Page 153 of The Moon Sister
‘Sí, Erizo. The plates are in there.’ He pointed to a carved wooden cabinet, which looked very much like the ones I imagined María’s son Carlos had fashioned all those years ago.
I took them out as he’d asked, while he collected food from an ancient fridge that buzzed and whirred.
‘Would you mind if I had a quick look around? I’d like to see where I was actually born.’
‘Sí, just through there.’ Pepe indicated the back of the cave. ‘Angelina sleeps there now. The light switch is on the left.’
I walked through the kitchen and drew back a threadbare curtain. I fumbled in the pitch-black, found the switch and the room was suddenly illuminated by a single light bulb. I saw an old wrought-iron bed with a colourful crocheted blanket covering it. I looked up at the whitewashed oval ceiling, and let out a sigh of wonder. How could it be that, as a tiny baby, I could remember so vividly being lifted up towards it by those strong, secure arms?
Leaving the bedroom, I felt suddenly dizzy, and asked Pepe for a glass of water.
‘Go sit down with Angelina.’ Pepe handed me the glass and I did so, moving the chair into the shade of a fragrant bush.
Then he arrived with an overflowing tray and as Angelina stirred, I helped him lay everything out.
‘We eat simple food here,’ he said briskly, just in case I was about to turn my nose up at the freshly baked bread, dish of olive oil and the bowl of plump tomatoes.
‘This is perfect for me. I’m a vegan.’
‘What this word mean?’ asked Pepe.
‘I don’t eat meat, fish, milk, eggs, butter or cheese.’
‘¡Dios mío!’ Pepe’s eyes swept down my body in surprise. ‘No wonder you so scrawny!’
For all its simplicity, I knew I would never forget the taste of the bread, dipped in home-pressed olive oil and the freshest tomatoes I’d ever bitten into. I gazed across the table at Angelina and Pepe, and marvelled at how different they looked, even though they were uncle and niece. If anyone doubted they were related, though, the fluid way they moved and the inflections of their speech marked them out as family. I wondered what I had inherited from them.
‘Soon we must arrange for you to meet the rest of your Sacromonte family,’ commented Angelina.
‘I play my guitar,’ Pepe said, snapping his fingers then using them to twirl his handlebar moustache.
‘I thought everyone had left here?’ I queried.
‘They leave Sacromonte, but they are not so far away in the city. We must have afiesta!’ Angelina clapped her hands in pleasure. ‘Now, I will take asiestaand so will you, Erizo, for you need rest. Come back at six o’clock and we will talk some more.’
‘And I will prepare more food. We will make you strong,querida,’ Pepe said.
We gathered the bowls and dishes onto the tray and I carried the water jug and glasses back into the kitchen. Angelina disappeared through the curtain with a wave.
‘Sleep, Erizo,’ she repeated, so I nodded at Pepe and walked back up to my hotel.
*
Having slept like the dead, I woke ten minutes before six, splashed my face with cold water to wake me up and hurried back to the blue front door just along the narrow path.
‘Hola, Erizo.’ Angelina was already waiting for me there. She reached for my wrist, holding her fingers upon my pulse, then nodded. ‘It is better, but you will take anotherpociónbefore you leave. Come.’ She beckoned me forward as she began to walk down the sloping path past her cave.
We walked side by side in the fast-descending dusk. As I looked further up the hill, I could see thin trails of smoke coming from four or five chimneys, and we passed an old woman smoking a cigarette outside her front door, who called out to Angelina. She paused for a chat, and it made me feel a little better to know that Sacromonte was not completely deserted. Then we walked on, eventually arriving in a densely wooded area some way outside the village.
Angelina pointed a finger up to the moon hanging in the sky above us. ‘She is a quickening moon. She brings a new dawn, the birth of spring, a time to cleanse the past and begin again.’
‘It’s odd actually, because I can never sleep when there’s a full moon. And if I do drift off, I have really strange dreams,’ I said.
‘It is same for all us females, especially those with the gift. Ingitanoculture, the sun is the god of men, the moon the goddess of women.’
‘Really?’
‘Sí.’ Angelina smiled at my surprise. ‘How could it be anything else? Without the sun and the moon, there would be no humanity. They give us our life force. Just as, without both men and women, there would be no more humans. See? We are equally powerful, but each with our own special gifts, our own part to play in the universe. Now, we move on.’
