Page 113 of The Moon Sister
‘Yes, and if the person I spoke to was right, she was my grandmother.’
‘¡Dios mío!’ Marcella breathed in awe. ‘Do you dance? You have same figure as her.’
‘I did ballet as a child, but not as a career. I . . . I think I should go and see Angelina, don’t you?’
‘Wait an hour or so – like mostgitanos, she is a night person, and does not get up before lunchtime.’ Marcella patted my hand. ‘I think it very brave of you to come here, señorita. Manygitanosof your age want to forget where they come from, because they are ashamed.’
With a raise of her eyebrow, Marcella disappeared inside. I sat where I was in the sunshine, thinking about what Marcella had just told me. It was almost too much to take in. I’d expected to have to hunt Angelina down – if I evercouldfind her – not to find her living next door to where I now sat.
Maybe your life has been complicated enough recently and you deserved a break, Tiggy . . .
I stood up and opened the gates again, then turned left and walked a few steps down the winding path. I paused in front of the next-door cave. The door was indeed a vivid blue, and another shiver ran through me.
Your life began in there. . . my inner voice told me. I turned to face the view, imagining María and Lucía sitting on the doorstep weaving their baskets, the village a cacophony of continual noise from its residents. Now, there was only the tweeting of birds hidden in the olive groves that cascaded down the hillside below me.
‘A ghost town,’ I said, feeling sad that the lifeblood had left it, but also careful not to romanticise how it must have been to live in Sacromonte all those years ago without even the basic necessities. Yet, ironically, the modern age had destroyed the vibrant heartbeat of this community.
I sat on the wall, gazing up at the Alhambra. Until the moment Marcella had expressed her surprise that I’d come back in search of my heritage, I’d never considered that it might be shameful to have gypsy blood. Chilly had celebrated the culture he – and apparently I – came from, so I had simply felt honoured to be a part of it. But now I thought about it, it was very different for me; I’d never suffered an ounce of prejudice in my life – accepted everywhere I went simply because of my neutral Western European appearance and Swiss passport. Whereas those who had once lived on this hillside had been banished from within the city, persecuted and never accepted by the wider society in which they lived.
‘Why . . . ?’ I murmured to myself.
Because we are different and they don’t understand us, so they are scared . . .
I stood up and walked a little further along the path where I saw a sign for a museum on the wall by a narrow set of steps that led upwards. I began to take the steps, then felt a tight band around my chest. My body was obviously still recovering from the trauma of the shooting, so I walked back slowly to the hotel and sat down in the sun until the pain subsided.
‘Angelina’s door is open,’ Marcella said to me as she arrived back through the gates with a basket full of eggs twenty minutes later. ‘That means she’s awake. Here.’ Marcella took three eggs out of her basket and handed them to me. ‘You can take these to her for me,’ she encouraged.
‘Okay.’
I went to my room, gave my hair a quick brush and took a couple of Ibuprofen to calm the pain in both my side and chest.
‘Right.’ I picked up the eggs. ‘Courage, mon brave,’ I muttered as I kicked the gates open with my foot and walked the few metres downhill to the blue front door. It was open, and given my hands were full, I couldn’t announce my presence by knocking.
‘Hello?¿Hola?’ I spoke into the gloom.
A man eventually appeared, sporting the most impressive handlebar moustache I’d ever seen. He had a matching head of thick silver-grey hair. He was well built, and his brown skin – wrinkled heavily by years under the Andalusian sun – encased a pair of chocolate-coloured eyes. He was holding a sweeping brush, which he held out as if he might use it as a weapon.
‘Is Angelina here?’ I asked.
‘No readings until seven in the evening,’ he said in heavily accented English.
‘No, señor, I don’t want a reading. I’ve been sent here to see Angelina. I might be a relative of hers.’
The man looked at me, then shrugged. ‘No comprendo, señorita.’ Then he shut the door in my face.
Putting the eggs down carefully on the step, I knocked on the door. ‘I have eggs,’ I managed in Spanish, adding, ‘from Marcella.’
The door was opened again, the man bent down and grabbed the eggs.
‘Gracias, señorita.’
‘Please, can I come in?’ I hadn’t come all this way to be refused entry by an old man with a broom.
‘No, señorita,’ he said and tried to shut the door, but I stuck my foot in it.
‘Angelina?’ I called. ‘It’s Tiggy. Chilly sent me,’ I shouted, as the man won the battle of the door and it slammed once again in my face. Sighing, I walked back to the hotel in search of Marcella.
‘She was not there?’ Marcella looked confused.
