‘Why do I need to celebrate?’ I asked him. ‘It makes no difference to me who rules Spain. All I want to do is dance.’
His eyes narrowed on my face and he took a step closer to me. ‘I don’t believe that’s how you really feel,’ he said. ‘I believe you only pretend not to have any compassion.’
‘That’s very opinionated of you.’ I told him. His handsome face stirred something in me and I was doing my best to resist it. ‘You hardly know me.’
‘Then let me get to know you better,’ he said, a teasing note in his voice.
My pulse quickened. I had that strange feeling again that I was like clay in Xavier’s hands. Only I realised now it was not because he was rich and I’d been born into a poor family … it was for quite different reasons. But my pride wouldn’t allow him to think he had got the better of me.
‘All right,’ I said, daring him. ‘Take me somewhere you aren’t ashamed to be seen with me. But remember, it’s more difficult to be discreet with a star than it is with a mistress.’
He blushed, realising that I was alluding to his being married. But then, to my surprise, he said, ‘I’m not ashamed to be seen with you anywhere.’
I stared at him, understanding now that like the crowds that were dancing and cheering around us, Xavier Montella and I were being caught up and swept away by something bigger than ourselves.
My defences weakened. ‘Why did you pursue me?’ I asked him, breathless. ‘All those times I was so unfriendly to you … yet you kept coming back.’
Xavier gazed into my eyes and smiled. ‘Because of what I sensed ever since I first laid eyes on you … that we were souls destined for each other.’
That light again! As the demon danced around us. I knew that what Xavier said was true. It was foolish to resist any more.
I have never understood how it is that a person can start life in one place and end up somewhere else entirely. How could I have been born in a slum to the poorest of poor families and now be residing in the Hotel Ritz? How could I have gone from hating a man to lying in his arms, the sheets crumpled beneath us, my thighs raw from our lovemaking, my skin still burning from his kisses? The gentle hue of late afternoon light washed over Xavier’s sleeping face. I touched his eyebrows. One was slightly raised as if he were asking a question.
Xavier had taken me to the Casa Abela, where we had dined on croquettes and sautéed mushrooms. I marvelled at how quickly we had travelled from celebrating the Republic, to talking about flamenco, to returning to the Ritz where we embraced for the first time and covered each other with passionate kisses. I had sensed the wife and the child long before Xavier had mentioned them, but they were a world apart from this one: the world here in my suite where I lay with Xavier Montella.
Xavier opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘Thank God!’ he said.
‘Thank God what?’ I asked, propping myself on my elbow.
He rubbed his forehead. ‘I thought I was going to wake up and find everything had been a dream.’
I lay my head on his chest and breathed in the fresh smell of his skin, still damp from the exertion of our lovemaking.
‘How could we have been destined for each other?’ I asked him. ‘We are so different. I was born in barri Xinès and you were born in l’Eixample.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, closing his eyes again and drifting back to sleep. ‘But now that I have you, I’m not letting you go.’
I remembered the tortured expression on Xavier’s face when I had lied to him that Celestina Sánchez was dead, and how the pain I had caused him was like a dagger in my own heart. The memory of that had never blurred or softened; it remained crystal clear every time I thought of it. I knew then that whatever hurt Xavier would hurt me too. It’s so strange, I thought, why some people fall in love like this and others don’t. It was as random as the stars.
‘I’ll never harm you,’ I murmured in Xavier’s ear. ‘I’ll never do anything to hurt you ever again.’
By the second year of its birth, the new Republic was in trouble. While it had raised the hopes of the most wretched in society, it had also threatened the interests of those who were opposed to any redistribution of wealth and power — the monarchists, the Church, the army, the industrialists and landowners. While the world looked on in amazement, Spain went from a backward, conservative country to one where freedom of conscience was honoured, women were given the vote, civil marriage and divorce were permitted, education became compulsory and secular, and the Church and state were separated. But those who did not like the changes were bent on destroying the Republic … and soon, very soon, circumstances were to play into their hands.
In the October of 1933, I returned from a tour of Portugal to find Xavier waiting for me at the railway station. As soon as he spotted me, the light came to his eyes and he moved towards the carriage where I was sitting. How I loved these moments of reunion. We had been lovers for as long as the Republic had been in power, but every time we met again felt as fresh as the first.
I let him approach me, noticing that even his gait was attractive. He walked with his shoulders relaxed, his arms swinging. We couldn’t kiss like lovers in public, but even the feel of his lips on my cheeks sent tingles down my spine.
‘Where is everybody?’ Xavier asked, looking over my shoulder. He was referring to my clan.
‘They will be here,’ I told him. ‘They are gathering their things.’
No sooner had I spoken than Diego and his sisters alighted from the train along with Manuel’s sisters. Their husbands and children followed. With Raquel’s twins the latest additions to my clan, I was now looking after twenty-five people. The travellers waiting on the platform stared at the gypsies. Even when travelling on trains, the women wore their finest jewellery and tiaras; but they eschewed the Hermès suitcases I had bought for them and wrapped everything they owned in bundles tied with string.
Although el Ruso and Xavier had, between them, wrested control of my income away from Diego so I could keep it for myself, Diego still greeted Xavier like an old friend. The gypsies liked Xavier, but our affair was only possible because they considered me mostly a paya. If I’d been born a gypsy, they would have cut off my nose for sleeping with a married man. It also helped that Diego approved of Xavier because he had money and was generous with it.
‘I’ve organised taxis for everyone,’ Xavier announced, steering the group towards the exit like a tour conductor. He leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, ‘For us, I have my car. I’ve missed you so much I’m whisking you straight to the apartment.’
In the chauffeured car, Xavier and I held hands underneath my coat.
‘I’ve been invited to perform at the Samovar Club tomorrow night,’ I told him. ‘It’s going to be Gaspar on the piano and me. Are you coming?’
Although I had been performing in grand concert halls for crowds of people for years now, I still preferred the intimacy of dancing in clubs and cabaret shows. And with Gaspar back in Barcelona for a month, I’d seized the opportunity to perform with my old friend again.
Xavier shook his head. ‘I can’t make the show but I’ll meet you afterwards.’
I knew the reason. He’d promised to do something for Conchita.
I never made Xavier feel guilty about having to divide himself between two lives. I’d seen his wife once when el Ruso had taken me to the Liceu. She was sitting in the family box with Xavier: a foxy-faced beauty in form-fitting clothes. Very few people knew about my and Xavier’s love affair. Xavier never treated me as a mistress, and I never badgered him to divorce his wife, even though it was now legal. Laws might change but attitudes didn’t, and I much preferred our secret life to one embroiled in scandal. I might not have had him all the time, but when we were together Xavier and I were happy. He opened up the cold part of me and made it warm again. He’d brought me back to life.
‘Margarida sends her regards,’ he said.
‘How is her arm?’
‘On the mend.’
/> I found it unusual that Margarida had taken a liking to me. It wasn’t only that she despised Conchita and thought Xavier was happier with me; her affection seemed genuine. I smiled as I remembered the day she’d invited me to join her on a teaching mission. With the support of the Republican government, she was going to tour the poorest villages in Spain with a group of artists and performers. The idea was that they would put on plays, give art exhibitions and talks, and show films to people who were still living as if it were the Dark Ages. While I loved performing and wasn’t averse to living rough — I still preferred it to fancy hotel rooms — I couldn’t imagine anything worse than touring the country with a gathering of intellectuals and poets. I hated the way the dance critics overanalysed my performances and, besides that, I’d never read a book in my life. I’d learned to autograph my name artistically, read the newspaper, and speak some English and French quite well. That was enough for me.
‘The peasants need food and livelihoods, not high culture,’ I’d told Margarida.
‘Actually,’ she’d said, straightening her spine and staring at me with her intense eyes, ‘they need both — to feed the body and the spirit.’
Margarida had a passionate energy about her. I knew she was good at winning people to her cause. But she wasn’t going to win me.
‘I’ll give your group money for the costumes and travel expenses,’ I told her. ‘But I’m not going.’
Margarida had written to me about the tour almost every day she had been away: We performed to a full house tonight. Even though it started to rain, the peasants would not move. They were so enthralled by our performance. But the bus she had been travelling on had overturned on its way back to Madrid and now Margarida was nursing a broken ulna.
The apartment Xavier and I secretly rented was off the carrer Gran. When we walked into it, the first thing I noticed was a vase of blood-red roses in the foyer. I turned to Xavier and smiled before sitting down in the drawing room and staring at the new painting above the mantelpiece. It was a distorted depiction of a woman painted in yellow, red and green oils.
‘Where did you get that?’ I asked.
‘It’s a Picasso,’ replied Xavier. ‘He’s a Spaniard. Do you like it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps it will grow on me … as you did.’
He laughed. ‘Hopefully faster than that! I paid a small fortune for it!’
I kicked off my shoes and Xavier sat down next to me. ‘I’m exhausted,’ I said.
He rubbed my feet and blew on my toes. ‘I’ve missed these feet. These delicate but powerful instruments. How did the Portuguese like your shows?’
‘You’ve tamed me,’ I told him, leaning back and closing my eyes. ‘Reviewers no longer use words like “spitfire” or “hellcat” to describe me. Now they are calling me “refined” and “sophisticated”. You’ve put out my fire.’
Xavier leaned over me, easing my skirt up over my hips and kissing my thighs. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is yet to be seen.’
When we woke a few hours later, it was already dark. For some reason I had been dreaming of Teresa’s flower stall, overflowing with geraniums and begonias. It took me a few moments to register where I was.
‘It’s six o’clock,’ Xavier said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’d better get going.’
I watched him put on his trousers and shirt. My show wasn’t until ten. I had plenty of time.
‘So what’s been happening in Spain?’ I asked. ‘It’s impossible to believe anything the Portuguese papers print.’
‘For the Republic to survive it needs to raise wages and cut unemployment, but that’s next to impossible in the midst of a depression,’ he said, pulling on his socks. ‘The workers are becoming impatient and are seeking more radical solutions. To keep the support of the middle classes, the Republic has to provide stability and order. They’ve come down too hard on some protests and now they’ve alienated the workers even more.’
‘Did we change too fast?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Yes, probably. But how can you not change quickly when people are starving?’
I thought of Teresa again and realised he was right. The Republic was something the Spanish people should have demanded when the French achieved theirs. We were hundreds of years late, although our transition had been less bloody. While King Alfonso had been tried in his absence for high treason, the sentence that had been passed down was permanent exile. Spain hadn’t sent the aristocracy and other opponents to the guillotine.
‘The Left is breaking up into factions of conservative reformers and extreme anarchists, while the disgruntled members of the Right are uniting,’ Xavier said, straightening his tie. ‘If the Left doesn’t get its act together, they will lose the next election. Then I am sure the Right will dismantle the reforms that have been achieved and put the country even further behind than it was before.’
Xavier fixed his hair before kissing me goodbye. After he left, I rested my head back on the pillow. I could still smell the cedar scent of his aftershave. I breathed in the restful atmosphere of the apartment. It was a haven we had created in an unstable world.
‘I hope that we always have this,’ I sighed, before drifting off to sleep again.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Celestina
Although el Ruso was now living in Paris, he still owned the Samovar Club in Barcelona. Zakharov had been made the manager. He was in the foyer when I arrived, looking as handsome as ever, although greyer around the temples.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said, taking my hands and kissing both my cheeks before nervously looking around for my clan.
‘They have a fiesta,’ I explained. ‘It’s just me tonight.’
‘Well, look who is here!’
I turned to see Gaspar rushing towards me. It was nearly a year since we had last seen each other, and we grabbed each other’s hands tightly. Gaspar knew about Xavier and me, and was happy for us. But I felt sorry for him. I wasn’t the marrying type, but he was — yet he hadn’t settled down. Surely he wasn’t still pining for the young woman who’d married someone else?
Zakharov glanced from me to Gaspar. ‘You two have rehearsed this act, haven’t you?’
Gaspar and I answered in unison: ‘No!’
The three of us laughed. Zakharov had come to respect my need to improvise.
After all the challenges I’d had with highbrow conductors and orchestras who couldn’t keep the compás, it was a relief to return to dancing with a single instrument played by someone who had known me as long as Gaspar had. Senyora Dávilo had dressed me on this occasion in gold and silver, and I performed against a black background with my hair swept back into a low chignon. I was relaxed, and improvised my performance from start to finish. It was true what the reviewers in Portugal had said: I no longer had to whip myself into a frenzy in order to dance expressively. The wild and the untamed were still in me, but I preferred to show my elegant, feminine side now.
Afterwards, I rushed to my dressing room. I was pleased with how well my new style had been received, but I was eager to clean off my stage make-up and freshen up before Xavier arrived. I sat down at my mirror and gave a start. In its reflection I saw the head of a man sitting with his back to me in the armchair. I swivelled around. The man rose and my blood turned to ice. It was Salazar.
‘So you refuse all my invitations,’ he said.
Although I hadn’t seen Salazar for over a decade, he had never been out of contact. Wherever I performed in the world, he always sent expensive gifts and an invitation to a bullfight for when I returned to Spain. The gifts had unnerved me, but as Salazar had not appeared in person for all that time, I had disposed of them and put Salazar out of my mind.
‘I only accept invitations given in person,’ I replied. Then realised my mistake.
An amused look came into Salazar’s eyes. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘My wife has been dead for a year, so I can now invite you to my ranch. We’ll raise bulls together. I’m tr
ying to breed one with violet eyes.’
I’d been stalked in New York, and once a man in Paris had held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot himself if I didn’t marry him. But neither of those encounters had terrified me as much as seeing Salazar now did. He had a demon too, but it was nothing like the one I danced with, or the one that had brought me and Xavier together. Salazar’s demon was straight from hell.
‘We’ll have to do something about the peasants first,’ he said, taking a step towards me. ‘Do you know, the Republican government thinks that I’m going to share my land with them? Land that’s been in my family for generations?’
‘I believe the intention is to pay you for it,’ I said coldly. ‘And to prevent thousands of people starving to death each year. Land given over for hunting parties and the breeding of bulls doesn’t feed the population.’
Salazar lifted his eyebrows. ‘They are going to pay the landowners according to what we’ve been putting on our tax documents, as if that’s any indication of the land’s worth!’ He laughed. ‘Don’t they realise that peasants are nothing better than animals and a lot less noble? I’ve threatened those on my land that if they don’t vote for the CEDA and the monarchists in the next election, I’ll let them and their children starve.’ He put a long, yellow nail to his nose. ‘It’s a delightful twist, don’t you think? The Republican government gives everyone an equal say — and the peasants will vote against it for a little bit of sausage!’
I thought of my Andalusian grandparents, both of whom had died before they reached forty. They had lived at the mercy of men like Salazar. Still, I stayed quiet. I remembered how, when I’d danced at the Villa Rosa, Salazar had carried a gun. I assumed he still did. All I wanted was to get him out of my dressing room as quickly as possible. But he showed no intention of leaving.
‘What this country needs is a man like the one they have in Germany,’ he said. ‘Hitler.’
I shrank away and moved towards the door, but he followed me. ‘So you will come with me to the fight tomorrow?’
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