"The Flamenco Academy" (54 page)

“Clementina jumped in the back and wedged
herself between trunks, hatboxes, and a guitar.

“ ‘Hurry, Gustavo!’ the woman yelled at the
driver.

“ ‘Elena, you’re the one who told me to
stop!’ Gustavo ground the car’s gears in his haste.

“ ‘Yes, well, you’re the one who couldn’t
keep up with the rest of the company and now we’re lost in this
godforsaken place!’

“ ‘I? I was the one? Was it I who made the
tire on this pile of junk blow out? Was it I who lost the ration
coupons so we couldn’t buy petrol? I know it was I who had to steal
enough petrol to get us here! And we are not lost! Where else would
this road go if not to Sevilla?’

“Clementina noticed that the handsome
couple, though they yelled everything they said to each other,
seemed to enjoy the yelling. At least they were going to
Sevilla.

“ ‘And again, I ask you, was it I who
insisted we stop for this, this, this—’ The man waved his hand in
Clementina’s direction but could not decide exactly what to call
her.

“ ‘And I suppose you were just going to
leave her by the side of the road?’

“ ‘Why not? You’re too softhearted. If it
was up to you this car would be filled with skinny dogs and’—he
glanced at Clementina in the rearview mirror—‘skinny girls. Maybe
she lives on a nearby farm.’

“ ‘Look at her. A farmer’s daughter? You
must be insane.’

“ ‘
I’m
insane? Who’s standing in the
middle of the road in the middle of nowhere?’

“Elena whispered to Gustavo. ‘Maybe she is a
little...’ She tapped her temple.

“ ‘I’m not crazy,’ Clementina felt obliged
to tell them. The couple blinked at each other as if surprised she
could speak even though they had not given her a chance to do
so.

“ ‘Good!’ Gustavo boomed. ‘Then maybe you
can tell us if we are in rebel or Nationalist territory! We have to
know which flag to put up so we won’t be killed!’

“ ‘I don’t know, but a truck filled with
soldiers passed by yesterday.’

“ ‘Did you hear that?’ Elena yelled at
Gustavo.

“ ‘I heard! Of course I heard! Do you think
I’m deaf? An army truck, yes. But which army? The rebels? The
loyalists? The Falangists? Which one?’

“ ‘I don’t know.’

“ ‘She doesn’t know!’ Elena shouted at
Gustavo before asking Clementina. ‘The flag? What did the flag look
like?’

“ ‘It had stripes.’

“ ‘Stripes!’ Gustavo bellowed. ‘They all
have stripes! Elena, show her the flags!’

“ ‘But Gustavo, is it safe?’

“ ‘Is it safe to drive around flying the
wrong flag? We can’t make a mistake! Show her!’

“Elena opened the glove box, dumped maps and
documents onto her lap, then felt around until she dislodged a
partition covering a secret compartment, and retrieved a handful of
scarf-size flags. ‘Which one was on the truck?’ She showed
Clementina a flag with red, yellow, and purple stripes and another
with just red and yellow stripes. There were several others, but
Clementina ignored them as she plucked out one with red stripes at
the top and bottom and a yellow one in the middle where a black
eagle with a red beak perched clutching the arrows and the yoke of
Fernando and Isabel.

“ ‘Falangists!’ Gustavo yelled. ‘They’re the
worst of them all! Get that flag up!’

“Elena leaned out of the window, the wind
tore off her snood, and with her black, curly hair streaming
behind, she tied the Falangist flag to the car antenna. When she’d
finished, she packed the other flags back into their hiding place,
shut the glove box, and turned to Clementina. ‘So what are you
doing out here in the middle of nowhere waiting to get run down or
shot by soldiers?’

“ ‘I was on my way to Sevilla with my
friend, Rosa, and the bandits stole her. Her father back in
Sacromonte promised her to El Bala and she was going to have to
live the rest of her life in a cave with an ugly old man so we ran
away.’

“ ‘Your “friend,” eh?’ Elena caught
Gustavo’s eye and winked at him. ‘So Rosa was stolen by the
bandits. I had a “friend” once myself whose parents wanted her to
marry a rich old man, but my “friend” was stolen too.’ Elena
nuzzled up next to Gustavo and nibbled his ear as she crooned in
it, ‘Stolen by a handsome
bandido
. Don’t worry, Rosa, your
“friend’s” secret is safe with us.’

“ ‘Do you have any water?’ Clementina was
too thirsty to care that Elena thought she was lying.

“Elena handed her a jug of water that she
drank dry.

“Then Gustavo asked, ‘Have you eaten
today?’

“Clementina shook her head no, and Elena
produced from a basket at her feet a yellow pear and she began to
cut up. The smell of the perfectly ripe pear and the sight of juice
dripping from Elena’s knife made Clementina’s mouth water.

“ ‘Do you like pear?’ This time Gustavo was
the one who winked at Elena as he added, ‘Rosa?’

“All her life, Clementina had been taught to
bow her head as if she had just taken Communion and accept her
sino
. Her father and Tía Rogelia had believed that her fate
would arrive in the form of a young man from a venerable family.
When Gustavo called Clementina by her vanished friend’s name, she
realized what her true fate was. Elena reached around and handed
Clementina a slice of pear with a kind and understanding smile.
Clementina bowed her head and accepted the pear as politely as she
had always accepted her fate.

“ ‘And what do you intend to do in Sevilla?’
Gustavo asked.

“ ‘I will find work as a flamenco dancer at
a
café cantante
.’

“Gustavo studied her in the rearview mirror.
‘A
café cantante
?’

“ ‘Yes, maybe the Kursaal or Café Silverio.
Or any of the cafés on the Alameda de Hércules.’

“ ‘The Kursaal? Café Silverio?’ After each
name, Elena burst out with an eruption of laughter louder than the
last.

“The well-brought-up Clementina simply
blinked several times at Elena’s rudeness, causing Elena to explain
kindly, ‘Oh,
niña
, the last
café cantante
in Sevilla
closed more than ten years ago.’

“ ‘That’s not possible. I was going to be La
Leona, the Lioness, like my grandmother.’ Somehow, the shock of
learning that Rosa’s dream world had vanished made it seem all
right to claim it as her own.

“Elena turned in her seat, holding a piece
of pear in her hand. ‘You had a grandmother who danced in
los
cafés cantantes
?’

“The juicy slice of pear glistened in the
morning sunlight, slanting into the big car. Clementina nodded yes
and Elena handed over the bit of fruit. Clementina told La Leona’s
story and was rewarded with a slice of pear. The tale of El Chino
and Delicata won her an even bigger slice. The first time
Clementina told the story of Rosa’s life as her own, she was driven
to it by hunger. But in the telling Rosa’s life became much more
real to Clementina than the lonely, uneventful one she had led, so
real that it truly did seem to be her own. Clementina didn’t think
that she had stolen her friend’s name, her history, her life. She
intended only to borrow them for a while. It would be much safer to
be Rosa than Clementina. There were so many Rosas. Who would notice
one more? A Clementina? Yes, a Clementina would be noticed and,
eventually, her father would come. But a Rosa,
una gitana
?
Even Rosa’s own family would not search for her since that would
mean going to the enemies of the Gypsy people, the police,
la
guardia civil
. No, no one would be looking for Rosa.

“Especially not now. Now that the country
was at war with itself. Gustavo turned on the car radio and they
listened to the warbly voice of Generalissimo Franco on Radio
Zaragoza. He called Manuel Azaña, the president of the Republic, ‘a
monster who seems more the absurd invention of a doubly insane
Frankenstein than the fruit of the love of a woman. Azaña,’ Franco
insisted, ‘must be caged up so that brain specialists can study
perhaps the most interesting case of mental degeneration in
history.’

“Elena and Gustavo burst out laughing. When
Clementina asked if this meant they were on the side of Franco’s
Nationalists, they laughed even harder.

“ ‘Side?’ Gustavo asked. ‘This damn war has
more sides than you can count. The Carlists, the Falangists, the
Communists, the Church, the aristocracy, the unions, the laborers,
the miners. Everyone has a side. Now even the Germans who are
flying Franco’s troops from Morocco in their Junkers and the
Italians who aren’t doing anything except seducing our women have a
side in this war. The only ones who don’t have a side in this
unholy mess are us, the entertainers.’

“ ‘Oh yes, we do!’ Elena disagreed, then
asked Clementina, ‘You know which side is our side, Rosita?’

“Clementina shrugged.

“ ‘The side that claps for us. The side that
pays us. The side that puts bread in our mouths. That is our side.
That is the only side entertainers ever have.’

“ ‘Shut up, you. Listen to this.’ Gustavo
tuned in Radio Sevilla and the high-pitched voice of General Queipo
de Llano came in very clearly. ‘We must kill the enemies of the
Spanish nation, like the animals they are. We must kill the Reds.
Kill the leftists. Kill the Republicans. Kill the Masons. Kill all
those who would bring down Holy Mother Church and Spain
herself.’

“ ‘Find some music!’ Elena cried out and was
not happy until Gustavo tuned in La Bella Dorita chirping her
syrupy songs about roses and butterflies. She asked Clementina to
pass her the basket sitting atop the suitcases in the backseat. It
was filled with costumes in the process of being either repaired or
constructed. Clementina volunteered to help. Elena was so impressed
with the precision of her needlework while mending a tear in the
crotch of Gustavo’s clown costume that she declared, ‘We have found
a new wardrobe mistress!’ and dumped the entire basket on
Clementina’s lap. Clementina was delighted with her new title and
stitched away happily as the barren landscape slid past her
window.

“She woke that night with her head resting
on the nest of ripped costumes as the Hispano-Suiza came to a halt
in the alley behind the Teatro Olimpia Seventy years later, long
after Clementina had forgotten everything she had to do to survive
for all the years of the war when the starving country chewed
itself to bits like a mad dog, Clementina would remember one thing
about her first moment in the fabled city of Sevilla: the smell, an
ineradicable combination of cement dust, death, and perfume.

“She would learn later that the smell of
death hung over all of Sevilla and that it came from the
plaza
de toros
where thousands of ‘Reds’ had been executed, labor
leaders, teachers, leftists, students, anyone who opposed the
Church or spoke out against the landowners. A few of the condemned
were allowed to escape the massacre in the plaza so they could tell
how Moorish soldiers, men dark as
café solo
, were encouraged
to rape the victims before executions. It was August in the south
of Spain and the mass graves could not be dug fast enough. The
stench of the corpses mixed with the smell of cement dust from the
Santa Marina and San Roque churches blown up by the Republicans.
The odor of burning rubber from the trucks set on fire by the
Nationalists and cordite from the rifles that fired sporadically
through the day added to the stink that choked all of Sevilla.

“But the smell of perfume could be detected
for only a few blocks around the Teatro Olimpia because just a few
streets away the Perfumería Tena had been blown up, allowing the
fragrances of jasmine, sandalwood, tea rose, musk, lily of the
valley, lavender to pour out over the stink. Their sweetness
tricked the nostrils into opening so that each inhalation was a
fresh horror.

“Barely awake, frightened by the smell of
death, Clementina clung to Elena and rushed with her into the
safety of the theater. Elena and Gustavo were not surprised when
Clementina confessed that she knew no one in Sevilla and had
nowhere to go. And, also, Clementina added, she was starving.

“ ‘You want to eat?’ Gustavo demanded,
adding in an aside to Elena, ‘She wants to eat!’

“ ‘Rosita,’ Elena yelled, ‘we all want to
eat!’

“Gustavo tossed her a costume. ‘You’re a
dancer, right? Okay, dance. Señor Vedrine pays after the show. Then
we eat.’

“Clementina nodded dumbly.

“Elena explained, ‘Okay, you’re dancing
La Pulga
. Anyone with a nice pair of legs can dance
La
Pulga
. Just watch me.’ In the hubbub backstage, with girls
penciling their eyes in black and rouging their cheeks, with a
plate-spinner rattling his china, with five poodles in bow ties and
jackets yapping, Elena taught her
La Pulga
, a dance routine
about a girl with a pesky flea in her clothes.

“That night, Espectáculos Vedrines put on a
show for Generalissimo Franco’s troops. Clementina, now officially
Rosa, did not dance in golden gaslight for an elegant crowd that
revered flamenco and would crown
una bailaora
queen simply
for the quality of her exquisite
brazeo
. No, Rosa was but
one of many acts in a traveling variety show, each one coarser than
the last.

“Just before Elena shoved Clementina
onstage, she hissed at her, ‘Remember, Señor Vedrine only pays if
the audience claps!’

“Clementina swatted at herself as Elena had
shown her and danced faster and faster to the accelerating music.
The theater ‘liberated’ by the Nationalists was filled with troops
wearing the blue uniforms of the Italian army, the gray-green of
the German. Their officers wore peaked caps and sat in the front
row next to General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, who was surrounded by
the leaders of the Army of Africa and officers of the Spanish
Legionnaires. Behind them were soldiers wearing the red berets of
the Carlists, the dark blue shirts with yellow arrows of the
Falangists. Germans with blond hair and big, square heads sat next
to Italians with the soulful eyes of poets. Standing in the very
back, allowed to enter yet not to sit, were Franco’s Moorish
soldiers. Black as ink, they wore red fezzes on their heads and had
dusty puttees wrapping their legs. All the men were different, yet
to Clementina they were all the same. In her fear, their gaping
mouths seemed to meld into one voracious maw poised to gobble her
down.