Emilia Santos’ Story

Emilia is a key character in the novel that I've been working on (TBD).  To help me understand her better as a person I wrote a small piece of her origin story.  Here is a part of Emilia Santos’ Story.

              Emilia’s heart pounded as she shoved her back into the nook of the two red block walls.  Sandaled feet slapped the cobblestone road outside.  She could hear the men’s voices shouting as they turned the corner of the street.  Their footfalls grew louder and louder.  She heard one of the men yelling for them to split. 

              “I know she is here somewhere.  I can feel it, I’m staying here.”  Said one of the men.

              Emilia poked her head through a gap in the bricks and watched as a tall thick man paced up and down the narrow road.  Occasionally he would poke his head in a pane of glass or around a corner. 

Emilia gripped the yellow passion fruit tight against her chest.  She could still hear her father’s weak voice as he responded to her question. 

“What you could do for me…”  He stopped to catch his breath.  “That would mean so much to me.  I would love nothing more, than to taste the sweet tang of a passion fruit.  One last time.”

She almost didn’t leave.  Her father couldn’t argue with her.  He couldn’t even raise his head to look at her.  If she had stayed, he couldn’t have argued.

She walked alone to the street market that came this time every week.  Emilia knew exactly where the fruit would be lined up and where she would find the one that she was looking for.  She didn’t bother to check her pockets for loose change.  There wasn’t any thing to check for and there hadn’t been anything for a long time.

Emilia leaned against a post two rows down waiting for her chance to make a move.  The market was a traveling group of merchants that moved from one street to the next depending on the day.  Their wares were lined up underneath portable tarps that served as shade for the customers wandering from booth to booth. 

This particular market was mostly food and it was exactly what Emilia was hoping for. It was busy.  A steady stream of people passed in front of each booth of food.  Her stomach growled at her, no doubt upset with the way it had been treated the last couple of days.  Next to the fruit was the giant basket bursting with fresh bread. 

A large family arguing about something that was surely trivial made their way in front of the fruit booth.  Their hands waving wildly through the air. Emilia saw her chance and slipped from her post to the middle of the group.  The quarreling family paid her no mind and with practiced ease Emilia slipped her hand into the basket that cradled the passion fruit and tucked it under her arm. 

Like an American football star, she ducked and rolled through the crowd with her prize nestled safely in the crook of her arm.  With another impressive move she passed in front of the bread booth and palmed two warm rolls the size of her fist.  She heard the merchant call out as soon as she ran.  She also heard him call out to a couple of his friends. 

They chased her through the narrow streets and into the neighboring favela.  So here she sat pressed up against the wall of an empty shack.  Emilia could hear the wind blowing through the empty walls.  She shivered in the sweaty heat. 

The thought of her father laying there on the other hand pushed against the thought of the consequences of getting caught by the angry men outside.  She pulled her dark hair behind her head and peered around the corner of the doorway.  Two doorways down stood a man, his hands resting on his hips, peeking in the different windows and open doors. 

Emilia took off her slippers and held them in her open hand.  She had to wait for just the right moment…  She took off like a shot out of a gun.  Her legs pumped as she sprinted from the shack, down the road.  She ran in the opposite direction of the man, she could hear his feet behind her.

The man was gaining ground as her bare feet slapped against the cobbled street.  Emilia knew that there was no way that she was going to make it in a straight sprint, so she skidded around a corner and back around the backside of the shack that she had cut behind.  She could hear the other men yelling as they searched afar off area of the slum. 

Emilia watched as the man that was chasing her turned the corner at a full run and followed the narrow alley until he was out of sight.  She wiped the sweat from her brow.  The man was no longer in the alley, he had apparently known that she had left the alley.  No doubt he was searching the area for her.  Still barefoot she tip-toed back into the direction of her home.  It too was in this favela. 

Her sweaty hand still held the tough rubbery fruit.  When she felt as though she had put enough distance between her and her pursuers she slipped on her sandals.  Her careful prowling transformed into a carefree stroll the farther and farther she walked.  The thought of her father pushed her into a run, the slap slap slap of her sandals filled her ears. 

She stopped just outside the corrugated tin door of her own shack to catch her breath.  She wiped a spot of dirt off of the yellow passion fruit with the end of her t-shirt.  Emilia sucked in one more breath through her nose to slow down her breathing and pushed open the door. 

She shoved back the threadbare curtain that separated her father’s room from the rest of the house.  She grabbed a kitchen knife off of the piece of plywood they were using as a table.   

“Papa, I got it.  I got you what you asked for.”  Emilia presented the prize to the form in the bed.  “Look its perfect.”  She shook it to prove that it was ripe.  “I can make a juice if you want.  Or maybe a mousse.”  When she got no response, she took a step forward and cut the thick yellow skin splitting the fruit in two.  In almost a whisper she said. “I’ve got a spoonful of sugar left.  If you want, I can mix it in, and you can eat it straight from the…”

She took another step and stopped.  She dropped the passion fruit halves and turned her head from the lifeless body lying on the bed.  Her father would no longer want the fruit that she had tried so hard to get for him. 

How dare he.  Why could he not wait just another hour.  After everything she just went through.  She could have gone to jail, or worse.  Now he would never get to taste another fruit again.  The anger instantly went from a simmer to a rolling boil. 

“I hate you!”  She yelled at the corpse in the corner of the room.

She pushed the curtain aside and blindly made for the exit.

“There you are, you little rat.”  A deep voice rumbled.

Emilia had almost run into the large man now standing in her doorway.  He must have followed her home.

She let out a screech that was sure to be heard in the next neighborhood.  She ran at the man, tears blurring her vision.  She shoved her shoulder square into his stomach, but he had already grabbed her arm and like a vise gripped her upper arm.  Letting out the steam of the still boiling anger she thrust with the hand that held the kitchen knife. 

The smooth resistance of the blade in flesh broke the trance that had engulfed her.  She looked down at her now empty hand and at the handle that protruded form the belly of the man that still held her.  Slowly his grip lightened as the man stared unbelieving at the small girl in front of him. 

Emilia watched as the man staggered backward and stumbled over his own feet.  One hand still holding the handle of the knife.  She recognized the voice of a neighbor calling her name.  He surely had heard her scream. 

Emilia looked at the man dying in front of her house, then to the house that held her dead father, finally she looked down the cobbled road that lead out of the favela and into the city of Sao Paulo.  Sucking in a deep breath, she ran, never looking back.