Page 116 of The Moon Sister
‘Come, Lucía. It is time to go and dance.’
‘I am tired, Papá. Maybe someone else can take my place tonight.’
José looked at his daughter lying on her old mattress in her tiny room, smoking.
‘We are all tired,chiquita, but the money has to be earned.’
‘That is what you have said to me every day of my life. Maybe today is a different day, one where I willnotwork.’ Lucía tapped her cigarette and ash fell to the floor. ‘Where has it got me, eh, Papá? I have travelled to Cadiz, Seville, on tours right across the provinces, and I have even danced with the great Raquel Meller in Paris, yet still we live in this shitty dump!’
‘Now we have our own kitchen,’ José reminded her.
‘As we never cook anything, what use is it?’ Lucía stood up, wandered to the open window and tossed out the cigarette stub.
‘I thought you lived to dance, Lucía.’
‘I do, Papá, but the bar-owners work me like a common dockhand – sometimes three shows a night to put more money intotheirpockets! Besides, the crowd gets smaller every day because they do not want me any more. I am twenty-one years old – no longer a child – just a woman stuck in a child’s body.’ Lucía swept her hands down her body to emphasise the point. With her tiny waist, flat chest and slender limbs, she stood at little more than four feet tall.
‘That is not true, Lucía. Your public adores you.’
‘Papá, the men who come to the café want breasts and hips. I could be taken for a boy.’
‘That is part of your charm, what makes La Candela unique! People don’t flock to see you for your breasts, but for your footwork and your passion. Now, stop your self-indulgence, get dressed and come to the bar. There is someone I want you to meet.’
‘Who? Another impresario who will claim to make me famous?’
‘No, Lucía, a famous singer who has recently recorded a record album. I will see you at the bar.’
The door slammed behind José, and Lucía thumped the wall with her fist. She turned back to the open window and gazed out onto the busy, burning streets beneath her. Eleven long years she’d spent here, dancing her heart out . . .
‘No family, no life . . .’
She looked down and saw a young couple kissing beneath her window. ‘And no boyfriend,’ she added as she lit another cigarette. ‘Papá wouldn’t like that, now would he? You are my boyfriends,’ she told her feet – so small that she had to wear children’s shoes.
Lucía stripped off her nightdress and donned her white and red flamenco gown, which stank of the sweat that poured off her when she danced. The ruffled white sleeves barely managed to hide the yellow stains, and the train was tattered and filthy, but there was only enough money to take it to the laundry once a week on a Monday, and today was a Saturday. She hated the weekends – her own stench made her feel no better than a common prostitute.
‘If only Mamá was here,’ she sighed as she stood in front of the cracked mirror, gathered her long raven mane and twirled it up into a coil. She remembered how her mother had once sat here on the mattress beside her, gently combing her hair.
‘I miss you, Mamá,’ she said, as she rimmed her eyes with kohl and added rouge to her cheeks and lips. ‘Perhaps I will tell Papá again that we must return to Granada, because I need a rest, but he will say as always that we do not have the money for such a journey.’
She pouted at her reflection, then shook out her train and struck a pose. ‘I look like one of those dolls they sell in souvenir shops! Maybe a richpayowould like to adopt me and play with me!’
She left the apartment and walked down the narrow passage and onto the main thoroughfare of the Barrio Chino. Shopkeepers, bartenders and their patrons waved and whistled at her in recognition.
Which isn’t surprising really, as I must have danced in every bar in the place, she thought.
Still, the attention she drew and the raised glasses from the bars accompanied by voices shouting ‘La Candela!La Reina!’ cheered her up. She was certainly not short of a free drink or company round here.
‘Hola, chiquita,’ she heard someone call from behind her and turned to see Chilly weaving his way through the throng. He was already wearing his black trousers and waistcoat, ready for the performance tonight, his ruffled white shirt partially unbuttoned in the sweltering August heat.
In the past few years, Chilly had become a close friend. He and Lucía were part of José’scuadro– her father’s troupe of flamenco artists who performed together in the numerous bars of the Barrio Chino. Whilst Chilly and José played the guitar and sang, Juana la Faraona, her father’s cousin, danced with Lucía, the older woman’s maturity and curves providing a contrast to Lucía’s youth and fire. It was Juana who had suggested they brought in another female dancer to their little troupe over a year ago now.
‘We do not need another dancer,’ Lucía had immediately protested at the suggestion. ‘Am I not enough? Do I not bring in many pesetas for you all?’
Despite his daughter’s irritation, José had agreed with Juana that another younger and more voluptuous dancer would make them more bookable. Rosalba Ximénez, with her auburn hair and green eyes, was no match for Lucía’s passionatebulerías, but danced thealegríaswith sensuality and elegance. Already aware of Lucía’s fiery reputation, she had gravitated towards the calmer Chilly, and Lucía’s initial jealousy had only grown as she had perceived that Rosalba was slowly taking her childhood friend away from her.
Yet now, Chilly was a grown man, and, ignoring Lucía’s sulks, he had married Rosalba a month ago in a weekend-long wedding that had the entire Barrio Chino celebrating their nuptials.
‘You look better than yesterday, Lucía,’ he said as he caught up with her. ‘Did you take the tonic I prepared for you?’
