Page 150 of The Moon Sister
‘No, it is inSouthAmerica – Spanish America, if you like.’ Meñique rolled his eyes at Lucía’s confused geography.
‘They speak Spanish there?’
‘Yes. We will say no of course,’ said José.
‘Why?’ Lucía narrowed her eyes. ‘We have been in Portugal for two years and I have had enough of being an exile in a country that speaks a different language. In Buenos Aires, I will be able to understand what everyone is saying! Papá, I want to go.’
‘We will not be going, Lucía,’ José stated firmly.
‘Why not?!’
‘We have to board a ship and spend many days on the water to get there. As you know well,querida, nogitanocan cross the water and live to tell the tale,’ José replied solemnly.
‘Please, not that old superstition again! Did I die when I crossed the Darro river to leave Sacromonte and walk across the bridge to the Alhambra? There were hundreds of us, Papá, and none of us left the earth.’
One did. . . thought María, who was sitting quietly in the background, sewing a ruffle onto Lucía’s new flamenco dress.
‘The Darro river has welcomed us for hundreds of years. It is a few feet wide where we cross, not an ocean that we must live on for weeks! Besides . . .’
‘Besides what, Papá?’ asked Lucía.
‘We are a success here in Lisbon. We have everything that we want. You are not known in Buenos Aires, Lucía, and we would have to start all over again.’
‘Is that not what we have spent our whole lives doing, Papá?’
‘La Argentinita is queen there . . .’
‘You’re afraid of her? I am not! I am bored here, and even though we are earning a lot of money, there are new countries that must see what I can do.’ Lucía turned to Meñique. ‘Do you agree?’ she asked him.
‘I think it is an interesting opportunity,’ he replied diplomatically.
‘It is more than that.’ Lucía gave him a defiant stare and stood up. ‘It is meant to be. You can telegram that I will be there. It is up to the rest of you if you wish to come with me.’
Lucía swept from the room as her parents and Meñique eyed each other nervously.
‘It is madness to leave here when everything is so good,’ said José. ‘While we are unable to return to our country, we enjoy a good life close by in Portugal.’
‘We do, yes,’ Meñique agreed, ‘but I have been growing concerned at the wider political situation in Europe. We live a precarious life here, José – I have done my best to protect us from informants, even though Lucía’s fame has drawn all eyes upon our littlecuadro. When will Salazar’spolicíabecome weary of usgitanosand send us back to Spain to be murdered? And when will Adolf Hitler antagonise France and Britain enough for there to be all-out war—’
‘Hombre, you read too many newspapers, and spend too many nights talking to yourpayo compadres,’ José said scornfully. ‘There is nothing more dangerous than crossing the oceans; you are trying to seduce us to our deaths!’
‘José, with the greatest respect, I am only trying to do what’s best for all of us. I have a strong feeling that we should leave Portugal while the going is good and the borders are open.’ Meñique turned to María. ‘What do you think?’
María smiled gratefully at him. It was not often that she was asked for an opinion. She searched for the right words. ‘I think that my daughter’s hunger to show her talent off will never be sated. She is still young and wishes to climb taller mountains. As we all did once.’ María threw a look at José. ‘Sheis the one who the public wishes to see, the one who provides our daily bread. And however we may all feel about it, we must satisfy her appetite to conquer new countries.’ María shrugged apologetically, then turned her eyes back to her sewing.
‘You speak a lot of sense, wife,’ José said eventually. ‘Do you not think, Agustín?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, relieved that María agreed, but smarting from her truthful but hurtful comment that it was Lucía the public wanted to see. ‘And if we find that I was wrong, then there are ships back to Portugal. Or, if we are lucky, one day to Spain.’
‘Then I am out-voted.’ José sighed. ‘Although I do not know whether the rest of thecuadrowill follow us.’
‘Of course they will.’ María’s needle paused as she looked up at them. ‘They know they are nothing without Lucía.’
But does she know that she is nothing without us?Meñique thought.
*
‘¡Dios mío!Why did we do this?’ Lucía groaned as she leant over the side of the bed to vomit into the bucket Meñique had placed there for her. ‘Why does the ocean have so much water?’
