The Moon Sister

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘I will cope, if only for Felipe,’ she told herself as she arrived back to her silent cave. She hadn’t yet had the heart to tell Felipe that his father and little sister had left for Barcelona.

  ‘¡Hola!’

  María turned round and saw Ramón at the entrance to the cave.

  ‘Am I intruding?’

  ‘No,’ María shrugged. ‘Everyone is . . . out.’

  ‘I brought you something,’ he said, holding out a basket.

  ‘More fresh oranges?’ She gave him a weak smile.

  ‘No, just cakes my mother brought round, that we cannot eat.’

  María knew that the magdalenas in the basket were delicacies that everyone could eat until they were bursting, and was touched by the gesture.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How is Felipe?’

  ‘He is . . . struggling,’ she said, as she bit into one of the cakes, hoping that the sugar would make her feel less faint.

  ‘I am sure he is. Well, I will leave you, but anything I can do to help, please let me know.’

  ‘I will, thank you,’ she said gratefully.

  Ramón nodded at her and left the cave.

  *

  Every day that went by in that hot and dry July, María stopped gitano travellers either when she was in the city, or when they passed through the city walls into Sacromonte. Not one of them had any news from Barcelona. She consulted Micaela when she went to collect Felipe’s potions.

  ‘You will see them sooner than you think,’ was all she had to offer.

  At least, as each day passed, it was one day closer to Felipe coming home.

  Finally, the day she’d been dreaming of arrived. María stood in excitement and trepidation with the other mothers outside the jail. The gates opened and a motley, dishevelled line of men trooped out.

  ‘Mi querido, Felipe!’ María ran to her son and clasped him to her. She could feel he was skin and bones, his clothes hanging like rags off his body and the stench of him bringing bile to her throat. No matter, she thought, as she tucked his scrawny arm through hers. He is free.

  Although she had brought Paca the mule, the long trek home was a struggle. Felipe’s deep cough rang through the cobbled streets of Sacromonte as they finally wound their way up the steep hill, and she had to steady him as he could barely sit upright on the mule’s back.

  When they arrived home, María stripped him of his clothes and gently washed the filth off him with a hot cloth, then wrapped him tightly in blankets in his bed. What was left of his clothes were crawling with lice, and she put them aside to be burnt later.

  Throughout her ministrations, Felipe lay on the bed hardly speaking, his eyes closed and his chest heaving.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’ María asked him.

  ‘No, Mamá, I just need to sleep.’

  All through that night, the cave echoed with the sound of Felipe’s coughing, and when María rose in the morning, she found both Eduardo and Carlos asleep in the kitchen.

  ‘We moved out because of the noise,’ said Eduardo, as María handed him flatbreads for his breakfast. ‘Mamá, Felipe is very sick. He has a fever, and that cough . . .’ He shook his head in despair.

  ‘I will go and tend to him. You two get off down to the forge.’

  María went into the boys’ sleeping quarters to find Felipe was burning up. Hurriedly, she went to her herb cupboard and mixed together an infusion of dried willow bark, meadowsweet and feverfew, then cupped Felipe’s head and spooned the liquid between his lips. He vomited it up a few seconds later. She sat with him all day, using a damp cloth to cool his fever, and dribbling water into his mouth, yet still the fever did not abate.

  By sunset, María could hear that Felipe was struggling to breathe, his chest heaving with the effort.

  ‘María, is Felipe sick? I heard his coughing through the walls,’ came a voice from the kitchen. María peered around the curtain to find Ramón holding two oranges.

  ‘Yes, Ramón, Felipe is very sick.’

  ‘Maybe these will make him better?’ He indicated the fruit.

  ‘Gracias, but I think it will take more than that. I should fetch Micaela and have her come out to give him a potion, but I dare not leave him and the boys are not yet home from work.’ María shook her head. ‘Dios mío, I think his condition is very serious.’

  ‘Do not worry, I will go and get Micaela.’

  Before she could stop him, Ramón had disappeared from the kitchen.

  Micaela arrived half an hour later, her face a mask of concern.

  ‘Leave me with him, María,’ she ordered. ‘There is only enough air in here for two of us.’

  María did as she was told and tried to concentrate on putting together a thin soup of potatoes and a carrot for her other sons.

  Micaela came into the kitchen looking grave.

  ‘What is wrong with him?’

  ‘Felipe has a disease of the lungs. He must have caught it in the dampness of those cells, for it is well advanced. Bring him out here into the kitchen where there is more air.’

  ‘Will he recover?’

  Micaela did not answer. ‘Here, try to get some poppy tincture down him. At least it will aid his sleep. If he is not improved by morning, you must consider taking him to a payo hospital in the city. His lungs are filling with water and they need to be drained.’

  ‘Never! No gitano ever comes out of that hospital alive! And look what the payos have already done to my poor boy.’

  ‘Then I suggest that you light a candle to the Virgin and pray. I am sorry, querida, but there is little more I can do.’ She clutched María’s hands in hers. ‘It has gone too far for my help.’

  When Eduardo and Carlos returned from the forge, they carried Felipe through to the kitchen and laid him on his pallet. María shuddered as she saw his pillow was spotted with the blood he had been coughing up. She took a cleaner pillow from her own bed and placed it gently under his head. He barely stirred.

  ‘His skin looks blue, Mamá,’ Carlos said nervously, looking at María for reassurance. She had none to give.

  ‘Shall I run down and fetch our grandparents?’ Eduardo asked her. ‘They may know what to do.’ He paced up and down as his brother lay on the floor, struggling for breath.

  ‘I wish Papá was here,’ Carlos added poignantly.

  María shooed them outside then knelt next to Felipe.

  ‘Mamá is here, mi querido,’ she whispered as she bathed his forehead. Shortly after, she called for her boys to bring sacks of straw from the stable to prop their brother up and aid his breathing.

  As the night wore on, Felipe’s breathing became increasingly ragged; it seemed he did not have the strength left even to cough and clear his lungs temporarily. Standing up, she walked outside to where her other two sons were smoking nervously.

  ‘Eduardo, Carlos, go and fetch your grandparents. They must come now.’

  Understanding what she meant, their eyes filled with tears. ‘Yes, Mamá.’

  She handed them an oil lamp to light their way so they could run as fast as they could, then crouched next to her Felipe.

  His eyes fluttered open and focused on her. ‘Mamá, I’m frightened,’ he whispered.

  ‘I am with you, Felipe. Mamá is here.’

  He gave a small smile, mouthed ‘Te amo’ and, a few seconds later, he closed his eyes for the last time.

  *

  As word was sent to anyone travelling to Barcelona to fetch José and Lucía home, María and her family went into mourning. Felipe’s body was laid in the stable after the animals had been moved out, so that relatives and villagers could come and pay their respects. White lilies and bright red pomegranate flowers were set all around, their strong scent adding to that of the incense and candles that burnt beside him. María sat there day and night, often in the company of others who joined her to help ward off the spirits. Micaela cast the traditional spells and charms to protect Felipe’s soul so it would fly off unfettered to the h
eavens. Again and again, María asked forgiveness for all the ways in which she had let her son down. No one touched the body for fear of interfering with the spirits.

  Her most constant companion was Carlos, who wept and wailed for his brother. María knew he was terrified of Felipe returning to haunt him for the rest of his days. Twice, he made the pilgrimage up to Sacromonte Abbey at the top of the mountain, to pray for his brother’s soul. Perhaps he’d felt that this was a way to get out of sitting hour after hour in the fetid heat of the cave, but María was prepared to believe the best of him.

  Life was put on hold for everyone in the family – custom demanded that no one could eat or drink or wash or work until Felipe had been laid to rest.

  On the third day, as María felt she might faint from thirst, hunger, shock, and the smell of rotting flesh which permeated the air, Paola sat down beside her and handed her daughter some water.

  ‘You must drink, mija, or we will be following your coffin soon.’

  ‘Mamá, you know we are not allowed.’

  ‘I am sure that Felipe would forgive his mother taking some water as she watches over him. Now drink.’

  María did so.

  ‘Any word from Barcelona?’ Paola asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So I beg you to lay Felipe to rest without José. Apart from anything, the smell is terrible . . .’ Paola wrinkled her nose. ‘It is already attracting flies and will spread disease.’

  ‘Hush, Mamá.’ María put her finger to her lips, fearful that Felipe might hear the way his earthly remains were being discussed, as if they were nothing more than a hunk of decaying meat. ‘I cannot bury our son without his father. José would never forgive me.’

  ‘I say that it is you who should not forgive him for leaving when his son was thrown into jail. María, you must bury him tomorrow. And that is that.’

  When her mother left, María followed her out of the stinking stable and staggered into the kitchen. Even she knew that she could hold the funeral back no longer.

  She allowed herself a small smile as she glanced around the kitchen. It seemed the whole village had come by with a gift of food, brandy or sweetmeats. At least she would have something to offer after the funeral. Lighting a candle, she went to kneel under the faded image of the Blessed Virgin. She asked for forgiveness from her, then turned away and asked the same of the spirits in the Upperworld. Then she walked outside, to find Eduardo and Carlos smoking listlessly.

  ‘Can you put word around the village that we will hold the funeral tomorrow?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Mamá, we will go now. I will take the lower path, and you take the high one, hermano,’ Eduardo suggested to Carlos.

  ‘Boys . . .’ she stopped them as they made to run off. ‘Do you think your father will be angry?’

  ‘If he is, then he deserves it,’ Eduardo replied tersely. ‘He should never have gone away to begin with.’

  *

  The funeral procession wove up the hillside, peppered with cypress trees and flowering cacti, accompanied by the heady scent of the lilies that adorned the mules. María walked ahead of the coffin her father had fashioned with help from her sons from remnants of oak in his workshop. A mournful wail went up and María recognised her mother’s voice as she began to sing a funeral lament. Though rough with age and emotion, Paola’s voice soared as the crowd began to sing along with her. María let the silent tears fall down her face and onto the dry earth below her.

  The ceremony was a strange hybrid of a traditional Catholic funeral, side by side with Micaela quietly muttering indecipherable words to protect Felipe’s soul and those left behind.

  María cast her eyes down the valley and up again to the Alhambra, which had seen so much bloodshed in its thousand-year history. She’d always feared it for some reason, and now she understood why. It had been where her son’s death sentence had been given.

  14

  María woke the next morning, feeling as if every last ounce of energy had been sucked from her. She made sure her sons left on time for work. Carlos was the first to rise of the two. If there had been anything good to come out of Felipe’s death, it was that the guilt Carlos felt had – at least for the present – reformed him.

  After pouring herself some orange juice from the fresh batch Ramón had delivered yesterday evening, María sat on the step and sipped it. Once they’d been a family of six; now they were down to half their number. Somehow, she had to accept that Felipe would never come back, but her husband and daughter . . . She blinked away tears in the strong sunlight, fearing that they too were becoming mere wraiths in her imagination.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked the skies. ‘Please, send me word.’

  Later that day, she donned her mourning veil, picked up two of her hens’ precious eggs and went to Ramón’s cave.

  ‘I wish you to write to the employer of my husband in Barcelona,’ she told him. Ramón was one of the few gitanos who could write, and for the odd gift of food or wood, he would willingly craft a letter. ‘Here, I have brought you these.’ She held out the eggs.

  He put his hands over hers and shook his head. ‘María, I could never take any form of payment from you, certainly not at this time.’ He went to a cupboard and took out his writing implements, then motioned for María to sit at the kitchen table with him. ‘First of all, can this man read?’

  ‘I do not know, but he is a man of the city with a business, so we must assume he can.’

  ‘Then begin.’

  ‘Dear Manager of the Bar de Manquet,’ María dictated. ‘I believe that you offered a position to Señor José Albaycín as a guitarist some weeks ago when you met him and my daughter Lucía at the competition in Granada. If he is still working at your café, could you please pass on a message to tell him that his wife has urgent news for him . . .’

  Ramón looked up at her, sympathy in his eyes, his pen hovering above the sheet of paper.

  ‘No,’ she faltered, realising suddenly she was writing to José and Lucía’s employer, who would not take kindly to a request from a wife, bidding his employees to return home immediately. ‘Thank you, but I must find some way to contact José directly.’

  ‘I understand, María,’ he said as she rose. ‘Anything else I can do, just ask.’

  *

  ‘I have decided I must go to find Papá and Lucía in Barcelona. I cannot rest until they know what happened to Felipe.’ María eyed her sons over the kitchen table.

  ‘Mamá, I am sure that one of the messengers we sent with the news will find them soon,’ Eduardo said.

  ‘But not soon enough. Besides, this is news that only a wife and a mother should impart.’ María took a mouthful of the stew the boys had brought up with them from her mother’s house. She knew she would need all the strength she could muster.

  ‘But you cannot go alone. We will come with you.’ Carlos nudged Eduardo, who nodded uncertainly.

  ‘No. Your grandfather’s business has suffered enough recently from your absences. And you must stay here in case I miss your father on the road and he returns to find us gone.’

  ‘Then I will stay here and send Carlos with you,’ Eduardo suggested.

  ‘I said no,’ María repeated. ‘Carlos is lucky to have employment and we need the money he earns.’

  ‘Mamá, this is ridiculous!’ Eduardo banged his spoon against his bowl. ‘A woman cannot go on a journey such as this unaccompanied. Papá would not allow it.’

  ‘I am the head of the household now, and I say what is allowed!’ María snapped back. ‘So, I will leave tomorrow at dawn. I will take the train. Ramón says it is very easy. He has told me what to do and where to change.’

  ‘Has some spirit taken hold of your senses, Mamá?’ Carlos asked as she stood up and collected the dishes.

  ‘No, quite the opposite, Carlos. I have finally got my senses back.’

  *

  Despite her sons’ constant protests that at least one of them should accompany her, María rose before
dawn the very next day, and packed a bag with water and a little food left over from the funeral. On Ramón’s advice, she wrapped a black tablecloth around her to form a cloak and covered her tell-tale gitana curls with a black shawl. On the road, she would be taken for a widow – which would at least command respect and ensure security.

  Ramón had offered to take her to the station on his cart. He was waiting for her with his mule already harnessed.

  ‘Ready, María?’

  ‘Ready.’

  As they set off, the sun was just beginning to climb into the sky, drops of morning dew trapped on the spines of the cacti that they passed along the narrow roads into the city. As they entered the city gate, and made their way through the already busy streets of Granada, María wondered if indeed she had taken leave of her senses. But it was a journey she knew she had to make.

  At the bustling station, Ramón tethered the mule and came with her to help her buy a ticket. Then he stood beside her on the crowded platform until the train steamed into the station.

  ‘Remember to leave at Valencia,’ he told her, as he helped her into the third-class carriage. ‘There is a respectable boarding house called the Casa de Santiago right beside the station, where you can spend the night before continuing on to Barcelona in the morning. It is not expensive, but . . .’ He pressed some coins into her hand. ‘Vaya con Dios, María. Be safe.’

  Before she could protest, the guard’s whistle blew and Ramón left the train.

  *

  The day was hot and sunny, and on either side of the tracks lay groves of olive and orange trees. The Sierra Nevada mountains had a light dusting of snow on their peaks, the white shimmering in the pure azure sky.

  ‘Can you believe,’ she whispered to herself, feeling suddenly elated, ‘that never in my life have I been out of Granada?’

  Whatever had possessed her to take this journey, María decided she was glad of it. She was seeing the world for the first time in her life.

  She alighted that afternoon in Valencia and spent the night in the boarding house Ramón had suggested, barely sleeping a wink as she kept her bag clutched tightly to her body for fear of thieves.