{"id":3276,"date":"2015-06-27T06:55:55","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T04:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.amiscorbin.com\/?page_id=3276"},"modified":"2015-06-27T06:55:55","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T04:55:55","slug":"memories-from-the-childhood-of-stella-corbin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.amiscorbin.com\/en\/biography\/memories-from-the-childhood-of-stella-corbin\/","title":{"rendered":"Memories from the Childhood of Stella Corbin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memories from the Childhood of Stella Corbin<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Translated by Matthew Evans-Cockle<\/span><\/h4>\n

The green wood home rises on the hillside that runs down to the roadway and then, still further, down to the riverbank where the sensitive growth lies thick upon the pebbles.\u00a0 The river tarries in our green valley before coming to that perilous instant when it must brave the ever-surging channel, thence to lose itself in the Pacific.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0In front of the house there lies an open space lined with hibiscus and cagnas.\u00a0 This is where the natives gather, on those holidays when they come to \u201clove\u201d or render homage to our parents.\u00a0 At the chief\u2019s call, the whole village, hut after hut, forms a long cort\u00e8ge, singing as it advances.\u00a0 While the men present the gifts; long yams, great bunches of bananas, poultry, occasional relics from some previous era, assegais, axes, ancient coins; the women and children fan out on the left. Festive costumes in gaudy colors, frizzy hair spiked with flowers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Special day for us children.\u00a0 Motionless on the steps, and done up in our Sunday best, we sit listening to the speeches waiting for the final song to start up and liberate us as well as our somewhat less restrained young native friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0And then the games would start all over again.\u00a0 Racing upon the grassy slopes, a fishing party with my brother on his boat and above all the secret game I share with my sister Francine, the game we call \u201clittle girls fallen from the sky\u201d.\u00a0 As prelude to this game it suffices to whisper a little magical phrase for a world of marvels to suddenly appear before us.\u00a0 Ke wi ma wi? Where are you going?\u00a0 And just as abruptly, we would find ourselves propelled into our universe, where everything arranges itself for our pleasure.\u00a0 Our noble realm?\u00a0 The old orange tree at the paddock\u2019s entrance.\u00a0 We would climb it, jubilant over the many butterflies fluttering around our tree.\u00a0 Through the leaves one could see the farm and its hen house.\u00a0 Which was a familiar and reassuring landscape.\u00a0 But off on the opposite side lay the forest, disturbing because home to wild boar.\u00a0 By good providence, between the forest and our orange tree there rises an enormous boulder immobilized in its descent as though by magic.\u00a0 Is it there, perhaps, to mark a frontier?\u00a0 So long as it doesn\u2019t serve to conceal the terrible boar, which is the one possible danger.\u00a0 Towards sundown, frightened, we watch our boulder\u2019s growing shadow and our agitation hides from us another source of concern: the call to supper, that imperious return to the banality of the everyday world and the fading away of our enchanted universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0At night the frogs, and small lizards enter our room.\u00a0 Hanging from the curtains, they hold their assembly and their murmuring swiftly transports me to the Niaoulian myrtle woods with their tenacious perfume.\u00a0 In that far off place, there is a family that showers us with gifts.\u00a0 There is a long drawn out war, news of which is cabled to us by telephone.\u00a0 This is the grim hour when anxiety becomes clearly legible upon the parents\u2019 faces.\u00a0 When I am alone, faced with the task of relaying the information in such cables, it requires enormous effort to retain the names of the areas in which the battles are taking place, but my geography is cursory at best, I confuse regions and have difficulty imagining this other world, until the day when a first trip to the town of Noumea, and its school, gives me a taste of what the eventual and definitive departure will be like two years later.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Goodbye verdant paradise where once I frolicked, disheveled and barefoot with my young native friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Familiar objects suddenly heap themselves in great trunks, which invade all the rooms.\u00a0 Beneath a pile of sheets, a hiding place, I slipped one of my favorite books, alas only one!\u00a0 I am, however, incapable of likewise dissimulating my large doll, a prized possession.\u00a0 It had been decided that it should remain at the missionary station for the successors\u2019 children. Confronted by this forced renunciation I felt my universe crumbling.\u00a0 To leave, to abandon that which one has cherished, could this then be life?\u00a0 Could another catastrophic turn of events be such that one day my parents would be obliged to abandon one of us in turn?\u00a0 The very idea terrified me.\u00a0 Anxious, I follow along.\u00a0 It is a mere two days after our departure from the port of Noumea, on the open ocean, that my brother, no doubt annoyed by the crybaby at his side, tells me with the self assurance of the elder brother who has already been to France:\u00a0 \u201cOne doesn\u2019t cry on one\u2019s way to Paris\u201d.\u00a0 To which I responded: \u201cmy life is over\u201d.\u00a0 And oh how salutary the peal of laughter I thereby provoked with all my grandiloquence. Indeed, as though by some enchantment, my fear leaves me.\u00a0 My eyes eventually settle upon the other children playing upon the ship\u2019s bridge.\u00a0 Seized by a sudden curiosity, I want to join in their games, to discover their world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Little by little, the curtain falls on the paradise of childhood as we drift towards Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, the Point of Good Hope, and as, from the upper deck, we contemplate the Southern Cross, disappearing behind the horizon as the Polar star rises.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memories from the Childhood of Stella Corbin Translated by Matthew Evans-Cockle The green wood home rises on the hillside that runs down to the roadway and [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3084,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3276","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nMemories from the Childhood of Stella Corbin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amiscorbin.com\/en\/biography\/memories-from-the-childhood-of-stella-corbin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Memories from the Childhood of Stella Corbin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Memories from the Childhood 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