The Spanish Bow

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  At my age, Al-Cerraz had been in demand all over the world. I was not in demand anywhere, except perhaps at home, where I was expected to empty chamber-pots and help pull my aunt out of bed when her joints stiffened.

  Lost in melancholy, I continued to stare at Al-Cerraz's photograph. I didn't notice Luisa sneaking up behind my chair until she pawed the magazine out of my hands. I grabbed at it, and the pages tore. A shredded slip of paper—showing Al-Cerraz's wide fingers clutching a cigar—fluttered down upon the ripped face of Queen Ena, her pale, sorrowful eyes separated from her thin and colorless Victorian lips. Furious, I jumped up and retrieved Luisa's new silver mirror from the dining-room table. I held it over my head, tossing it lightly from hand to hand.

  "Give it back!" my sister howled, as I made the mirror sail in widening daredevil arcs.

  "Look at you," she laughed, changing tactics. "You're such a child. You're probably afraid to look into that mirror. You know you'd break it."

  I tilted my face toward the ceiling, closed my eyes, and kept tossing.

  "Really, Feliu. Just look. You look like Papá." She feigned tenderness.

  I sneaked a glance at her through slitted eyes, and saw her own eyes narrowing, while her lips curled into a smirk. "Except that you're shorter. And skinnier. And by the time he 'd lost his hair, he had a mustache."

  I stopped, mirror gripped in one fist. Luisa had found my sore spot. I'd been born with a high forehead and a receding hairline; when I was worried, or concentrating, with my eyes slitted and lips pursed, my mother said my face looked like the bottom of an orange.

  I heard Mamá and Tía on the stairs, ushering Don Miguel up the narrow staircase from the street. Frantic to pick up the shredded magazine before Don Miguel saw it, I rushed to the table and slammed the mirror down, cracking it. Luisa burst into tears just as Don Miguel appeared, cradling a white box in his arms.

  Mamá didn't even notice the mirror. She was arguing with Don Miguel about the box. "Just open it," he said, and Tía echoed him, pushing it in front of Mamá's face. Mamá relented and unfolded a pale yellow dress, which she lifted halfheartedly to her shoulders.

  "Qué guapa!" Tía crooned.

  "Put it on," Don Miguel said. My mother hadn't worn anything but black since the day at the train station—the day my father's remains did not arrive, the day of the bow. Now she hung her head as Don Miguel persisted, his voice rising. When Mamá looked up, finally, I could see her dark brown eyes swimming behind barely contained tears.

  Tía, uncharacteristically animated, took control of the room. She hobbled between Don Miguel, my mother and me, in a triangular trajectory that was both determined and unsteady, like that of a ship captain crossing a deck in a storm. While Luisa settled to sulk in a corner of the room, Tía poured a grass-colored liqueur for Don Miguel and pressed it into his hands. She flapped her arms toward the staircase, gesturing to the bedrooms above, where my mother was again commanded to change into the new dress. Ignoring the broken mirror, she pushed me toward the piano. "Play! Play!" she croaked, and then more softly, "It will bring peace." My mother disappeared up the steps, each footfall slower than the last. All of us strained to hear her reach the landing and close the bedroom door behind her.

  Don Miguel gulped the liqueur with one swift tilt of his head. Tía, who had reentered the room with a tray of salt-encrusted sardines and bread, wheeled back toward the kitchen and returned with the liqueur bottle to refill his glass. He tossed back the second glass. Tía looked relieved when he reached out and took the whole bottle, saving her from the task of anticipating his desires. He drained his third glass of liqueur, and set both glass and bottle down. Then he reached to remove his hat.

  Performed by any other man, it would have been an empty gesture. But for Don Miguel, it was a ritual. He fingered the hat brim, all the way around. With the other hand, he batted at the small table next to his chair, whisking away any invisible dust. Then he lifted his hat off and set it aside. That was it—no surprises beneath it after all, just thick dark hair, slightly flattened—and yet the gesture and what it might herald made my stomach knot.

  Swinging around, I started to play. But above my leaden fingerings, I could hear Don Miguel shift restlessly.

  "Is she coming?" he called out to Tía.

  "Cierto, cierto," she called back from the kitchen.

  I reached the end of the piece and started the repeat.

  "Why isn't she down here?" he called again, louder.

  Tía reentered the room. "She must be doing her hair." She managed a dry laugh that sounded like a cough. "It's never good to rush a lady, you know."

  I played a second minuet—"Such happy music! Don Miguel, doesn't Feliu play wonderfully now?"—and a third, and still Mamá had not returned to join us in her new yellow dress. Her new yellow betrothal dress, I thought, my mind fixing on the word that had appeared a dozen times in the gossipy captions of ABC Magazine.

  At least I had an excuse to turn away. Luisa watched the bottle gradually empty, and Don Miguel's face redden, his voice slurring with increasing fury. "Why isn't she coming?"

  Tía flattered and cajoled, pressing more food into his hands to counter the alcohol's effects.

  "That day with my brother, she showed her true colors," Don Miguel said. "She has no respect for this community."

  "She's had difficulties," Tía countered.

  "She shouldn't have hit a man in public. Do you know how that looks? Six years, and my brother still hasn't married. What woman would respect him now?"

  "It's a shame, sí, sí," Tía said. But her airy ramblings didn't soothe him.

  "Someone should teach her a lesson."

  I had been playing softly, all the better to eavesdrop, but now I pounded on the keys. I did not want to hear more. I wanted to vanish inside the music, to lose myself the way I'd lost myself listening to El Nene's cellist. But the piano was not my instrument. Playing it, I could hide, but I could not disappear.

  The song ended; as I racked my mind for another, I heard Don Miguel's chair move. I exhaled with relief, thinking he was rising to leave. He headed toward the staircase, and I waited to hear his footsteps descend. Instead, he climbed—toward the third floor, toward my mother.

  "Don Miguel, I'll go with you," Tía said.

  He grunted one word: "Stay."

  Luisa whispered, "Feliu, what is he doing?"

  Outside of marriage, men and women didn't visit in bedrooms or within sight of any bed. For this reason, we wouldn't have professional nurses in Spain for another decade, not counting a few poorly trained nuns. Death, it seemed, was preferable to dishonor.

  I heard Don Miguel rap three times on the door over our heads, echoed by Tía's distressed hobble. I heard my mother shout through the door: "I don't want to see you!"

  "This door is locked," Don Miguel called down to us. "Someone bring the key."

  No one moved. Don Miguel repeated his demand. I started to stand, pushing myself up from the piano bench.

  "Good, Feliu," Tía whispered hoarsely. "You bring him the key. It's the black one in the top drawer, in the kitchen."

  "I'm not bringing him the key," I whispered back.

  But I had stood up. Why? I bit my lip and said, "I'm going to help her."

  Don Miguel was pounding on the bedroom door.

  "Yes," Luisa said. "Please, Feliu. Hurry."

  "You can't help her," Tía whispered.

  "We can throw him out," I said.

  "He's an important man in town...."

  "We'll leave," Luisa said. "We'll move to another town!"

  "Every town is like this town," Tía said, no longer caustic, suddenly and unnervingly calm. "This was meant to happen. You'll see. It's better this way."

  She limped toward the kitchen and returned with the black skeleton key clutched in her bony fist. Luisa called out to her a final time but she continued slowly up the steps. I hadn't given up—I was thinking hard, trying to sort things out, wishing that Enrique were home. But I did
not come to any decision. I did not act. I did not follow my heart. Perhaps I lost a piece of it then and there.

  We heard Mamá shout through the closed door above us, "No pasará!" Which meant, in that economical way that has no English equivalent, both He won't come in, and It won't happen. Again and again she shouted the phrase, imprinting it in my mind. Decades later, I'd hear nearly the same words, said to a slightly different purpose: No pasarán—They will not pass. They were futile words, on both occasions. Don Miguel did enter, and they did pass, the fascist Nationalists who would end up ruling Spain. The worst part for Mamá, I imagine, was that her own loved ones were accomplices.

  We heard the door swing open, and once more my mother shouted "No pasará!" Then all was quiet.

  Tía reappeared, dug her fingers into my shoulder, and said, "Play now and play loud. For your sister."

  For a moment I did not understand, until the sounds started above us, worse sounds than the shouting. Then I did understand, and I began to play, hating the fact that music couldn't stop what was happening upstairs, only drown it out.

  I couldn't sleep that night. My mother hadn't come out of the room since Don Miguel had left; only Tía had seen her. Every time the wind blew against the house or the floor creaked, I thought it was Don Miguel coming back. I kept thinking of the sounds I'd heard from upstairs and the songs I'd pounded out on the piano, to cover the other sounds.

  An hour before dawn, I sneaked into the bedroom Mamá and Tía shared, slid the Bible out of my mother's nightstand drawer, pulled out the letters inside, and tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, to examine them by candlelight. The letters were both dog-eared and smudged, which surprised me. I could imagine my mother reading and rereading the first one from my father, which bore the stamp of the customs service, and the 1898 date. But I was surprised to see she had equally worn the second. Dark stains tattooed its yellowed, softened surface. Opening it, I nearly ripped the letter in three parts at the crease lines, where it had been folded and unfolded countless times. Wax had dripped onto the paper near Al-Cerraz's self-caricature.

  How could it be that my mother had worn this letter to its present state, without ever letting me know that she had taken its brief message and its grand possibilities into serious consideration? Evidently she had deliberated for years, paralyzed by anxiety and pessimism. Worse than disregarding the letter, she had worried it nearly to shreds, unable to make any decision at all. We were not so different, she and I.

  I heard a whisper at my shoulder: "Careful, Feliu. Don't tear it. We're going to need that letter now."

  I jumped, nearly knocking over the candlestick. Turning, I saw her face, half-illuminated, half in shadow. I was afraid to look, but when I did, I found with great relief that there were no bruises or physical marks. It helped me to pretend that everything was going to be better, that we weren't simply running away from Campo Seco, but running toward a future that had awaited me all along.

  PART II

  Barcelona 1907

  CHAPTER 4

  "And how many years has he played?" Don José asked my mother after we had presented Al-Cerraz's letter at the Barcelona Conservatory.

  "Violin, two years—a fast learner, even without a good teacher. Piano, about the same. His father—"

  The professor interrupted. "No, Señora, how long has he played the violoncello?"

  "He has not, sir, but he has great desire to learn."

  Don José muttered under his breath.

  "It's a rare instrument," my mother said. "He hasn't had the opportunity...."

  "Rare? If only," he said, glancing toward the half-circle of students assembled before him. One boy, about my age, tapped his bow against his knee. A girl yawned.

  "I don't accept beginners," Don José said. Then, noting my mother's crestfallen expression, "But you've come a long way. I can provide the name of a tutor who can give your son private lessons."

  He took a pencil from the music stand nearest him and withdrew a slip of paper from his jacket pocket.

  "But where would Feliu live? We have no family here in the city. We were looking for a full-time school, perhaps a stipend—"

  "Your son has demonstrated no ability. If I may be frank, he is too old to begin a new instrument."

  "Too old? He's only fourteen."

  "I have more skilled student cellists than the entire world can employ. Perhaps you can find some trade for him before he is a burden to you and your husband."

  "My husband is deceased."

  "My condolences," Don José said, pausing to write quickly on the slip of paper and hand it my mother. "Students await me."

  My mother shuffled despondently along the Ramblas, Barcelona's broad main boulevard. I should have been dejected, too. But the city radiated energy and promise. More was happening here between two divided lanes of traffic than in our entire village. A policeman haggled with two wide-hipped women who gripped their burgundy-colored skirts in defiance, baring their ankles as they sashayed toward the waterfront. Knots of people clogged the walkways—here, a group of older men spilling out of a narrow bar, enveloped in cigarette smoke; there, a flock of younger men competing for a pretty flower-seller's attention. A boy plucked an orange from the bottom of a fruit pyramid and ran shrieking from the avalanche. In Campo Seco, the vendor would have known the boy's name, perhaps would have chased him down the street. But here, with a half dozen customers waiting, the vendor simply gestured for his younger assistant to chase the rolling oranges while he reached out a hand to steady the swinging scale.

  Light filtered through the plane trees overhead, and beneath the green canopy, stacks of golden cages lined the walkway, forming a sundappled tunnel that blocked the views of carriage traffic left and right. Within those cages, a hundred yellow birds sang.

  "They love music here, I know it!" I shouted to my mother, but my words were swallowed by the raucous birdsong.

  Past the cages, we found ourselves funneled between rows of finished paintings. Mamá apologized every few steps, as if trespassing through someone's private studio; but there was no other way to pass. We threaded our way through mazes of café tables, and I ducked just in time to avoid colliding with a tray billowing with garlic-scented steam. Rubbery pink tentacles overflowed the sides of diners' plates. I tugged on my mother's arm. "Calamar!" she explained over her shoulder, barely sidestepping a second waiter approaching from the side. She started to apologize, then stopped at the sight of him. From the waist up, he was dashing: white ruffled shirt, black bow tie, tray balanced on one upturned hand. From the waist down, he was dressed as a horse, a costume complete with head and bushy tail swinging loosely from threadbare suspenders.

  "Paella?" he droned, citing the day's specials. "Gambas al ajillo? Biftec?"

  I thought his appearance was spectacular, but Mamá recoiled, saying "No, no," as she quickened her step.

  We were carrying everything we 'd packed hastily that morning in Campo Seco. The air under the plane trees smelled sweet and green, but the humid press of bodies all around us was harder to bear than Campo Seco's dry heat. The Ramblas was like a river, its current at midday in full force. Newspaper stands and café tables were like boulders in the stream, serving only to quicken the flow of people trying to get past them. Mamá's bag crashed into a pram, provoking a litany of insults. I paused to set down the suitcases, and a man bumped into me from behind. I was still muttering apologies when a woman's swinging arm clipped my shoulder. Leaning over to reshoulder a bag, my mother tripped over her own dragging skirt hem. Tearing it, she cried out, "Is there nowhere to sit?"

  "Of course there is," a man said from behind us, and shoveled my mother into a chair mere steps away from the pedestrian flow. He set before her a goblet as big as a fishbowl, filled with ruby-colored liquid and bobbing fruit peels of yellow, orange, and green.

  Mamá glanced around, pulling her bags closer to her feet as I slipped into the chair next to her. "We don't want to eat," she said.

  "No menu?" th
e man said. "That's fine. I'll be back."

  "Muy amable," she whispered as he walked away, setting her lips into an approximation of confidence.

  "What is that?" I asked, pointing to the goblet.

  "I'm not sure. Don't touch it."

  Mamá had just opened her fan when the man appeared again, slid a slip of paper under the goblet's stem, and disappeared. Mamá pulled it out and studied it. "But I didn't ask for this!" A second waiter appeared, his hand extended. To her explanation of the misunderstanding and her protest that she hadn't taken a single sip, he merely retied his apron strings and stared into the distance, signaling over his head with one finger. From across the Ramblas, the same policeman we'd seen earlier nodded briskly and stepped toward the street, pausing for a horse-drawn cab to pass.

  My mother slammed down her fan, upsetting the glass, and sending a spray of red liquid across her torn dress. We both jumped up. "Fine—take it!" Mamá yelled and fumbled in her handbag for three coins that she pushed into the bored waiter's hand.

  We were a block east, swept by the Ramblas's ceaseless current, before she turned to me. "Two days' grocery money—gone. And you know the worst of it, Feliu? I'm even thirstier than before." Under her breath she added, "It's the thing I hate most about cities."

  "What?"

  "The way they make you want what you didn't even know you should want. The way they make you crave what you can't have."

  But I haven't explained about our abrupt departure that morning from Campo Seco, or how it came to be that our world was split in two, with Mamá and me on one side, Luisa and Tía on the other. Tía had expected the previous day's nightmare to yield an honor-salvaging wedding to Don Miguel. Even as we'd kissed her dry cheeks and promised to write soon, she'd refused to acknowledge that we were leaving. Luisa understood that someone had to stay with Tía, and the big city was no place for a girl—especially when we had no idea where we'd sleep. But she seemed to believe Mamá when she said she'd be back soon, even as Mamá packed up her silver candlesticks, two lace-edged tablecloths, and a rolled tapestry inherited from her parents.