When the Mountains Held the Sky

Chapter 1- Nella

Chapter One- Nella

Nella looked like a star from the vivid color of her skin, onyx black. She glistened from the oil massaged on her, Her maid did the massage, skin upon skin, Nella felt relaxed and hot from the oil. If she were to visit the garden at the back of the manor she would soon fry under the glare of the sun.

As the only child and daughter of a diamond peddler who wielded vast power and wealth to maintain the secrecy and silence of his deed, she never knew pain. Her father was already wealthy when she was born into the world with such ease, her mother fell asleep giving birth to her.

Indeed, she looked like a star when born. Starlight, exposed to the sun, she was wrapped in soft linen and placed within the cavern of a basket weave. They say, she had a perverse look about her. Something about her expression was unacceptable to the midwives who saw her, added to the fact that she was a girl when a boy was preferred. In other words, she was a girl who looked like a boy. They decided to massage her to the precise shape of a girl like putting her into a kiln and pulling her out from the heat and cooling her with water and wet flowers.

Naturally she grew up like a tomboy, an androgyny who had no choice but to become a girl when every curvature about her screamed she wanted to be a boy. She played with the children of the maids. She was encouraged to fail in the games when she was particularly driven to win.

They played beneath the scratching wind about the wide leaves of trees. They played ignoring the forlorn afternoons as clouds of dust swirled about their bare feet.

One day, Nella’s mother succumbed to a chronic cough. She did not wake up one morning, her lungs filled up with phlegm. For the first time in Nella’s life she saw her father weep, tearing his clothes apart to curse the fates that swept his wife towards the unknown dimensions of the afterlife. The door was closed before she could enter. They thought it was inappropriate for her to see her father weep rather than see her mother lying still with nary a breath from her green lips.

Nella and her mother were not the best of friends. Her mother insisted her daughter to follow the path of a girl in hopes that she would turn into a woman, someday, soft and nurturing of the man she would marry.

She asked nothing more of Nella. Once she had given her husband children, she would disappear into the background like an ornament only, her beauty the only feature that would remain of a life she once had and nevermore. She would reappear once the grandchildren were born and she would claim her position as the nurturer of, hopefully, a brood of grandchildren.

“Ouch” She exclaimed while held by her partner in a dance.

Nella innocently tried to be the way they sought her to be. But it would slip from her bones, the kind of girl she truly was. She wanted to move most of the time. Motion was her form of expression. They all thought perhaps she would find dancing a better way to spend her time, to control the beast she carries and redirect to a more feminine nature.

“But I would still like to play” She complained.

“Enough of the games. You must learn to be a woman now. Do you understand” One of her strict aunts insisted she become.

And so, she was taught to dance and to stop the afternoon activities of play. She danced all afternoon in the company of cousins who also took to having dancing lessons to accompany her. She was paired with a discreet homosexual to dance with so that nothing unspeakable would develop between her and her partner in dance. All these things were done in accordance to a ritual of forming her womanhood, all the while Nella could not understand what they were doing to her but followed instructions and thought, they meant the best for her.

As she grew to a height as tall as a man due to her neck which everyone agreed saved her most. It had a dark swan’s grace for it was without angle, all curvature to hold a round head with hair cut close to the skin of her skull.

Nella’s eyes slanted like a Chinese, with a petulant nose to provoke anyone who dared come close to her and a mouth, round and ashen black.

Nella grew up, not knowing anything at all. There were parties she was finally introduced to. Men surrounded her for their chance to dance with the princess-like, young woman of wealth, grace and beauty.

Her beauty or how she turned out to be was renowned throughout Nigeria, the land of the most beautiful people in Africa. Without a mother to shape the course of her life, a tirade of matronly maids tried to control her. One after another, they all tried their best but earnestly, she was like a young foal who formed her own self. And the amalgamation was a result of years of insouciance and innocence, something which everybody could not explain. For Nella was her own true self and the moment of her marriage was at hand.

***

The Spaniard Mestizo heard a rumor about the stone. He had been about the world in search of perfect stones for their jewelry shop. Their shop was located above the mountains of the Cordillera. A compound of houses was built around a wide and white shaft of a waterfall.

Within the depths of the rainforest, they labored to produce the best jewelry in the world. In hushed terms, jewelry were made for mistresses and celebrities without revealing who they were for, they were not named.

His name is Gabriel Samaniego and is the eldest of two brothers. He did not design the jewels himself but was the pilot of the shop and busied himself selling their wares to clients abroad. Also, he had an eye for perfect stones and would buy them from wherever in the world to bring home for his younger brother to design into precisely crafted ornaments.

Rumor was that there was a stone, a white diamond, that belonged to a reclusive business owner who was finally selling it for a price: that the buyer be a delectable one and that he was to marry his daughter whose beauty and illustriousness complemented the stone itself.

He first saw her playing chess with her father in the living room of their grand manor. The moment he saw her he came to believe in the image of her with a train on her head, white as the waterfalls where he would hold his wedding.

Nella was demure but something within her reminded Gabriel of a foal struggling for release but which she suppressed for some reason or another. From the light of the sun which slipped like a ray of light and touched her shiny skin, she looked perfect.

A woman came in bringing a cache with a stone on top. It was the diamond, white as she was black. Like the yin to the yang of Chinese traditions. It was laid on the bed of velvet and he reached out to touch the stone for he could not touch her, not yet, at the very least. The cold stone sanitized every profane thought he had in his mind and turned to the girl’s cheek whose high cheekbones felt like a bruise.

He thought of his mother in the mountains. How they would regard her as his bride and found no resistance to idea of her as his wife. He nodded and agreed to buy the stone with the girl.

Gabriel held everything in place in their business of jewelry making. He bought the stones, the gold were mined nearby and the best resource they had was his brother, Likay who from childhood learned how to draw with raw pencil and paper.

Given more valuable tools for drawing jewelry he grew up to draw designs studied from their environment. Likay would draw fireflies and various insects such as bees and moths. From his drawings, jewelry makers would create them with resin and valuable stones which Gabriel would deliver himself to the client wherever in the world they would be.

He had a retinue of women to amuse him as he traveled. But this woman was pure as the waters of the falls. And he had deep respect for her as he did for the white diamond.

Gabriel promised to keep their transaction a secret and the father of the bride did not have to explain why he could not join the wedding and why he would never visit her there. She would be endangered and there lay the cusp of the matter. Once he bought the diamond, there was no turning back. He was to let go of his daughter as well. And they all agreed to the implied decision and arrangement of this marriage.

That night, he slept in a room with nipa fans rotating above him, and sweated. He thought of her long pole of a neck and imagined kissing her there. He imploded in his sleep and realized this upon waking up. He tried to sleep again but could not and thought of the icy nature of the stone, as well as Nella’s skin as though his hand played on the cold waters of the falls.

Beside her, at the table during breakfast he felt quiet, and yet he spoke of various things such as the compound where they lived and how Nella would like their home.

“You will like it there. We will teach you how to make jewelry and there would never be a time for boredom for you.” Gabriel explained.

He noticed Nella’s hand quiver as she dipped her bread in olive oil and ate it. He reached for the bread and handed it to her. His hand brushed against her fingers and she pulled her hand back sharply as though his touch was heat in contrast to her icy senses.

Soon they were ready to leave. She walked like a princess with her head held high, kissed her father goodbye and boarded the car without looking back.

***