Am I a giant?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” said Manuela, kissing her niece’s forehead. “But if you are, then you’re lucky. My grandmother touched a giant when she was a girl, and it changed her life.”

  She told her the story as it had been told to her. Manuela and Elionor’s grandmother had been an orphan, abandoned by her parents because of a terrible affliction: she suffered from epileptic fits.

  “What are epileptic fits?” asked Andorra.

  “Something that’s really a curse,” said Manuela. “It’s like a great storm that takes over your whole body for a short time and makes you shake without stopping. Her parents left her at an orphan’s asylum and disappeared. When she grew up, my grandmother went to a place called Halifax, where she tried to be a lady’s maid. But she lost her job after a seizure struck just as she was ladling soup into her mistress’s bowl. Desperate, she went to see someone called the Infant Giantess, who was rumored to be a saint.”

  “What’s an Infant Giantess?” asked Andorra.

  “She was like you,” said Manuela. “She was a not-so-little girl.”

  “And your grandmother touched her?” said Andorra.

  “That’s right. And as far as I know, she never had a seizure again.”

  As the story went, the frail girl—she was known for her brittle hair and shoehorn face—was completely transformed. Her confidence improved, she was transformed from a dour maid into a cheerful bit of sun. This change did not go unnoticed by a Spanish sailor who was docked in Halifax while his ship was making repairs. He wooed her, and she, having never been wooed, was easily won; she sailed home with him to Madrid, where they retired to a small town not far from that prick between the border of France and Spain.

  “That story is a lie wrapped in an exaggeration,” said Noria Blanco.

  They turned and saw the stunted woman standing in the door, arms crossed in front of her flat little chest. They hadn’t known she was there.

  “My grandmother swore it was true,” said Manuela.

  “Your grandmother was a fool,” said Noria. She was tottering a little, and her breath bore the rich smell of aguardiente. “Read your Bible. Giants are terrible people. That’s why the Lord destroyed them in the flood.”

  “Don’t say such things!” Manuela tried to cover Andorra’s ears.

  “I don’t have to say it. God already has.” Noria Blanco gave her niece a piteous look. “None of this is your fault. It’s the sins of the mother. You’ll just have to find a way to live with it.”

  She staggered away and her footfalls filled the house.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Andorra complained. “Or rather, I don’t know what not to do. I just want to be what she wants me to be.”

  “To hell with her,” said Manuela. “You’re going to be something better.”

  * * *

  NORIA BLANCO GREW HARSHER. More and more often, she was caught with aguardiente on the breath. The household was a runaway cart, careening toward a mountainous wall; the crash came the day Andorra’s breasts began to sprout. She was almost eleven, but this sudden sprint to womanhood so startled Noria Blanco that she resolved to finally take charge of Andorra’s fate.

  “I’m taking her to the capital,” she told Manuela. “Nobody knows us there. She’s still heir to Geoffrey’s money. Someone will want her.”

  “I don’t want to go to the capital,” said Andorra.

  “Don’t be difficult!” snapped Noria. “Remember the story of Job. The test is how we respond to the challenges the Lord provides. We all must find a way to endure.”

  Andorra’s poor little heart shook. She had been in virtual isolation her entire life. The thought of the capital—of anywhere—was euphoric. But not if it meant marriage. Not if it meant dealing with men. She had no understanding of men. That terrible doctor was one of the only men she had ever seen.

  “This is absurd,” said Manuela. “She’s only ten.”

  “Not anymore,” said Noria Blanco. “From now on, if anyone asks, she’s seventeen and a half.”

  Tormented, Manuela Noguerra thundered back to the Valira River and demanded Elionor reclaim her rights as a mother. But by then, Elionor had been living with her terrible condition for almost a decade
. She had learned to survive but not how to triumph. There are other curses besides size and fistulas; shame is a curse, too, and it had seeped into Elionor’s bones. “A husband is not always a bad thing,” said Andorra’s mother. “At least she’ll be provided for.”

  “You’re being ‘provided for’!” Manuela Noguerra swept her arm around the dilapidated shack, pointing to the rotted wood, the flies, the cracked plates. “Is this all you want for her?”

  “It might be the best she can ever hope for.”

  “Maybe Geoffrey will help. He’s still her father.”

  Andorra’s mother smiled sadly. “You always had too much faith in him.”

  “And you never had enough.”

  “Why put your faith in something made of stone?”

  “I wish you really were in America,” spat Manuela. “You’d be a lot more good there than you ever were here.”

  It was the closest she ever came to betrayal; it was the harshest thing that loyal girl had ever said.

  Two mornings later, Manuela Noguerra shook Andorra awake. It was a week before Christmas and she had decided to give her niece a gift. “Get dressed,” she said. “We’re going to see your father.” Stunned by the news, the not-so-little girl practically threw herself into her favorite dress. She put on soft flat slippers and wore her hair down in order to lessen her height. She was still fighting with her hair when Manuela returned to lead her to the west wing.

  “You look beautiful, mi amor,” said Manuela.

  “I just hope I look like I’ve stopped growing,” said the not-so-little girl.

  Geoffrey del Alandra had only just returned from his latest trip with the smugglers. They found him, dirty and hairy, lying on one of the covered couches. He was an echo of Noria Blanco; as her twin, he bore the resemblance that made it seem to Andorra she had been staring at him all her life. The room had the odor of iniquity—of tobacco, of opium, of unhappy thoughts.

  “So it’s you,” said Geoffrey. He was toying with a broken guitar, idly plucking its one remaining string. “Well, come on over. You might as well give me a kiss.”

  Manuela led Andorra to the couch. Andorra grimaced at the smell as she kissed his cheek. He grimaced too as her shadow fell over him. How absurd it had been to ever hope she could appear as something small! Encased by the low ceiling, her condition was all too clear. She understood then what she was—or rather, what she was on her way to become.

  Manuela had probably practiced a speech full of pretty phrases, but upon seeing Geoffrey in beard and rags, she was suddenly filled with rage. After Andorra kissed her father’s cheek, the loyal Manuela slapped the very same spot. This so stunned them that no one moved until Manuela, so relieved by the act, performed it a second time. Now Andorra’s father tried to roll away. But he wasn’t fast enough, and Manuela beat him with her fists, driving him to curl into a ball at the foot of the couch. At last, Andorra stepped in and grabbed her loyal aunt by the wrists. They were both surprised by her strength. The not-so-little girl was able to drive her aunt toward the other side of the room.

  Geoffrey struggled to sit up. His face was red and bruised, and the attack had drawn tears instead of blood.

  “I knew it!” crowed Manuela in triumph. “You aren’t made of stone at all.”

  They began to tell him everything that had been happening in the house, but it wasn’t necessary. He was aware of everything. His crime was not ignorance; it was indifference. Andorra suddenly saw the weakness in her father. It wasn’t a weakness of body—the months of travel had kept him strong. But, like her, he had a soft heart. His spirit was cracked.

  “Elionor calls me a romantic,” said Manuela. “But so what? You accepted your responsibility once. There’s no reason you won’t do it again.”

  “I don’t know what you would have me do.”

  “Noria’s right about one thing—Andorra should be taken away.”

  “I don’t want to go away,” said Andorra.

  “You deserve to be something other than someone’s embarrassing secret,” said Manuela. “You both do.”

  She told Andorra to wait outside. Andorra, feeling out of her depth, happily fled from the room. She nearly fled down the stairs, too, but at the last moment she positioned herself outside the door. She wanted to be nearby in case Manuela attacked Geoffrey again.

  “There’s nothing for you here,” Andorra heard her aunt say. “Nobody wants you to stay.”

  “What about Elionor?” asked Geoffrey.

  “Why would she want you here? What good have you ever been to her?”

  Andorra heard a muffled sound. She wondered if her father was crying again.

  “You will steal money from your sister,” said Manuela. “You will leave using those secret roads you know so well, and you will get as far from here as you can. Go anywhere you like. Go to America, if you want.”

  “America’s not the place you think it is,” growled Geoffrey. “Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably nothing but a lot of myths.”

  “I know they like freedom there,” said Manuela. “Maybe they’ll give her the freedom to be whatever she wants to be.” Her voice softened. “You can be something else, too. You want to escape this place, don’t you? Then escape. In America, you can have a history made up entirely of lies.”

  They summoned Andorra back into the room, and when they told her their plan, she pretended to be hearing it for the first time. She did not weep, but there were tears on her cheeks. She didn’t want to leave. She definitely didn’t want to leave with her father. He was hardly the hero she needed. How could he ever lead her through the world?

  “I want you to come,” she told Manuela.

  “I have to stay here.”

  “How long will we go? How long will I be away?”

  “Forever,” said her aunt.

  “Does Noria know about this?”

  “Noria definitely does not know about this. And we have to keep it that way.”

  “Do I get to say good-bye?”

  “Say good-bye,” said Manuela. “Just don’t let her know you’re saying good-bye.”

  Andorra fought to find something good to look forward to. “If we go to the United States, can we see Mama act?”

  The faithful Manuela, who had started the lie, could not bring herself to end it. She looked at Geoffrey and then back at her niece. “You’ll know soon enough,” she said.

  * * *

  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS EVE, the not-so-little girl did as she had been told: she said good-bye but did not let Noria know she was saying good-bye. “Good night, Auntie,” she said to the stunted woman. Noria Blanco barely replied. She was so drunk on wine that she could do little more than blink. Later, bundled in a cloak, possessions packed tightly into a single valise, Andorra walked right past Noria’s room. The door wasn’t even closed, and her last glimpse of her terrible aunt was the sight of the woman sprawled on her stomach, drooling into a pillow and emitting the type of snore reserved for mythical beasts.

  She met her father at the back of the house, and together they slipped into the trees. Like the Rapunzel she was, Andorra fled the tower and never looked back. She imagined the air smelled different, even though they were only steps from the house. But the thrill of freedom was quickly tempered by her father. Instead of leading her to the smuggler’s roads, Geoffrey took her to banks of the Valira River—and as they walked, he told her who they were going to see. She had received her father for Christmas; now she was receiving her mother too. Andorra would have many weeks (and months and years) to consider this ambush. One has to be careful what is told to children; one has to be careful what is untold to them, too.

  “I’m sorry,” said Geoffrey. “I just thought the longer we waited, the worse it would be.”

  The young Andorra took the truth in silence: it was a bitter pill, and she actually felt herself struggle to swallow it whole.

  “Who wrote me those letters?” she asked.

  “Your mother. But she wrote them
from here.”

  “She’s been here the whole time.”

  “We both have.”

  “Here but not here.”

  “Here but not here,” said her father.

  “And now we’re going to say good-bye?” said Andorra.

  “If we see her,” said Geoffrey.

  “And it’s a real good-bye? She knows when we say good-bye that we’re really saying good-bye?”

  “She should. Manuela told her we’re leaving.”

  “But doesn’t she want to come with us?”

  “She may want to,” said Geoffrey “But I don’t think she will.”

  When they emerged from the trees, they were not far from the pathetic shack that Elionor had made her asylum. They appeared at the worst possible time. By now the parish physician had developed a special apparatus that Elionor could wear beneath her dress, one that caught the urine and feces as they leaked away. The doctor was especially proud of this device, which he championed as the height of ingenuity. It involved a small cup that rested between her legs and funneled into a small bag strapped around her thigh. This bag always needed to be cleaned. This was what Elionor was doing when her husband and daughter stepped from the trees. They came into view just as she was spilling her own shit into the earth.

  Andorra believed she remembered her mother at once, but it would be a wonder if this was true. She had been an infant when Elionor left and in the time since, the woman had aged almost twenty years. She was brittle and frail. Some of her hair had actually fallen out.

  “Mama,” said Andorra softly. “Mama, hello.”

  Her mother stopped at the sound, the empty bag in her hand. She might have been a wild deer, frozen in place, a heartbeat away from escape. Then Elionor’s body shifted—perhaps she was turning toward Andorra, perhaps she was turning away. But the ground was wet with her filth, and she slipped. She fell hard. Elionor looked at her hands, now covered with shit and piss, and released a small cry of horror that resembled the squeak of a lost bird. Then she did as she always had: she ran away. In a moment she was gone, cowering behind the broken door of the shack.

  Andorra misunderstood the moment entirely. At ten years old, she was almost five and a half feet tall. In her mother’s face, Andorra imagined she saw nothing but terror and rage. Terror at her daughter’s size. And rage because she had been caught with her shame spilling into the world.