Oh, My Ginger!

There was noise com­ing from down­stairs and I think I know why. We have no money, she says, we have no food, she says while father, oh poor father, he is try­ing to soothe her little ill-natured ig­nor­ant soul. I still can’t un­der­stand why father mar­ried her; she lacks the em­pathy and kind­ness mum used to have. Plus she once tried to kill me but I said noth­ing to father. I heard her plan­ning on this one day when I came home from school earlier. ‘Oh, my ginger house will be enough to get her sick’. I re­fused to eat ginger­bread of any sort from that point on. 

Lili was comb­ing her long wavy cop­per red hair in front of the mir­ror that used to be her mother’s. She wasn’t really look­ing at her­self in the mir­ror, but con­tem­plat­ing on some­thing that was bey­ond her. Her pink oleander had fi­nally bloomed. There was a flower on its small tree and three other buds ready to bloom. It was next to a mold-in­fes­ted wall. She tried to hide it by put­ting the tree there. On her bed, she had one can­vas with seven brushes that messed up the sheets. She won’t like this, Lili thought. Well, she her­self didn’t like what she painted: some kind of ri­dicu­lous old cot­tage sur­roun­ded by blue­bells and sun­flowers (their house). She had a table with three books she man­aged to save from her stepmother’s rage (she took her mother’s books and burned them dur­ing the winter). It was a botan­ical art his­tory book, The Let­ters of Van Gogh, and a book with French verb con­jug­a­tions. Next to the books, she had a wa­ter­color-painted small jar with one withered poppy in it. It was sooth­ing to look at when try­ing to learn the con­jug­a­tion of some French verb. 

Some melodic death metal song was play­ing on the back­ground while she was pack­ing the books, some cloth­ing items and left some room in her back­pack for vi­ands she was go­ing to take in the morn­ing. She had a tape with this kind of mu­sic from a crone-lady she met in a thrift shop and so, Lili has played it ever since on her cas­sette deck. I’m leav­ing to­mor­row. Oh, poor father, it must be so hard for him to feed us when they don’t even give him the wages on time. I’m too much of a bur­den for him…Well, I’m old enough though, I have to find my­self some­thing to work, maybe teach French, maybe paint, maybe draw or write po­etry, or maybe some­thing else I’m not good at, but I have to make my money. The next day, she woke up and pre­pared for her jour­ney. She put on some old ragged skinny jeans, a pair of black nar­row calf boots the soles of which were too thin not to get soaked in wa­ter if there was rain, and a scar­let top. She combed her hair and made a Celtic braid, took some food and off she went. 

Now, she heard people talk­ing about this vil­lage nearby where life was be­lieved to be easier. Its name was Heav-Ene-Den. To get to this vil­lage she had to pass through the North Forest. She was not afraid; she took her father’s dag­ger, had some pois­on­ous plant ex­tracts in li­quid form (that is, if she was at­tacked, she could just throw some­thing on that person’s skin to cause burns or rashes) and car­ried her vi­per-poison oint­ment in case she got hurt. In the North Forest where the sun never beams, one’s mind can eas­ily fall into misery. Many cases of dead people were re­por­ted here be­cause, they say, it is haunted and it makes you hal­lu­cin­ate. It seems a little gloomy, but it’s just a forest with small paths. You can’t see the sky be­cause the tree crowns pro­tect it and cover its small flaws whereas wild flowers and shrub­bery sur­round you. Oh, poor father, left with such a naus­eous creature around…This forest smells so odd; this is not the fra­grance of raw soil, clay, leaves and freshly-ripen-and-gathered wild ber­ries, but it smells more like mil­dew and pois­on­ous mush­rooms that have just been found be­cause I can see their stems left in the ground next to this old oak; people take only their caps for some reason. 

Lili fol­lowed sev­eral paths and got nowhere. She couldn’t see the sun, but judging by the way light changed its nu­ance, it was prob­ably dusk already. She coun­ted the paths taken; this was the twelfth. Why, this path has some­thing about it, the trees are fewer, the cli­mate in this area is damp and the ground seems to be sand. And this palm tree is mar­velous! She con­tin­ued her jour­ney without won­der­ing at things, and wandered fur­ther on the bizarre route. Solitude is judged too harshly. Alas, it makes people cruel and they end up des­pising other creatures but it is part of us, it is part of ex­per­i­ence, oh father, will in­ner solitude help you keep your men­tal health with thy harpy be­side you or will it drive you mad? Why, I don’t think it will be my case be­cause my solitude is sac­red. She thought she man­aged to es­cape the cold fata mor­gana of the North she saw earlier when she real­ized there was no trail left to fol­low. Now Lili was a little wor­ried, think­ing whether she could re­mem­ber her way back to the main path. In her si­lent frenzy, she no­ticed some­thing be­hind the cracked dried trunks of trees. She went off the foot­path and was be­wildered of what she found. 

It doesn’t really look like a manor house but it is for sure a wide man­sion. It looked like a des­troyed Vic­torian-style house, but it must have been older. The bricks looked as if they were spluttered with tar (It re­minds me of char­coal) whereas the left side of the house was com­pletely pro­tec­ted by the com­plex­ity of some shy ivy.  Its wooden barge­boards hos­ted a broken win­dow that still had its cur­tains on. The cur­tain moved, that’s how Lili ac­tu­ally no­ticed it. It had com­mon wooden win­dows, three-sided bay win­dows with some mo­saic design on them at the up­per floor and a six-paneled slid­ing win­dow at the ground floor. It had a porch with the floor made out of stone. When she climbed up the porch, she no­ticed the white lake sur­roun­ded by reeds, with wa­ter lilies on it. She entered the half-opened door to find no one in­side. Such a won­der­ful place aban­doned and left for tramps. This must have been such a nice house a few cen­tur­ies ago! What Lili no­ticed about this house when she entered, be­side the main­tained fur­niture within it, was the num­ber of doors in­side the house. So many rooms for no one to live in! The doors had the same as­pect: brown wooden doors with a rusty door latch. Some were closed, some were open. The ones that opened usu­ally had rub­bish in them. When she found the kit­chen, she even found some rot­ten to­ma­toes in the pantry and a bou­quet of white roses thrown down on the floor. It ap­peared that they had been bought a few days ago. So there is someone liv­ing here! Lili went up the stone spiral stairs only to get to a long hall that would sure echo her steps if she wasn’t care­ful. She only found more doors. She star­ted count­ing the rooms from left to right when she no­ticed that the thir­teenth door on the left side had a dif­fer­ent design than the rest. This door really draws one’s at­ten­tion to it. Not be­cause it’s dif­fer­ent but be­cause it is baroque-like. It is not a plain door made out of wood, but it is made of massive beech with de­tails around it, ex­quis­ite de­tails of some fallen an­gels and un­like the other doors from the up­per floor, this is open. 

Lili entered a lib­rary. She could see a table with candles on it, some fox­gloves in a clay pot and a messed up desk. So many pa­pers and books just left here without any in­ten­tion of ar­ran­ging them! Lili was hyp­not­ized by the num­ber of book­shelves there. She was just firmly caress­ing the cov­ers of books from a shelf when she saw a shadow go­ing into an an­nex that was within the cham­ber. A room without a door! When she entered, she no­ticed some pan­els put on the walls but it was too dark for her to see what it was there. I should take the candles from the table…I think there were also some matches next to the clay pot. And she took the candles and walked again into the an­nex, just to see I‑don’t‑know-how-many locks of dif­fer­ent shades of red hair: au­burn, cin­na­mon, cop­per, crim­son, straw­berry-blonde, ginger, clas­sic red, red ma­hogany, cherry brown, golden rose, bur­gundy, black cherry, red vel­vet, ruby red, red black, au­ber­gine red, red vi­olet, and magenta. They were all put in glass cases, and they also had name tags. Well, per­haps I shouldn’t be here.

‘You really shouldn’t be here.’ A lady’s voice was heard com­ing from a dark corner. 

‘Let me see your face…’ Lili uttered. 

In the light of the candle she awaited for a fig­ure to ap­pear. It was a bald lady wear­ing a dark blue silk gown with a white lace col­lar and virago sleeves. There were golden pat­terns em­broidered on her dress and small gems which looked a little like kitsch for Lili, but this exotic lady was surely not a mem­ber of this so­ci­ety. She had her makeup messed up with tears in her eyes even now and mas­cara on her cheeks. Her lips were purple in­stead of the nat­ural or ar­ti­fi­cial red of women’s beauty, and she kept re­peat­ing the same words: you really shouldn’t be here; you really shouldn’t be here…

‘Can you tell me what happened to you?’

‘You really shouldn’t be here…you really shouldn’t be here…’

‘Tell me what happened to you.’

‘He knows. He comes.’

‘Go on.’

‘I died in 1657. He was born around 1400.’

‘And…?’

‘My name. Dost thou see?’

I looked where she put her fin­ger and I saw a dark au­burn lock of hair un­der which it was writ­ten Ma­dame Domi­n­ique Math­ilde Le Roux 1657.

‘Are the other wo­men here too?’

‘You really shouldn’t be here. He knows. He comes.’

Sim­ul­tan­eously with her last words, the hall echoed foot­steps – slowly-mov­ing 15-cen­tury glass foot­wear. The lady just broke down into a con­vul­sion of un­ar­tic­u­lated words: ‘He really no you shouldn’t you shouldn’t be here you really shouldn’t be here, he, he, he knows, comes he knows you really shouldn’t be here’. I’ll hide and find my way out of the room. I just can’t fol­low Math­ilde. I think she has just collapsed…so many years dead but liv­ing here with this brute… and the other ones too. Oh, father, where are you? Oh, I’ll find my way out…I al­most for­got to blow the candle.

Lili hid un­der the table while hold­ing her dag­ger tight in her mod­er­ately shak­ing hands and had her plant ex­tracts pre­pared just in case. He opened the door and ar­rog­antly said: ‘I know. I came and you really shouldn’t be here, Lili!’

Lili came out from un­der the table and looked him straight in the eyes. There were more candles in the cham­ber than she thought there were and as he entered, she now could see the minute de­tails of wall­pa­pers and more than that, she could see his ec­cent­ric and re­fined lack of taste in gar­ments. He wore a bright red vel­vet waist­coat over a Byz­an­tium purple dam­ask shirt, with Rus­sian green vel­vet trousers and over­all, he had an ochre coat ad­orned with sil­ver fox fur on the col­lar and on the cuffs.  He had ru­bies in­stead of but­tons and wore three massive golden rings on each hand. He had a French fork beard with a shade of blue in it, yel­low eyes and he was bald, just like the lady Lili met before. 

‘Cop­per red. My favourite.’

‘I’m glad you like it, sir.’

‘Would you like to stay here, Lili?’

‘No, sir. I de­vi­ated from the route I should have taken anyway.’

‘What a pity, indeed…’

Now, he was already pre­par­ing to take hold on his dia­mond cut­lass but luck­ily, Lili no­ticed and threw on his face one of her li­quid plant ex­tracts. His scream was that of a tor­men­ted beast as her plant li­quor was burn­ing his face. Un­for­tu­nately, he man­aged to stab her in the right arm, but Lili had her dag­ger pre­pared, stabbed him in the eye and ran away. She ran through the hall, down the stone stairs, through the hall again and out the door, but thorns had en­closed the man­sion. I must heal my wound…the vi­per oint­ment, yes, that will do. She treated her wound quickly, took the dag­ger and made her way through the thorns. The pain of the stings was un­bear­able, but her am­bi­tion was stronger. When she got out of the thorns, she was full of deep scars and she felt dizzy. I have to walk…I have to go back on my way…Oh father, my head hurts, my chest hurts…I have to go to the vil­lage to make money. 

Try­ing to find her way back to the foot­path, she re­marked that the white lake had ex­ten­ded. She had to swim over to the other shore, so Lili got in it, tried to swim but she couldn’t keep her head over the wa­ter. She screamed in des­pair and pain, but some­thing was drag­ging her down to the bot­tom. She was be­neath the sur­face now. I have to get up…Why does my chest hurt? I have to work…money for father; He comes he knows I’m here I’m here…I have to swim. No, I can’t drown! Oh father oh please!

‘Lili, it’s OK! You were dreaming.’

Lili felt her eyes sore and couldn’t really re­cog­nize the fig­ure in front of her. Who are you? My head, my chest…Water please water…No.

‘Darling, please bring some wa­ter for Lili. It’s OK, you are just ill, but you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.’ Her father said that and kissed her on the fore­head. He was ter­ribly wor­ried for the girl. The doc­tor told them the dia­gnosis: TB men­ingitis. He tried to soothe her and of­fer her com­fort, but she had so little chances to live. After giv­ing her some wa­ter, she fell asleep again. Her father looked des­per­ate. He hasn’t slept or eaten for a few days in a row. He prom­ised him­self he would watch some more over his little girl (she was only six­teen and already sick with this ter­rible dis­ease!). He thought that he should also try some of the ginger­bread made by his dear wife and left on Lili’s drawer for her to be nourished. 

A Note on the Text

This is an at­tempt of post­mod­ern re­writ­ing. It main­tains some of the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of a fairy tale. It pre­serves ele­ments spe­cific to a fairy tale (num­ber three, num­ber thir­teen, num­ber twelve) and there is no time for won­der­ment in the tale. Judging after read­ing it, one might say that there are storylines taken from some tra­di­tional fairy tales, mean­ing that, this tale uses in­ter­tex­tu­al­ity (in­teg­ra­tion of more texts within one text). Hansel and Gretel  is one of these fairy tales, but it is kind of a re­versal: in Grimm’s ver­sion of the tale, the chil­dren are left in the woods whereas here, it is Lili who de­cides to go and work, so her father will not have too many mouths to feed. At the same time, the pres­ence of ginger­bread also re­minds the reader of this fairy tale. The Ju­ni­per Tree is present as the step­mother tries to kill her step­daugh­ter. Ele­ments as­so­ci­ated to Sleep­ing Beauty are the thorns which also ap­pear in this post­mod­ern fairy tale. Nev­er­the­less, the pre­dom­in­ant storyline this tale fol­lows re­mains Blue­beard.  More than that, there are a num­ber of ana­chron­isms ap­pear­ing in the text: the thrift shop, melodic death metal, or the tape. 

To have a bet­ter vis­ion of Lili’s im­age, please check Dante Gab­riel Rossetti’s Lady Li­lith.

Selena Ac­qui