From somewhere behind Cristóbal there came a sudden loud noise, like a thunderclap. Gunesh echoed it with a deafening bark.
“What was that?” Rose swooped down, putting a protective arm around the dog.
“It’s the start of the drumming contest—want to go and see?”
Rose shook her head. “It’ll scare my dog. I’d better take him back.”
Cristóbal watched her untie the lead from the tree. “I’ll walk with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But I’d like to.”
She glanced at his face. The light from the torches gave it a golden glow. His smile was almost angelic. He dropped down to stroke Gunesh, whispering something into his fur. The dog responded by licking him on the nose. It was all the approval Rose needed.
Cristóbal had got the fire going by the time Rose emerged from the tent.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any glasses—just these.” She held out two tin mugs.
“That’s okay.” He uncorked the bottle with his teeth. “It’ll taste just as good.” He settled down on the ground beside Gunesh. “I’ve never seen a dog like this before. What breed is he?”
“He’s an Afghan. From Afghanistan.” Rose sat down, the dog between them. “My father was a businessman who traded in rugs and gemstones. He often went on buying trips to Afghanistan. He brought Gunesh back with him. He was only a puppy—just a few weeks old.”
Cristóbal nodded. “How old is he now?”
“He’s ten.” She ran her hand along the length of the dog’s back. “Quite an old man now, aren’t you?” Gunesh burrowed his nose between his paws.
“Did you always want to be a vet?”
She nodded. “When I was a little girl, my grandfather used to come to visit us from Turkey. He always brought me a pet—sometimes a kitten, other times a lizard or a tortoise. But every time, after a couple of months, the animal would get sick. It would be taken down to the basement, and that would be the last I ever saw of it. My parents never told me my pet had died. I suppose they didn’t want to hurt me. But it made me desperate to learn how to cure animals.”
“I have a dog, back in Granada,” Cristóbal said. “I would have brought him along, but he’s not used to traveling. He’s a house dog.”
Rose had never met a Gypsy who lived in a house. When she told Cristóbal this, he explained that in Spain there were two types of Gypsies—house dwellers and nomads—and that he and Lola belonged to the first group. He told her about the cave houses in Granada that transformed into dance floors by night, where tourists flocked to see flamenco.
“Not all of us are dancers or musicians,” he went on. “There are basket makers, cobblers, flower sellers, blacksmiths. My father was a blacksmith—he left the mountains because there was more work to be had in Granada.”
Rose sipped her wine, hovering on the edge of asking what had been on her mind all evening. “What was it like in Granada during the Civil War?”
For a long moment Cristóbal was silent, gazing into the crackling flames of the fire. “It was terrible. Unspeakable. Worse than any other city in the whole of Spain. No one knows exactly how many died. It was more than twenty thousand. Not just men—they killed women and children, too. People would denounce their neighbors to settle old scores, and the next thing you knew, the Guardia Civil would arrive on the doorstep. There was no justice—just mass executions.”
“What was it like for you?” She held her breath.
“I wasn’t there.” He brought the tin mug up to his mouth and tipped it back. Then he took the bottle and poured out more wine. “I was in prison.”
“Prison?”
“Don’t look so worried! I didn’t do anything bad—well, not against the law, anyway. My crime was the same as your brother’s: I was on the wrong side.” He paused, ruffling Gunesh’s fur with his fingers. “I was one of the lucky ones. There are hundreds still in prison—men and women. Our esteemed General Franco has a long memory.”
Rose closed her eyes, thinking about Nathan, unable to bear the possibility that he might be trapped in such a place. “It must have been . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“It wasn’t a party, that’s for sure.” Cristóbal shrugged. “I was made to work in a quarry, and my right hand got smashed. I thought I’d never be able to play the guitar again.”
“Did they release you—when you were injured?”
He gave a grunt of a laugh. “Not a chance. It healed, thank God—but as soon as the bandages were off, they put me back to work. I got lucky, though: one day I managed to slip away from the line. The guards were beating someone up. They didn’t see me.” He took another swallow of wine. “I found a cave a few miles off and lived there for a few days until I started to go crazy for water. I tried walking south, at night so no one would see me. When the sun came up, I saw farm workers harvesting watermelons. I hid in the back of the truck they were loading them onto to take to market. I got through half a dozen by the time it reached the town.” He shook his head. “I don’t think anything ever tasted as good—before or since. After that I sang in the streets to get enough money for the train fare to Granada. By the time I got back, the war was over.”
He picked up the wine bottle and went to top off her mug, but only a dribble came out. “Sorry!” He gave her a wry smile. “I shouldn’t have gone on about the war—it always makes me drink too much.”
“It’s okay—it’s my fault anyway for asking you about it. I’ll make us some coffee, shall I?”
While they waited for the water to boil, he asked her why she was traveling alone with only a dog for company. “Is there a man waiting for you back in England?” He gave her a sidelong glance.
“No, there isn’t!” She laughed at his impudence.
“Well, a man likes to know these things.” He moved away from her, taking a stick from the pile by her tent and prodding the fire to make it blaze more brightly. “Perhaps you’re like my cousin. There’s a man back in Granada who’s desperate to marry her—but she won’t have it.”
“She won’t?” Rose wondered if Lola had been widowed during the war. There had been no mention of Nieve’s father when they were standing in front of the candles at the shrine of Saint Sara.
“She says she’s not interested in marriage—only dancing.”
“So Nieve . . .” Rose trailed off, not wanting to sound as if she was prying.
“She’s not Lola’s daughter. The woman who gave birth to her died in the war. Lola adopted Nieve when she was a baby.”
So that was why Lola looked too young to be a mother, Rose thought. Why had she done that at such a young age? Rose’s head was bursting with questions.
“Listen to me, banging on about the war again!” Cristóbal huffed out a sigh and pushed the night air with his hand, as if banishing memories too painful to contemplate. “I want to know about your friends—these English Gypsies. Tell me, do they look like us?”
“Well, some of them do,” she replied. “Others have red hair and . . .” She paused, wondering what the Spanish for freckles could be. She put her fingers to her face, dotting them over her cheeks.
“They have a disease?” Cristóbal looked horrified.
“No.” Rose laughed. “Little brown things—like . . .” She searched for something he might recognize. “Like you get on a quail’s egg.”
“¡Ah, pecas!” He grinned. “So the sun does shine in England sometimes? I heard it’s a very cold place, yet you say they live outdoors. What do they eat?”
She described the meals she had shared with the Lee family—the soups made of snails and seaweed and the elderflowers dipped in batter and fried over the fire. Then he wanted to know about their animals: what breeds of dogs and horses they favored.
“And how do they get money?” He wanted to know. “Do they make baskets like our people?”
“Baskets, yes, but they can only do that in the springtime, when the willow trees make new shoots. The rest of the
year they make . . .” She didn’t know the Spanish word for pegs, so she mimed hanging washing on a line.
“Pinzas para la ropa.” He nodded. “We make those, too.”
They talked on until the slim waning moon rose beneath the morning star, and the herbs of the Camargue were opening their petals to greet the sun. Rose could see the color of his eyes now—a vivid blue green, like nothing she had ever encountered among English Gypsies. And his skin was the pale golden brown of almond shells.
“I suppose I’d better let you get some sleep. You’ve got the competition tomorrow—today, actually,” Rose said, glancing at her watch.
Cristóbal stretched his arms wide. “I don’t think I could sleep now.”
“But you should try to rest at least.” She smiled at the rueful look on his face. “I’ll still be here tomorrow—I’m not going anywhere. Not yet, anyway.”
“Promise?” He leaned across Gunesh, who was fast asleep between them, and cupped her face in his hands. “Can I kiss you, guapa?”
Guapa. Beautiful. It was a long time since anyone had called her that.
He didn’t have to wait for a reply. She closed her eyes and found his mouth with her lips.
Chapter 9
Lola was roused from deep slumber by the sound of someone singing. She lay very still, listening, trying to work out if it was a woman or a man—and wondering if the owner of the voice cared that some people were trying to sleep. Through a small tear in the canvas above her head, she could see the sky. It was pale yellow. Not long after sunrise. Too early to be out of bed yet.
As she pulled up the covers that Nieve had kicked off in the night, she caught sight of the garland of white roses on the hook at the end of the bed. She hadn’t dreamed it, then: she really had won that first round. Lola drifted back into sleep with a smile on her face.
When she woke again, the garland was gone. And so was Nieve. Lola scrambled out of bed and pulled back the curtain. She had to climb over Cristóbal, who was lying to the left of the pile of sacks he used as a bed. Lola rolled her eyes. From the look of him, he had carried on drinking well after she and Nieve had left the fiesta. She felt like kicking him as she stepped over him. How dare he jeopardize their chances by staying up half the night.
She lifted the flap at the front end of the wagon. There was Nieve in her nightgown, dancing in front of the ashes of last night’s fire, as lithe as a salamander, the garland of white roses perched at a lopsided angle on her head. The child didn’t see her watching. She had a faraway look in her coal-black eyes—the look of a sleepwalker. But people didn’t dance in their sleep. No—this was trance dancing. The kind of dancing Lola always hoped to achieve but couldn’t always pull off. It was what happened when the duende took possession of your body. It came easily to Nieve because she had been dancing since before she could walk.
Lola sat on the edge of the wagon. Grief came over her unbidden, like a cloud drifting over the sun. Perhaps it was the look of Nieve, all in white, like an angel or a ghost, that brought back that long-ago day on the mountain so sharply. Or maybe it was the garland of roses, reminding her that last night, as she had been crowned winner of the solo dancers, she had longed for her mother and brother to have been there to share the moment.
Nieve danced on, oblivious. Despite the sadness inside, Lola didn’t want to break the spell by calling out to her. But a few minutes later, it was broken by someone else: the woman from the next-door vardo, clattering pans as she washed them, ready to make breakfast.
“You look very pretty in that,” Lola said as Nieve caught sight of her.
The child smiled self-consciously as she came back from wherever her soul had flown off to. Her hand went to her head, fingering the garland as if she had forgotten it was there.
Cristóbal’s body, golden and naked, was pushing against the soft flesh of Rose’s belly. His mouth was moving from her cheek to her neck, covering her with kisses. But she was sliding away from him, down a slippery bank into a dark pool of water.
Her eyes were still closed as she tried to push her way through the membrane of the dream. She could still feel Cristóbal’s lips. But that wasn’t possible. She hadn’t asked him to stay, had she?
It was the smell that snapped her back to consciousness. Dog breath. It was Gunesh licking her face. And in the night, she must have wriggled out of her sleeping bag and rolled across the groundsheet, because her back was now jammed against the tent wall. Condensation had seeped into her nightshirt and left her skin cold and clammy.
She struggled out of the damp cotton and dressed as quickly as she could. She’d had hardly any sleep—but that wasn’t the poor dog’s fault. He wanted his morning walk.
Outside the tent the festivities of the night before were still going on. She could hear the rhythmic clapping of hands, the notes of a violin, and the plaintive sound of a Gypsy woman singing.
Rose led Gunesh away from the encampment, toward the marshes. The sun lit up the pools of salt water, turning them molten silver. In the distance flamingos were gathered on the margins of a lagoon. Hundreds of them, like drifts of pink-tinged apple blossoms. As Rose paused to admire them, something flashed past her: a kingfisher darted across the surface of the water in a streak of shimmering turquoise.
The air had a tang of seaweed tinged with the scent of thyme and lavender. As she walked on, she caught a whiff of woodsmoke from the fields behind her. She wondered if it was too early to go and find Lola, to show her the photograph of Nathan. Better to have breakfast first, she decided. Lola must have been exhausted after all that dancing—and Cristóbal was sharing the wagon. She didn’t want to risk waking him when he’d had so little sleep. The thought of him lying in bed sent a frisson of longing shooting through her. Her mind’s eye replayed the dream of their naked bodies entwined. She wondered how he would react when she saw him again. Would he tell his cousin what had happened last night? Her face reddened at the thought.
On her way back to the tent, she paused at the paddock to admire the horses. There were some magnificent ones, including a black stallion with an arched neck and an impressively muscled body. The wind from the sea streamed through his mane and tail, and the sun gave his coat an iridescent sheen, like the plumage of a raven. She couldn’t help thinking of how Nathan would have loved such a horse. She could almost see him on the stallion’s back, whooping for joy as he rode out onto the marshes.
She was ducking down to get back into the tent when she caught sight of Jean Beau-Marie loping across the field.
“Bonjour!” She waved, trying to catch his attention. Gunesh joined in, barking loudly.
Jean changed direction. But he gave Rose no word of greeting as he reached them—just a curt nod. He glanced from her to the tent and back again. Gunesh jumped up at him, tail wagging. Jean put out his hand, stroking the dog’s head absently, as if his mind were a million miles away.
“Where did you disappear to last night?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her at first. He bent down to take the Afghan’s head in both hands, nuzzling its nose with his. When at last he replied, he didn’t look up. “That Spanish guy said he was your boyfriend.”
Rose clicked her tongue. “Well, he isn’t. I don’t have a boyfriend—not that it’s anything to do with you or him!”
“You’re right—it’s none of my business.” He shrugged as he got to his feet. “I’m sorry. That’s not why I did what I did yesterday. I wasn’t trying to . . .” He met her eyes fleetingly, then turned as if to go.
Rose realized that without meaning to, she had hurt him. She reached out, catching his arm as he moved away from her. “You don’t have to apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just that I . . .” She hesitated, at a loss to explain how she felt. She’d made it sound as if she didn’t like men—which was not true. But there had to be a chemistry—the sort of smoldering desire she had felt when Cristóbal had kissed her last night.
What she had just told Jean was not a lie: Cristóbal co
uld hardly be described as a boyfriend—not after just one kiss. But just remembering it made her burn inside. She knew that if he had lingered a moment longer, it would have turned into something she might have regretted in the cold light of morning.
“I understand,” Jean said. The wistful look had turned to one of resignation. “You are grieving, as I am grieving. When your heart is full of sorrow, there’s no room left for love.”
His words made her feel even worse. To agree with that sentiment would be very wrong, tantamount to using the death of her parents and the disappearance of her brother as excuses for her lack of interest in Jean as a potential lover.
Was there something wrong with her, that she could still be drawn to a man when the loss of her family was so raw? Cristóbal’s effect on her was like the pull of the moon on the sea: magnetic, irresistible, and immensely powerful. The urge to kiss him had come from somewhere deep inside—some ancient, instinctive part of her that had blotted out everything for a few magical seconds.
“That man you saw me with last night—he’s with the Granada Gypsies,” she said. “He has a cousin—the dancer the men spoke about—who knows the village my brother described in his letter.”
Jean’s face brightened. “So you have something to go on—that’s good.”
She told him about her plan to show Lola the photograph.
“And if she doesn’t recognize him? What will you do?”
“Go and find the village in the mountains. Ask around. Someone there must remember him.”
It might not be as easy as that. Cristóbal’s warning echoed inside her head.
“You should go to Saint Sara—ask for a blessing.”
She nodded. “I already have. That’s how I came to meet Lola—we were both in the shrine, lighting candles.”
“Then she’s smiling down on you. Will you join the procession this afternoon?”
“Yes,” Rose said, “I will.”
It took Rose a while to find her way back to the wagons with the pomegranates hanging in the doorways. The field seemed even more crowded, as if new arrivals had come during the night and squeezed onto whatever patch of ground they could maneuver into.
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