The Snow Gypsy

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  Rose could picture him, a half smile on his face, spreading his hands, palms up.

  “I’m looking for Lola Aragon. She’s a fugitive, wanted for war crimes.”

  “Lola Aragon.” Zoltan repeated the name, drawing out the syllables. “There was a Lola a few months back. We don’t usually get as far as last names, if you know what I mean.”

  He sounded so convincing. Rose glanced at Nieve. This wasn’t a conversation she should be hearing.

  “She might be using a false name—she was seen with you in Pampaneira last Saturday.” The policeman’s voice had a harder edge now.

  Lola’s grip on Rose’s arm tightened.

  “Oh, her!” Zoltan grunted a laugh. “She was a strange one. She went off to Capileira a couple of days ago. I haven’t seen her since.”

  There was another moment of silence. Rose felt Lola squirm, as if she was trying to wriggle out from under the bed. She groped for Lola’s hand in the darkness, squeezing it tight as she pulled her back. Then they heard Batista again, his voice even more menacing now:

  “I don’t have to remind you, do I, that you’re a guest in our country? If I find out that you’re harboring a collaborator, things could become very difficult for you.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Just reminding you that you’re no better than she is.”

  Rose stiffened. What on earth did he mean by that?

  “You won’t mind if I look around the place,” Batista went on. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Be my guest.”

  The door of the bedroom flew open. It was a heart-stopping moment. Rose clung to Lola, praying she would stay where she was.

  “As you can see, there’s no one in here.” Zoltan sounded so casual. “There’s a shed outside, if you want to look in that.”

  The door clicked shut. The sound of footsteps receded and died.

  “Quick!” Rose hissed. “We have to get out while he’s in the shed!” She prized herself out, grabbing Gunesh’s collar. Nieve wriggled out after her. “Come on!” She bent down. Lola was still under the bed, her head buried in her arms.

  Lola muttered something, the words too muffled for Rose to hear. Her body was rigid.

  “Please, Lola! It’s our only chance! He’ll be back in a minute. He’s not going to give up until he’s searched every inch of this place.”

  Lola emerged painfully slowly, as if her limbs were cramped. Her face looked gray.

  Rose opened the door, scanning the room before running across to the front door, which was still ajar. She pushed it wider, praying that it wouldn’t creak. Then she edged along the outside wall of the cottage until she could see around the corner. She spotted a mule tied to the nearby fence post. Then she caught a flash of white—Zoltan’s shirtsleeve. He was standing in the doorway of the shed. Batista must be inside.

  Rose darted back into the cottage, waving frantically to Lola, who was crouching behind the bedroom door, peering out.

  “Come on! We can hide in the woods until he’s gone.” Rose grabbed Lola’s arm and pulled her out. “Don’t be afraid—they’re still in the shed.”

  As they got through the front door, Lola doubled up, retching.

  “What’s the matter, Mama?” Nieve forgot to whisper. “Are you sick?”

  Rose crouched down, her face level with Nieve’s. “I’ll help Mama, cariño—I want you to run up to the copse with Gunesh. Can you think of a good place to hide?”

  As the child disappeared with the dog, Rose hooked her arms under Lola’s ribcage and pulled her up. Lola stumbled forward, a dead weight.

  “Please, Lola—you have to help me!”

  They covered the distance to the corner of the cottage at a snail’s pace. Then they were in the open. A hundred yards of meadow lay between them and the trees. There was no way they were going to make it before the men emerged from the shed. Not like this. Rose let go of Lola and bent down, taking her by the waist and heaving her over her shoulder. Straightening up, she started to run. Lola was as light and limp as a rag doll.

  “¡Deténgase o dispararé!” Stop or I’ll shoot!

  Rose flung herself and Lola to the ground. The impact winded her. As she gasped for breath, she felt Lola struggling free. The sole of a boot scraped the skin of her wrist as Lola hauled herself up from the ground.

  “No, Lola!” Rose gasped. “Stay down!”

  But it was too late. Lola was already on her feet, her body suddenly energized.

  She screamed at the figure pointing the gun, “¡Usted es malvado! ¡Malvado más de lo imaginable!” You are wicked! Wicked beyond belief!

  Rose lifted her head a couple of inches off the ground, watching in terrified silence as Lola moved toward Batista.

  “Stay where you are!” He raised the pistol higher. “Don’t make me shoot!”

  “Go on, then—do it!” Lola yelled. “You’ve already killed your own son and the mother of your children! But that’s not enough for a bastard like you, is it?” She stopped a few yards from him, her head erect, her hands on her hips. As if she were preparing for a dance, not dicing with death.

  “You think you’re better than me?” He sneered back. “You who are living under the roof of a Nazi!” He waved the gun to where Zoltan was standing. “I don’t suppose he told you how many rojos he gassed in that death camp?” He jerked his head sideways, launching a gob of spittle into the air. “Oh yes, I know all about that!”

  Rose felt as if an invisible hand had punched her in the face. Batista was lying. He had to be.

  “Shut up!” Zoltan took a step forward, his face white. “And put that bloody gun down!”

  “Don’t you threaten me!” Batista wheeled around, brandishing the pistol. “Do you think General Franco’s going to let you stay when he hears about this? It was a dumb idea in the first place—giving sanctuary to Nazis—but when he finds out you’ve been hiding this rojo whore . . .”

  “¡Hijo de puta!” Son of a bitch! Lola ran toward him. But at the same moment, Zoltan hurled himself at Batista, knocking him to the ground. A shot rang out as the gun fell sideways.

  “Lola!” Rose screamed.

  Zoltan and Batista were wrestling for the gun. The policeman clawed at Zoltan’s leg as he tried to stand up. Zoltan kicked out at him. Scrambling to his feet, Zoltan grabbed the pistol and fired two quick shots.

  “No!” Rose heard her own voice, muffled and distorted, like someone shouting underwater. She was running, running, but it felt as if the ground were sucking her down. Then she saw that the daisies beneath her feet were spattered scarlet.

  Chapter 35

  Rose saw Lola fall to her knees, staring at the face of her father. At the furrowed skin, the thinning gray hair, and the pouched, bloodshot eyes. Seeing him clearly for the first time in her life. Dead.

  “Get her into the house!” Zoltan didn’t shout the words. He didn’t even raise his voice. But there was a hard edge in the way he said it. Rose felt as if she were looking at a stranger. “Where’s Nieve?” His eyes ranged over the hillside like an eagle looking for prey.

  “Sh . . . she’s up in the woods,” Rose stammered. “I . . . t . . . told her to hide.”

  “Find her. Get them both ready to go. There’s brandy in the cupboard if you need it.” He jerked his head at the lifeless body on the ground. “Leave him to me.”

  Rose moved, trancelike, toward Lola. She helped her up, then guided her toward the door of the cottage.

  Lola took the brandy without a word, draining the glass in a couple of swallows.

  “You’ll have to change out of that skirt,” Rose said. “There’s blood on it. You can have one of mine—it’ll be too big, but we’ll just have to make do.” It was as if someone else were speaking through her mouth. How could she be standing there, talking about clothes when a man was lying dead outside?

  Can it be true, what he said?

  The question hammered inside Rose’s head. She told herself that Batista had made it
up. That it was just a ruse to distract Lola. But his words had set off a chilling echo, calling forth half-forgotten memories—things that had fleetingly puzzled Rose, like Zoltan’s sketchy knowledge of the night sky, his ignorance of Gypsy medicine, and his perfect teeth.

  She tried to fight down the panic rising from her stomach. Lola was walking over to the bedroom, unbuttoning her stained skirt.

  “Will you be all right if I go and find Nieve?”

  Lola nodded. She looked how Rose felt—as if she were trapped in a bad dream, unable to wake up.

  It took a while to locate Nieve. She had fallen asleep inside the hollow trunk of a tree. It was only when Gunesh appeared, wagging his tail, that Rose spotted her.

  “I heard a noise,” Nieve said as they made their way back through the woods.

  “What kind of noise?” Rose struggled to keep her voice steady.

  “Like a bonfire when it crackles, only louder.”

  “Probably someone out hunting.” Rose glanced down the hill, shielding Nieve as they emerged into the meadow. But there was no sign of Zoltan. The body had vanished.

  When they reached the cottage, Lola scooped Nieve up in her arms and hugged her tight. “I’ve packed food and water for the journey,” she said, glancing at Rose over Nieve’s head. “I didn’t know whether . . .” She paused, biting her lip.

  “I have to talk to him,” Rose said quickly. “But you two should get going. Wait for me at the top of the mountain—I’ll catch you up there.” Her eyes darted to the door. “Could you bear to take Batista’s mule? It’s still tied up outside.”

  Lola’s eyes widened.

  “It makes no sense to leave it here,” Rose urged. “It’s not the animal’s fault that its owner was a monster.”

  “A monster?” Nieve whipped her head around. “Where?”

  “Auntie Rose was just joking.” Lola stroked the child’s hair. “Come on, cariño—there’s a special present waiting for us outside.”

  A bloody trail led across the meadow from the spot where Batista had died. As she began to follow it, she caught a whiff of smoke. She ran to where the ground fell away. Zoltan was stripped to the waist, shoveling earth. A few yards away a heap of clothing smoldered on a wood fire. A flame curled up the shiny leather tricorn hat balanced on top of the pile.

  Zoltan didn’t hear her until she was standing right behind him.

  “Tell me it wasn’t true.”

  He drew his hand across his forehead as he straightened up. “Let me explain, Rose—”

  “It is true! My God!”

  “Listen to me—please!” He went to take her hand, but she snatched it away.

  “You made me believe you were a prisoner in a concentration camp! Said you were a Gypsy—when all the time you were killing Gypsies—women and children like Lola and Nieve! And Jews! People just like me.”

  Zoltan closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I was never a member of the party—I never subscribed to that. We were just part of a state machine. There was no choice about joining the army—you had no say in where you were sent or what you did.”

  “So you just did nothing?” Rose blew out a breath. “You were there, watching all those innocent people being slaughtered!”

  He dropped down to a squat, his head in his hands. “Rose, I can’t change what I was. I’m ashamed of that person. Ashamed that I was too much of a coward to resist what I was being made to do.”

  She grabbed his wrist, pushing him, sending him sprawling to the ground. “Are you telling me that you were some lowly camp guard just driven by orders? Do you expect me to believe that Batista would have a file on a person like that?”

  He raised himself on his elbow. She saw the muscles in his jaw quiver as he opened his mouth. “No, I don’t. All I’m asking you to believe in is forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness?” Rose stared into the face that, just hours before, she had been kissing. Into eyes so blue, so soulful. Eyes that had deceived her—and a mouth that had lied to her: not just once but countless times. Even if she could make allowances for that, how could she absolve him of collaborating in the murder of all those helpless people?

  “It’s not me you should be begging for mercy,” she said. “Did it never occur to you, when you were making love to me, that if I’d had the misfortune to be born in occupied Europe, you’d have killed me without a moment’s thought?”

  Zoltan stared at the mound of earth beyond his feet. “Don’t you think I burned inside when you talked about what happened to your relatives? Don’t you think I wake up every single morning hating myself for what I did? When you came into my life, it felt as if I’d been given a second chance, that if you could love me, I could somehow learn to love myself.”

  “I did love you,” she breathed. “But it wasn’t the real you. The person I fell in love with doesn’t exist. I don’t even know your real name, do I?” She held up her hand. “No—I don’t want to know!”

  “Rose, please!”

  She clapped her hands to her ears, stumbling across the grass. To remain in his presence a moment longer was utter misery. She had to get away. Had to find Lola and Nieve. Had to break out of this nightmare.

  Lola sat on a sun-warmed rock, watching Nieve chasing Gunesh in and out of the crumbling stone walls that were all that remained of the shrine of the Virgin of the Snows. She had taken shelter inside those walls on that terrifying trek to Granada, huddling against the warm bodies of the goats in a desperate bid to stop herself and the baby in her arms from freezing to death.

  She thought about the man whose actions had driven her up the mountain in the teeth of a blizzard. The man who now lay lifeless in the valley below. She had wished him dead that night all those years ago—murderous thoughts interspersed with frantic prayers for her own life and the life of the baby. She’d recalled the story of the traveler stranded in snow, who had prayed to the Virgin for mercy. And she’d tried to convince herself that Christ’s mother would surely look kindly on a young girl with a baby. But she hadn’t really expected to survive that long, dark night. How could she deserve mercy when her heart was so full of hate?

  A short, sharp bark brought Lola back to reality. Gunesh was charging downhill, his tail wagging furiously. Lola scrambled off the rock, shading her eyes. A lone figure was coming up the steep bank of a stream, arms outstretched, hair trailing in the breeze.

  “Rose!”

  Rose didn’t spot her at first. She was too busy making a fuss of Gunesh, who had launched himself like a missile out of the wild thyme bushes cloaking the hillside. Then Nieve, who had gone running after the dog, entered the fray. With a whoop of joy, she wrapped her arms around Rose’s legs.

  Nieve gave a theatrical sigh when they reached the spot where Lola was standing. “We thought she was never coming, didn’t we?”

  “You walked?” Lola glanced at Rose’s rucksack as she laid it on the ground.

  “I couldn’t have taken one of his mules, could I?” Rose pressed her lips together. She looked as if she was trying hard not to cry.

  “It’s true, then,” Lola whispered.

  Rose nodded, looking away. “I didn’t have time to pack much. Just my passport and purse and some underwear. And the little horse that Nathan carved. I left all the rest behind.”

  “Come and sit down.” Lola patted the rock. “Are you hungry? We’ve had something already.” She glanced at Nieve. “Why don’t you take him down to the stream, cariño? He’s probably thirsty.”

  Lola waited until Nieve was a safe distance away. “What did he say?”

  Rose dug her thumbnail into a patch of lichen growing on the rock. “That he was only following orders. That he had no choice about sending people to the gas chambers.” She brought her thumb up to her face, staring at the smudge of yellow on her skin. “He said he wasn’t that person anymore—but he is. He’s just killed your . . . that man . . . in cold blood. You saw what he did: he took aim and shot him, twice. He could have thrown the gun away, couldn’t he? H
e could easily have overpowered a man of that age—tied him up somewhere while we all got away—but he just killed him.”

  Lola gazed into the distance, at the blur of blue and gray where land gave way to sea. “I killed a man, too.”

  “But you were being attacked—that’s different.” Rose shook her head slowly. “He asked me to forgive him. But how could I do that? How could I go on living with him, knowing he was responsible for killing all those people in the camp—people just like me and you?”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “I . . .” Rose hesitated. “I don’t know. I love the person I thought he was—that’s not the same, is it?” She scraped off another fragment of lichen. “The Gypsies I knew in England used to say that not to forgive someone is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.”

  “That’s how I felt about . . .” Lola clamped her mouth shut. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, call him “my father.”

  “How could you possibly have forgiven what he did?”

  “I couldn’t,” Lola whispered. “What does it really mean, anyway, when someone says they forgive a person? Someone who’s destroyed their life?”

  Rose let out a long breath. “I suppose it’s about letting it go—not letting the person off, but refusing to carry them around inside your head any longer.”

  “I wish I’d never seen him. I don’t think I’ll ever get that face out of my head.”

  “You will,” Rose murmured.

  “Will I? What about Zoltan? Can you erase the memory of him? Do you want to?”

  “No . . . yes . . . I don’t know.” Rose closed her eyes tight.

  Chapter 36

  Granada, Spain: Three days later

  Rose was gazing into the mirrored surface of a pool, watching the reflection of a swift as it swooped low over the water. It was little more than a month since she had sat in this same spot in the perfumed gardens of the Alhambra, trying to put the past behind her, thinking about how Cristóbal had behaved.