FIC sniplet #2
Sep. 17th, 2005 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartOkay, I wanted to post this as a comment, but it got too long for that. So I needed to make a new entry for them. Drat. Anyway, feel free to point out any possible grammar errors in both this entry and the previous one.
Valeria tucked the last few errant strands of her hair under the sloppy hat, checked her appearance in the mirror and made a satisfied nod. With the light grey three-piece suit that concealed the feminine curves of her body, and the hat that concealed half her face, she could be easily mistaken for a young man – a short one, for sure, but the disguise was convincing enough. Unless one knew what to look for, that is.
“It will do,” she judged confidently. Madre Assumpta, on the other hand, was a lot less convinced.
“Are you sure you have to do this, querida?” she asked in concern. “I’ve already told you: we’re willing to hide you here until you’ve come of legal age.”
“That’s still almost eight months yet, Madre Assumpta,” Valeria shook her head, “and if my… brother,” she spat the word with disgust, “learned of my whereabouts, he’d burn the convent and the orphanage to ashes, just to get to me. I can’t endanger you and the other sisters… or the children who have no other home. Manolo is the devil in flesh, and you know that.”
“I do,” Mother Superior said, “and that’s why I’m so worried about you running off, all of your own.”
“I can take care of myself,” Valeria tucked a pair of revolvers into the waistband of her trousers. “My father has always known that once he died I’d be in danger. So he taught me how to handle these things, and believe me, I’m very good at it.”
“Are you willing to kill your brother or his men?” the scholarly nun, her ersatz mother since the age of twelve, was clearly shocked. “I know he’s an evil man, in the league with the Devil, but murder is murder, my child. They’re not worth risking damnation.”
“I never wanted to turn against him,” Valeria sighed. “I never wanted any of this, Madre Assumpta. That’s why I asked to become one of you… that, and the chance to learn, of course. That would have been the only way for a girl.”
“And that was the false motivation,” the nun said gently, “which was why we refused your application. You’d never be happy in a convent, my child. Not when you joined it for any other reason than for God alone. You’ll find your way to the sources of knowledge that you desire so greatly… if you manage to get out of this country alive.”
“I know,” Valeria hugged her tightly. “I’ll miss you, Madre Assumpta.”
“Nada te turbe,” the nun quoted the old prayer, smiling through her tears, “nada te espante. Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta. Be careful, my child. My prayers will follow you, wherever you go.”
The offer moved Valeria deeply. Although she trusted her guns more than any prayers when it came to protection – she knew too much about her half-brother’s methods, despite her sheltered life in a convent school for girls – she would never say that. She would never hurt Madre Assumpta’s feelings. The nun was not only a scholar and a true angel of mercy when it came to the poor, especially the orphaned children, she was also a deeply religious person, with a true, unshakable faith in her heart that God would eventually make everything right. If not here on Earth, then in eternal life, in heaven. A true Missionary Sister of the Sacred Heart, all she cared about was to help people, and she trusted God to watch over her selfless work.
Tried as she might have, Valeria could never rise to this unconditional faith, even though she had spent the last ten years of her young life in the loving care of this good and wise woman. Losing her mother at the tender age of twelve had been a deep shock, from which to recover had taken her years… only to come to realize how much her half-brother Manolo, eight years her senior, hated and despised her. And even the memory of her mother.
Not that Manolo would have had any deep connection to his own mother. Doňa Caterina had died in childbirth, and Manolo had been raised by nannies – frightened, submissive women who had dreaded his mood swings, as he had been a difficult child. No, what Manolo hated was the fact that wealth had come to the family with Valeria’s mother.
Don Ottavio de Venango, their father, had come from an old and respected but not particularly rich family. Valeria’s mother on the other hand, Doňa Annunciata, was the heiress of one of the biggest haciendas of the country, controlling a considerable part of beef export into the United States. Her family also owned several wineries that exported wine to various countries even to the overseas. And since she had been the one to bring money into the household, Manolo could have no hope whatsoever to get his greedy hands on the family profits.
Unless, of course, he managed to forcibly marry off Valeria to one of his puppets, through whom he’d have easy access to the considerable wealth Valeria was due to inherit on her twenty-first birthday. Which he’d been trying for the last four years. Ever since their father had untimely and mysteriously died.
So far, he hadn’t succeeded. But there still were eight months left before Valeria would come to legal age, and the pressure had been growing exponentially. Manolo had selected the “perfect” husband for her – a constantly drunk idiot and opium addict, the unworthy last twig of a once proud and wealthy family – and had gone from nagging to threatening. Valeria knew that she’d become a danger for the convent and the orphanage (the only home she’d known for a decade) if she stayed there any longer.
It was all about money, of course. A lot of money, even though the hacienda and the wineries had lost some of their formerly steady profits under Manolo’s incompetent hand. At least the employees were still the same one who’d brought success in Don Ottavio’s times. Manolo might be devil incarnate, but he wasn’t a complete fool. He knew he needed those people. He just wanted all the still considerable profits for himself alone. But he couldn’t touch them. Everything belonged to Valeria, and in eight month’s time, she’d have all that money to her sole disposal.
If she only managed to hold out until that day, somehow. Killing her would do Manolo no good; in case she died before her twenty-first birthday, all the money would go to various charitable organizations – so many of them, in fat, that it would be impossible to harm each of them. Besides, none of the individual sums would be worth the effort. Don Ottavio had been a wise man who’d known his firstborn all too well and had no illusions.
But there always was the danger of being kidnapped. Some priests and notaries wouldn’t look too close at the circumstances of a marriage, if the price was right. Or the heiress could be violated, so that she’d have no choice than to marry her rapist. Especially if they managed to get her pregnant. The high society in Buenos Aires was not forgiving towards daughters of good houses who were seen as fallen, and everyone would silently look away if Valeria got closed away in her brother’s house.
The prospect of becoming a child with Manolo’s puppet was worse than death, regardless if it happened within or without marriage. She would never do that voluntarily. And to avoid being forced, she had to leave Buenos Aires – in secrecy and in a great hurry, for she couldn’t really count on anyone’s help. Manolo, called “El Diablo” among the local population, was greatly feared.
She took her leave from Mother Assumpta, knowing that they would probably never see each other again, and slipped out of the convent unseen… or so she hoped. The plan was to get to Chile by train, disguised as a young man, and from there on travel by ship up to the United States and find a hiding place there for the next eight months. Her father had shared ownership with the Old Mission Winery in Manzanita, near San Francisco, and even had a trade office up in Los Angeles: a warehouse for the import of red wine to Europe and the States themselves.
Valeria hoped that the employees there, who’d always been loyal to her father, would help her. She spoke well enough English – or French, for that matter – to blend with the multinational population of those big cities. She could even have her inheritance validated from Los Angeles on, where her father had a contract with the old and respected law firm Navital & Waters, without the necessity to return to her home country. The solid money that had built the capital for all family businesses was safely hoarded in the LA branch of the Bank of Lyon.
Nobody would be able to harm her or touch what was hers, once she turned twenty-one and was in the States. If she could manage to get there safely, that is.
For that, she needed to reach the railway station first. She’d carefully gathered information about night trains that could take her to Santiago de Chile, and there she would find a ship up to North America, eventually. The most important thing was to leave at least the city – leaving the entire country behind her would have been even better, but she had to deal with first things first.
She couldn’t afford to call a cab – Manolo’s arm was too long. She couldn’t know how many – and which – people were already on his paylist. So she had to walk to the railway station, which wasn’t a very long way… but it led through narrow, abandoned streets with empty, partially ruined houses. It was a risky path, but it was the shortest one.
She had about two thirds of the way behind her when she got the indescribable feeling of being watched. This was a rare instinct, probably inherited from her Indio great-grandmother; it never failed her. She was clearly being followed… and her pursuers, she can feel several persons, were getting closer. Fast.
She knew she couldn’t make a successful run for the railway station. It was still too far away – and as the pursuers were carefully keeping out of sight, she could tell that this was a well-organized hunt. Whether for her personally or for any wealthy-looking passers-by, she couldn’t tell, but in the end, it didn’t really matter. Being killed for the money they assumed she was carrying on her or being kidnapped and violated by her brother’s thugs didn’t make such a big difference.
To tell the truth, she’d prefer being killed. But not if she could do anything against it. Escape not being an option, she was determined to make it as hard for them as humanly possible.
She had six bullets in each of her revolvers, and she was a crack shot. Her father had seen to it. As much as the perspective would trouble the good Mother Assumpta, Valeria had no problems whatsoever with killing her attackers to defend herself. It was her or them, and she wasn’t giving up her life easily.
She could feel them coming, all from the same direction. Amateurs, she thought in dismay. But their folly left her with a definite advantage. With the crumbling wall of an abandoned house in her back and an escape route that led to the right direction on her left, she pulled both revolvers, and – facing where her pursuers would have to appear – she waited.
BTW, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart are an existing congregation, and they were actually present in Buenos Aires in the 1930s. I always do my research. *g*
Valeria tucked the last few errant strands of her hair under the sloppy hat, checked her appearance in the mirror and made a satisfied nod. With the light grey three-piece suit that concealed the feminine curves of her body, and the hat that concealed half her face, she could be easily mistaken for a young man – a short one, for sure, but the disguise was convincing enough. Unless one knew what to look for, that is.
“It will do,” she judged confidently. Madre Assumpta, on the other hand, was a lot less convinced.
“Are you sure you have to do this, querida?” she asked in concern. “I’ve already told you: we’re willing to hide you here until you’ve come of legal age.”
“That’s still almost eight months yet, Madre Assumpta,” Valeria shook her head, “and if my… brother,” she spat the word with disgust, “learned of my whereabouts, he’d burn the convent and the orphanage to ashes, just to get to me. I can’t endanger you and the other sisters… or the children who have no other home. Manolo is the devil in flesh, and you know that.”
“I do,” Mother Superior said, “and that’s why I’m so worried about you running off, all of your own.”
“I can take care of myself,” Valeria tucked a pair of revolvers into the waistband of her trousers. “My father has always known that once he died I’d be in danger. So he taught me how to handle these things, and believe me, I’m very good at it.”
“Are you willing to kill your brother or his men?” the scholarly nun, her ersatz mother since the age of twelve, was clearly shocked. “I know he’s an evil man, in the league with the Devil, but murder is murder, my child. They’re not worth risking damnation.”
“I never wanted to turn against him,” Valeria sighed. “I never wanted any of this, Madre Assumpta. That’s why I asked to become one of you… that, and the chance to learn, of course. That would have been the only way for a girl.”
“And that was the false motivation,” the nun said gently, “which was why we refused your application. You’d never be happy in a convent, my child. Not when you joined it for any other reason than for God alone. You’ll find your way to the sources of knowledge that you desire so greatly… if you manage to get out of this country alive.”
“I know,” Valeria hugged her tightly. “I’ll miss you, Madre Assumpta.”
“Nada te turbe,” the nun quoted the old prayer, smiling through her tears, “nada te espante. Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta. Be careful, my child. My prayers will follow you, wherever you go.”
The offer moved Valeria deeply. Although she trusted her guns more than any prayers when it came to protection – she knew too much about her half-brother’s methods, despite her sheltered life in a convent school for girls – she would never say that. She would never hurt Madre Assumpta’s feelings. The nun was not only a scholar and a true angel of mercy when it came to the poor, especially the orphaned children, she was also a deeply religious person, with a true, unshakable faith in her heart that God would eventually make everything right. If not here on Earth, then in eternal life, in heaven. A true Missionary Sister of the Sacred Heart, all she cared about was to help people, and she trusted God to watch over her selfless work.
Tried as she might have, Valeria could never rise to this unconditional faith, even though she had spent the last ten years of her young life in the loving care of this good and wise woman. Losing her mother at the tender age of twelve had been a deep shock, from which to recover had taken her years… only to come to realize how much her half-brother Manolo, eight years her senior, hated and despised her. And even the memory of her mother.
Not that Manolo would have had any deep connection to his own mother. Doňa Caterina had died in childbirth, and Manolo had been raised by nannies – frightened, submissive women who had dreaded his mood swings, as he had been a difficult child. No, what Manolo hated was the fact that wealth had come to the family with Valeria’s mother.
Don Ottavio de Venango, their father, had come from an old and respected but not particularly rich family. Valeria’s mother on the other hand, Doňa Annunciata, was the heiress of one of the biggest haciendas of the country, controlling a considerable part of beef export into the United States. Her family also owned several wineries that exported wine to various countries even to the overseas. And since she had been the one to bring money into the household, Manolo could have no hope whatsoever to get his greedy hands on the family profits.
Unless, of course, he managed to forcibly marry off Valeria to one of his puppets, through whom he’d have easy access to the considerable wealth Valeria was due to inherit on her twenty-first birthday. Which he’d been trying for the last four years. Ever since their father had untimely and mysteriously died.
So far, he hadn’t succeeded. But there still were eight months left before Valeria would come to legal age, and the pressure had been growing exponentially. Manolo had selected the “perfect” husband for her – a constantly drunk idiot and opium addict, the unworthy last twig of a once proud and wealthy family – and had gone from nagging to threatening. Valeria knew that she’d become a danger for the convent and the orphanage (the only home she’d known for a decade) if she stayed there any longer.
It was all about money, of course. A lot of money, even though the hacienda and the wineries had lost some of their formerly steady profits under Manolo’s incompetent hand. At least the employees were still the same one who’d brought success in Don Ottavio’s times. Manolo might be devil incarnate, but he wasn’t a complete fool. He knew he needed those people. He just wanted all the still considerable profits for himself alone. But he couldn’t touch them. Everything belonged to Valeria, and in eight month’s time, she’d have all that money to her sole disposal.
If she only managed to hold out until that day, somehow. Killing her would do Manolo no good; in case she died before her twenty-first birthday, all the money would go to various charitable organizations – so many of them, in fat, that it would be impossible to harm each of them. Besides, none of the individual sums would be worth the effort. Don Ottavio had been a wise man who’d known his firstborn all too well and had no illusions.
But there always was the danger of being kidnapped. Some priests and notaries wouldn’t look too close at the circumstances of a marriage, if the price was right. Or the heiress could be violated, so that she’d have no choice than to marry her rapist. Especially if they managed to get her pregnant. The high society in Buenos Aires was not forgiving towards daughters of good houses who were seen as fallen, and everyone would silently look away if Valeria got closed away in her brother’s house.
The prospect of becoming a child with Manolo’s puppet was worse than death, regardless if it happened within or without marriage. She would never do that voluntarily. And to avoid being forced, she had to leave Buenos Aires – in secrecy and in a great hurry, for she couldn’t really count on anyone’s help. Manolo, called “El Diablo” among the local population, was greatly feared.
She took her leave from Mother Assumpta, knowing that they would probably never see each other again, and slipped out of the convent unseen… or so she hoped. The plan was to get to Chile by train, disguised as a young man, and from there on travel by ship up to the United States and find a hiding place there for the next eight months. Her father had shared ownership with the Old Mission Winery in Manzanita, near San Francisco, and even had a trade office up in Los Angeles: a warehouse for the import of red wine to Europe and the States themselves.
Valeria hoped that the employees there, who’d always been loyal to her father, would help her. She spoke well enough English – or French, for that matter – to blend with the multinational population of those big cities. She could even have her inheritance validated from Los Angeles on, where her father had a contract with the old and respected law firm Navital & Waters, without the necessity to return to her home country. The solid money that had built the capital for all family businesses was safely hoarded in the LA branch of the Bank of Lyon.
Nobody would be able to harm her or touch what was hers, once she turned twenty-one and was in the States. If she could manage to get there safely, that is.
For that, she needed to reach the railway station first. She’d carefully gathered information about night trains that could take her to Santiago de Chile, and there she would find a ship up to North America, eventually. The most important thing was to leave at least the city – leaving the entire country behind her would have been even better, but she had to deal with first things first.
She couldn’t afford to call a cab – Manolo’s arm was too long. She couldn’t know how many – and which – people were already on his paylist. So she had to walk to the railway station, which wasn’t a very long way… but it led through narrow, abandoned streets with empty, partially ruined houses. It was a risky path, but it was the shortest one.
She had about two thirds of the way behind her when she got the indescribable feeling of being watched. This was a rare instinct, probably inherited from her Indio great-grandmother; it never failed her. She was clearly being followed… and her pursuers, she can feel several persons, were getting closer. Fast.
She knew she couldn’t make a successful run for the railway station. It was still too far away – and as the pursuers were carefully keeping out of sight, she could tell that this was a well-organized hunt. Whether for her personally or for any wealthy-looking passers-by, she couldn’t tell, but in the end, it didn’t really matter. Being killed for the money they assumed she was carrying on her or being kidnapped and violated by her brother’s thugs didn’t make such a big difference.
To tell the truth, she’d prefer being killed. But not if she could do anything against it. Escape not being an option, she was determined to make it as hard for them as humanly possible.
She had six bullets in each of her revolvers, and she was a crack shot. Her father had seen to it. As much as the perspective would trouble the good Mother Assumpta, Valeria had no problems whatsoever with killing her attackers to defend herself. It was her or them, and she wasn’t giving up her life easily.
She could feel them coming, all from the same direction. Amateurs, she thought in dismay. But their folly left her with a definite advantage. With the crumbling wall of an abandoned house in her back and an escape route that led to the right direction on her left, she pulled both revolvers, and – facing where her pursuers would have to appear – she waited.
BTW, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart are an existing congregation, and they were actually present in Buenos Aires in the 1930s. I always do my research. *g*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-20 09:46 pm (UTC)I couldn't resist adding the convent thing - I just love writing nuns in unusual situations, probably due to my past...
So, I screwed up grammar again, huh? What a surprise - not! *g*
Finding any decent trivia about Buenos Aires at that time was a real pain in the backside... or perhaps I'm just too stupid to Google properly. But I'm glad it worked out, after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-22 02:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-24 07:40 pm (UTC)I was a little surprised, however, when I googled for cars and stuff. I learned that the police already had motorbike patrols back then. I saved a few pics to my HD for inspiration. The situations are almost the same than today, but with all those old-fashioned vehicles... it was fun!