by Sarah Bird
“Clementina turned away. This fiesta was nothing like she’d dreamed it would be. The dancers moved among the revelers and a few shadowy figures near the back grabbed the women and dragged them toward a door that opened into another room that couples disappeared into.
“ ‘Where are the dancers going?’ Clementina asked.
“ ‘Dancers? They’re not dancers. They’re just palomas torcaces.’
“ ‘Wild pigeons?’
“Rosa laughed at her friend’s ignorance. ‘Whores! Those women are whores and they’re going to do what whores do with men who have money. Don’t you know anything?’
“Clementina was beginning to understand that she didn’t know anything. She didn’t know anything at all.
“ ‘Miracielos!’ Delicata’s sharp voice cut through the uproar and Rosa rushed to her side. Clementina lifted the scarf up to hide even more of her face and joined Rosa at the front of the room in time to hear her mother say, ‘Lorca is the one who asked for our cuadro. He specifically asked for you. He told all his friends about you. Tonight, I will go first and you will go last’
“ ‘Oh, Mama, thank you.’ Rosa threw her arms around Delicata. To be the final dancer in a crowd of aficionados such as this was a great honor.
“Delicata pushed her daughter away. ‘Don’t thank me,’ she snapped, then added, her voice softer, sadder, ‘and don’t blame me either. Not for doing what a Gypsy woman has to do to keep her family alive.’
“Clementina and Rosa didn’t have time to wonder about Delicata’s strange words, for Mono, Rosa’s brother with the nose smashed in like a monkey, began to play. He bashed at the strings of his battered guitar, beating brutal rhythms. The poet was the most intent of the spectators. When someone behind him called out drunkenly, ‘Baila! Baila! Dance! Dance!’ Lorca shot the man the most withering of glances and the room fell silent. Delicata took her place at the edge of the area that had been cleared for the dancers.
“El Chino broke the intense silence with a wail even more unearthly than the one he had unloosed while the troupe had walked through Granada’s dark street. More scream than song, the cante of Rosa’s father evoked bewildering surges of despair and ecstasy in Clementina as he sang of his love for a woman that none could compare to except one and that one was on the wall of a church with the moon at her feet.
“Delicata raised her arm above her head and, in that gesture, transformed herself from a troll into a queen and left no doubt whom El Chino was singing about. Staring at the men with a defiance that bordered on disgust, she stamped her foot hard, sweeping her hand down with a decisive finality. She dropped her head and everyone in the room held their breath until, two, three compáses later, she slowly lifted it again, her arms rising along with it. They twisted like flames above her head.
“Rosa clapped the beat that brought her mother’s feet to life, stamping out an intricate counterrhythm. The poet’s face stood out from the crowd as he encouraged Delicata with nods and mutters of ‘Eso es! Eso es el flamenco puro!’ Delicata signaled for a silencio, a quiet place in the dance where El Chino’s cante could take over.
“Delicata stepped back and pushed her daughter forward. Rosa executed simple marcaje that kept the beat while El Chino sang. Clementina waited for El Chino to settle into one of the songs that Rosa had taught her. But he didn’t sing anything Clementina had heard before. She was puzzling over what manner of song he was singing when the door opened and a man strode in. Clementina knew instantly that it was El Bala. Just as Rosa had described, he looked like a bullet with his bald head and thick neck, all smooth except where a long scar puckered his face. Delicata and El Chino stared first at El Bala, then at each other, then together their gazes fell upon Rosa who, lost in the dance, didn’t notice their sudden attention. Clementina thought her friend had never been more beautiful. Even doing the marking steps, she was exquisite.
“El Chino’s song was so jondo, so filled with sangre negro, black blood, that even the señoritos were moved. Several had started to weep. So powerful were the emotions aroused by El Chino’s voice and the words he was making up on the spot that Juan Pablo’s father stood and ripped his shirt from his body. Possessed by the moment, El Chino sang on. He sang the story of his delirious love for a green-eyed dancer who stole his soul and forced him to steal her because, after all, how can a man live without his soul? He sang of how every man who saw his wife was as bewitched as he had been. He had hidden her from all except one, a killer who would put a bullet in the heart of his love. His woman loves the killer. Driven mad by jealousy and love, he put his hands around the neck of the only woman he would ever love. As his fingers tightened, her green eyes bulged, and his woman swore that it is not her that the killer loves but their daughter. The daughter is the one the killer wants.
“Heartbroken tears flowed from El China’s eyes as he sang his lament. He has two choices. He can either give his daughter in marriage or kill her mother. How, he asks, can his children live without their mother? How can he live without the soul that mother stole from him?
“Clementina knew that she had understood the strange words correctly when a look of horror spread across her friend’s face.
“El Chino’s cante was the catalyst the playboys, already half-mad from days of drinking and debauchery, required to reach a state of near-hysterical group catharsis. The aristocrats keened and wept. The old men lamented that life was too short. The young that it was too long. Juan Pablo’s father, driven into a frenzy, scratched his fingernails across his naked chest, drawing blood.
“In the clamor, Rosa, her face wet with tears, slipped back into the shadows and whispered to Clementina, ‘They can’t! They can’t marry me off to El Bala. He’s old. He’s ugly. I will kill myself.’
“Clementina stopped her friend. ‘Rosa, don’t even say that. We’ll run away.’ She remembered all of Rasa’s stories. ‘We’ll go to Sevilla, where there is laughter, gaiety, with enough to eat for everyone and more than enough for those with talent. Rosa, you will be queen of Sevilla like your grandmother La Leona. You will be queen of the cafés cantantes!’
“ ‘How?’ Rosa asked.
“El Bala guarded the door. There would be no escape. El Chino sang again and the men calmed themselves. Clementina felt that the whole world, since the world was run by men, wanted only to lock her away, her and Rosa and every other girl who would dance and sing. Cave or convent, mountain or mansion, it didn’t matter how fine the rugs might be, how ancient the heraldic tiles, a prison was a prison. With the barbarous El Bala guarding the door, there seemed to be no hope. Clementina realized they were both condemned. Then, his white suit shining like the moon in the darkness, one faint beacon of hope presented itself: the poet.
“Clapping out a staccato answer to her husband’s lament, Delicata stepped forward. The blood of her mother, La Leona, queen of the cafés cantantes, surged through her veins and when she danced, she became a whirlpool that sucked every man’s attention into its fathomless well. Thankfully, none was left for the two girls. In the dark, Clementina motioned for Rosa to follow her and they made their way to the table where a flickering candil lighted the face of the poet. Clementina knelt at his feet so that her features would not be caught in the illumination.
“ ‘What is it, bailaora?’ the poet asked, his voice soft with kindness.
“Clementina poured Rosa’s tale out and, in the telling, divulged a bit of her own as well. The poet was enraptured. ‘I shall write an ode,’ he exclaimed. ‘Your stories, your baile capture all that is flamenco puro.’
“Clementina ducked her head even lower, scared that the poet’s exclamations would call attention to her. When she lowered her head, she noticed to her alarm that the front of her borrowed dress was damp with sweat, darkened with soot. She touched her dripping face and found no soot on her finger when she looked at it. She had sweated her disguise away.
“Delicata finished and the thirsty crowd turned back to the wine. For a moment, the only sound
was the clinking of bottles against the rims of glasses. Just then, a man stepped out of the back room. The wild pigeon he’d just finished with was hanging onto him. All the men hooted as he made a great show of buttoning his fly, tucking his shirt in, and pulling his suspenders up. ‘Ándale, muchachos, I warmed her up for you.’ He lowered the dancer’s blouse and kissed her nipple. The man was Clementina’s father.
“The poet, recognizing the duke, tried to hide Clementina. But it was too late. Smears of soot, a scarf covering all but her eyes, the darkness, the surprise of the setting, none of it mattered. The duke recognized his daughter instantly. His gaze fixed on her. In his look was not only recognition of who Clementina was but of who she would be for the rest of her days: a disgrace, a scandal that would have to be hidden. Marriage to even the lowest of families, internment in even the meanest of convents would no longer be enough. Clementina could not imagine her fate, but death was not out of the question since any life she had ever known ended the second her father set eyes on her.
“A hammering at the door threw everyone else in the room into a panic, but the duke remained frozen. He did not even register the shouted words, ‘Open up? Guardia civil!’ Without waiting, the guards began pounding the door down.
“Though the juerga was a traditional right of the playboys of the aristocracy, none of them knew if their immunity would stand up in the perilous political climate that had reigned since Franco had come to power. The military and the Church had put him in power and the Church hated flamenco. All the dukes and barons scrambled for a safe exit. And though every Gypsy was terrified of the state police who made their lives such torment, the most frightened person that night, for his own very singular reasons, was the poet Lorca. Candiles were extinguished. The room fell into darkness. Panic ensued as the men stampeded toward the door, all of them ready with bribes to thrust into the guards’ hands. Rosa screamed for her friend. Clementina ran to her side and, not knowing where else to turn, they followed the one spot of brightness they could distinguish, the luminescent white of the poet’s suit.
“While all the others churned futilely, the door was broken down and the guards entered carrying lanterns. The light reflected off the black patent leather of their hats, turning the uptilted corners into horns. They entered and demanded, ‘Where is the poet?’
“But the poet was gone. At that very moment he was helping Rosa and Clementina clamber out a window. He followed, climbing down the lattice that held up a bougainvillea and dropping into the alley below. The three of them set off running. Clementina kept turning back, expecting her father to appear behind her at any second. She fell behind and Rosa went back to hurry her along. Then they chased the waning moon of the poet’s white suit. They ran until they caught him. They ran until all three were out of breath and far from the site of the juerga.
“The first thing Lorca did when he caught his breath was laugh. ‘Franco, you idiot! What a terrible and tiny tyrant you must be to fear a poet. Well, girls, at least we all know what we’re up against, eh? We’ll go straight to my friend’s house, where I’m staying. Those apes don’t know where it is. I’ll send word to my sister, my mother. We’ll collect my papers, what money I have, and leave Granada tonight. My friends were right. I should never have returned. We’ll escape to Madrid, to some place not yet controlled by that bloodthirsty, sanctimonious monster. Some place where Spaniards are still Spaniards and still love poetry more than blood and dance more than murder.’
“Clementina and Rosa suddenly felt as if their lives, which had seemed over only moments before, were just beginning. Lorca hurried ahead of them through the quiet streets, his heels ringing against the wet cobblestones. The girls were barely able to suppress giggles born of hysteria, fear, and joy. Rosa and Clementina caught up to Lorca, and the rest of the way he talked even faster than he walked. He talked about the evil that gripped his beloved Spain. About his country’s demonic desire to kill what is best in herself. ‘She’s done it before,’ he ranted. ‘The Inquisition, driving out the Moors and Jews, persecuting the Gypsies, now this, this civil war. This is the most grievous act of cannibalism in all her bloody history.
“ ‘Politics? I don’t care about politics,’ he railed. ‘About Loyalists, Rebels. Republicans, Falangists. I hate all uniforms except el traje de luces!’ The thought of the bullfighter’s glittering suit of lights as a uniform made him laugh. ‘Not much farther, señoritas, my friend’s house is just around this corner. Then we are safe from those jackbooted—’
“Words and motion stopped dead when they turned the corner. Waiting along the street was a gauntlet of soldiers in dung-brown uniforms carrying rifles, standing in the murky light cast by a lone streetlamp. Rosa grabbed the poet and dragged him back into the shadows.
“ ‘They didn’t see you,’ she whispered. ‘We can sneak away. I have relatives in Sevilla. We’ll walk. Don’t worry about your papers, your money.’
“Lorca didn’t answer. He merely pulled a Turkish cigarette from the case in his pocket, lit it, and held it in that way he had, pinched between thumb and forefinger, his palm cupping his chin as he inhaled the smoke. He looked like the hero in a movie, his hair black as ink, his face, hands, suit, all white, the stuff of clouds in the mist swirling through the narrow street. They stood hidden in the darkness and listened to the tramp of the soldiers’ boots against the cobblestones, to the rattle of rifle barrels, the slap of a leather holster against a thigh. Lorca finished his cigarette and stared a long time at the butt before he tossed it away.
“ ‘Papers?’ he said. ‘Money? No, these I don’t worry about. I worry about honor, dignity, and art. Good luck, muchachas. I wish I had more than luck to give you. I wish I had more to give Spain.’
“ ‘No,’ Rosa whispered, but he had already stepped into the light. The soldiers seized him. The last they saw of the poet was the back of his white jacket before the sudden slam of a black car door, a moon being eclipsed by a dark cloud. They watched long after the car bore him away into the night.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Doña Carlota fell silent then. If she’d been younger, stronger, I might have questioned her a bit about this account of the night Lorca died. Since he was one of the major saints in flamenco’s pantheon, any student at the academy named for her could have told Doña Carlota what details were known about his death, that Lorca was hiding at his friend’s house when he was arrested by Franco’s Falangists on August 19 at three in the morning, handcuffed to a lame teacher, and taken by car to a holding camp for condemned prisoners. But I could see from her expression that she had told her truth: innocence and hope had disappeared from her life along with the white-suited poet.
I assumed the old woman regretted her candor and that her revelations were at an end. I stood to leave and her eyes, the white spotted brown like an old dog’s, found me.
“Are you tired of my story, Metrónoma?”
“No, I thought you were through.”
“I wish the story had ended that night, but it was just beginning. Siéntate. Sit, sit. This is the first and will be the last time I ever tell it all.”
I sat back down. Doña Carlota, her bony shoulders hiking up to her ears, edged a bit higher into the chaise longue, settled in, and began again.
“When the sun rose after both the happiest and saddest night of Clementina’s life, the girls were tramping along the high road to Sevilla. Rosa purposely bumped and jostled against the farmers coming into Granada to sell their produce. By the time they’d passed the vendors, Rosa’s blouse was as heavy as a black marketer’s with the apples, onions, carrots, and potatoes she’d filched from passing baskets. She even managed to pluck a small round of manchego cheese, which the girls devoured with the apples and vegetables. With food in her belly, the full horror of the previous night returned and tears commenced streaming down Clementina’s cheeks.
“ ‘Are you crying because you lost your father?’ Rosa asked.
“Clementina nodded dumbly.
/> “ ‘Are you crying because you have no money? No place to sleep? Because you might be killed by bandits on this mountain road? Because no decent man will ever marry you and we’ll probably starve to death? Or are you crying just because your feet hurt?’
“Clementina’s tears poured faster as she listened to this inventory of her miseries and realized how much worse off they were than she’d feared.
“Rosa slammed the back of her hand against Clementina’s sternum so hard that the air caught in her chest and she could not get enough breath to continue crying. ‘Well, look at me. Not only have all those things happened to me, but El Bala is going to hunt me down to drag me back to be his wife. Am I crying?’
“ ‘You’re made of much sturdier stuff than I am.’
“ ‘Oh, you poor little rich girl. Your suffering is so much more refined than mine, is that it?’
“ ‘No,’ Clementina said with her mouth while her mind said yes.
“ ‘Come on, we’re lucky. All I have to do is imagine being trapped in a cave with El Bala and I want to burst into song. Think of lying in bed with one of those boys from last night on top of you. How about that one with the head shaped like an almond and all the pimples?’
“Clementina shuddered at the thought and her tears fell faster.
“ ‘Do you like being sad?’ Rosa asked her friend.
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘Then don’t think sad thoughts.’
“ ‘It’s not that simple,’ Clementina said, but her words were lost in the growl of a truck laboring past, hardly traveling faster than they were walking. It required little more than a hop for Rosa to jump onto the back of the flatbed. She laughed as the truck rumbled away and Clementina ran to catch it, then jump up beside her friend. The vast, fertile Granada vega stretched out all around them, rust and golden and green, all the way to the Sierra Nevada frosted with snow. When Rosa started singing, Clementina joined her with palmas and pitos. Even though it was a sad song por soleares about never having a home again and wandering as Gypsies have wandered for hundreds of years, Clementina’s spirits soared.