The Barefoot Queen (43 page)

“I’m not interested in your money. Make good on your word.”

The innkeeper shook his head before sweeping his gaze over his customers in order to avoid looking at María.
What was his word worth? Had any of them ever made good on theirs?
he seemed to be wondering at the same time.

“We’re old, Bienvenido,” argued María. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll bump into each other in hell.” The old woman let a few seconds pass as she sought out the innkeeper’s bilious eyes. “We’d better settle our debts up here, don’t you think?”

AND THERE
, at Bienvenido’s inn, the two women and the girl met up a couple of nights after María had reminded him of hell’s eternal flames: the old woman feeling in the pocket of her apron for the knife she used to cut plants—she’d kept her hand on it since they’d crossed the pontoon bridge and entered the Sevillian night; Milagros with her green gypsy skirt (María had managed to get someone to lend her a petticoat); and Caridad dressed up in the red outfit, which was tight around her large breasts and revealed an exciting strip of black at her belly, where the
shirt didn’t reach the skirt. They were accompanied by two gypsy men—Fermín and Roque, one a Carmona and the other from the Camacho family—whom the old woman had convinced with arguments similar to those she’d used on Bienvenido. Both of them knew how to play the guitar; both were strong and intimidating, and both were armed with knives that María had also got from the innkeeper. Even so, the old woman was still nervous.

Her distrust grew when she entered the inn and saw sailors, artisans, cardsharps, friars and dandies squeezed around the small tables of rough wood. They were playing cards and shooting dice, chatting, laughing loudly as if competing between tables for who had the most raucous guffaw. Some argued in bold voices or simply sat there staring vacantly at some unspecified point in the distance. They ate, smoked, or did both at the same time; they negotiated with the prostitutes who came and went displaying their charms, or they grabbed the buttocks of Bienvenido’s daughters who were waiting on the tables. But all of them, without exception, were drinking.

A shiver ran up the healer’s spine as she noticed, amid the dense blanket of smoke that floated in the air, how Milagros was trembling. The frightened girl backed up a step toward the threshold she had just crossed. She bumped into a stunned Caridad. “This is crazy!” declared María then and there. The old woman was about to tell Milagros that if she didn’t want to she didn’t have to … but an outburst of shouting and laughter from the nearby tables prevented her.

“Come here, lovely girl!”

“How much for the night?”

“The Negress! I want to fuck the Negress!”

“Suck me off, girl!”

Fermín and Roque moved up until they were flanking Milagros and they managed to silence some of the shouting. The two men threateningly stroked the hilts of the knives stuffed into their sashes and they fixed a piercing gaze on anyone who addressed the girl. Arrogant in the face of the danger, the two gypsies ignored the possibility of being attacked, and challenged the crowd as if they didn’t believe them capable of it. María took her attention off the girl and looked around the inn until she found Bienvenido near the kitchen, beyond the entrance door, listening to the unfamiliar shouting. The innkeeper, up against the wall, shook his head.
I warned you,
the old woman thought she could read on his lips. María didn’t move; she kept her lips pressed firmly together. Then Bienvenido extended his hand and invited them to join him.

“Let’s go,” said the healer without turning around.

“Come on, girl,” one of the gypsies said. “Don’t worry, nobody is going to touch a hair on your head.”

The firmness of those words calmed the old woman down. In a line, avoiding chairs, barrels, drunks and prostitutes, the group of five headed to where Bienvenido had cleared a table to make some room for them: María at the head, Milagros between the two gypsy men and, bringing up the rear, as if she were completely unimportant, Caridad. They tried to get comfortable in the small nook that Bienvenido had arranged for them; leaning against one of the walls behind them were two old guitars.

“That’s the best I could do,” said the innkeeper before the old woman had a chance to complain.

Then he left them alone, as if what might happen from that point on had nothing to do with him. Fermín picked up one of the guitars. Roque made a move to do the same, but the other shook his head.

“One is enough,” he told him. “You keep an eye out, but first bring me a chair.”

Roque turned and, without a word, lifted up a young dandy by the scruff of his neck as he was conversing with two others just like him. The Frenchified fop was about to complain but he shut his mouth when he saw the gypsy’s grimacing face and the knife in his hand. Someone let out a giggle.

“Now you’ll have your arse in the air, pansy!” spat one of the men at the next table.

Roque handed the chair to Fermín, who rested one foot on it and tried out the guitar on his thigh, attempting to tune it and get used to it. No one in the inn seemed to be the least bit interested in listening to music, because the uproar continued at full volume; only the brazen lustful looks at Milagros and Caridad and the occasional sharp remark proved that the customers knew the gypsies were there. When Fermín gestured to her, the guitar at the ready, María gathered her strength to face Milagros. She had avoided doing so up until that point.

“Ready?”

The girl nodded, but her whole being contradicted her: her hands
trembled, she was breathing heavily and even her dark complexion looked pale.

“Are you sure?”

Milagros clenched her hands tightly.

“Breathe deeply,” the old woman advised her.

“Let’s start, precious,” encouraged Fermín as he started playing. “With
seguidillas.
”

The guitar made no sound! It couldn’t be heard over the commotion. María started to clap her stiff hands and made a movement of her chin indicating that Caridad do the same.

Milagros didn’t know how to start. Bienvenido’s place was nothing like the inns where, protected by the Fernández men, she had sung in front of a few patrons. She cleared her throat several times. She hesitated. She had to go forward into the tiny circle that opened out in front of her and sing, but she remained rooted beside María. Fermín repeated the guitar’s entrance, and then again. The girl’s hesitation captured the attention of the closest spectators. Milagros sensed their eyes on her and she felt ridiculous facing their smiles.

“Come on, girl,” encouraged Fermín again. “Or the guitar’s going to get tired.”

“Never forget that you are a Vega,” María said, spurring her on with the message from her mother.

Milagros moved into the circle and began to sing. The old woman closed her eyes tightly in desperation: the girl’s voice was trembling. It wasn’t enough. No one could hear her. She lacked rhythm … and joy!

Those who had been smiling were now swatting the air with their hands. Someone whistled. Others booed.

“Is that how you pant when you’re getting fucked, little gypsy?”

A chorus of laughter accompanied the remark. Tears welled up in Milagros’s eyes. Fermín questioned María with a look and the old woman nodded with her teeth clenched. She had to get going! She knew she could do it! But when rotten vegetables started flying toward the girl, Fermín made a gesture to stop strumming the guitar. María observed the crowd, which was drunk and overexcited.

“Dance,
morena
!” she then ordered.

Caridad seemed hypnotized by the atmosphere and continued clapping like an automaton.

“Dance, goddamnit!” screamed the old woman.

Caridad’s appearance in the circle, her large breasts showing up dark beneath her red shirt, brought on a chorus of applause, cheers and all types of rude shrieks, which echoed in her ears. She turned toward Milagros: tears were running down her cheeks.

“Dance, Cachita,” she begged her before stepping out and leaving her the space.

Caridad closed her eyes and the commotion in the room began to make its way into her the way the howls from the slaves at the Sunday parties had done, when the high point was reached and someone was mounted by an Orisha. The sound of the guitar intensified behind her, but she found her rhythm in those incoherent shouts, in the people banging on the tabletops, in the lust that floated, almost tangible among the smoke. And she began to dance as if calling Oshún, the goddess of love, her goddess, to come to her: displaying herself shamelessly, thrusting her pubis and hips into the air, twisting her torso and head. Roque had to work hard. He pushed away some men who came forward to grope her, kiss her or embrace her, until he had no choice but to take up his knife, brandishing it to keep the men from leaping on her. Yet the more frantic the crowd became, the more Caridad danced.

The spectators gave her a standing ovation after the first dance: clapping, whistling and demanding more wine and liquor. Caridad was forced to repeat her dance. She was shiny with sweat and her red clothes were soaked, clinging to her breasts and outlining her nipples.

After the third dance, Bienvenido came out into the circle with both arms raised, waving them to announce the end of the performance. They knew what the old innkeeper and his three sons who kept things in line were like, and mumbling and joking they started to take their seats around the tables.

Caridad was panting. Milagros remained downcast.

“Go pass the hat,” María told Caridad. “Quickly, before they forget.”

The old woman had been muttering insults while she watched the dances and the naive look that was Caridad’s response made her even more furious.

“Go with her!” she ordered Roque and Fermín brusquely.

Bienvenido stayed with María and Milagros while the others went from table to table.

Caridad walked timidly with one of the men’s hats while the gypsies tried to offset her ingenuousness by frowning and silently threatening those who weren’t forthcoming. She got coins, but also propositions, rude remarks and the occasional fleeting grope, which Caridad tried to evade and which the gypsies, in return for more generosity, overlooked. After all, Caridad wasn’t a gypsy woman.

“Didn’t you say she sang like the angels?” Bienvenido asked María, as they both counted the money dropping into the hat from a distance.

“She’ll sing. As sure as we’re not yet rotting in hell, she will. I promise you that,” answered the old woman, raising her voice without turning toward Milagros, to whom her statement was really directed.

FERMÍN AND
Roque were satisfied with the cut that María gave them, so much so that the next day several men and women passed by Milagros’s house trying to join the group. The old woman refused them all. She was about to do the same with a woman from the Bermúdez family who showed up with a babe in arms and two almost naked kids clinging to her skirt, which was faded and ragged like all the ones worn by the gypsies who had returned from Málaga, but first she peeked her head inside the apartment: Milagros was lying hidden beneath a blanket. She had spent the entire day like that, sobbing every once in a while. Caridad, seated in a corner with her bundle, was smoking a medium-size cigar called a
papante.
María had rewarded her with four of them when she was finally able to go buy provisions: food and a candle. They said the
papantes
were made with Cuban leaf, and it must have been true, given the satisfaction with which Caridad, removed from all that was going on around her, exhaled large mouthfuls of smoke, María pressed her lips together, thought for a few seconds, nodded imperceptibly to herself and turned back to the Bermúdez woman, who was trying to keep her little ones quiet; she had seen her around, she knew her a little.

“Rosa …? Sagrario?” the old healer tried to remember.

“Sagrario,” she answered.

“Come back at nightfall.”

The woman’s gratitude was clear from her wide smile.

“But …” María pointed to the children. “Come alone.”

“Don’t worry. The family will take care of them.”

The rest of the day passed with the same apathy as the blacksmiths, still without the proper tools, showed toward their hammering. Caridad and the old woman ate sitting on the floor.

“Leave her be,” María told Caridad, who kept looking at the shape covered in a blanket lying a few paces from them.

What would she say to the girl if she got up and ate with them? Their return the night before had been taciturn; only Fermín and Roque exchanged a few funny anecdotes. Tired, the three women had gone to bed without even mentioning what had happened at Bienvenido’s inn. Would she be able to sing tonight? She had to; they couldn’t depend on Caridad: she wasn’t a gypsy, anyone could tempt her away and she would leave them in the lurch. The old woman observed her as she ate: she smoked between bites. Her thoughts … where were they? On Melchor? Was she thinking about Melchor? She had cried over him. Is it possible that there was something between them? The old healer was only sure of one thing: at the rate she was smoking, Caridad would polish off the four
papantes
soon. She asked her for a drag.

“Are you still thinking about the gypsy?” she then asked.

Caridad nodded. There was something about that old woman that pushed her to tell the truth, to confide in her. “I don’t know if he would have liked seeing me dance at the inn,” was all she said.

The healer stared at her. That young woman was in love, there was no doubt about it. “You know something,
morena
? Melchor would know that you did it for his granddaughter.”

The
morena
loved Milagros, thought María after exhaling a mouthful of smoke, but she wasn’t gypsy, and that was reason enough to be wary of her. The two strong drags on the cigar clouded her mind. Yes, the girl would sing and dance that night, she said to herself as she handed the cigar to Caridad, and she would surprise all those drunks with her voice and the way she moved her body. She had to! And she would, that was why María had let Sagrario join them: the Bermúdez woman sang and danced like the best of them. María had heard and seen her in some of the many parties that had been so frequent before the arrest.