‘Hola, little beauty,’ he’d called as she’d walked past him. ‘Are you the girl I hear dances the alegrías better than any other in the village? Come and talk a while. Keep a sick man company.’
Shyly, she had joined him, and he’d played his guitar for her, and then insisted she go and dance with him in the olive grove beyond his cave. After his hands had clapped out a palmas then encircled her waist to draw her closer, and their bodies had swayed to the sensuous invisible beats of their hearts, she’d arrived home that night breathless and dreamy, having been kissed for the first time in her life.
‘Where have you been?’ Paola, her mother, had been waiting for her.
‘Nowhere, Mamá,’ she’d said as she’d passed her, not wishing Paola to see her blushes.
‘I’ll find out, miss!’ Paola had wagged a finger at her. ‘And I know it’s to do with a man.’
María had been aware that Paola and Pedro, her father, would heavily disapprove of any relationship between her and José. His family, the Albaycíns, lived in poverty, whereas she, as an Amaya, came from a rich family – at least by gitano standards. Her parents already had an eye on the son of a cousin; Paola had produced only one live baby girl from her seven pregnancies, and an heir to the successful blacksmith’s forge that Pedro ran was urgently needed.
Even though María knew all this – and up to now had been a caring and dutiful daughter – all her good intentions had flown like trapped butterflies released from her senses as José had relentlessly pursued her.
Falling further under the spell of his charm, as his fingers caressed both his guitar and her body, she’d finally let him convince her to sneak out of her family’s cave at night, and had lain with him in the olive grove at the foot of the Valparaiso mountain. All through the unusually hot summer, as her father’s forge billowed a fierce unbearable heat, María had felt as if her mind and body were on fire too. All she could think of was the long, cool night ahead, when José’s body would wrap around hers.
Their night-time trysts had been cut short by the wrath of her father. Even though they had been careful, someone in Sacromonte had seen them and gossiped.
‘You have brought shame upon this family, María,’ Pedro had roared after he’d dragged both his daughter and her lover to the cave to face their disgrace.
‘I am sorry, Papá,’ María had wept, ‘but I love him.’
José had gone down on his knees to beg forgiveness, and immediately asked Pedro for her hand in marriage.
‘I love your daughter, señor. I will take every care of her, believe me.’
‘I do not, boy. Your reputation goes before you, and now you have ruined my daughter’s too! She is only fifteen years of age!’
María had sat outside the cave as her father and José had discussed her future. Her mother’s face, taut with disappointment and humiliation, was perhaps the worst punishment of all. A gitano woman’s purity was sacrosanct – the only currency she had to offer.
A week later, the village of Sacromonte had celebrated a hastily arranged engagement party for the couple, then, a month afterwards, a large wedding. The traditional celebration lasted three days. On the last evening, María – bedecked in a dress of blue and fuchsia with a long train, her hair adorned with red pomegranate flowers – had climbed onto a mule behind her new husband, and the entire village had formed a procession, following them down to her family cave for the final ceremony of the night.
María still remembered how she had shaken with fear at the prospect of the Tres Rosas ceremony. José’s face was above her in the dark cave, the smell of alcohol on his breath as he kissed her, then mounted her. Outside, María could hear raucous laughter and her heartbeat was as fast as the hands beating on the cajón drums.
‘It is done!’ roared José as he’d rolled off her and summoned her mother. María had lain there, waiting for Paola to press a white handkerchief against the most intimate part of her, knowing that the three blooms of her virginity would not appear.
‘Don’t make a sound, daughter,’ Paola had warned her in an urgent whisper.
In the flickering candlelight, María had watched as her mother pulled a small blade from a pocket and pressed it into the tender flesh of her daughter’s thigh. María had stifled a cry as she saw blood from the wound drop onto the cloth her mother held.
‘You have made your bed, querida, and now you will lie in it for the rest of your days,’ Paola had whispered fiercely, before leaving the cave with the handkerchief held out in front of her.
Outside, the village had erupted with cheers and applause as Paola had waved it to all for their inspection.
‘So, wife.’ José had reappeared beside her soon after, a flask of brandy in one hand, a cheroot in the other. ‘Shall we drink to our union?’
‘No, José. I do not like the taste.’
‘But you like the taste of this, don’t you?’ He’d grinned at her, as he dropped his breeches to the floor and joined her again beneath the colourful blanket it had taken her a month to crochet.
An hour later, as María had dozed from the strain of the past few days, she’d heard José leave the bed and pull on his clothes.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I left something behind. You sleep now, mi amor, and I will be back soon.’
Yet when María had opened her eyes to the dawn the following morning, José had still not returned.
*
María sighed as she made her way to the smelly public latrine used by the cave dwellers. If she had believed then – eighteen years ago now – that José loved her as much as she loved him, any such romantic thought was now long dead. Perhaps, she thought bitterly, José had known the marriage was to his advantage. Her parents had been wealthy enough to pay for a new cave – albeit far further up the mountain – as a wedding gift, plus an exceptional set of iron kitchenware.
Their first child had been born prematurely at eight months – or so she had been told to say by her mother – but had survived no longer than six weeks. The second and third babies she’d miscarried in the second month. Then finally, Eduardo had arrived and María had buried herself in motherhood. At last she was able to sit with the other women to talk over remedies for colic, fever and the diarrhoea that hit the young and old of Sacromonte like a plague as the rain fell in the winter, the mud running down the dusty narrow pathways and the cesspits overflowing. No matter that her husband was rarely at home, or that there were no pesetas in the tin they kept hidden in a locked wooden cupboard behind a painting of the Blessed Virgin. At least her father had already promised that baby Eduardo would have a future in his forge, and Paola slipped her enough vegetables to keep mother and son alive.
‘No more than this will I give,’ her mother would say. ‘That river rat of a husband would spend any money I gave you on brandy.’
Emerging from the latrine, María smiled as an image of Eduardo rose in her mind. He was such a good boy – now sixteen and working alongside his grandfather. As for her other two sons . . . there was no doubt they took after their father. Both of them had the same wild streak that seemed to be inherent in pureblood gitanos. Carlos was almost fifteen and earned his living bare-knuckle fighting – a fact he would never admit to, but was obvious to his mother when he began to appear in the cave in the mornings, his face swollen and his young body covered in bruises. Felipe, now thirteen, had been sickly as a baby and was more sweet-natured, but easily swayed by the older brother he adored. Felipe was a talented guitarist, for whom his father had great hopes, but instead of developing his talent, he followed Carlos around like a lamb, eager to gain his approval in any way he could. As she reached her cave, to comfort herself, María turned her thoughts to little Lucía, in whom she’d placed so much hope when she’d found herself pregnant after three fallow years.
‘It will be a girl,’ Micaela had told her when María had gone to see her in her third month. ‘She will be possessed of many talents. She will be special.’
María knew now that every word Micaela had spoken was true. As a bruja – or ‘witch’, as the ignorant payos would call her – she had the third eye and had never been wrong. Everyone in Sacromonte counted on Micaela to give them the prophecies they desired, and they were none too pleased if she told them something they did not want to hear.
And it was María’s own mistake for interpreting Micaela’s words in the way that she’d wished to. ‘Special’ and ‘talented’ had meant to her what she had wanted them to mean: another woman in the house, talented at home-making and rearing children, a daughter who was kind, gentle, who would help and support her through the latter years of her life.
‘That is the problem with seers and their prophecies,’ María muttered as she undressed by the light of the flickering candle, then carefully folded her embroidered bolero, apron, blue skirt and petticoat before donning her nightgown. It was not that they gave the wrong message, but simply that the person who received it could mould it into what they wanted and needed it to be.
She had hoped that one of her children would have inherited her great-grandmother’s gift. She had been the village bruja before Micaela and the gift ran in her family. She’d dreamed that Micaela would inspect the new baby and tell her that yes, this was the child who would one day become the next bruja. Then everyone would have come to their cave to visit, knowing that her baby possessed the gift of seeing and would grow to be the most powerful woman or man in their community.
Returning to the kitchen, María scooped some water out of the barrel to wash her face. Then she tiptoed across the room; to her left lay the boys’ sleeping quarters, separated from the kitchen by a curtain. Twitching the fabric aside and holding the flickering candle in front of her, she could just make out Felipe’s slight form under his thin blanket, his breathing still heavy from a recent chest ailment. Beside him on the straw pallet was Eduardo, his hand flung carelessly across his face as he slept. María suppressed an irritated sigh as she noted that Carlos was not yet home.
She made her way across the earthen floor to her own room right at the back, and saw Lucía sleeping peacefully on her pallet. Using the last of the candlelight, she navigated her way beneath her own blanket. Snuffing out the remnants of the flame with her fingers, she lay her head on the hard straw-filled pillow and stared into the blackness. Even though the evening was warm, María shivered in the stale, fetid air of the cave. She wished that José’s arms were there to embrace her, to take away the fear she felt for the future. But those strong arms did not want a woman whose body was turning flaccid from birthing five children and lack of nourishment. At thirty-three, María felt she looked far older than her age.
What is it all for? she asked the heavens and the Blessed Virgin. Then, receiving no answer, María closed her eyes and slept.
11
‘Why do I always have to help with the cooking?’ Lucía pouted as María dragged her into the kitchen. ‘Papá and Carlos and Felipe – they sit outside, playing guitar and smoking whilst we do all the work!’
It was another morning, and María already felt weary to her bones at the thought of all that lay ahead of her that day.
‘Cooking is women’s work, Lucía. You know very well that is the way it is.’ María handed her a heavy iron pot. ‘The men go out to earn the money, we take care of the house. Now, stop your complaining and peel those vegetables!’
‘But I earn money too! When I dance with Papá in the cafés, he takes people’s coins and drinks brandy with them, yet I still have to peel vegetables. Why should I do both? One day I will no longer live in a cave like an animal, but in a great big house with a floor that isn’t made of earth, and a bedroom all of my own,’ Lucía declared as she looked round in disgust at the Albaycín cave. ‘Why can’t we get a machine that cooks things? I saw one in the kitchen of the rich señorito when Papá and I performed at his house. They had a woman who did all their cooking. I will have one of those too.’ Lucía threw the vegetables into the pot that bubbled over the fire. ‘And it had a tap of water all for one family. Imagine that,’ she said in wonder, grasping the last carrot to her chest before she threw it in with the rest. ‘What it must be to be rich.’
‘Get along with you now,’ María cut her short by handing her a pitcher, ‘and fetch the water.’
‘One of the boys can do that, can’t they? It is such a long walk and I am tired.’
‘Not too tired to carry on with your chatter,’ María scolded her. ‘Off you go!’
‘One day, I’ll have a water tap all to myself!’ came Lucía’s parting shot.
‘And one day, I will be dead from exhaustion,’ muttered her mother.
A rattling cough emanated from the boys’ bedroom and a few seconds later, Felipe shuffled out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘What’s for breakfast, Mamá?’ he mumbled. ‘Porridge again?’
‘Yes, and I’ve made another mint tonic for your chest, querido.’
Felipe grimaced as he sat down at the table and began to spoon up the watery maize. ‘I hate mint tonic.’
‘But it helps you breathe, so drink, or we will have to get Micaela to come and give you another even stronger remedy.’
Felipe’s eyes widened in alarm and he reluctantly gulped down the liquid in the mug in front of him.
‘Where has your brother Carlos got to?’ she asked him. ‘Eduardo told me he had planned to take him to the forge today. He is old enough to start learning his trade alongside his brother.’
Felipe shrugged, and continued eating his breakfast, refusing to meet her eyes. María knew that he would never betray his brother’s secrets.
As if on cue, Carlos sauntered into the cave, a black eye blooming on his face. ‘Hola, Mamá,’ he said nonchalantly and dropped onto a stool beside his brother.
Rather than handing him his bowl of porridge, she crouched down and tentatively prodded the tender skin around his eye.
‘What’s this, Carlos?! Who have you been fighting?’ she demanded.
He ducked out of her reach. ‘It’s nothing, Mamá, stop fussing—’
‘Was it for money again? I’m not stupid, Carlos. I hear what is happening in the abandoned caves at the top of the mountain.’
‘Just a scrap with Juan about a girl, I promise.’
María narrowed her eyes as she handed him his breakfast. Sometimes she despaired at the fact that nothing she said or did had any impact on the men in her family, except for her beloved Eduardo.
‘Have you heard the news, mi amor?’
María looked up to see her husband had entered the cave. He took off his black calañes hat that shielded his eyes from the bright morning sun.
‘What news?’ she asked.
‘There is to be a flamenco competition held at the Alhambra in June.’ He sat down opposite his sons and barely cast a glance at Carlos’s black eye.
‘And what of it?’ she said, as she put a bowl in front of him.
‘It is open to amateurs! It is the Concurso de Cante Jondo, organised by the great composer Manuel de Falla, and there are to be no professionals over twenty-one. As I retired many years ago, I am eligible to enter.’
‘And I am too,’ María murmured.
‘Yes, of course you are, but don’t you see, this is Lucía’s chance! Everyone will be there – Antonio Chacón himself is on the judging panel, and it is rumoured that La Macarrona will be dancing, even though she is not eligible to win.’
‘You are saying you should enter Lucía?’
‘Of course!’
‘But, José, she is just ten years old!’
‘And dances like a queen already.’ He executed a short palmas, his hands beating lightly together to demonstrate his excitement.
‘I am sure there will be a rule about children performing, José, or else every proud parent would be bringing their own little Macarrona to show off in front of the judges,’ María sighed.
‘Maybe, yes, but I will find a way to show her talent to the world. You mu
st sew her a dress with a train that will catch the eye,’ José said as he lit one of his endless cheroots. The smoke curled above the kitchen table as the boys quickly gulped down the rest of their breakfast, sensing an argument brewing between their parents. They got up and left the cave immediately after they’d finished.
‘We barely have the money to feed our family,’ María said, rounding on José, ‘let alone for a new dress for Lucía!’
‘Then I will find it, I swear,’ he said. ‘This may be our only chance.’
‘Promise you won’t go stealing, José. Swear to me,’ she begged him.
‘Of course, I swear it on my father’s name. And don’t I always keep my promises?’ He smiled and wound an arm around her waist, but she escaped his grasp and went to collect her half-finished basket, then walked wearily to the stable next door where she stored her materials with their skinny mule and the goat. There was only one rule she had ever laid down to José and her sons throughout the difficult life they led, and that was never to steal. She knew many other families in Sacromonte resorted to pilfering pockets in the marketplace when they were desperate. Then they became foolhardy, got caught and ended up being slung into the local jail or given a sentence by an unforgiving payo judge that far exceeded the crime committed. There was little mercy or justice for gitanos.
So far, she believed that her husband and three sons had kept their word, but the excitement in José’s eyes told her he would stop at nothing to find the money to buy Lucía a dress.
Walking outside, she looked up at the Alhambra, remembering how only recently her daughter had told her she would dance there one day. A thought came to her and she sighed, knowing what she had to do. It brought tears to her eyes, but she steeled herself as she re-entered the cave and found José helping himself to seconds from the pot.
‘I will cut down my own flamenco dress to her size,’ she said.
‘Really? You would do that for your daughter?’
‘If it will keep you out of jail, José, then yes, I will.’
*
‘Mamá, have you heard? I am to dance at the Alhambra, just as I said I would!’
The Moon Sister Page 13