New by Abraham Rothberg:
Pinocchio’s Sister
~ A
Feminist Fable
$11.95
Printed: 159 pages, 6.0 x 9.0 in.,
Perfect-bound,
$4.23 Download: PDF (435 kb)
ISBN: 1-4116-4347-X
One: Geppetto The Wood Carver
A day came when Geppetto the
woodcarver grew tired of the cold. The winter was so bitter, it froze his
nose, his toes and made his fingertips tingle and burn. The cold was so
bad it made Geppetto limp more on his lame leg. He couldn’t walk very
quickly or very far, yet because fires had burned the thick woods near
their town, each day he had to walk farther and farther into the forest to
find the wood he needed to carve and feed the fire to keep them warm. Each
day he found less and less wood to bring back.
Since Pinocchio had changed from a marionette into a
real live boy, Geppetto’s house was too small for them. It had only two
rooms, one of them Geppetto’s workshop, and now that Pinocchio was flesh
and blood, Geppetto couldn’t just hang him up on a peg on the wall as he
used to do when the boy was still a marionette. The simple old furniture
would no longer do either. Geppetto owned only a single tumbledown bed
with room in it for only one person. He himself was too old to sleep
nights on the floor, then do his woodcarving the next day.
He didn’t want Pinocchio to sleep on the floor, but
what could he do? There was no money to buy another bed.
At first, Geppetto tried to make a bed for Pinocchio
on the rickety kitchen table where they ate, but the swaying table made
Pinocchio seasick. If he turned in his sleep, he rolled off the table and
fell to the floor, yelling, “Help me, Father, help me!” Frightened awake,
Geppetto would jump out of his tumbledown bed, rush to light the stub of
candle or the lamp, when they had a little oil for it, to see what was
wrong. What he was afraid of most was that Pinocchio was being turned back
into a marionette. It was a nightmare that kept him awake many a night
when he found Pinocchio lying on the floor, weeping and rubbing the bumps
on his head.
Between them they had only one worn thin blanket so
old and faded that Geppetto could no longer remember what color it had
been, or how he had come by it. So threadbare was it that Geppetto thought
that one day the blanket might simply blow away like dust. Barely long
enough and wide enough to cover him from his neck to his ankles, the
blanket was also not very warm. Though Geppetto offered it to Pinocchio,
the boy wouldn’t take it. “You must keep the blanket, Father,” Pinocchio
said, “or you will be too cold.”
Most often Pinocchio slept on the ground covered with
straw a neighbor had given Geppetto from his barn when Geppetto had fixed
the neighbor’s fence. On the coldest nights, Geppetto slipped from his bed
to cover the sleeping Pinocchio, who lay shivering beneath the straw. The
rest of the night, Geppetto would dance up and down in front of the dying
fire, first on one leg, then on the other, slapping his arms and thighs to
keep warm. When the first light leaked into the room from the window under
the staircase, Geppetto would steal the blanket back from Pinocchio so
that the boy would think he had kept the blanket for himself through the
night. Then he would wrap himself in it and huddle before the cold coals
in the fireplace until Pinocchio awoke.
Geppetto looked everywhere for work, but no one seemed
to need the work of a master woodcarver, or even of an ordinary carpenter,
work Geppetto was more than willing to do to earn the little money they
needed for food, candles and oil for the lamp. That season the rickety
table on which they ate their meals did not see much food. Sometimes they
had no food at all, and they went hungry.
Every day Geppetto went into the forests to search for
wood to work and burn in the fireplace to warm them a little during the
nights. “Please, Father,” Pinocchio begged, “let me go with you. Let me
help you.”
“You must go to school, Pinocchio, so you will not be
an ignorant man like me. Then you won’t have to be a poor woodcarver and
go hungry.” No matter how much Pinocchio pleaded, Geppetto wouldn’t change
his mind.
On the weekends, though, Geppetto did allow Pinocchio
to go to the fields and forests with him. Together, they searched for
mushrooms, berries, nuts and wild grasses which Geppetto used to cook up
hot, tasty soups, which not only served as food but kept them warmer.
Sometimes, when Geppetto earned a little money, he would buy polenta, the
corn-meal mush they liked, or flour for the flat bread they baked on the
hearth over the fireplace. He would make the mushrooms into a gravy to
pour over the polenta or the bread, and they would eat it with relish.
Geppetto always saw to it that Pinocchio got more than
his share. “You’re a growing boy. You need more food than an old man like
me.”
Still Pinocchio never ate his fill. Always hungry, his
stomach growling like a bear because it was empty, Pinocchio made up his
mind that somehow he would find them more to eat, more wood to keep them
warm, but how?
One weekend Pinocchio was in the forest searching for
mushrooms so hard that he lost sight of Geppetto and forgot where he was.
When he looked up, Pinocchio found himself in the deepest, darkest part of
the forest, a place he had never been before. Everything was strange and
shadowy, and he was very frightened. Every small noise made him tremble.
He called out to Geppetto, but no one answered. Again and again he called,
but only his own voice came echoing back, “Gep... pee… tto… ooo…”
Somehow, Pinocchio had taken a wrong turn, but which
way should he turn now? First he went one way, then another. Everything
was unfamiliar. He couldn’t find a path or a trail. He was lost. He was
tired. He was hungry. The hollow rumble in his stomach reminded him that
he had eaten nothing since the small bowl of mushroom soup and piece of
stale bread Geppetto had given him for breakfast.
Evening was coming but no moon rose. Pinocchio
couldn’t find a single star in the sky. Night settled, the forest grew
darker, then turned pitch-black. More and more frightened, Pinocchio sat
on the frozen ground with his back against a giant oak tree. As the night
got colder, he covered himself with leaves, then with green branches he
broke from the fir trees. Still he couldn’t get warm. His teeth kept
chattering, his shoulders shook. He thought about Geppetto’s little house
and the fire in the hearth, about how much better than this even his bed
of straw was. At last he thought about his guardian angel, the Lady
Greensleeves. No sooner did he think of her and hear her song humming in
his head:
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight;
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?
Then there she was, hovering
over him with a whirr of wings like a hummingbird’s. Surrounded by a great
halo of golden light, her long, green-gold hair streaming behind her, her
greensleeved arms outstretched, she said, “My poor Pinocchio, are you
lost?”
“Of course I’m lost. You know I’m lost. Why else would
I sit here by myself in the forest crying?”
As she looked down on him, the Lady Greensleeves’
heart was touched by how miserably poor Pinocchio looked, how forlorn, but
she reminded him, “You must learn not to pity yourself so much,
Pinocchio.”
“I’m cold and hungry.”
“Many people are cold and hungry, and they don’t go
about complaining all the time.”
Pinocchio began to shiver. Great, deep sighs came from
his mouth like smoke.
“Oh, my dear boy, you must not cry. You must not sigh.
Haven’t I helped you before?”
“Sometimes. Not always. Remember when those assassins
hanged me from that giant oak? You left me hanging up there with the noose
around my neck choking me almost to death.”
“I saved you, Pinocchio, didn’t I?”
“Only at the last minute, when I was half-dead.”
“My minions told me that you were a lazy, rude,
good-for- nothing rascal who deserved to be punished. They accused you of
being a disobedient son who was breaking his father’s heart. Yet I saved
you anyway. Aren’t you grateful for that?”
Stubbornly Pinocchio shook his head. He didn’t care
about what happened before. The past was all past. He was shivering with
cold now. His stomach was churning with hunger now.
“Do you remember why I saved your life, Pinocchio?”
Again Pinocchio shook his head. That was then. This
was now. Why did the Lady Greensleeves have to go on about then when he
was suffering now?
“I saved your life because as you were about to die,
you thought of your poor old father. Aren’t you worried about Geppetto
now? He’s lost in the forest just as you are, but he’s not worrying about
himself. He’s only worrying about you.”
“I’m so cold and hungry I can’t think about anybody
else. Besides, he’s a man and I’m only a boy.” Pinocchio began to cry
piteously. “Won’t you help me now?”
“You were only a marionette then, not a real boy.”
“Don’t you think marionettes have feelings? The wind
was shrieking and moaning, blowing me around like a dandelion. The noose
choked me so I couldn’t catch my breath,” Pinocchio complained. “I’m a
good boy now. I obey my father. I help him chop and gather wood. I pick
mushrooms, berries and nuts. I go to school. What more can I do?”
“Yes, Pinocchio, I know. Which is why I’m here to help
you. If I rescued you when you were only a wooden marionette and a rascal,
how could you think I wouldn’t help you when you were a good,
flesh-and-blood boy? Don’t you have any faith?”
Before Pinocchio could answer, the Lady Greensleeves
clapped her hands three times and Pinocchio found himself in a room with
mother-of-pearl walls, marble floors and a ceiling painted with brilliant
suns and pale moons, flickering stars and shimmering planets, with
exploding meteors that had all the colors of the rainbow and luminous
comets dragging their long tails across the sky. The room was filled with
light though Pinocchio couldn’t see a single lamp or candle.
Sitting up in a great four-poster bed so soft it felt
like he was floating in it, his back propped against soft pillows that
smelled of jasmine and violets, Pinocchio was wrapped in a thick blanket,
a down pillow warmed his toes. In his lap sat of steaming stew full of
chunks of white chicken, beans and barley. Hot, freshly baked buns dotted
with raisins were piled high in a silver basket. Next to it a small dish
glistened with sunny butter. A sparkling crystal bowl was overflowing with
all sorts of fruits Pinocchio had never seen before. He had to ask the
Lady Greensleeves to tell him how to eat bananas and grapefruits,
pineapples and Mandarin oranges. With all the smiling patience of a
mother, she showed him how to peel the banana, how to section a grapefruit
and Mandarin orange, how to slice a pineapple. She fed him until Pinocchio
felt strong enough to feed himself. Then he began to eat hungrily.
“Slow, Pinocchio,” Lady Greensleeves cautioned. “Don’t
eat so fast. If you do, you’ll be sick.”
But Pinocchio didn’t listen. Famished, he ate with
both hands, cramming food into his mouth. With his mouth full, he said,
“Never have I eaten such food! It’s so delicious!”
“Please, Pinocchio, you mustn’t talk with your mouth
full. And you mustn’t eat so much so quickly. You’re going to regret it.”
Regret it Pinocchio soon did. Before, his stomach had
grumbled because it was empty; now, it grumbled because it was too full.
Stuffed and sick, Pinocchio felt he couldn’t keep a morsel of all that
wonderful food down. He had to give it all back.
Lady Greensleeves didn’t scold him. She didn’t say I
told you so, though she was tempted to. Instead, she took him to a
bathroom, all mirrors and marble. Such a room Pinocchio had never
imagined. There, like a kind, calm mother, Lady Greensleeves washed him
and wrapped him in a great, warm towel before putting him to bed once
more. This time she fed him herself, slowly, teaspoon by teaspoon of a
delicious tea which soon put his stomach at peace. As his eyes began to
close, Pinocchio felt her cool fingers on his forehead. “Ah,” he murmured,
half to himself, “if only I could have a mother like you.”
For a long time the Lady Greensleeves sat at
Pinocchio’s bedside looking down on the boy’s face as he slept. She felt
very sorry for him. A mother, is that what Pinocchio wanted? Well, she
couldn’t quite manage that, but….
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Sister ~ A Feminist Fable in
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