The Toy Car
By Luisa María García Velasco
Translated from Spanish by Ian Watson

oberto scarcely heeded the red light; he was so wrapped up in his thoughts.  Impatiently he waited till the little green man lit up, then he crossed the road as though several fairies were propelling him.  Indeed, a pedestrian turned his head at Roberto’s passing.  Roberto was gazing far beyond what was there before him, tugged by strings of anticipatory pleasure, as though he was on his way to meet an old flame.

He was out of breath when he stopped opposite the toy shop.  There it was, the same red lettering--Pinó. Giocattoli artigianali;  Pino.  Hand-Made Toys--with a big painted pine tree beneath which resided jolly puppets and a smiling train, and the shop window itself with its wooden horse and construction game, and the dolls’ house which had its own lighting and water in some of the taps.  Dolls, story books, tin soldiers, teddy bears--he’d always adored a very comical one with a book in its paw and little round glasses resting on the point of its nose.  Yet the real treasure was within.  It had to be there!

He wouldn’t beat about the bush.  In he went.  The proprietor, a tall thin bespectacled old man wearing a black waistcoat, raised his head from the train he was repairing at a little table next to the counter. 

“Yes?  Can I help you?”

“It’s me, Mr. Pino, don’t you remember?”

The man adjusted his glasses and paid more attention.  Surprise and shock at the unexpected were evident in his eyes.

“Roberto?  I can’t believe it.  Is it really you, lad?”

Ponderously he got up to hug Roberto who for him would always be a lad.

“How big you’ve got.  Quite the man…”

“How’s everything here?”

“As ever.  Not much to tell.  I get by.  My boy, I’m so happy to see you!”

The short silence that fell was at once intimate and awkward.  Neither of the two knew how to broach the matter which was on both their minds.

“Well…is it still here?”

Pino regarded Roberto.

A sudden panic.  In a quavering voice: “You still have it, right?” 

“I’m sorry.”  The toymaker lowered his gaze.

“Sorry?  What do you mean?  You told me you’d never sell it or get rid of it. You-- ”

“Time goes by.  People change.  Someone made me an offer I couldn’t turn down. I’m truly sorry.”

“I can’t believe it.  You said it wasn’t for sale!  You know how important it was for me, I’d have topped whatever offer in any case…”

“You weren’t here any more.  You were in the big city, being a grown-up.  I sell toys for kids.”

Roberto clutched at a sudden brainwave. 

“And who has it now?  Who did you sell it to?  They might be willing to sell it back to me.”

“I don’t know who they are, where they came from, where they went to.  Forget it, Roberto.  I’m truly sorry.  I don’t know what else I can say.”

*     *     *     *     *

Hundreds of images flooded the young man’s mind.  He remembered the first time he saw that toy car--of realistic size!   Shiny red, a fabulous design, or so it seemed to him.  Wooden, like most items in Mr. Pino’s shop, but so authentic!  He must have been seven or eight at the time.  Immediately he knew that here was the toy of his dreams and he wouldn’t ever come across its equal.  What luck to have found it!  To have come upon something so extraordinary by chance!

Every afternoon, after leaving school, Roberto headed for the shop window to admire his car.  He’d remain right in front of it, satchel on his back, gazing for fifteen or twenty minutes, sometimes longer.  After a while the proprietor began to notice the lad who daily visited the shop without so much as stepping inside, and saw that the car was the focus of his attention.  Yet he said nothing for more than a month. 

One fine day he went outside and remarked, “Lovely, isn’t she?”

Roberto blushed to his roots.  He didn’t know what to reply.  Staring fixedly at the car, he murmured at last, “She’s gorgeous.”

There was something in that gaze which touched Mr. Pino’s soul.  Unexpectedly the lad seemed to pluck up courage.  Resolutely, almost passionately, staring steadfastly  at the plaything as if confronting a fierce bull, “How much is it?”

Even before hearing the answer, Roberto knew that he couldn’t ever afford such a toy.  Neither he, nor his parents.  That was a car for rich kids.  Yet self-respect impelled him to ask.  He had the right to ask, at least. 

Pino regarded that lad, flushed with bashfulness earlier, and now with pride, who waited defiantly.

“It isn’t for sale,” he replied.  “I use it as a come-on to draw attention to the window.  Not for sale.  What’s more, it’s a family memento.”  

“Ah...”  Roberto didn’t know what to say.  On the one hand, he was happy: now no one could take the car away, nobody was going to stop him from seeing it every day.  But it threw him to realize that he also felt disappointed.  No matter how much he saved, even if he grew up and earned a lot, even if his parents won the lottery, never would he be able to possess that car.  Never ever; no way.

The old man seemed to read his thoughts, for he said promptly, “Anyway, I’m going to shift it.  It’s been in the window too long.  I don’t want the sun to spoil it.”

To Roberto it seemed as if someone had suddenly taken the sun away and his life and future had changed to a darkly cloudy sky.  

“Yet an idea’s going round in my head… I dunno…”

A little shrub to cling to, just as he was falling off a cliff?  The boy listened, not daring to breathe.

“I’m setting up a game room.  It’ll be part of the shop, and I’ll let kids play there with some of my things if they want to.   Those that aren’t for sale, of course.”

Astonished, the boy asked, “Why?”

Pino grinned.  “Because toys are for playing with.   Everyone ought to play while they’re still kids.  It’s something nobody should lose out on.  Well, do you think it’s a good idea or not?”

“And the car will be in that room too?”

“I’m thinking of putting it there, yes.”

“And then… I mean… will I be able to come and play with it a bit every day?”

“You and all the other children.  Absolutely.  That’s what it’s about.  I think from tomorrow on everything could be ready.”

Excited, Roberto stammered his thanks and made a hasty departure before the mirage could vanish--he didn’t wish to wake up and discover it had all been a dream. Mr. Pino loitered by the door, watching the lad run off, satchel on his back, hair ruffled by the wind.

Saturday morning dawned clearer and brighter than usual.  When Pino opened the toy shop, Roberto was already waiting, looking shipshape.

“The car’s gone.  That means?”

The toymaker winked conspiratorially.  “Come inside.” 

“It’s incredible!”  There was the dolls’ house, the soft toys, the train, the construction set--a huge room full of wonderful toys.  A puppet theatre seemed like a poster at the door.  Walls and floor alike covered in bright blue paper painted with clouds to the rear, made you feel oddly buoyed up in the sky, adrift.  Roberto thought this must be Paradise.  And in the midst, waiting for him, the red car.

“Go ahead, you’re at home.”  Pino gave him a gentle push.  “Have fun,” he wished before leaving, shutting the door behind him. 

Roberto took two turns around the toy car, admiring every detail.  Only after a several minutes did he dare to touch it, almost reverently.  Then he opened its door and seated himself inside.  There was a steering wheel, horn, seats, and little else.

Welcome.

Are you sitting comfortably?  This’ll be our first trip together.

This can’t be!  Toys don’t speak--obsession must finally have deranged him.  Yet before he had time for further reflexion, the voice sounded again within.

Don’t be scared.  I’m no ordinary toy.  I’ve been waiting for you.

“Are you talking to me?” he dared ask aloud, so that the sound of his own voice would help keep him sane.

Together we’re going to marvellous places--ones you desire, ones you invent for me.  Where would you like to go today?  It has to be a very special place, bearing in mind that this’ll be our first trip.  It must be somewhere you’ll always remember.

Roberto decided that the best thing was to let himself be taken.  If it’s a dream, best to enjoy it!  He thought a moment; pyramids and pharaohs had always fascinated him.

“To ancient Egypt,” he declared.

The steering wheel vibrated under his hands.  Suddenly, everything shook as though they were going at a great speed.  Nothing was visible through the car windows. He shut his eyes.  A few seconds later the car stopped.

You can look now.

They were in the middle of the desert in front of  a pyramid.  Hundreds of workers were still busy on its construction. 

“This is fab!  Is it a film or something?”

Much better than that!  You can get out and stroll around if you want.

“Then it’s real?  You’re a time machine?”

I’m a machine of the imagination.  Which means I can carry you wherever your mind wishes.

“Can you take me to Disneyland?”

I can take you to whatever you imagine Disneyland as being.

“In other words I won’t be there really, right?”

Your trips with me will be fantasies, not realities.  We’ll go as far as you like, we’ll see and do whatever you want.  Anything your imagination can embrace.

“Other planets?”

And other universes.  Anything you imagine.

For a while, hundreds of possibilities thronged Roberto’s mind.  Suddenly he remembered an important detail.

“Why did you say you were waiting for me.  Why me?”

Because only you can drive me to exceptional places.  Other children won’t ever leave this room.  They’ll never see beyond the painted paper.

Roberto couldn’t forget that first trip and the following ones to rare and marvellous locations.  Together they visited Troy and Babylon, Emerald City and El Dorado, Xanadu and Lilliput and Shangri-La, oh yes and the Wild West and Atlantis and the steamy jungles of Venus. What exotic scents and tastes they experienced.  They became acquainted with personages both historical and imaginary.  Every day the travellers adopted new personalities.  Until, inexplicably, the boy’s imagination began to falter…

“It isn’t my fault,” he tried to excuse himself.  “I’m growing up, I’m almost in my teens… You’re a fabulous car and we’ve had incredible adventures, you and I, but… they weren’t true.  What I want now…”   His look shifted.  He was seeing beyond the clouds that adorned the painted paper, beyond that sky, which seemed childish and scarcely credible.  “What I want is different.  I want to be able to see and touch and walk through actual places.  I want a real car that really takes me to those places we’ve imagined.  I want the fantasies to turn into reality.”

Reality doesn’t always correspond to our fantasies.

“I know that.  But I can’t live by dreams.”

There was a moment of silence.  Then the car’s voice uttered what would be its last words spoken to Roberto:

You were a good driver.

“And you, a good toy.  But I have to go, get in touch with the real world.”

Afterwards came the years in the city, high school, the first girls… and finally Roberto’s first car.  His hope of travelling and realising all his boyhood dreams?  Always impatience, followed by disappointment--things were never as he’d imagined.   Things were much greyer, more ordinary and bland.  Life as a whole was so.

It took him four years to make up his mind.  He told himself he must be going mad--and two minutes later persuaded himself that he had never been saner.  It was that conviction which won the battle and finally took him back to the toyshop in the little Italian town on that November morning.

*     *     *     *     *

Pino watched him leave the shop and cross the road without looking, to go and sit on a nearby bench.  Roberto looked like a lost, confused child.  When the toymaker went back inside, a little butterfly with a body of wood and a top hat and silken wings over a wire frame, flew from the display window to perch on his shoulder.

“Don’t you think he deserves another chance?”

“You know the rules.”

“But he’s come back.”

Silently, slowly, Pino walked to a little room at the back.  Thoughtfully he contemplated a bulky object covered by canvas--which he finally lifted, to reveal the old red car in perfect shape. 

“It’ll still need a cleaning and a few dabs of paint before I put it on show again.”

“Which means--?” began the wooden butterfly, still on Pino’s shoulder.

“It isn’t him. Not him neither!  This seems an impossible task.  They all end up becoming adults.  And I’m very tired.  I need to find someone who’ll take over.  A replacement.”

“Well, we found one, remember?  Peter.”

“Yes, he’d have been ideal.  But he decided to stay in Never-Never Land.  I had to abide by his decision.”

The butterfly tried to change the subject to cheer Pino up a bit. 

“What changes are you thinking of making to the car?” 

“I dunno, it needs updating, the design…”

“Same as you did with me?  I must admit that being a butterfly beats being a cricket.”

“I suppose so,” agreed the toymaker.

“Are you sure we can’t give him another chance?”

Without comment Pino headed to the entrance and looked out at the street.  Roberto was still sitting on the bench.

“Evidently not.”

From Roberto’s head and hands and feet the thinnest of grey strings arose, climbing towards the sky, disappearing high up.  They made him look like a puppet. 

Other pedestrians were crossing the street and the nearby square, all suspended from coloured strings: greens, reds, blues, black, white.  Some were multicoloured, some thicker than others.  Drivers also wore strings, which oddly didn’t get tangled with themselves or with anyone else’s strings.   Only children ran about or played freely without that strange attachment which none other than Pino and the toy seemed to notice.

“He’s already an adult like the rest.  There’s no cure.”

“You can’t be the only one, Pino.  There has to be someone else.”

“Make me into a real boy: that’s what I and my dad wanted--to release me from my strings forever.  But forever’s too long.  It’s too heavy a baton to carry for so many years.   I need someone to stand in for me at the front of the shop.  I’m so tired, my old friend.  My mind may be that of a child, but my body’s failing.  Very slowly, to be sure, yet even so…”

“Well, that’s the downside of giving up being wooden in favour of flesh and bone.”  The butterfly meant to sound jovial and upbeat.  In vain.   Deciding to change tactics, he said resolutely, “We’ll find someone, you’ll see.  Sooner or later.”

“I did think it was him.  He was on the verge of success.”

“And in fact he reconsidered.  He came back.”

Again they observed Roberto--who at that very moment rose slowly, as if overtaken by age, the strings moving his limbs and carrying him towards the square until at last he turned a corner and disappeared from view.  It was getting dark and the stars were showing shyly.  One in particular gleamed above the toy shop.

“Yes, he came back--too late.”  The old man sighed, and shook his head as if to erase whatever couldn’t be mended.  “Oh well, Pepito, back to work.” 

And Pino, as Pepito called him, eternal child because he never became a puppet again, went back within--on his shoulder the butterfly, aware that right now nothing remained but to give silent support.  Pino took the stool which, along with some tools, was the only legacy of old Gepetto, and set to work once more on the red car.  Through the open window the star shone upon his wrinkled, though skillful, hands which carved and polished and painted the toy patiently, lovingly.

*     *     *     *     *

It wasn’t ready till weeks later, just before Christmas Eve.  That very morning a little girl of seven or eight stopped to admire it.  A life-size car!  Never in her life had she seen anything as lovely.  It was simply perfect.

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