Sophie La Belle and the Miniature Cities

By Gisela Heffes

Gisela Heffes is the heiress to the magical metafictions of Italo Calvino and the labyrinthine artistry of Jorge Luis Borges. In Sophie La Belle and the Miniature Cities, Heffes has conjured a dazzling post-modern fairytale that delights and inspires as it slowly reveals its tender mysteries. A writer of enormous talent and grace, Gisela Heffes guides her reader on a harrowing journey through a series of extraordinary realms as she dares to question the nature of politics and civilization. With Sophie La Belle and the Miniature Cities, Gisela Heffes has distinguished herself as a storyteller, a philosopher and a sorceress. I suspect I shall be reading her stories for a lifetime.

Amber Dermont

• Language: English
• Publisher: Literal Publishing
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223770411

Book preview

Gisela Heffes

SOPHIE LA BELLE

AND THE MINIATURE CITIES

SOPHIE LA BELLE

Y LAS CIUDADES EN MINIATURA

English translation by Lorís Simón, Grady C. Wray and Kenneth Loiselle

bar

Diseño de portada e interiores: DM

Primera edición 2016

Todos los derechos reservados

© 2016 Gisela Heffes

© 2016 Literal Publishing

Crestón 343

México, D.F., 01900

www.literalmagazine.com

ISBN: 978-1-942307-19-8

Ninguna parte del contenido de este libro puede reproducirse, almacenarse o transmitirse de ninguna forma, ni por ningún medio, sea éste electrónico, químico, mecánico, óptico, de grabación o de fotocopia, sin el permiso de la casa editorial.

Impreso y hecho en México / Printed and made in Mexico

Content / Índice

Sophie La Belle and the Miniature Cities

Cities / Ciudades

Sophie La Belle y las ciudades en miniatura

Sophie La Belle

and the Miniature Cities

For Ken, Sarah & Nathaniel

To those that remained outside

Sophie La Belle

and the Miniature Cities

(An Urban Tale)

It all began with the first miniature city. Sophie La Belle had flown all the way from Cambridge, Massachusetts to say farewell to her older brother. They had entrusted him with a secret mission in Continental City, on the border between ancient France and Belgium. When Sophie La Belle saw him at the airport, she smiled. He was her favorite out of the five. Brother and sister hugged, then headed towards the parking lot. Both had light brown hair, blue green eyes, the same long, black eyelashes and high cheekbones. Anyone would have guessed they were twins. The only difference one could see was that her brother was much taller and slightly brawnier. Sophie La Belle was slimmer and smaller. From afar, she looked like a little porcelain doll.

Her brother set the leather suitcase in the trunk and both sat down simultaneously. Once inside the car, Sophie La Belle gave him his present. She took a purple, velvet bag out of her purse with a red and yellow satin tie that enclosed its contents with a delicate knot. Sophie La Belle’s brother unwrapped an object protected with wax paper. He was spellbound when he discovered a miniature city made completely out of colored glass, stony streets, and miniature houses, overlapped one against the other. Sophie La Belle thought she’d give her city a special feature and said,

This city is different from the others, you know, because once you enter, you won’t be able to come out. It is a refuge, but it is also a trap. You will be trapped forever since each and every one of its doors has a bolt on the outside but lacks one on the inside. There is no turning back in this city, so pay attention to the door you choose…

Her brother looked at her entertained, and added,

A miniature world where you believe you will reach salvation, but, quite the contrary, you will face your condemnation. Thank you, Sophie.

Sister and brother hugged once more and then took the freeway downtown.

* * *

Soon after graduating and receiving her master’s degree, the project of creating an archipelago of miniature cities emerged. Sophie La Belle studied at an exclusive boarding school in the Alps (ex Switzerland), then she was sent to Oxford, concluding her specialization in architecture and urbanism at Harvard.

She traveled for two years. She went to Bangkok first, Hanoi and New Delhi, and then reached Seoul, Shanghai and Manila. She was also able to see some Mideastern cities and northeastern Africa, but Mexico City, Cuzco, and Havana would remain yet to be seen. During this itinerary, Sophie La Belle would take pictures throughout the cities of barefoot men and women, old mules dragging precarious carts, women wrapped from head to toe who’d spy on the world through a string-thick crevice, children with their bellies sticking out, workers who would shorten their tired routines with alcohol in a wooden bar.

Sophie La Belle framed and hung all her best photographs on the wall like trophies, proud, just like a hunter hangs the fresh head of his deer above the chimney. However, beyond Sophie La Belle’s indubitable intelligence, there was something that escaped her hungry eye for natural beauty. For someone that came from a unique and ancient Civilization that had now united under the name of Continental City, these landscapes did not only reaffirm her identity, but they also roused a certain satisfaction within her from living in an advanced world; she was fascinated by their exoticism.

This was why Sophie La Belle thought that it would be best to continue the work she had begun with her thesis project upon her return.

* * *

Sophie La Belle’s thesis project: "…I propose to portray a futuristic metaphor at a moment where the future no longer exists. Cities will become human enclaves that societies will inhabit. These microscopic universes cannot be meddled with or changed because the cities of the developed worlds have already been thought of and constructed (that is to say they embody the most finalized consummation, the wave’s crest, the utopia that has finally been reached); but they can be perfected