‘Mother, look at these pictures.’
‘I know, I know, I’ve seen them. They say everything . . .’
The destruction of the buildings was not the last revenge. The people were now brutally repressed.Thirty thousand workers were imprisoned and torture was commonplace in the gaols.The socialist presses were silent.
The atmosphere in the country changed. Even in El Barril, where Pablo and Concha did what they could not to seem biased towards any political party, they could feel distrust between people beginning to set in. Some of their customers openly supported the socialists, others clearly welcomed the conservatives into government and at times there was animosity between them.There was a subtle shift of ambience in the bar.The halcyon days of the Republic seemed to be coming to an end.
Whatever the changes and upheavals going on in politics, Concha was concerned that any of the privileges that had been won for ordinary people were being eroded. Most importantly of all, she would lament the disappearance of any improvements for women. For the first time in Spain’s history, women had been getting into public office and participating in politics. Thousands of them were now going to university too, and taking part in sport, even bullfighting.
Concha and her friends flippantly called the new freedoms for women ‘liberation and lingerie’ because of the exciting new undergarments that they now sometimes saw advertised in the newspapers. Having moved out of rural poverty herself when she married Pablo, she wanted to see Mercedes improve her life too, and had been pleased at the prospect of her daughter growing up in a society full of opportunity. With women now in the professions and reaching positions of power and influence, Concha hoped that life for Mercedes would have more to it than polishing glasses and lining them up neatly along the bar.Though Mercedes seemed to think of nothing but dance her mother regarded it as something of a childish pastime.
She did not worry about her sons. They had already-evolving careers and their futures looked promising.
‘Granada is full of opportunities,’ she said to Mercedes, ‘so imagine what it must be like in the rest of Spain!’
Mercedes had only a limited idea of what the rest of her country was like but she nodded with agreement. It was usually the best thing to do with her mother. She knew that Concha did not take her dancing seriously enough. As the months and years passed by, she knew it was all she would ever want to do, but it was hard to convince her parents. All of her brothers appreciated this ambition of hers. They had watched her dancing from the days of her first flamenco shoes, the smallest anyone made, to the present time when she was a match for anyone in Granada, and Mercedes knew that they understood her desire.
When tales had begun to filter through from Concha’s family in the countryside that landless farm workers were once again being ill-treated, she lectured her family on the unfairness of it all.
‘This is not what the Republic was meant to stand for!’ she would rant. ‘Is it?’
She expected a response from her children even if her husband remained studiedly neutral. Pablo found this by far the best position to take, given that his business relied on the need to welcome anyone who cared to come in the door. He did not want El Barril to be too firmly identified with politics of any colour, unlike several bars in Granada that had become meeting places of very specific cliques.
Antonio muttered in agreement. He was more keenly aware of the political shifts taking place than anyone else in his family. He was following events in the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, closely, and read the newspapers voraciously and retentively. Though the city of Granada had a strongly conservative bias, Antonio, like his mother, was naturally drawn towards the left. The family could have remained unaware of this, but for the fights he used to have with Ignacio. The two boys lived on the edge of conflict.
As children they had fought over practically everything from toys and books to who should have the last piece of bread in the basket. Ignacio would never acknowledge that age and precedence should have any connection. Now the disagreement between them extended into the more serious business of politics and, though with fewer physical bruises and scratches than before, it was with hatred that they fought.
Emilio always remained silent when his brothers argued. He did not want to get drawn in, knowing that Ignacio was more than likely to pick on him. Mercedes occasionally interjected.The vehemence of their arguments upset her. She wanted them to love each other and for her this dislike seemed an unnatural state of affairs between brothers.
Another reason for their current polarisation was Ignacio’s entrenchment in the bullfighting crowd. The people who were drawn to this sport - or, rather art, as so many people thought of it - tended to be the most conservative of Granadinos. They were the landowners and the wealthy, and Ignacio happily adopted their attitudes. Pablo and Concha accepted these inclinations and hoped that maturity might make him see that reason lay more in the middle ground. Meanwhile, Antonio found Ignacio’s swaggering hard to stomach and never bothered to conceal it.
The household seemed to be relaxed only when Ignacio was away for a corrida. His days as a banderillero were behind him now and he had completed his apprenticeship as a novillero, a period during which he could fight only young bulls. He was now a fully fledged matador de toros and at his alternativa, the ceremony where this transition was formalised, the experts noted his precocious talent.Wherever he went, not just in Granada, but in Sevilla, Málaga and Córdoba too, Ignacio’s reputation grew with every appearance.
As Emilio grew up, he began to develop an antipathy to his brother that surpassed even Antonio’s. They were instinctively polarised on all matters. Ignacio taunted Emilio on several counts: for his passion for the guitar, for his lack of interest in women, and that he was not, as his older brother described it ‘a real man’. Unlike Antonio, who could spar with words even better than Ignacio, Emilio would retreat into silence and then into his music. His lack of desire to retaliate and to fight back with Ignacio in one of the ways he understood, through fists or a clever turn of phrase, infuriated his brother all the more.
Although she was a much more sociable creature than her brother, Mercedes was immersed in the solipsistic world of music and dance. Nothing much had changed for her from the age of five to fifteen. She still spent much of her time in the attic listening to her brother or visiting her favourite shop behind the Plaza Bib Rambla, which made the best flamenco dresses in the city, talking to the owner, fingering the fabrics and feeling their folds, letting the extravagant ruffles run through her fingers, as though she was a soon-to-be-bride selecting her trousseau.
The shop, run by Señora Ruiz, was her private paradise. Racks of dresses hung from the ceiling in both adult and child sizes, and there were even tiny costumes for babies who could not yet walk, let alone dance. All of them were made with the same attention to detail, and their tiers of ruffles edged with ribbon or lace were all meticulously starched. Every single one was different and no two fabrics repeated.There were simple skirts for lessons and plain white shirts, embroidered shawls with silky tassels, hair combs and rows of shiny castanets. Boys were not forgotten and there were suits in every size, from toddler to adult, with black hats to complete the outfit.
Mercedes’ favourite dresses were those with wired lower hems that would move in perfect wave motion as a dancer rotated. These were the ones she yearned to own, but they cost many thousands of pesetas and she had to make do with fantasy.Though she had three costumes sewn by her mother, she still wanted what she called a ‘real’ dress and the shopkeeper never tired of discussing quality and cost of fabric with her. For her sixteenth birthday, her parents had promised to grant her wish.
People had been marvelling at the way she performed since she was eight. It was common for girls to start dancing in public at that age and it was never considered unsuitable or precocious. From the age of eleven, she had been going up the hill into the Sacromonte, which was where the gypsies lived in their dank homes hollowed out of the
hillside. Though she had several friends in the area, the real reason she went to the Sacromonte was to see an old bailaora known as ‘La Mariposa’.
Most people thought her a mad old witch. Indeed, María Rodríguez had lost some of her reason, but she still had the memories of her great dancing days. They were as clear to her as if they had been yesterday. She saw in Mercedes a glimpse of her younger self, and perhaps in her elderly mind she thought that she and the child were one and the same as she relived her dancing through the adolescent girl.
Mercedes did have friends of her own age but it was at this woman’s crumbling home that her mother would always look for her first. It was her retreat and the place where her obsession grew.
Señora Ramírez was worried about Mercedes’ schoolwork and reports from her teachers were unimpressive. She wanted to see her daughter take advantage of what this changing world might offer.
‘Merche, when are you going to stay at home to do your studying?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t spend your entire life spinning around. It’ll never make you a living.’
She tried to make it sound light-hearted but she was serious and Mercedes knew that.The girl bit her tongue to prevent herself from answering back.
‘There’s no point arguing with Mother,’ Emilio told her. ‘She will never see your point of view. Like she never sees mine.’
Concha’s view was that without gypsy blood Mercedes could never be a ‘proper’ dancer. She believed that the gitanos were the only ones who could dance, or play flamenco guitar, for that matter.
Even Pablo disagreed with her. ‘She’s as good as any of them,’ he would say defensively to his wife when they watched her at a fiesta.
‘Even if she was,’ responded Concha, ‘I would rather she was doing something else. That’s how I feel.’
‘And she “feels” that dancing is the right thing for her to be doing,’ interrupted Emilio bravely.
‘This is nothing to do with you, Emilio, and we’d rather you didn’t egg her on quite so much,’ snapped Concha.
Her father had always encouraged Mercedes’ love of dancing but he was now beginning to worry about it, though not for the same reasons as his wife. Since the conservative government’s win in the elections and the unrest in the north, the Civil Guard were beginning to tighten the screws on those who were not seen to conform. Anyone who fraternised with the gypsies, for example, was now regarded as a subversive. The amount of time Mercedes spent in the Sacromonte was beginning to worry even him.
One afternoon Mercedes came running back from La Mariposa’s and burst through the door of El Barril. The place was empty except for Emilio, who was behind the bar drying cups and saucers. He was working almost full time in the café now. His parents were resting in the apartment, Antonio was at school teaching his last lessons for the term and Ignacio was away in Sevilla for a corrida.
‘Emilio!’ she said breathlessly. ‘You have to take the evening off.You’ve got to come out with me!’
She came up to the bar and he could see droplets of perspiration on her forehead. She must have been running hard and her chest was heaving from the exertion. Her long hair, sometimes neatly plaited for school, was dishevelled and hanging loose about her shoulders.
‘Please!’
‘What for?’ he asked, continuing to dry a saucer.
‘A juerga. María Rodríguez just told me that Raul Montero’s son is coming to play. Tonight. We are invited to go - but you know I can’t go on my own . . .’
‘What time?’
‘About ten o’clock. Please, Emilio! Please come with me.’ Mercedes gripped the edge of the bar, wide-eyed, pleading with her brother.
‘All right. I’ll ask our parents.’
‘Thanks, Emilio. Javier Montero is meant to be nearly as good as his father.’
He could see that his sister was excited. The old lady had told her that if Javier Montero was even a fraction as handsome as his father or one tenth as accomplished on the guitar, then he was worth going to see.
Javier Montero was not exactly a stranger because many of the gitanos knew of him. He had come at their invitation from his home in Málaga. Musicians often came in from the outside but this one had excited local anticipation more than most. Both his father and his uncle were among the biggest names in flamenco, and that summer night in 1935 ‘El Niño’, as he was known, was to play in Granada.
When they entered the long windowless room, a seated figure was already quietly playing a falseta, a variation on the piece that he would eventually open with. All they could see of him was the top of his head and a mass of glossy black hair that hung down and entirely screened his face. Bent lovingly over his guitar, he appeared to be listening, as though he believed it was the instrument itself that would give him his melody. Someone was subtly rapping out the rhythm on the table top nearby.
For ten minutes, while people were still coming into the room, he did not look up. Then he raised his head and gazed into the middle distance towards a point that only he could see. It was an expression of pure concentration, the pupils of his dark eyes just registering the outlines of the few figures already seated.With the light behind them, their faces were in the shadows, their silhouettes haloed.
The young Montero was spot-lit for all to see. He looked younger than his twenty years and his dimpled chin gave him an unexpected innocence. There was something almost feminine about him, with his copious, glossy tresses and features that were finer than most gypsy men.
From the moment she saw him, Mercedes was transfixed. She thought he was extraordinarily beautiful for a man and when his face disappeared once again behind the shroud of his mane it was like losing something. She willed him to look up so she could resume studying him. He continued idly moving his fingers across the strings, vain enough to want a bigger crowd and clearly not planning to start his performance until the room was filled to capacity.
More than half an hour later, and without apparent warning, he began.
The effect of his playing on Mercedes was physical. At that very moment, it was as though her heart expanded. The powerful beating that resounded in her ears as loudly as a drum was entirely involuntary. On the low uncomfortable stools on which they sat, she hugged herself in an attempt to still her shaking body. In her life, she had not heard anyone play like this. Even the older men who had been playing for half a century did not produce such an exquisite sound.
This flamenco was at one with his guitar, and the rhythms and melodies that he could draw from it passed through the audience like an electric current. Chords and melody emanated from his instrument along with percussive taps on the golpeador. It was as though a third invisible hand was at work and the sureness of his technique and the originality of the music astounded them all. The rise in room temperature was palpable and the murmured utterance of ‘Olé ’ was passed around the room like a hat.
Beads of sweat streaked Javier Montero’s face and for the first time, as he tipped his head back, the audience could see that his features were distorted with concentration. Rivulets of moisture coursed down his neck.The drummer took over for a few minutes, allowing him to rest and once again he stared out blankly across the heads of the audience. He did not engage with them even for a moment. From where he sat, they were a single, amorphous mass.
There was one further piece and then, twenty minutes from the start of the performance, he gave a brief nod of his head, rose from his seat and edged his way past the applauding crowd.
Mercedes felt the edge of his jacket brush her face as he went past and caught the sweet-sour scent of him. Something akin to panic seized her now. It was as strong as pain and her heart resumed its earlier violent beating. In one thunder-clap instant, the postured gestures of love and grief that she had copied from other flamenco dancers over the years became something real. The play-acting had been a dress rehearsal for this moment.
The anguish, the despair that she might never again set eyes on this man almost made her forget herself
and shout aloud:‘Stop! Don’t go!’ Reason and reticence could not hold her back, and she got up and slipped away, leaving Emilio discussing with others in the cueva what they had all just witnessed.
Such heightened atmosphere was not uncommon in these performances but even so, the player had been a cut above the best of them, they all agreed, and their slightly rivalrous envy of his brilliance gave way to admiration.
As the fresh air hit Mercedes, she nearly lost courage. Just outside the door, in the shadows, was the figure of the guitarrista. The fiery glow from a cigarette gave away his presence.
Suddenly her boldness seemed almost shameful.
‘Señor,’ she whispered.
Montero was used to such advances. The allure of a masterful player invariably proved irresistible to someone in the audience.
‘Sí,’ he replied. The lack of depth in his voice was a surprise.
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