A strange writer
Isabella would not stop singing as Marianna held on to her hand in a tight grip while they were flying over Portokalia. The houses did not have roofs and Marianna could see what was going on inside. Children playing, moms and dads cooking, some were reading and others were kissing. None of them had television!
Marianna took an opportunity to ask about the roofs when Isabella stopped her singing…
“Roofs, Roofs? Of course we have roofs for our homes!”
“Why can’t I see them?”
“We put them away when the sun comes out! Sunlight goes in and cleans them. It’s like living in the country. When it rains we put the roofs back in. It never snows here-the phrase “white as snow” we read in books, is inconceivable here. Some folks let the rain in. Instead of a floor they like green grass in their rooms. They only cover the furniture when it rains.
This idea, the “portable roof” was discovered by my great-great grandfather, who was none other than the greatest inventor in Portokalia: Juan Ramon Louis Bertrand! He was the first who made the towers out of orange juice and no matter how much you drink it never finishes. He discovered the flying books that you can read while flying. The wallet with the orange-money that never runs out, also the machine that turns kumquat seeds in jam in three minutes. The memory machine for names that you forget, and the apricot ice cream with the almonds! And finally, the orange dessert! Take a piece of paper and write down the recipe: It will blow your mind! You don’t have a pencil? Watch me! Pencil-paper, come! ”
All of a sudden with great speed, right out of the sky, appeared some paper with a perfectly sharpened pencil.
“Write!” Isabella said, and started reciting the recipe:
Ingredients
6 bottles of still orange juice
3 sachets of powdered cream
3 table spoons of sugar
1 ½ pack of Miranda biscuits
Optionally: almond or hazelnut threshed
Preparation
Heat the orange juice and stir with powdered cream and sugar. Leave to cool.
Spread in a clear pan a layer of biscuits. Pour in half the cream. We spread another layer of biscuits. We pour the rest of the cream. Optionally, we may put on top threshed hazelnut or almond. Leave in the refrigerator for two-three hours.
The pencil was writing with great speed and perfect…grammar. As soon as the recipe was written down, Isabella folded the paper and handed it to Marianna.
“This is my mother’s recipe. The pencil-paper that write on command, is my great-great grandfather’s invention! He won Portokalia’s greatest award for that: 3000 children’s smiles…Now look down! You’ll see one more of my great-great grandfather’s inventions. A piano-typewriter! He received the Union Composers Authors of Portokalia Award for it.
The truth is that he discovered it for a writer he felt unrequited love for– my great-great grandmother. He would send her presents and make her promises, but she remained rigid.
Until the day he made the piano-typewriter. She then realized that no one would love her more. They lived together from then on, but she never wrote on the piano-typewriter. She told him that she did not want him to think that she only married him for the magical piano-typewriter. It was enough for her that he made it, showing her his love…
…The piano-typewriter stayed in the sitting-room, unused-a sample of their love. The first person who dared to touch it was Maria-Louisa Korvalan-my mother and much loved writer of children’s books of Portokalia.
There she is now!”
Marianna looked down and saw a woman with long hair and an orange-yellow dress with letters on it. Around her ten cups of tea and coffee floated around her.
Isabella pulled out a magazine clipping and read:
…”The writer, is a woman that words and stories live inside of her. When we met her she was wearing flowers for rings and blue heels. She said, with those heels she would travel to the clouds whenever she got bored in Portokalia. She liked to drink dream coffees with a colorful friend. They often do favors for one another. “Place me inside your book”, “Stick me in one of your paintings!” They would go in fairytales together! She had a piano-typewriter where she can listen to music of her words when she writes. It’s the well-known invention of Juan Ramon Louis Bertrand, her grandfather, for whom she wrote the book: Juan the Orangeade...”
Isabella stopped reading and cried out beneath her:
“Mom, look what is written in Portokalian News”.
The writer turned as Isabella made the clipping into a paper plane and sent it down to her. “Are you busy? May we come?”
“Come! I am waiting for Soledad to paint together. What is your friend’s name?”
“This is Marianna from Greece”, Isabella said.
“Oh Greece, it is such a magical country! We had gone with your father before you were born. To the prettiest cave I have ever seen. With all those colors…Oh hello Marianna. Would you like some tangerine juice? I brought the tangerine tree from an island that starts with the letter C, four letters...”
“From Chio”, Marianna said. “It has the most aromatic tangerines in the world!”
The writer, Maria-Louisa, went to the far end of the room-where they had landed-and cut some tangerines from the tree that spread its branches over the piano-type writer…Beautiful music was heard.
“That’ll be the doorbell! I’ll get it”, Isabella said.
She came back holding hands with a woman that held in her other hand a basket filled with carrots, paintbrushes, a bottle of red wine, and various green salads…
“This is Soledad”, said Isabella. “I’d like you to meet Marianna from Greece”. “Greece! Oh the blue seas, the green, the orange trees, the unbelievable Light…”
She reached inside her pocket and took out a big painting with dolphins. “Another of my great-great grandfather’s inventions: Pockets big enough to fit paintings”, whispered Isabella.