The Barefoot Queen

by Ildefonso Falcones

  Caridad stifled a sigh.

  “You will live with me,” Milagros had then assured her.

  The gratitude and affection in her friend’s little eyes was so deep that she couldn’t admit that she hadn’t even broached the subject with Pedro.

  “I love you, Cachita,” she whispered instead.

  Nevertheless, it was true that they had been growing apart. Milagros hadn’t sung in the parish again, or even in the inn, after the Christmas service. Once in a while Rafael García would hire her out for private parties in the homes of nobleman and illustrious Sevillians, which made more of a profit than the paltry coins she got from Bienvenido’s customers. Caridad had been excluded from those parties by order of La Trianera. With that money and more that the parents of the bride and groom had borrowed, they could pay for the pageantry of a three-day-long wedding; there wasn’t a gypsy family in Spain that didn’t spend their last dime when celebrating a marriage.

  In the fleeting exchange of glances, Milagros couldn’t tell that her friend’s smile was faked: her attention was focused on Pedro García; the young gypsy was a magnificent presence, dressed in a short purple jacket, white britches, red socks, square-toed shoes with silver buckles and a montera hat in his hand, and filled her with confidence as he reached her side, before the altar. Was she that lovely and elegant? she wondered.

  Pedro stretched out a hand and her apprehension over her appearance vanished amid a thousand sparks, as if the embers of the largest forge in Triana had burst around her. He squeezed her hand as they turned toward the priest and Milagros blocked out everything that wasn’t the touch of his hands, his scent, his thrilling closeness; she hadn’t been able to sense all that in the whirl of the gypsy ceremony they had just celebrated, in which Pedro’s grandfather had split bread in two parts so that, once it was salted, they could exchange them and be considered married according to their law. There, in the church, the respectful silence of the place contrasting with the shouts of congratulations that still echoed in her ears, Milagros remained distant from the sermons and prayers, and she listened to the mass with mixed feelings. In front of the altar, about to marry a García, her mother, grandfather and Old María attacked her soul; none of them would have consented to that marriage. Never forget that you are a Vega echoed in her memory. At each wave of doubt, Milagros took refuge in Pedro: she squeezed his hand and he responded; a happy future opened out before them, she could feel it, and she looked at him to rid herself of her grandfather’s vexed face. He was so handsome! I told you, Mother, I love him, what can you reproach me for? I warned you. I love him, I love him, I love him.

  The peal of the bells marking the end of the celebration put an end to her internal struggle. She looked at the ring she wore on her finger; Pedro had put it on her, smiling at her, caressing her with his gaze, his presence promising her happiness. Her man! From the church she was carried almost through the air to the alley. She didn’t have time to change her clothes as she had planned. As soon as she arrived, the women received her with baskets of cakes that the gypsies ended up throwing at each other. She danced with her new husband in the Garcías’ courtyard, on a bed of egg-yolk sweets that they stomped on until their feet were sticky and they were splattered all over. Pedro kissed her passionately and she shivered with pleasure; he kissed her again and Milagros thought she was melting. Later, in the same courtyard, on top of the egg sweets, she danced with the other members of the two families. She had no time to think before she found herself forced out into the alley packed with gypsies drinking, eating, singing and dancing. There, at a frenetic pace, as if the world was ending, she was passed from hand to hand until nightfall; she didn’t even see Caridad, she didn’t even get a chance to dance with Pedro again and to dissolve in another of his wonderful kisses.

  The large influx of guests meant that all the houses on the alley were filled to bursting. But they had reserved a room for the newlyweds in El Conde’s apartment. As soon as Pedro grabbed her by the hand and pulled her, publicly interrupting one of her dances with yet another stranger, they were bombarded with obscene comments from the young gypsies following them to the apartment door. But Milagros, who was exhausted, dizzy from the wine, the shouting and all the spinning she had been subjected to throughout the day, could barely make them out.

  She tried to sit down somewhere when they were alone; she was afraid of collapsing, but her young husband didn’t allow it.

  “Take off your clothes,” he urged as he removed his shirt.

  Milagros looked at him without seeing him, amid a thick cloud, her head whirling.

  Pedro started to take off his trousers. “Come on!”

  Milagros could hear him urging her amid the deafening roar of those young gypsies who were now beneath the window.

  Pedro’s member, large and erect, made her react and she stepped back.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he told her.

  Milagros didn’t hear any tenderness in his voice. She saw him approach her and struggle to get her dress off. His penis brushed against her again and again as he wrestled with her clothes. Then she was naked once more, like that morning with La Trianera, but this time above the waist as well. He squeezed her breasts and brought his mouth to her nipples. He ran his hands over her buttocks and inner thighs. He was panting. He sucked some dried remains of sugared yolk that was stuck to her skin as his fingers played with the lips of her vulva searching for … A shiver ran through Milagros’s body when he reached her clitoris. What was that? She felt her vulva grow wet and her breathing speed up. The tiredness that kept her at a distance vanished and she dared to throw her arms around her husband’s shoulders.

  “I’m not afraid,” she whispered.

  Without separating their bodies, they staggered and laughed until they were lying on a bed with legs that Rafael and Inocencio had borrowed for the occasion. Milagros opened her knees, as she had done with Reyes that morning, and Pedro penetrated her. The pain she felt was lost in her labored declarations of love.

  “I love you … Pedro. How … how I’ve dreamed of this moment!”

  He didn’t answer the promises that came from Milagros’s mouth. Leaning on the bed with his hands, his torso raised over her, he looked at her with his face flushed as he secured maximum contact with her pubis, pushing firmly, trapping her to merge with her. Milagros’s pain disappeared along with her words. A pleasure hitherto unknown, impossible to imagine, began to flow from her lower belly to install itself in the most secret corners of her body. Pedro continued pushing and Milagros shivered at a pleasure that seemed terrifying … because it was never-ending. She panted and sweated. She felt her nipples stiffen, as if they were trying to burst and couldn’t manage it. She pushed against him and clawed her nails into his forearms, trying to free herself of sensations that threatened to drive her crazy. What end could there be to that pleasure that required satisfaction, that demanded she reach an unknown pinnacle? Suddenly Pedro exploded inside her with a howl that extended through his final thrust and Milagros’s uncontrollable anxiety ended up vanishing, disappointed amid the shouting that hadn’t stopped and which again filled the room to remind her that it was over. Pedro dropped down on her and covered her neck with kisses.

  “Did you like it?” he asked, bringing his lips to her ear.

  Had she liked it? She wanted more, didn’t she? What was she supposed to expect?

  “It was wonderful,” she answered in a whisper.

  Suddenly, Pedro got up, put on his britches and with his torso still bare he leaned out of the window, and greeted the gypsies waiting below. The second time in the same day that someone had bragged publicly through the window over her, lamented Milagros when she heard the cheers intensify. Then he came over to the bed and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “The most beautiful gypsy in the world,” he flattered her. “Sleep and rest, my lovely, you still have two more days of festivities ahead of you.”

  He finished dressing and went down to th
e alley.

  “COME WARM me up, morena,” ordered José Carmona.

  Caridad stopped twisting the cigar. She had been working for José since practically the very day when, after the wedding party, El Conde had flatly refused to let her remain by Milagros’s side and live with the Garcías. Then José Carmona had taken her into his house, moved by his daughter’s sobs, although Caridad wasn’t sure if her friend’s tears were over her or from the smack that La Trianera had given her to shut her up. Later, José got tobacco leaves for her to twist as a way to fatten up his extremely empty pockets. Less than a week passed between that and his calling her over to his bed to keep him warm.

  “Didn’t you hear me, morena?”

  Caridad’s skillful fingers tightened around the leaf that was the cigar’s wrapper. She always chose the best leaves for the wrappers, since that was what the buyer noticed first. She had never done anything like that: ruining a good tobacco leaf, but it was as if her fingers had a life of their own, and she watched in astonishment as her fingernails tore into it.

  She got up from the table where she was working and headed to the mattress where José Carmona lay. She knew that the gypsy would grope her for a while, mount her from the front or from behind, then again complain about her indifference. “It’d be better to fornicate with a mule,” he had told her the last time, and then he would end up snoring, still clutching her.

  She removed her slave shirt with her teeth clenched and her eyes damp and lay down beside the gypsy. José stuck his head between her breasts and pecked at her nipples. His little bites hurt her and yet she did nothing to stop them; she deserved that punishment, she repeated night after night. Caridad had changed. What had previously not aroused any feeling in her—being passed from one hand to the next like the animal she had been taught to be on the tobacco plantation—now disgusted and repulsed her. Melchor! She was betraying him. José Carmona ran his hands over her body. Caridad couldn’t help shrinking back, tense. The gypsy didn’t even notice. What had become of Melchor? Many assumed he was dead, among them Milagros. The rumors of a clash between smugglers that he seemed to have been involved in had reached Triana, but no one was able to confirm anything for certain. They all were talking about what someone else had told them, news that had in turn been obtained from third parties. However, she knew that Melchor wasn’t dead. José didn’t let her sing, he said that Negro songs annoyed him, although he gave up trying to keep her from softly humming those rhythms that, along with the tobacco’s aroma, took her back to her roots. And Caridad sang softly as she worked, imagining that the man lying behind her was Melchor. In the darkest hours of the night, when José was sleeping deeply, she searched for her gods: Oshún, Oyá … Eleggua, he who arranges men’s lives at his whim, he who had allowed her to live when Melchor found her beneath a tree. Then she would smoke and sing until her senses were intoxicated and she was able to receive the presence of the greatest of the gods. Melchor was alive. Eleggua confirmed it for her.

  José Carmona slithered on top of Caridad, trying to enter her. She didn’t want to open her legs.

  “Move it, damn darkie!” the gypsy demanded tonight, yet again.

  And she did, with guilt destroying the last corner of her consciousness. But what else could she do? She would lose Milagros. José would kick her out. Rafael García would banish her from the alley without a second thought. It was there, with his people, with the gypsies, close to his granddaughter, where she should wait for Melchor. She closed her eyes, resigned to the reencounter with the feeling that was so new and strange to her as a man mounted her: repugnance.

  “MORENA!”

  Caridad half opened her eyes. The burgeoning light of dawn still left most of the house in shadow. She struggled to understand. José was snoring, hugging her. She tried to clear her vision. A yellow spot, blurry, was standing beside her.

  “What are you doing there?”

  Caridad leapt up when she recognized the voice.

  “And my daughter? Where is Ana?”

  Melchor! Caridad sat on the mattress before him, her breasts exposed. She pulled on the blanket to cover them; a wave of suffocating heat rushed to her face. José grumbled in his dreams.

  The old gypsy wasn’t able to keep his gaze from focusing on those black breasts and the large areolas that surrounded their nipples. He had desired them … and now …

  “Why are you sleeping with that … that …?” He couldn’t get the words out; in their place he pointed to José with a trembling hand.

  Caridad remained silent, hiding her eyes.

  “Wake that scoundrel up,” he then ordered.

  The woman shook José, who was slow to understand.

  “Melchor,” he greeted him with slurred voice as he got up, disheveled, and tried to fix his shirt. “About time you came back. You’ve always had a talent for disappearing in the most—”

  “And my daughter?” the grandfather interrupted him, his face flushed. “What is the morena doing in your bed? And my granddaughter?”

  José brought a hand to his chin and stroked it before answering. “Milagros is well. Ana is still in prison in Málaga.”

  José turned his back to his father-in-law and headed to the cupboard to serve himself a glass of water from a pitcher that Caridad always kept filled.

  “They won’t let her out,” he added, facing him after drinking a sip. “It seems that Vega blood always causes problems. The morena?” he added with a contemptuous gesture toward Caridad. “She warms my nights; not much more could be expected of her.”

  Caridad surprised herself by daring to scrutinize Melchor: the wrinkles that lined his face seemed to have multiplied, but despite the yellow dress coat that hung from his shoulders like a sack, he hadn’t lost his proud gypsy bearing or that gaze that could cut through stone. Melchor felt Caridad’s interest and turned his head toward her. She couldn’t hold his gaze and lifted the blanket covering her breasts up higher. She had failed him, his eyes reproached her.

  “She sings well,” said Melchor then with a tremendous sadness that made Caridad’s hair stand on end.

  “You call that singing?” laughed José.

  “What would you know!” muttered Melchor, dragging out the words, his eyes still on Caridad. He had come to desire her, but he had renounced her body in order to continue hearing those songs that oozed pain, and now she was in José’s hands. He shook his head. “What have you done to free my daughter?” he suddenly spat in a weary voice.

  With that question Caridad knew that she was no longer the focus of Melchor’s attention and she lifted her gaze to watch the two gypsies in the light of dawn: the gaunt grandfather in his yellow dress coat; the blacksmith, with his strong chest, neck and arms, planted arrogantly in front of the old man.

  “For my wife …” José corrected him slowly. “I have done all that can be done. It’s your fault, old man: the stigma of your blood has been her undoing, like all Vegas. Only a pardon from the King would get her out of jail.”

  “What are you doing here then, enjoying my Negress, instead of at the court getting that pardon?”

  José just shook his head and pursed his lips, as if what Melchor suggested were impossible.

  “Where is my granddaughter?” Melchor then asked.

  Caridad trembled.

  “She lives with her husband,” answered José, “as is her duty.”

  Melchor waited for an explanation that didn’t come.

  “What husband?” he finally asked.

  The other man straightened up, threateningly. “Don’t you know?”

  “I walked day and night to get here. No, I don’t know.”

  “Pedro García, El Conde’s grandson.”

  Melchor tried to speak but his words came out in an unintelligible stammer.

  “Forget about Milagros. It’s not your problem,” spat out José.

  Melchor gasped in search of air. Caridad saw him raise a hand to his side and double over with a grimace of pain.

&nb
sp; “You’re old, Galeote …”

  Melchor didn’t listen to the rest of his son-in-law’s words. You’re old, Galeote, the same words El Gordo had spat at him on the Barrancos road. Caridad in the arms of José, his daughter imprisoned in Málaga, and Milagros, his girl, whom he loved most in this damn world, living with Rafael García, obeying Rafael García, fornicating with the grandson of Rafael García! The wound he’d thought was healed now struggled to burst his stomach. He had renounced taking revenge on Rafael García for Milagros, the baby that Basilio put in his arms when he came back from the galleys. What good had it done? His blood, the Vega blood, that very girl’s, would mix with that of those who had betrayed him and stolen ten years of his life. He twisted in pain. He wanted to die. His girl! He stumbled. He searched for some place to rest. Caridad leapt up to help him. José took a step forward. Neither of them reached him. Before they could, the pain shifted to wrath; berserk, blind with rage, he pulled his knife from his sash and as soon as he opened it he pounced on his son-in-law.

  “Traitor! Son of a bitch!” he howled as he sank the weapon into José’s chest, into his heart.

  He only realized the magnitude of what he had done when he saw José Carmona’s surprised eyes, knowing his death was near. He had just murdered his granddaughter’s father!

  Caridad, naked, remained still, out of reach, and watched the convulsions that announced the gypsy’s death, lying on the floor with a large pool of blood forming around him. Melchor tried to stand up straight, but he couldn’t quite manage it, and he brought the bloody hand that held the knife to the wound that El Gordo had given him.

  “Traitor,” he then repeated, more for Caridad than the corpse of José Carmona. “He was a traitorous dog,” he said to defend himself against the terror in her face. He thought for an instant. He ran his eyes over the room. “Get dressed and go get my granddaughter,” he urged. “Tell her that her father wants to see her. Don’t tell her about me; nobody should know that I’m here.”