Page 43 of The Moon Sister
‘One day, I will dance up there in front of thousands.’
María sighed. Had any other of her children uttered such a thought, María would have boxed them round the ears. Instead, she nodded slowly.
‘I don’t doubt you will,querida, I have no doubt at all.’
*
Later that evening, when Lucía had finally subsided onto the pallet that lay wedged next to her parents’ bed in the small hollow built deeper into the rock behind the kitchen, María sat outside the cave with her husband.
‘I worry about the girl. Her head is full of ridiculous dreams, inspired by what she has seen at thepayohouses you have danced in,’ María said.
‘What’s wrong with dreaming,mi amor?’ José ground out the cheroot he’d been smoking with his boot heel. ‘In this miserable existence of ours, it is all that gets us through.’
‘José, she does not understand who she is, where she’s come from and what it means. And you taking her so young to see the other side’ – María pointed to where the city wall of Granada began along the hillside, half a mile away – ‘is turning her head. It’s a life she can never have.’
‘Who says so?’ His eyes, so like his daughter’s, flashed angrily within the dark skin inherited from his purebloodgitanoforefathers. ‘Many of our people have risen to fame and fortune through their talents, María. Why can that not happen to Lucía? She certainly has enough spirit. When I was a guitarist in Las Ramblas in Barcelona, I met the great dancers Pastora Imperio and La Macarrona. They lived in grand houses likepayos.’
‘That is two out of tens of thousands, José! The rest of us must simply sing and dance and struggle any way we can to earn enough to put food in the pot. I worry that Lucía will be disappointed when her big dreams come to nothing. The child cannot even read or write! She refuses to go to school, not helped by you encouraging her, José.’
‘What does she need with words and numbers when she has her gift? Wife, you are turning into a miserable old woman who has forgotten how to dream. I’m going to find some better company.Buenas noches.’
María watched her husband stand and saunter off along the dark, dusty path. She knew he would head for one of the drinking dens, housed in one of the many hidden caves, where he and his friends would carouse until the early hours. He’d been out all night more often recently and she wondered if he had a new mistress. Even though his once taut body was ageing fast with the passing of years, brandy and the harshness of the life they led, he was still a handsome man.
She vividly remembered her first sighting of him; she only about the same age as Lucía was now, he a strapping sixteen-year-old, standing outside the mouth of his family cave, strumming his guitar. His dark curly hair had shone mahogany in the sun, his full lips curved into a lazy smile as she’d passed. She’d fallen in love with him then and there, even though she had heard bad things about ‘El Liso’ – ‘The Smooth One’ – his nickname due to his skill on the guitar.And– as she would sadly discover later – for his reputation with women. At seventeen, he’d gone off to Barcelona in a haze of glory, having been contracted to play in Las Ramblas, a district packed with famous flamenco bars.
María had been convinced she would never see him again, yet five years later, he’d returned, sporting a broken arm and a number of yellowing bruises on his handsome face. Local gossip told her he’d got into a fight over a woman, others that his contract at the flamenco bar had been cancelled due to his drinking, and that he’d had to turn to bare-knuckle fighting to earn a crust. Whichever it was, María’s heart had beaten faster as she had walked past his family cave on her way down to the Alcaicería, to buy vegetables from the market stalls in the town. And there he’d been, smoking on his parents’ doorstep.
‘Hola, little beauty,’ he’d called as she’d walked past him. ‘Are you the girl I hear dances thealegríasbetter than any other in the village? Come and talk a while. Keep a sick man company.’
Shyly, she had joined him, and he’d played his guitar for her, and then insisted she go and dance with him in the olive grove beyond his cave. After his hands had clapped out apalmasthen encircled her waist to draw her closer, and their bodies had swayed to the sensuous invisible beats of their hearts, she’d arrived home that night breathless and dreamy, having been kissed for the first time in her life.
‘Where have you been?’ Paola, her mother, had been waiting for her.
‘Nowhere, Mamá,’ she’d said as she’d passed her, not wishing Paola to see her blushes.
‘I’ll find out, miss!’ Paola had wagged a finger at her. ‘And I know it’s to do with a man.’
María had been aware that Paola and Pedro, her father, would heavily disapprove of any relationship between her and José. His family, the Albaycíns, lived in poverty, whereas she, as an Amaya, came from a rich family – at least bygitanostandards. Her parents already had an eye on the son of a cousin; Paola had produced only one live baby girl from her seven pregnancies, and an heir to the successful blacksmith’s forge that Pedro ran was urgently needed.
Even though María knew all this – and up to now had been a caring and dutiful daughter – all her good intentions had flown like trapped butterflies released from her senses as José had relentlessly pursued her.
Falling further under the spell of his charm, as his fingers caressed both his guitar and her body, she’d finally let him convince her to sneak out of her family’s cave at night, and had lain with him in the olive grove at the foot of the Valparaiso mountain. All through the unusually hot summer, as her father’s forge billowed a fierce unbearable heat, María had felt as if her mind and body were on fire too. All she could think of was the long, cool night ahead, when José’s body would wrap around hers.
Their night-time trysts had been cut short by the wrath of her father. Even though they had been careful, someone in Sacromonte had seen them and gossiped.
‘You have brought shame upon this family, María,’ Pedro had roared after he’d dragged both his daughter and her lover to the cave to face their disgrace.
‘I am sorry, Papá,’ María had wept, ‘but I love him.’
José had gone down on his knees to beg forgiveness, and immediately asked Pedro for her hand in marriage.
‘I love your daughter, señor. I will take every care of her, believe me.’
‘I do not, boy. Your reputation goes before you, and now you have ruined my daughter’s too! She is only fifteen years of age!’
María had sat outside the cave as her father and José had discussed her future. Her mother’s face, taut with disappointment and humiliation, was perhaps the worst punishment of all. Agitanowoman’s purity was sacrosanct – the only currency she had to offer.
A week later, the village of Sacromonte had celebrated a hastily arranged engagement party for the couple, then, a month afterwards, a large wedding. The traditional celebration lasted three days. On the last evening, María – bedecked in a dress of blue and fuchsia with a long train, her hair adorned with red pomegranate flowers – had climbed onto a mule behind her new husband, and the entire village had formed a procession, following them down to her family cave for the final ceremony of the night.
