Summer Snow (33 page)

“Of course I am,” Elena agreed comfortably. “Would you want me not to care?”

Tejada thought about this for a few steps. “No,” he said. “I’m glad you care. But you have no reason to be jealous, you know.”

Elena gave his arm a friendly squeeze. “I know.”

“I’d hoped you would like her,” Tejada apologized. “It seemed like a way to get you out of the house and away from my mother while we’re here.”

“It was a nice thought.” Elena was soothing. “And probably Amparo is a perfectly nice little girl. She just needs to learn that she can’t make eyes at other women’s husbands.”

“And to look for someone her own age,” Tejada agreed. “Although all of my family have been throwing her at Tío Felipe.”

“Poor Lili,” Elena commented. “Now why didn’t you take me
to visit
her
? Or weren’t we invited?”

Tejada coughed. “Well, Tío Felipe invited us. But not Lili. And I wasn’t sure . . .”

Elena read his pause. “For goodness’ sake, Carlos, you take me to meet a little slut who bats her eyelashes at every presentable male, and then try to avoid a perfectly respectable woman just because she doesn’t have a marriage license?”

“It’s not a very good neighborhood,” Tejada defended himself. He knew better than to argue over Elena’s definition of “perfectly respectable.” She would only become temperamental. Besides, Lili really did seem more like a respectable housewife than a kept woman.

“The Encinases live nearby!”

“And a bit of a climb.”

“More than from Potes to Argüébanes?”

“All right,” Tejada capitulated. “We can go tomorrow, if you like. You should see the Albaicín after seeing the Alhambra really.”

“I thought we were taking Alejandra to the Alhambra tomorrow?”

“Sunday, then,” Tejada offered.

When they reached home they sought out Alejandra and Toño, and found them deep in an engineering project. The lieutenant reclaimed his son, and then asked Alejandra, a little awkwardly, if she would like to accompany them to see the Alhambra the following afternoon. Alejandra hesitated. Toño put his arms around her waist. “You’ll come?” he wheedled.

Alejandra patted his head and exchanged a smile of grown-up complicity with Elena. “Of course I’ll come, if you want me to.”

Tejada was pleased for his wife’s sake that Alejandra had agreed to go with them to the Alhambra, but as the hour of their excursion approached he had a premonition that she was going to be difficult. When she joined them the next day after lunch she was obviously in high spirits, and it made him smile to see how much Toño enjoyed her company. He elected to hold her hand instead of that of either of his parents so the Tejadas were free to walk arm in arm through the crowds of Saturday afternoon strollers on the Calle Mesones.

“They’re sweet together, aren’t they?” the lieutenant commented as Toño laughed at something Alejandra had said. Elena nodded and smiled. “It would be nice to have a little girl maybe,” Tejada added thoughtfully.

“Do you think he’d be as gallant to a younger sister?” Elena’s voice was teasing.

“Of course.” Tejada instantly defended his son.

Toño’s gallantry was worn out shortly after they reached the Plaza Nueva and began the steep climb up to the Alhambra. His steps began to lag along the Cuesta de Gomérez, and shortly after they entered the green calm of the park around the Alhambra he trotted back to his parents and asked them to fly him. “Maybe on our way back,” Tejada suggested. “You’re getting too heavy to fly uphill.”

“But I’m tired,” Toño protested.

Finally, Tejada swung the little boy up onto his shoulders. Toño rode along clinging to the lieutenant’s tricorn and inspecting the view with renewed interest. They entered the palace complex through the Puerta de la Justicia, where the lieutenant set his son down and Alejandra amused herself by trying to read the inscription to the Catholic monarchs.

Toño enjoyed climbing on the nineteenth-century cannons in the plaza, and he liked the square red walls of the Torre de la Vela and the ancient fortress complex. But he was less interested in the delicate palace of the Nasrids, and it was here that Alejandra and Elena wanted to linger, exclaiming over the filigreed detail and the calm reflecting pools. Tejada found himself drawn farther and farther away from his wife and their guest as Toño hurried through the famed halls.

It was not until they were out in the gardens of the Generalife that the lieutenant had the chance to strike up a conversation with Alejandra. Toño was deeply impressed by the carp in the reflecting pools and plopped himself down on the path to inspect them. Alejandra sank onto a sunny bench nearby, looking relieved to rest. The lieutenant sat beside her, wondering how to begin. Before he could think of a good opening, Toño looked up. “I’m thirsty.”

“We’ll get you an ice later,” Elena said, taking a seat on the other side of her husband.

“The Moors must have often had ices in this garden in the summer, if they were as pleasure loving as everybody says,” Alejandra commented.

“I imagine ice carriers could have brought ice down from Mulhacén then as well as now,” Tejada agreed.

Toño stood up and came to loll against his father’s knees. “And maybe they had hot cider in the winter?” he suggested.

“It doesn’t get cold enough for apples here.” Tejada shook his head. “Although I suppose they might grow up in the Sierra.” He smiled. “At least the Moors here could see what snow looked like up in the mountains.”

“You mean it doesn’t snow here in the city?” Toño asked, wide eyed.

“Once in a while,” Alejandra answered him. “But only a few flakes, and they never stick. Not like real snow.” She sighed.

Tejada smiled at her. “Do you know the story of the Moor who tried to bring snow to Sevilla?”

She shook her head. “Tell!” Toño commanded.

Tejada lifted his son onto his knees and began to retell a half-remembered legend from his childhood. “Once upon a time, there was a Moorish prince who fell in love with a slave girl. He decked her with jewels and silks and brought her trinkets from the ends of the earth. She fell asleep to the sweetest music his musicians could make, and the air of her rooms was perfumed with roses and jasmine. But although she had everything her heart desired, she languished.”

Tejada paused for poetic effect and to think what came next. “What’s ‘languished’ mean?” Toño asked.

“She was unhappy. The prince saw this and asked her what was wrong. Now his love was a northern girl, from a distant land of long, white winters. ‘I miss my home,’ she said to the prince. ‘I miss the snow.’

“‘The snow?’ the Moor said, puzzled, for he had never seen snow.

“The girl tried to explain what a snowstorm looked like, until she began to weep. ‘I miss the smell of pines and wood smoke. I miss running to a frosted window on a morning cold enough to see your breath in and seeing the land turned white with snow.’ The prince pleaded with her, but it was no use. She would only reply, ‘It never snows here.’

“For many days the prince was thoughtful. Then he had an idea. He called together his gardeners and ordered them to scour the countryside for blossoming almond trees. Then one night, as his love slept, he ordered all the almond trees planted outside her window. In the morning, the wind began to blow, and the blooms whirled through the sunrise in a gentle blizzard. The prince woke the girl and led her to a shuttered window. He threw it open. ‘Look, my love,’ he cried. ‘I have brought you the snow.’”

Toño considered the story. “That’s stupid,” he said at last. “Almond blossoms aren’t like snow. They’re not cold.”

Tejada was amused. “I think the point is the lengths a man will go to for the sake of a woman he loves,” he said.

“So, the girl was happy then?” Toño asked.

“I assume so. If she wasn’t, at least he could feel he’d made every effort.”

“He could have set her free.”

“What?” Tejada said, startled.

“If the almonds didn’t work,” Toño persisted with the inex- orable logic of a four-year-old, “he could have set her free so she could go back home.”

Disconcerted, the lieutenant looked to Alejandra for support, but she said nothing. He smiled down at Toño. “You’re too young to understand,” he said indulgently. “He couldn’t set her free because—because of politics.”

“Oh,” Toño nodded, satisfied.

“I think he was cruel to her,” Alejandra remarked. “Showing her something that looked like snow but wasn’t, to make her realize how far out of her reach her homeland was.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t the intention!” Tejada protested.

Alejandra gave a very adolescent shrug. “Then he should have thought it out better.” Her voice held a trace of defiance.

Tejada turned to his wife. “What do
you
think?”

Elena was silent for a moment before replying. “I think it depends on what the girl thought,” she said at last. “And I think the problem with the story is that it doesn’t say.”

“I bet she was unhappy.” Alejandra was truculent.

“I’m no good at arguing literary subtleties,” Tejada said, joking although he was annoyed by Alejandra’s tone. “You’re probably right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Alejandra was firm.

Toño, bored by the discussion, wandered a few steps away to another bench that presented interesting climbing possibilities. Elena followed him, with a significant glance at her husband. Tejada took a deep breath and followed the opening he’d been given.

“You’re good at arguing about the meaning of stories.”

Alejandra shrugged again. “All right, I guess.”

“You must get good marks in composition.”

The gaze Alejandra turned on the lieutenant carried the full weight of a teenager’s contempt for a clumsy adult. She said nothing.

“Do you like literature?” Tejada asked, feeling vaguely ridiculous. Still the unflinching, disgusted gaze. “You’ve been so kind to Toño, telling him about history, I thought perhaps that was your best subject.”

“I hate history.”

“So you like literature best?”

No response.

“Surely you don’t like science and mathematics best? That would be very unusual for a girl.”

Still stony silence.

Tejada’s discomfort began to turn to anger. No chit was going to give him the silent treatment. “What are your grades like?”

“All right.”

The lieutenant abandoned subtlety. “So what is this nonsense about your refusing to attend mass?”

Shrug.

She had always been a stubborn little person, Tejada recalled. “I asked you a question,” he said harshly. “I expect an answer.”

Alejandra raised her head and met his eyes, clearly intending to be defiant. For a moment she held his gaze, and then her lashes dropped again. When she spoke, her voice was a mumble. “I don’t believe in all that stuff.”

Tejada opened his mouth to reply, and then shut it again. He was sure she was lying. She must be lying. But he was unsure how to say so. Who ever asked if someone
believed
in the rites of the church? The point was to practice them. Except of course, the point
was
to believe in them. He remembered Elena’s words: “You can’t tell her how to feel.” His own reply came back to him, and he unconsciously used the argument his wife had intended to use: “If you don’t go, you’ll be expelled.”

Shrug.

“It’s for your own good. And only for a few more years. But it’s not worth losing your chance of an education for the sake of a silly principle.”

“I don’t need more education. I’m old enough to work.”

Tejada leaned forward to catch her sullen mutter and sud- denly saw her as she had been six years ago when they first met: a wounded, starving, pathetic little creature, ready to resist him with all of her pitifully small strength. He made out her words now with the frustration of a man who liked his antonyms clearly defined: black and white, good and evil, truth and falsehood.

She was old enough to get a job. Many girls no older than she were already maids or laundrywomen, and children half her age worked as shepherds and cowherds in Potes, and as messengers and street vendors in Madrid. But the lieutenant knew that the baby curves of their faces hid hollow bellies. He knew how easy it had been to seduce the servant girls of his adolescence, if seduction was the right word for what happened between a hungry fifteen-year-old who earned a peseta a day and tried to send money home to her parents and a bored señorito whose weekly pocket money exceeded her monthly salary. He looked at Alejandra. Her face was as grave as an adult’s, but she held her body as rigidly as the frightened child she had been in Madrid. He half wanted to put an arm around her shoulders and reassure her that he would protect her. He wholly wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for being such a stubborn little fool.

“You’re old enough to
work
,” he said honestly, “but you’re not old enough to earn a living.”

“I can help out my mother.”

“She doesn’t need your help.” Tejada saw her draw a breath to retort and added quickly, “Right now. She wants you to stay in school. And if you become a nurse or a teacher you can help her more later.”