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THE
BURIAL OF MICKEY MOUSE: A
non-fiction autobiography
©
copyright Natalie d'Arbeloff 2005
A
four-inch rubber Mickey Mouse was my beloved
when I was six years old.
One day I took him for a walk in a wild place of palm trees and
red clay soil.
I dug a hole and buried him there believing that I would easily
locate the spot and resurrect him any time I wanted to.
I never found his burial place again though I desperately searched
for it.
I still feel the loss. I don't understand
why I buried my Mickey or why I couldn't
find him. I will search my past for signs
and explanations.
The
first five years of my
life were spent in Paris with occasional trips to the
French seaside or mountains but I have no memory
of anything that could
be called home. My family lived in various comfortable
apartments in pleasant neighbourhoods of the city. There
was a grand piano. That's
about all I registered of my environment at the time.
Then, suddenly, it all changed.
My
parents, my sister and
I - kitted out in what was presumed to be proper jungle
gear: jodhpurs, boots, explorer hats of the Stanley-meet-Livingstone
kind - making our way
through grass taller than I was towards a semi-derelict
house by a wild river outside a small village called
San Antonio in the tiny
country of Paraguay, in the middle of the continent of
South America.
All
the posh Paris furniture came along, including
the grand piano, on the ship which brought
us from Europe to Buenos Aires and then by
river boat to Asuncion. The piano didn't
survive being unloaded at the port and the
furniture stayed in storage because there
was nowhere to put it until the new long
house was built on the 120 acres of tall
grass, orange trees and palms which my father
had acquired and which, to me, was the Garden
of Eden - the only place where I have ever
experienced a sense of fully belonging. I
was about six when we landed there but it
was love at first sight. Here I am on horseback
with my father.
 After
about three or maybe four years
in Paraguay the family moved again, to the U.S. this time, but
the image of paradise was deeply engraved
in my brain and I resolved to return when I grew up.
The
grown-up me riding bareback is
from that time of returning, when it wasn't Eden anymore.
But
that's for later in the story.
COMMENTS
The
photo below shows the long
house at the time my father had it built and the lower
one is how it looked many years later
when my husband and I replaced with tiles the original
corrugated zinc roof which sounded like
apocalypse every time it rained.
Back in paradise
days, the family moved out of the primitive small house
by the river into the big new house . Uninterrupted
vistas towards the river from the front
and, at the back, a shady grove of orange trees. We
watched the house being built - the thrill
of it - brick upon brick then ochre-pink stucco plastered
over the top. My hands remember its exact
roughness when I stroked it.
There
were dogs - thirteen dogs, we kept accumulating
dogs . My favourite was Minnie, a silly
pink-nosed creature.
 My
beautiful young mother restrains me as I
restrain the dogs on the terrace. By then
her initial indignation at being uprooted
from sophisticated city comfort to this wild
place has melted in the sun and she is the
happy lady
of the manor.
Inside
the house, oriental carpets from the Paris apartment
lie incongruously on the cool tile floors and
there are brand new bathrooms with running water
from rain-collecting tanks on the roof. No electricity
but kerosene lamps have an intriguing smell and
a cozy, protective halo.
My
room is in the left wing of the house
(if you're standing on the terrace), right at the end
where the wall is curved. I love this room more than
any room I've had or ever will have.
All my toys and books are there, the books I cherished
in Paris with their wonderful pictures - Les
Petits Enfants Bleus, Sans Famille, Michel
Strogoff, Heidi, Les Contes de Perrault, Hans Christian
Andersen. So many others, lost now.
I don't remember being taught to read
- I didn't go to school in Paris or Paraguay
- but I always read a great deal. And
now I can climb trees and run around
in my underpants or wear my explorer
boots and jodhpurs. I am in heaven.
 We
have become a community: my father's brother,
his wife, their two little boys and two sets
of grandparents have arrived from Europe.
There is bickering among the adults of course
and between us four children too but we have
wonderful times.
We put
on plays, usually directed by my older sister
who is the imaginative one - she goes to school
in the capital, Asunciòn, and regales
the children with wholly fictitious tales of
her royal past.
Some
of these performances are held in the
orange grove and we sell tickets to our family audience
who also help to make the costumes - adorned pyjamas
mainly. Below, my best-buddy cousin and
I are blinking in the dazzling sunlight and, on the
right, my sister is wearing a babushka
scarf and a Russian dance is taking place.
COMMENTS
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