The Moon Sister

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘Of course, we will go tomorrow morning. Where did she—?’

  ‘I have left her in her bed.’

  ‘Are you sad?’ Lucía asked her as she appeared on the terrace.

  ‘Yes, because I will miss her very much, but I know it was her time to go, so I am happy for her. She was no longer comfortable in her body, you see. They wear out and the soul must move on to be free.’

  ‘I am sorry, Angelina.’ Lucía put an arm around her. ‘But you are safe here with us now.’

  ‘Gracias, but you know I must go back to the forest to see my friends and pick my herbs?’ Angelina told them, panic in her blue eyes.

  ‘We do. Now, I will get you something to eat.’

  ‘No, I cannot eat until after Maestra is in the earth.’

  ‘Tomorrow, we will go early to Sacromonte,’ María promised.

  ‘Thank you. I think I would like to sleep now, please.’

  ‘We shall put you in the nursery. There is a small bed in there all ready for you,’ María said as the child stood up, her features drawn with extreme fatigue. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Is she settled?’ Lucía asked her mother when she returned to the terrace.

  ‘She climbed beneath the blanket and was asleep within twenty seconds. The poor child. She is so calm tonight, but she must be in shock. Micaela is everything she has ever known.’

  ‘She does not seem so,’ Lucía commented, ‘but then she is the oddest child I’ve ever met.’ Lucía stubbed out a cigarette and lit another. ‘What I am thinking is how you and I and Angelina can dig a hole big enough for Micaela to be buried in and carry her to it.’

  ‘You are right,’ María agreed, ‘we cannot. So, we must find some men who can help us. You see, Lucía, they come in useful for some things, don’t they?’ she added with a glimmer of a smile.

  *

  Angelina woke them both just after dawn, looking rested and bright as a sunflower.

  ‘We must leave,’ she said. ‘The maestra is anxious to begin her journey to the Upperworld.’

  As the sun rose over the Alhambra, the three of them approached the cave.

  Dead in the bed where she helped me give birth . . . María thought, as Angelina opened the front door. The stench of flesh already rotting in the heat was palpable inside. Lucía shook her head.

  ‘Sorry, but I will vomit,’ she said as she turned back from the door. ‘Angelina, do you know of any families who live here who have young men who might help us bury the maestra?’

  ‘Sí, Lucía. We will try next door.’

  María watched as Angelina walked up the incline to the cave beyond hers.

  ‘Surely that is deserted? Ramón, he was taken by the Civil Guard ten years ago . . .’ she said as Angelina rapped on the door, then walked straight in.

  ‘He came back three weeks ago . . . Ramón?’ she called to the bedroom beyond the familiar kitchen they were standing in. ‘It is I, Angelina, and we need your help.’

  There was some grunting from behind the curtain, then an emaciated man with a long grey beard appeared from behind it.

  ‘¡Dios mío!’ María’s hand flew to her mouth as tears appeared spontaneously in her eyes. ‘Ramón, is it really you?’

  ‘I . . . María! You are back! How? Why?’

  ‘I thought you were dead! The Civil Guard, they came . . .’

  ‘Yes, and they threw me in their prison and left me to die, but somehow, as you can see, I did not.’ He coughed – the rattle so similar to the one María had listened to before Felipe had died. ‘Then I was many months in the payo hospital, which was not much better than the prison. But you, María, you are more beautiful than ever!’

  ‘Ramón, I cannot believe you are alive. I—’

  ‘Come, let me hold you, querida.’

  Lucía swallowed a lump in her throat as her mother went into Ramón’s fragile, stick-like arms.

  ‘They know each other well?’ Angelina turned wide-eyed to Lucía.

  ‘They did once, yes.’

  ‘They love each other,’ she decreed. ‘This is a beautiful thing, is it not?’

  ‘It is,’ Lucía nodded.

  Overcome with emotion, Ramón was helped to sit down on a stool before he keeled over.

  ‘Where is the furniture?’ María asked.

  ‘Long gone to looters,’ Ramón sighed. ‘All I have is a straw pallet, but at least I am free and that is worth everything. Now tell me why you are here in my kitchen?’

  ‘Micaela has passed on to the Upperworld and we must bury her. Do you know of any men left here in Sacromonte who can help us?’ María asked him.

  ‘I do not know, but we can find out. I just . . . cannot believe you are back, my María.’ Ramón looked at her in total rapture.

  ‘Another miracle,’ Angelina whispered to Lucía.

  *

  The two women, the child, and the man as frail as an eighty-year-old searched the dusty paths of Sacromonte to find help to bury their once-revered bruja. Many doors did not open immediately, and the deep level of fear that had descended on this broken community was palpable. Many homes were empty, but once those that were coaxed out of their caves heard what had happened, they were happy to offer their services. The few able-bodied men were despatched with spades to dig Micaela’s grave, while the women pooled their meagre resources and prepared food for a gathering afterwards.

  One of the women lent her mule to be attached to another neighbour’s cart, and after heaving Micaela’s earthly remains onto it, they trooped off in a ragged procession to the forest, where they laid their bruja to rest.

  The gathering afterwards was held in María’s cave and an old gitano, who used to run one of the illegal drinking caves, brought up some brandy to toast Micaela’s passing. Out of perhaps four hundred former residents, now only thirty or so of them were left. María and Lucía received much teasing about their new hairstyles, but beyond the horror and destruction of the past ten years, the flame of the community still flickered. Some of the men had brought their guitars along, and for the first time in years, the sound of flamenco music filled the Sacromonte air.

  ‘Lucía! You must dance for us,’ shouted one of the men, his shrunken stomach sending the brandy straight to his head.

  ‘I have a cannonball in my stomach.’ Lucía rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe Mamá would like to dance? She taught me everything I know.’

  ‘No,’ María said, blushing, as other women pushed her forward.

  ‘Sí! Sí! Sí!’ the crowd chanted, clapping their hands to the beat. María had no choice but to agree and, terrified that her feet and hands would not remember what to do, she performed her first alegrías por rosas in twenty years. The rest of the crowd – or at least, those who had the strength to – eventually joined her, little Angelina staring wide-eyed at the spectacle.

  ‘You have never attended a fiesta?’ Lucía bent down to ask her.

  ‘No, but it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘Lucía, this is not an end, it is a new beginning!’

  And as María encouraged Ramón to dance, supporting him as he did so, Lucía rather thought it was.

  *

  ‘Lucía, I have something to ask you.’ María appeared by the makeshift hammock that the two of them had tied between two orange trees so Lucía could rest outside in the afternoons.

  ‘What is that, Mamá?’

  ‘I was wondering whether you would mind if I invited Ramón to come and live with us for a while. He is so very sick, and has nothing. He needs someone to care for him.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. With Angelina moving here, and the new baby on the way, we are starting our own gitano community right here,’ Lucía chuckled.

  ‘Thank you, querida. Even though he is sick now, Angelina believes he can make a full recovery and then he can at least be useful.’

  ‘Useful or not, you want him here, and that is fine. So,’ Lucía said innocently, ‘will he sleep on the couch in the sitti
ng room?’

  ‘I . . . no. I thought it would be easiest if he—’

  ‘Mamá, I am only teasing you. I know exactly where he will sleep, and that is in your arms. What on earth will Alejandro think when he knows his girlfriend has found another?’ Lucía didn’t wait for an answer, but climbed out of the hammock to walk up to the house for a glass of water.

  ‘Dios mío, it is a sad state of affairs when my mother’s love life is more hectic than mine,’ she told her baby.

  *

  On 7 September, Lucía woke up in the night, feeling sweaty and uncomfortable. She stood up to empty her bladder for the fifth time that night, but before she had taken more than a couple of steps, she felt warm liquid trickling down the inside of her legs.

  ‘Help! Mamá! I am bleeding!’ she screamed into the blackness. Both María and Angelina came running from their different rooms and switched the electric light on.

  María looked down at the puddle of clear fluid between her daughter’s legs and sighed in relief. ‘Lucía, you are not bleeding, your waters have broken. It means your baby is on its way.’

  ‘I am off to the kitchen to prepare a potion,’ Angelina said. ‘The baby will be here by sunrise,’ she announced as she left.

  Despite Lucía’s high-pitched screams, which echoed around the rooms with enough velocity to frighten off any wolves lurking at the tops of the mountains above them, her stomach muscles, honed from years of dancing, stood her in good stead as her baby began its journey into life. Angelina took over, seeming to know instinctively what Lucía needed; she paced with her, sat her down, stood her up, rubbed her back, all the time whispering words of comfort that her baby was well and would soon be here.

  María and Angelina helped her onto the bed when Lucía said she wanted to push and the baby girl came into the world at five o’clock in the morning, just as dawn was breaking.

  ‘Never again!’ Lucía panted in relief. ‘That is the hardest bulerías I ever performed. Where is my baby?’

  ‘She is here,’ said Angelina, who had just severed the cord with her teeth, as she had watched Micaela do. ‘She is strong and healthy.’

  ‘What will you call her?’ María asked as she gazed down at the miracle of a second granddaughter granted to her since she had arrived in Spain.

  ‘Isadora, after the American dancer.’

  ‘That is unusual,’ María commented.

  ‘Yes.’ Lucía said no more, but as she held her newborn in her arms, her treacherous mind took her spinning back to her thirtieth birthday when Meñique had taken her to an exhibition of photographs of the dancer called Isadora Duncan. She hadn’t wanted to go, but once she was there, she was swept away by the pictures, and the story of Duncan’s life.

  ‘She was a pioneer – she pushed boundaries, just like you, pequeña,’ Meñique had said.

  ‘I believe she looks like her grandmother,’ said Angelina.

  ‘¡Gracias a Dios! Then I am happy because I would want no child to look like me. Hello, baby,’ Lucía said, peering down at the little face. ‘Yes, you are definitely far prettier than your mamá. I . . .’

  As the baby stared up at her, Lucía caught her breath at the tiny features that – even in miniature – were so familiar. But she would never ever admit to anyone who the baby really looked like.

  *

  Autumn turned to winter, and the strange little family that María and Lucía had collected retreated inside to sit around the small fire in the sitting room. María used it for her cooking, preferring the taste of the food to that produced by the great iron range that stood in the kitchen. Isadora thrived under the care and attention of both María and Angelina, although Lucía had point blank refused to breast feed after the first attempt.

  ‘Why bother when all three of us can take turns feeding her out of a bottle? Besides, I thought she would rip my poor nipples off with the force of her suckling; it was agony!’

  Secretly, María thought that it was much more to do with the fact that Lucía enjoyed her sleep at night, and with other willing hands happy to get up and tend to Isadora, Lucía took advantage of them. The fact that the baby slept with Angelina in the nursery didn’t help either. Yet María held her peace as she saw the little girl diligently changing nappies and feeding her bottles. Whilst Lucía sat smoking on the terrace, Angelina would sing Isadora lullabies as she rocked her to sleep. Some women were simply not made for motherhood and Lucía was one of them.

  And whilst Angelina tended to Isadora, María used her own tender hands, with the help of Angelina’s potions, to care for Ramón, who continued to gather his strength as each day passed. The rattling cough that reminded both of them of the dreadful jail receded and soon Ramón was able to wander in the orange grove, tutting at the lack of care it received.

  ‘Perhaps I should ask Alejandro if he wishes you to tend to the trees?’ María suggested to him one chilly evening as they sat in front of the warmth of the fire.

  ‘Ay, María, I will do it for free, because it is what I love and know,’ shrugged Ramón. ‘This house – and you – have saved me. The least I can do is care for the trees that grow on the land.’

  There soon began a constant trickle of visitors from Sacromonte, who found their way down the mountainside to drink coffee with María in the payo house and to consult the little bruja for her seeing and her potions. María was heartened to hear that, slowly, more residents of Sacromonte were returning to the village after years of exile in other countries. Food was still expensive, with delicacies sold on the black market, but occasionally Angelina would be paid with a bar of chocolate or a bottle of brandy for Ramón, its provenance uncertain.

  At Christmas, María made a pilgrimage to the Abbey of Sacromonte and went down on her knees to thank God for the safe delivery of her granddaughters, and her wonderful new life back in her homeland. Yet there was something that told her that this life was a temporary hiatus – a fact that was exacerbated by a sound she had not heard for many months: the continual tapping of Lucía’s feet on the tiled terrace outside.

  ‘Mamá,’ Lucía announced to María one morning, ‘I am ready to go back to dancing now. Pepe has telegrammed to say that the cuadro has been offered another season at the 46th Street Theatre. And they will triple the money if I make a return to the stage. Mamá, this is the perfect moment to go back.’

  ‘Surely it is too soon? Your baby is only four months old.’

  ‘If I do not, I will lose everything I have worked for.’

  ‘Lucía, that is not true. You are the most famous flamenco dancer in North and South America. There is no rush, querida.’

  ‘The public have a very short memory, and especially now that La Argentinita has passed, every day another new and younger dancer emerges to challenge me for my crown. Besides, I miss it,’ she sighed.

  ‘What part of it do you miss?’

  ‘The dancing of course! It is who I am.’

  ‘You are also a mother now,’ María reminded her as she looked down at Isadora sleeping peacefully in her Silver Cross perambulator in the shade.

  ‘Yes, so why can’t I be both?’

  ‘You can, of course you can. So, do you want me to make plans for the three of us to travel back to New York?’

  ‘Mamá.’ Lucía came to sit in the wicker chair opposite her mother. ‘I remember what it was like, to be a child who was always on the road, going with Papá from town to town, sleeping in wagons or fields, to receive no education, have no place that I could call home.’

  ‘I thought you thrived on the life of a traveller, Lucía. You always said that you enjoyed the fact you never knew what the next day would bring.’

  ‘Yes, I did, but I had no choice. Isadora has.’ Lucía paused and looked at her mother. ‘I know you love it here, Mamá, and how much you love Isadora. So . . .’ She paused again before continuing. ‘What if you were to stay here with her?’

  María did her best not to let out a sigh of relief, and focused on putting the needs of
her grandchild first.

  ‘And you will go to New York alone?’

  ‘Sí, but I will return as often as I can to see you both.’

  ‘But, Lucía, she is so small, she needs her mother. I am no substitute.’

  ‘Yes, you are, Mamá. You are far more maternal and patient than I will ever be. You know how cross I get when she cries. And besides,’ Lucía added, ‘money is running short. I must go out and earn some. Or at least see Papá to ask him for some more.’

  ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘The contract is for six months and I will earn enough to buy this house,’ Lucía laughed, ‘and then we will all be safe forever. Just imagine that, Mamá!’

  ‘It would be a very good thing, yes, Lucía,’ María agreed, knowing that once Lucía had set her mind to something, nothing in heaven or hell could stop her, so there was no point in arguing any further on Isadora’s behalf.

  ‘Whatever you think is best, querida.’

  ‘Good. Then that is settled.’

  As Lucía stood up, María saw the expression of relief in her daughter’s eyes too.

  *

  ‘And how could I ever have expected her to give up her dancing? It is who she is,’ María explained to Ramón later that night.

  ‘But she is a mother now, María. And her baby needs her.’

  ‘Your girls did well without one,’ María reminded him. ‘As long as babies are loved by someone, I’m not sure it matters who it is.’

  ‘And where are my girls now?’ Ramón said, his face a picture of misery. ‘Lying dead in a mass grave somewhere in the city.’

  ‘With my boys, their wives and my grandchildren,’ María added, reaching for his hand.

  ‘Why did we survive, when it was their world to conquer?’

  It was a question both of them asked the heavens every day.

  ‘I do not know, and neither of us ever will until it’s our turn to go upwards, but at least we can safeguard the next generation.’