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The Exile
- Tagus Press at UMass Dartmouth
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Fernando Noronha grappled with the box that had arrived with the morning mail and brought it into the house. The mailman made some comment, but Fernando’s English was not good, and he was too excited and impatient to try to decipher what the man had said. “Yes, yes,” Fernando said, waving the man away and closing the door quickly behind him. He carried the box into the kitchen as if it were a precious treasure and carefully set it on the table. There was a springiness and joy to his movements that had long been absent. It is a treasure, he thought. He sniffed the box in delight, able to smell, even through the cardboard, the paper wrappings and tape, the scent of home. “At last,” he said, trembling with excitement. A box full of Azorean soil. Sent all the way from the islands, so many months in transit, and such a large, heavy box, too. And safe, not opened or damaged by careless handlers, not mislaid or lost as he had expected and feared might be the case. Not even seized by customs or postal officials, which he had also feared—although he wasn’t sure why they would. Perhaps, the Azoreans would resent anyone taking any of their precious soil, their homeland, to some other land. And perhaps American officials would object to allowing the soil of the Azores, or any other place, to come into the country. Fernando went to a drawer and took out a kitchen knife. He cut through the string that crisscrossed the box, then the tape and paper. He opened the flaps of the package, and sifted through the soil with his fingers. He smelled the rich, fertile soil of Faial—the same luxurious earth that many of the ancient Azorean captains had carried with them when they had sailed round the world, assuring that if they were to die on a foreign shore, they would at least have the comfort of being buried with the soil of their homeland. The Exile The Exile 113 “While it’s true I am exiled from my islands,” he said, “here, now, I have reclaimed a small piece of the Azores.” This then was the true meaning of saudade, not merely to long for what is gone, what has been wrenched away, but also to feel that part of you remains there, in essence to be separated from oneself. It was impossible for Fernando to avoid reflecting on what he had left behind . He often found himself peering from a window or doorway, expecting to see a neighbor or friend: the faces of people who knew and respected his family name, and whom he knew as well. Furthermore, the natural beauty of the islands also was imprinted in his mind, as were the unavoidable comparisons with what now surrounded him. Here in California he had no friends; instead, there were countless strangers , streams of people seemingly without end—people who cared nothing for what was dear to him. Instead of the sublime majesty of Pico towering above the clouds, there were indistinguishable rolling hills and endless flat farmlands. Instead of the lush greenery of the islands, the fields here were yellow and brown. Instead of soil that was dark and in which anything would grow, in which it was impossible to quench life, he saw only the poor dirt surrounding San José, which, by comparison, was dry and barren. He saw endless vistas of dust and sand. It was a desert really. Not paradise, as he had heard. Instead of the cool ocean breezes, the air was hot and stifling, as if it sprang from the land itself. He sniffed the box of soil again, then carried it outside, eager to pour it into a section of the yard, perhaps to cultivate a tiny square patch of life in this impoverished place, where the whole land seemed to cry out for all it lacked. He found a suitable spot in the corner of the yard, where he had foolishly attempted to grow a few herbs—and in vain, as nothing but weeds had come up. He scraped away three or four inches of California topsoil, then spread the dirt from the box evenly over the ground. He tipped the package upside down, shaking out every last grain, then took the wrappings from the box to the trash can, burying them under the garbage so that his wife, Maria Isabel, wouldn’t find them. The postage...