The Barefoot Queen

by Ildefonso Falcones

  “I WILL turn myself in,” Domingo said at dawn. He didn’t see himself capable of traveling through the towns to continue smithing in exchange for a meager coin knowing that his children were suffering. He would search for them and he would turn himself in.

  Caridad sensed in the gypsy’s tone of voice and expression what he meant.

  “I don’t know if I should do it, too,” admitted Milagros.

  Old María wasn’t surprised by her confession: she’d had a feeling it was coming. Four days crying incessantly over her parents’ arrest was too much for the girl. She had heard her at night, when Milagros thought they were sleeping; she had noticed the stifled sobs in the long hours of the day when they took shelter from the heat and she had observed, as she walked behind the girl, how her shoulders trembled and her body shook. And it wasn’t the desperation and the implacable pain that comes from the death of a loved one, the old woman said to herself; suffering over this separation could be remedied: by turning oneself in.

  “I can’t stop thinking—” Milagros started to add before the blacksmith interrupted her.

  “Don’t do it, girl,” the gypsy urged her. “I wouldn’t want my children to turn themselves in. I’m sure your parents don’t want it either. Keep your freedom and live; that’s the best thing you can do for them.”

  “Live?” Milagros opened her hand to include the arid fields that were already threatening to burn their feet over the course of another day.

  “Leave the Andévalo region and go down to the coast, toward the flat lands …”

  “They’ll arrest us!” objected the girl.

  “What could we do there?” interjected the old woman with interest.

  “You’ll find gypsies there. Maybe the King arrested everyone who lived in towns and cities, but there are many more, those who walk the roads; they haven’t found them. There are also many settled in towns where gypsies weren’t allowed to reside, they must have all left those places. They’ll be in the flat lands, I know it. It’s a richer land than the Andévalo.”

  “We are headed to Barrancos.”

  The gypsy arched his eyebrows toward Milagros. “Why?”

  “We trust we’ll be able to find my grandfather there.”

  María was half listening. There were gypsies in the flat lands and Domingo knew where. It was what she had been wanting all those days on the road: to meet up with her people. Despite the decision they’d made in Triana, the old woman was wary of going to Barrancos. She had had four long days to think on it: Melchor might not show up or not for a long time, which would leave them just as alone to face the dangers that threatened them as they were now.

  “You only trust? You’re not sure?” the man asked, surprised. Then he looked Milagros up and down, shook his head and turned to the old woman. “Barrancos is a town of smugglers. It’s between ravines … totally isolated. Do you realize what you are getting yourselves into?” He accompanied his question with an expressive look toward Milagros and Caridad, who was hovering on the margins of the conversation. “A young, desirable, beautiful gypsy girl … virgin, and a voluptuous Negress. You won’t last two days. What am I saying? Not even two hours.”

  For a few moments the four listened to what seemed to be the crackle of the dry land around them.

  “He’s right,” affirmed the old woman after a short while.

  “What do you mean?” the girl snapped, seeing María’s intentions. “Grandfather—”

  “Your grandfather is a gypsy,” the old woman interrupted. “Melchor will seek out his own kind. If we spread the word among our people, at some point we will find him or he’ll find us, but we shouldn’t go to that town, girl.”

  STOP HIDING like a frightened woman. For months before the big raid, the gibe tormented Melchor’s every step after he had sung his galley lament before the open chapel of the Virgin of Bonaire in Triana. With the silent condemnation from Uncle Basilio for the death of his grandson Dionisio and, above all, the look of scorn from his daughter Ana burned into his conscience, the gypsy headed to the Portuguese border; there he would run into El Gordo when the smuggler least expected it and then … Melchor spat. Then they would see who was a frightened woman! He would kill him like the dog he was and he’d cut off his head … his testicles and maybe a hand, anything he could offer publicly to Uncle Basilio in amends.

  Along the way, he avoided inns and towns, except for one where he stopped only long enough to buy some food and tobacco, cursing his luck at having to pay for it, in a small shop where the King forced them to sell it for a tenth its price, as was the case in all those towns where it wasn’t worthwhile setting up a tobacconist’s shop. He slept under the stars for three nights before arriving at the capital of Aracena, nested among the foothills of the Sierra Morena. Melchor knew the town: he had been there on many occasions. About four leagues away lay Jabugo, the spot for loading contraband tobacco, and seven, the Portuguese border, with the towns of Barrancos and Serpa, centers of the illegal trade. Aracena, subject to the Count of Altamira, had some six thousand inhabitants spread out over the twenty-odd streets scattered beneath the remains of an imposing castle that dominated the city; four squares; the parish church of the Assumption, unfinished despite the people’s efforts; some chapels, two convents and two monasteries.

  The gypsy felt the cold of the mountains; the spring temperatures there weren’t the same as in Triana and he was walking without his blue jacket, which had joined young Dionisio’s belongings in the bonfire at his ill-fated funeral. Every Saturday they held a market, mostly for grain, where the people of Extremadura traveled to sell where hardly any cereals grew. He would find some kind of a jacket, although he was unlikely to find anything like the one he had sacrificed for the boy … or was it for himself? “It’s Thursday,” answered a townsperson. He would wait until Saturday. He had no intention of staying in the town; it was somewhat off the tobacco route. He headed toward a small tavern he knew and whose owner he felt was discreet. He didn’t want his presence known and to reach the ears of El Gordo or his men.

  “Melchor,” the owner greeted him without stopping his work.

  “What Melchor?” he asked. The man just squinted his eyes for an instant. “I haven’t seen anyone named Melchor, have you?”

  “No, not me either.”

  “That’s good. Is your back room free?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, bring me some food and drink.”

  The gypsy handed him a coin, enough to cover the expenses and his silence, and locked himself in the tiny room that the tavern keeper offered to his few guests. He smoked, he ate and he drank. He smoked again and drank until his memories and his guilt became blurry, incoherent stains. He tried to sleep but couldn’t. He drank more.

  The dawn slipping in through the room’s only little window found him humiliated and frozen stiff, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, at the foot of the rickety old bed. He grabbed the jug of wine beside him: empty. He tried to shout for more wine, but all that came out was a muffled rasping that scratched at his throat. He tried to swallow; his mouth was dry, so he got up as best he could and went out to the tavern, still closed to the public, where he got another jug of wine and returned to the little room. Standing, he endured a succession of heaves that overcame him after the first long, eager gulp. And while his stomach punished him, he let his back slide down the wall until he was back where he had woken up. After spending the days smoking and drinking, escaping his reality, without even trying the food the tavern keeper brought him, Saturday found him with one thought obsessing his intoxicated, revenge-fueled mind: buying the best short jacket he could find in the Aracena market.

  The Plaza Alta was filled with traders from Extremadura, on the other side of the mountains, who offered the wheat, barley and rye that wasn’t grown there. Alongside them, people from neighboring villages announced their wares. Melchor was stunned by the racket. Dirty and with bloodshot eyes, he walked past the town hall and realized he h
ad no documentation that would allow him to be there, or in any other town; he hadn’t thought to grab any of his identification papers. Then he forced his eyes, dry as they were, to look over to the other side of the square, in front of the town hall, toward the parish church of the Assumption, which was the same as ever, unfinished, with the beginnings of the pillars and the walls of the third and fourth gallery open to the air and at different heights, like jagged teeth surrounding the two and a half finished naves that were used for worship. It had been that way for more than a hundred years. How were they going to arrest him in a town where they weren’t even able to finish their main church? With his hand over his eyes to protect himself from the sun, he looked around at the different stalls and stands and the people who moved among them. The breeze was chilly. He found the stall of a secondhand-clothes dealer and headed over to it: used items, dark and patched and many times mended by the shepherds who’d worn them. He rummaged through them without much conviction; anything blue, red or yellow, or with gold or silver filigree would have stood out in the pile.

  “What are you looking for?” the trader asked him. He had already noticed that Melchor was a gypsy, as evidenced by the rings in his ears and his breeches trimmed in gold.

  Melchor lifted his dark, lined face toward the secondhand-clothing dealer. “A good short jacket in red or blue. Doesn’t look like you have any.”

  “In that case, move along,” urged the dealer with a contemptuous flick of his hand.

  Melchor sighed. The disdain roused him from the hangover of two long days drinking harsh, strong wine. “You should have what I want.” He said it in a low, deep voice, his gypsy eyes challenging the man, who gave in first and lowered his; he could shout or call the constable, but who could be sure there weren’t more gypsies who would come for him later? They always traveled in groups!

  “I … don’t …” he stuttered.

  “What is it you want so badly that you’re threatening this good man?”

  The question came from behind Melchor’s back. A woman’s voice. The gypsy remained still, trying to find some sign in the used-clothes dealer’s face that would reveal who was behind him. There were many people slipping through the narrow aisles between the stalls. A single woman? Several people? The constable? The secondhand-clothing dealer didn’t seem too relieved; it was probably a woman alone, but a bold one, thought Melchor before turning and answering.

  “Respect. That is what I want.”

  She was short and strong, with a sun-beaten face and white hair that stuck out of a headscarf. Melchor figured she was about fifty years old, the same age as her shabby clothes. From her right arm hung a basket filled with grain she had bought at the market.

  “Don’t overreact!” exclaimed the woman. “Gyps—Men,” she corrected herself quickly, “are so touchy lately. I’m sure Casimiro didn’t want to offend you. These are difficult times. Isn’t that right, Casimiro?”

  “That’s right,” answered the used-clothes dealer.

  But Melchor ignored him. He liked the woman’s insolence. And she had generous breasts, he thought, looking at them openly.

  “And who are you to talk about respect?” she rebuked him for his brazenness. However, the smile on her lips didn’t match her words.

  “What is more respectful than admiring what God offers us?”

  “God?” replied the woman looking toward her breasts. “I’m the only one offering this, God has nothing to do with it. They’re mine and I do what I want with them.”

  Melchor let out a laugh. The secondhand-clothing dealer saw people pass without approaching his stall where the pair stood. He opened his hands to hurry the woman up, but she remained focused on the gypsy, who rubbed his chin and then replied, “That’s too bad. The priests say that God is extremely generous.”

  Now she was the one who laughed. “What are you getting at? We’re just two … loners, right?” Melchor nodded; the woman thought for a second and screwed up her face before looking the gypsy up and down. “You and me together? Even God would be frightened.”

  “Nicolasa, I’m begging you,” whined the dealer, urging her to leave his stall.

  Melchor lifted an arm, ordering him to be quiet. “Nicolasa,” he repeated as if he intended to remember that name. “Well, if God is so easily frightened, let the devil accompany us.”

  “Hush!” she protested, looking to either side to see if anyone had heard his proposal. Casimiro begged her to leave, again. “How dare you place yourself in the devil’s hands?” she whispered after giving in to the dealer’s pleas and pulling the gypsy away from the stall, while the trader offered his wares in a shout, as if trying to make up for lost time.

  “Woman, to be with you I’d go down to hell and drink a glass of wine with Lucifer himself.”

  Nicolasa stopped short, amid the people, with a confused look. “I’ve been courted many times—”

  “I have no doubt about that,” Melchor interrupted.

  “As a young girl, they promised me the moon …” she continued, “then they only gave me a couple of suckling pigs, several children who abandoned me and a husband who died on me,” she complained. “But nobody has ever promised to go down to hell for me.”

  “We gypsies know it well.”

  Nicolasa looked at him lewdly. “Skinny as a stick,” she teased. “Have you got anything besides arms and legs?”

  Melchor tilted his head to one side. She imitated him. “Keep in mind that the devil kicked me out of hell. That was after he saw what isn’t arms and legs.” She pushed him with a giggle. “It’s true! Have you heard talk about Lucifer’s knob? Well it’s nothing compared to …”

  “Joker! We’ll see about that!” exclaimed the woman, hanging from his arm.

  Once the gypsies had been rounded up, their troubles really began. They still trusted they would overcome them, as they had so many other times. On the morning of August 16, 1749, almost three hundred Sevillian gypsy men were led by the soldiers from the royal jail to the city’s port. There, as people harassed and insulted them, they were boarded onto barges to be transported down the Guadalquivir to the arsenal of La Carraca, in Cádiz. Later that same day, more than five hundred women and young children set off in wagons, carts and caravans, guarded by the army, to Málaga’s citadel, where the Marquis of Ensenada planned to have them imprisoned.

  The same thing was happening all over Spain. Nearly twelve thousand gypsies, vile criminals according to the authorities, had been arrested in the terrible roundup of late July with a single objective: the men and boys older than seven were taken to La Carraca, if they were Sevillian. Those in the east were sent to Cartagena, and those in the kingdom of Galicia to El Ferrol; others were destined to the mines in Almadén and forced to extract the mercury used to treat the silver coming over from the Indies. The women and young children were taken to Málaga or Valencia, to the castles of Oliva and Gandía. They were considered even more dangerous than the men: Be particularly careful—said the June 1749 order—to secure and apprehend the women, said diligence being highly advisable for achieving this ruling that is so very important for the peace of the kingdom

  Those people were just part of the Spanish gypsy community, and furthermore they were the ones who were most assimilated with the payos and adopted their culture. Originally from India, the gypsies had arrived in Europe in the fourteenth century, some through the Caucasus and Russia, others through Greece, crossing the Balkans or even traveling along the African coast on the Mediterranean. They arrived in Spain in the late fourteenth century as groups of exotic nomads led by those they called counts or dukes of “little Egypt” and proffered letters of presentation from the Pope and several kings and nobles stating that they were pilgrims. At first they were well received and the lords whose lands they traveled through treated them kindly and guaranteed their safety, but that situation didn’t last long. It was the Catholic Kings who pronounced the first proclamation against those they called “Egyptians”: they were forced to l
eave the kingdom within sixty days unless they had a recognized trade or were in the service of the feudal lords. Floggings, cutting-off of ears, banishment and slavery were the punishments for those who disobeyed the royal decree. Throughout the sixteenth century they had to repeat the decrees; the clever gypsies didn’t follow the royal orders, their desire for freedom and independence trumped any obstacle. Their determination to maintain their atavistic way of life led successive monarchs to pass numerous new laws trying to control them: they prohibited their language and their way of dressing, their nomadism and even simple traveling, their trade in animals, blacksmithing and business.… All these laws and their consequent regulations, many of them contradictory, benefited the gypsies: the justices of the towns and places where they traveled or resided didn’t know which to apply or whether they had to apply any. They also tried to tell them where they could live: the gypsies could only reside and be included in the census in certain towns within the kingdom, and that was the error that King Ferdinand VI and the Marquis of Ensenada made: the big roundup of July 1749 focused on the gypsies who followed the decrees, who resided in the places designated by the authorities and were conveniently registered in the census. The nomadic or migrating ones, those not in the census or who lived in unauthorized places, were exempt from the army’s persecution.