2026-02-06 07:13:12Five years went as pages in a book which no one felt in a hurry to complete.
The Lagos house had developed roots of its own.
The initial mango tree was now in the half-shade of the courtyard; the second, which they had had when they came home to Scotland, was nearly as high, and their branches were almost touching each other, like old acquaintances. There were now dozens of them, of various sizes, various tones, one or other had been acquired in various cities t
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What was left was nothing but life
The headland house had reached thirty-eight.Its white walls had long since turned cream with age and sun and salt. Seven times the blue shutters were repainted--they had always been the same color as though it were a traditional color. The bare feet and time had bequathed to the terrace stones a softness, the mango-trees had now formed a small grove, the branches of the mango-trees were so heavy that they had to be supported in years of heavy fruit.Sofia was thirty.She had been married twelve years before in that mute ceremony of the cliff-top, to which her parents had resorted--officiant the same, sea the same, and guests the same. They had two children now: Nine, Elena, with her dark curls and fearless inquiries, already overshadowed in height by most of the girls in her grade. Theo, six--mute like his grandfather, and always occupies his hands with sticks and stones and little carvings.All
The sound of tomorrow
The headland house had become thirty-one in the patient stone and timber do--new beams where the salt had eaten the old ones, a broader terrace now that Sofia was beginning to bring friends home at university, solar panels that render the electricity bill a thing of the past. The mango-trees were monsters--stump trunks, the broad canopies of which shaded the courtyard so grey even at noon. The bells had swarmed into some silent constellation, a few were rusted soft silver, the rest were still shiny, and hung in loose circles over the trellis, the wall, a few even on the low boughs, so that even the trees were singing.Sofia was twenty-three.The previous spring she had completed her master’s in Copenhagen thesis on the predictive modeling of coastal erosion and it had already been mentioned in two EU policy briefs. She was now a remote employee of a small NGO which advised island countries on how to adapt to climate changes- da
The Bells that are Left
The headland house was now twenty-five, in the silent manner of old houses--new roof-tiles where the sea wind had blown away the old, new white-wash after every third spring, a small array of solar panels on the south slope, which hummed their way through many summer days.Sofia was seventeen.She was tall as her father was, and the kid had the eyes of her mother, and the hands of Julian, and the ear of Lila, who could hear people out to the last word they had yet to discover how to say. The data science of the environment at Lisbon--she got there by train three days a week and the rest of the time at home. She continued to speak to the bells where nobody could hear.It was on a late June evening, when the sun was still high, and the air reeking with rosemary and salt, that they were sitting on the terrace when the light changed to gold.Sofia was the last to come, with the backpack on one shoulder, and her hair blown all tangled b
Sofia was Seven
In the manner houses do the house on the headland had become fifteen years old, small mending, some new paint on the shutters, a broken tile here and there. The mango trees had long ago grown far beyond the pots in which they were placed, and they were now firmly established in the garden-soil, with their branches loaded every summer. The bells in dozens, tarnished, others shining, hung to the trellis and the low stone wall which fringed the road leading to the sea.Sofia was seven.She possessed the black hair, the silent eyes of Luca and the obstinate chin of Julian, the curiousness of Lila. She ran with naked feet on the terrace, and gathered shells in a broken blue bucket, and addressed the bells as though they should be able to hear.One crisp October morning--sea-salt and pine-trees stinging in the air--she was in the workshop one morning, and Julian was there.He was polishing the weapons of a new rocking chair--
The Child that Listened
The crib Julian had constructed was complete in the little room which they had painted pale blue the previous spring. Oak, plain lines, the two mango leaves cut in the headboard and now smooth where little fingers would some day follow them. Further above it was one bell--little, silver, the first that Luca had ever brought out of Scotland. It fell on the morning sun through the eastern window, and sprinkled soft flecks upon the walls.Sofia came in the beginning of May--little, dark, lungs full of protest at the cold hospital air. Marina was embracing her to her chest and Luca was standing near the bed with one hand on the shoulder of his wife, and the other hand just brushing the cheek of the baby as though she would disappear back into nothingness if he moved too quickly.Three days later they took her home.The house waited--quiet, ready. Lila had hung fairy lights of white, along the railing of the
The Bell
The headland house was now a time place. The mornings were received in the same gray light, through blue shutters. Evenings were closed as before and the same low fire in the fireplace, the same clicking of the glasses on the terrace table, the same soft ring of bells when the wind was offshore.Luca was thirty now. As a slight ceremony on the cliffs, two summers before, Marina was made Marina Mercer--there were no guests, only the four of them, and an officiant of the place, and the sea itself. She still learned how to calculate the tides; he still invented instruments that revealed hidden money. The house was their home most and they only went out when they were summoned to work and were never late to get home before the first autumn storm.The workshop where Julian worked was no noisier these days. He was slower in his works, took months to select the projects rather than weeks. His
