"The Flamenco Academy" (52 page)

“Rosa clapped the beat that brought her
mother’s feet to life, stamping out an intricate counterrhythm. The
poet’s face stood out from the crowd as he encouraged Delicata with
nods and mutters of
‘Eso es! Eso es el flamenco puro!’
Delicata signaled for a
silencio
, a quiet place in the dance
where El Chino’s
cante
could take over.

“Delicata stepped back and pushed her
daughter forward. Rosa executed simple
marcaje
that kept the
beat while El Chino sang. Clementina waited for El Chino to settle
into one of the songs that Rosa had taught her. But he didn’t sing
anything Clementina had heard before. She was puzzling over what
manner of song he was singing when the door opened and a man strode
in. Clementina knew instantly that it was El Bala. Just as Rosa had
described, he looked like a bullet with his bald head and thick
neck, all smooth except where a long scar puckered his face.
Delicata and El Chino stared first at El Bala, then at each other,
then together their gazes fell upon Rosa who, lost in the dance,
didn’t notice their sudden attention. Clementina thought her friend
had never been more beautiful. Even doing the marking steps, she
was exquisite.

“El Chino’s song was so
jondo
, so
filled with
sangre negro
, black blood, that even the
señoritos
were moved. Several had started to weep. So
powerful were the emotions aroused by El Chino’s voice and the
words he was making up on the spot that Juan Pablo’s father stood
and ripped his shirt from his body. Possessed by the moment, El
Chino sang on. He sang the story of his delirious love for a
green-eyed dancer who stole his soul and forced him to steal her
because, after all, how can a man live without his soul? He sang of
how every man who saw his wife was as bewitched as he had been. He
had hidden her from all except one, a killer who would put a bullet
in the heart of his love. His woman loves the killer. Driven mad by
jealousy and love, he put his hands around the neck of the only
woman he would ever love. As his fingers tightened, her green eyes
bulged, and his woman swore that it is not her that the killer
loves but their daughter. The daughter is the one the killer
wants.

“Heartbroken tears flowed from El China’s
eyes as he sang his lament. He has two choices. He can either give
his daughter in marriage or kill her mother. How, he asks, can his
children live without their mother? How can he live without the
soul that mother stole from him?

“Clementina knew that she had understood the
strange words correctly when a look of horror spread across her
friend’s face.

“El Chino’s
cante
was the catalyst
the playboys, already half-mad from days of drinking and
debauchery, required to reach a state of near-hysterical group
catharsis. The aristocrats keened and wept. The old men lamented
that life was too short. The young that it was too long. Juan
Pablo’s father, driven into a frenzy, scratched his fingernails
across his naked chest, drawing blood.

“In the clamor, Rosa, her face wet with
tears, slipped back into the shadows and whispered to Clementina,
‘They can’t! They can’t marry me off to El Bala. He’s old. He’s
ugly. I will kill myself.’

“Clementina stopped her friend. ‘Rosa, don’t
even say that. We’ll run away.’ She remembered all of Rasa’s
stories. ‘We’ll go to Sevilla, where there is laughter, gaiety,
with enough to eat for everyone and more than enough for those with
talent. Rosa, you will be queen of Sevilla like your grandmother La
Leona. You will be queen of the
cafés cantantes
!’

“ ‘How?’ Rosa asked.

“El Bala guarded the door. There would be no
escape. El Chino sang again and the men calmed themselves.
Clementina felt that the whole world, since the world was run by
men, wanted only to lock her away, her and Rosa and every other
girl who would dance and sing. Cave or convent, mountain or
mansion, it didn’t matter how fine the rugs might be, how ancient
the heraldic tiles, a prison was a prison. With the barbarous El
Bala guarding the door, there seemed to be no hope. Clementina
realized they were both condemned. Then, his white suit shining
like the moon in the darkness, one faint beacon of hope presented
itself: the poet.

“Clapping out a staccato answer to her
husband’s lament, Delicata stepped forward. The blood of her
mother, La Leona, queen of the
cafés cantantes
, surged
through her veins and when she danced, she became a whirlpool that
sucked every man’s attention into its fathomless well. Thankfully,
none was left for the two girls. In the dark, Clementina motioned
for Rosa to follow her and they made their way to the table where a
flickering
candil
lighted the face of the poet. Clementina
knelt at his feet so that her features would not be caught in the
illumination.

“ ‘What is it,
bailaora
?’ the poet
asked, his voice soft with kindness.

“Clementina poured Rosa’s tale out and, in
the telling, divulged a bit of her own as well. The poet was
enraptured. ‘I shall write an ode,’ he exclaimed. ‘Your stories,
your
baile
capture all that is
flamenco puro
.’

“Clementina ducked her head even lower,
scared that the poet’s exclamations would call attention to her.
When she lowered her head, she noticed to her alarm that the front
of her borrowed dress was damp with sweat, darkened with soot. She
touched her dripping face and found no soot on her finger when she
looked at it. She had sweated her disguise away.

“Delicata finished and the thirsty crowd
turned back to the wine. For a moment, the only sound was the
clinking of bottles against the rims of glasses. Just then, a man
stepped out of the back room. The wild pigeon he’d just finished
with was hanging onto him. All the men hooted as he made a great
show of buttoning his fly, tucking his shirt in, and pulling his
suspenders up. ‘
Ándale, muchachos
, I warmed her up for you.’
He lowered the dancer’s blouse and kissed her nipple. The man was
Clementina’s father.

“The poet, recognizing the duke, tried to
hide Clementina. But it was too late. Smears of soot, a scarf
covering all but her eyes, the darkness, the surprise of the
setting, none of it mattered. The duke recognized his daughter
instantly. His gaze fixed on her. In his look was not only
recognition of who Clementina was but of who she would be for the
rest of her days: a disgrace, a scandal that would have to be
hidden. Marriage to even the lowest of families, internment in even
the meanest of convents would no longer be enough. Clementina could
not imagine her fate, but death was not out of the question since
any life she had ever known ended the second her father set eyes on
her.

“A hammering at the door threw everyone else
in the room into a panic, but the duke remained frozen. He did not
even register the shouted words, ‘Open up?
Guardia civil
!’
Without waiting, the guards began pounding the door down.

“Though the
juerga
was a traditional
right of the playboys of the aristocracy, none of them knew if
their immunity would stand up in the perilous political climate
that had reigned since Franco had come to power. The military and
the Church had put him in power and the Church hated flamenco. All
the dukes and barons scrambled for a safe exit. And though every
Gypsy was terrified of the state police who made their lives such
torment, the most frightened person that night, for his own very
singular reasons, was the poet Lorca.
Candiles
were
extinguished. The room fell into darkness. Panic ensued as the men
stampeded toward the door, all of them ready with bribes to thrust
into the guards’ hands. Rosa screamed for her friend. Clementina
ran to her side and, not knowing where else to turn, they followed
the one spot of brightness they could distinguish, the luminescent
white of the poet’s suit.

“While all the others churned futilely, the
door was broken down and the guards entered carrying lanterns. The
light reflected off the black patent leather of their hats, turning
the uptilted corners into horns. They entered and demanded, ‘Where
is the poet?’

“But the poet was gone. At that very moment
he was helping Rosa and Clementina clamber out a window. He
followed, climbing down the lattice that held up a bougainvillea
and dropping into the alley below. The three of them set off
running. Clementina kept turning back, expecting her father to
appear behind her at any second. She fell behind and Rosa went back
to hurry her along. Then they chased the waning moon of the poet’s
white suit. They ran until they caught him. They ran until all
three were out of breath and far from the site of the
juerga
.

“The first thing Lorca did when he caught
his breath was laugh. ‘Franco, you idiot! What a terrible and tiny
tyrant you must be to fear a poet. Well, girls, at least we all
know what we’re up against, eh? We’ll go straight to my friend’s
house, where I’m staying. Those apes don’t know where it is. I’ll
send word to my sister, my mother. We’ll collect my papers, what
money I have, and leave Granada tonight. My friends were right. I
should never have returned. We’ll escape to Madrid, to some place
not yet controlled by that bloodthirsty, sanctimonious monster.
Some place where Spaniards are still Spaniards and still love
poetry more than blood and dance more than murder.’

“Clementina and Rosa suddenly felt as if
their lives, which had seemed over only moments before, were just
beginning. Lorca hurried ahead of them through the quiet streets,
his heels ringing against the wet cobblestones. The girls were
barely able to suppress giggles born of hysteria, fear, and joy.
Rosa and Clementina caught up to Lorca, and the rest of the way he
talked even faster than he walked. He talked about the evil that
gripped his beloved Spain. About his country’s demonic desire to
kill what is best in herself. ‘She’s done it before,’ he ranted.
‘The Inquisition, driving out the Moors and Jews, persecuting the
Gypsies, now this, this civil war. This is the most grievous act of
cannibalism in all her bloody history.

“ ‘Politics? I don’t care about politics,’
he railed. ‘About Loyalists, Rebels. Republicans, Falangists. I
hate all uniforms except
el traje de luces
!’ The thought of
the bullfighter’s glittering suit of lights as a uniform made him
laugh. ‘Not much farther,
señoritas
, my friend’s house is
just around this corner. Then we are safe from those
jackbooted—’

“Words and motion stopped dead when they
turned the corner. Waiting along the street was a gauntlet of
soldiers in dung-brown uniforms carrying rifles, standing in the
murky light cast by a lone streetlamp. Rosa grabbed the poet and
dragged him back into the shadows.

“ ‘They didn’t see you,’ she whispered. ‘We
can sneak away. I have relatives in Sevilla. We’ll walk. Don’t
worry about your papers, your money.’

“Lorca didn’t answer. He merely pulled a
Turkish cigarette from the case in his pocket, lit it, and held it
in that way he had, pinched between thumb and forefinger, his palm
cupping his chin as he inhaled the smoke. He looked like the hero
in a movie, his hair black as ink, his face, hands, suit, all
white, the stuff of clouds in the mist swirling through the narrow
street. They stood hidden in the darkness and listened to the tramp
of the soldiers’ boots against the cobblestones, to the rattle of
rifle barrels, the slap of a leather holster against a thigh. Lorca
finished his cigarette and stared a long time at the butt before he
tossed it away.

“ ‘Papers?’ he said. ‘Money? No, these I
don’t worry about. I worry about honor, dignity, and art. Good
luck,
muchachas
. I wish I had more than luck to give you. I
wish I had more to give Spain.’

“ ‘No,’ Rosa whispered, but he had already
stepped into the light. The soldiers seized him. The last they saw
of the poet was the back of his white jacket before the sudden slam
of a black car door, a moon being eclipsed by a dark cloud. They
watched long after the car bore him away into the night.”

Doña Carlota fell silent then. If she’d been
younger, stronger, I might have questioned her a bit about this
account of the night Lorca died. Since he was one of the major
saints in flamenco’s pantheon, any student at the academy named for
her could have told Doña Carlota what details were known about his
death, that Lorca was hiding at his friend’s house when he was
arrested by Franco’s Falangists on August 19 at three in the
morning, handcuffed to a lame teacher, and taken by car to a
holding camp for condemned prisoners. But I could see from her
expression that she had told her truth: innocence and hope had
disappeared from her life along with the white-suited poet.

I assumed the old woman regretted her candor
and that her revelations were at an end. I stood to leave and her
eyes, the white spotted brown like an old dog’s, found me.

“Are you tired of my story, Metrónoma?”

“No, I thought you were through.”

“I wish the story had ended that night, but
it was just beginning.
Siéntate
. Sit, sit. This is the first
and will be the last time I ever tell it all.”

I sat back down. Doña Carlota, her bony
shoulders hiking up to her ears, edged a bit higher into the chaise
longue, settled in, and began again.

“When the sun rose after both the happiest
and saddest night of Clementina’s life, the girls were tramping
along the high road to Sevilla. Rosa purposely bumped and jostled
against the farmers coming into Granada to sell their produce. By
the time they’d passed the vendors, Rosa’s blouse was as heavy as a
black marketer’s with the apples, onions, carrots, and potatoes
she’d filched from passing baskets. She even managed to pluck a
small round of manchego cheese, which the girls devoured with the
apples and vegetables. With food in her belly, the full horror of
the previous night returned and tears commenced streaming down
Clementina’s cheeks.