The Poet's Wife (30 page)

I’m afraid for these students, but here’s the thing: nothing ever happens to them and I’m sure that’s what makes me bolder still. As I watch the flames flickering upwards into the reddening sky, I try to imagine the sights that my parents witnessed in this same city. They
didn’t
go through all that for nothing, not a chance. I can hear Mamá’s voice echoing gently in my ears as I watch General Franco’s jubilant declarations curl and blaze before me into a heap of ashes: ‘…
the time will come, Paloma. I’m sure of it
’. Smiling to myself, I kick at the smouldering words before pulling my coat closer around my shoulders and stepping over them into the dusky evening.

Around the same time as all of this, one day I see a photo of Jackie Kennedy in a magazine I buy on the black market. She’s wearing something I’ve never seen before. The magazine describes this garment as taking the world of female fashion by storm and I feel both horror and excitement coursing through my body just looking at it. It’s a skirt that actually shows the knees, a mini-skirt! The question is though: do I have the courage to wear one? I spend the next few days mulling it over but once the idea has been planted, that’s it. I know about all the black markets in Barcelona where you can buy banned books and even marijuana or other drugs if you’re prepared to pay for them. I can’t be sure they’ll have mini-skirts but one Friday afternoon, when lectures have finished, I go alone. And sure enough, there are a couple.

The one I buy is black leather. It hugs my buttocks and thighs and feels very, very strange. As I stand in front of the mirror and look at the length of my legs, I think to myself
Dios
,
can I really wear this?
As though my reflection has a life of its own, I see the girl in the mirror with the long dark hair smile confidently back. I’m not yet brave enough to wear it out in public, but I put it on for one of the youth movement meetings and when I walk into the room, everybody gasps in shock (and maybe admiration?) and I can’t help but feel a surge of pride: this is me, Paloma. This is who I am.

O
n the night
before our graduation, Ana and I sit up in my room with a few candles scattered around and a bottle of wine, too excited to go to bed. The following day we’ll be celebrating our academic achievement, but so much more than that.

‘You were right,’ Ana says to me, legs crossed on my bed as she rolls a thin cigarette.

‘Right about what?’

‘About things changing, that we don’t have to be afraid any more.’ Ana lights the cigarette, takes a small inhale and then offers it to me. ‘It took me such a long time to really believe that. But you’re partly to thank for that. You
helped
me believe. If you’d told me when I first met you Franco would pass this constitution, I’d have just laughed. Or cried. But now look where we are.’

She stretches her legs out and then hugs them into her body, her face young and beautiful and full of hope.

I nod. ‘Franco knows,’ I say, ‘that he has to give concessions now.
Bueno
, so he might not like the fact that new parties are forming all the time, but he can’t stop them. And he can’t stop people practising religion in the way they want to. Even if you’re not Catholic, or don’t
practise
Catholicism, you’re still human.’

‘I hope with all my heart that by the time we have children they don’t have to be educated by the church,’ Ana says, her nostrils flaring.

I smiled. ‘
Paciencia
. It will come.’

‘Well, you have more of that than I do, that’s for sure. And of course it’s important that people can choose religion as they wish, but imagine this: no more press censorship! It’s incredible! Do you know what that means, Paloma?’

I grin at Ana; her enthusiasm is infectious.

‘It
means
,’ I reply, ‘that we can say what we want, when we want and how we want. That I can wear a mini-skirt if I choose, because it’s my
right
to do so.’

Ana giggles nervously. ‘We’re not all as brave as you are, Paloma. But I suppose it helps me in a way by making me think that your abuelo, and my abuelo, and all the others who didn’t conform, that the Spain they dreamt of is finally being built. Finally.’ It’s late and we’ve drunk two bottles of wine between us and are feeling heady and tired and emotional, and I watch as suddenly her laughter turns to tears. They escape from Ana’s dark eyes and steal down her cheeks. I stub out the cigarette and sit beside her on the bed, embracing my friend.

‘We’re so lucky,’ I whisper, ‘to be alive now. We’ve escaped the hell that our parents and grandparents went through, and we have so much to look forward to.’ I can feel Ana nodding on my shoulder as her tears continue to flow. ‘And Ana, when we fall in love and decide to marry, we can vote, actually vote!
Vale
, we all know that single women should be given the vote as well, but it’s a start. We’ll get there, Ana.’

‘I know,’ my friend replies quietly and then, her face brightening as she wipes away the tears on her cheek, ‘What are you going to do this summer?’

I grin at her. ‘I haven’t worked out the details yet, but I think I’ll go to Morocco.’

She stares at me, wide-eyed.
‘Morocco? Estás loca?
’

‘Why?’ I laugh. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Now I’m all for women’s liberation but girls,’ she intones, ‘
don’t
travel in Morocco alone.’

I shrug. ‘This girl does.’

Ana kisses me on the cheek. ‘And that’s why I love you, Paloma. Not scared of a thing.’

‘I guess that means you won’t come with me?’ I light another cigarette and take a deep inhale.

‘I’d love to,
amiga
, but I’ve promised my parents I’ll help in the shop over the summer. Maybe another year?’

‘OK,’ I reply, ‘I’m going to hold you to that, Ana,’ I say, as we both lie back on the bed, candlelight flickering around the room. ‘I’m so excited, for you, for me. For our futures.’ She squeezes my hand, and I long for this night to go on and on.

T
hree months later
, the sun is sinking behind the dome of the Koutoubia Mosque and I sit perched in front of it, sketching the intricate minaret and eating roasted cashews. My sketchpad is filling up quickly and I flick through it, smiling at the memories of Tangiers and Chefchaouen and Fez and other places with equally magical names. I’ve always considered myself terrible at drawing, but as I flick critically through the pages, I decide there are a few I rather like, such as the Moroccan tea pot and glass of mint tea and the pyramid of spices at a market stall.

Never mind Ana, my family were
horrified
when I told them I was going to Morocco. And even more shocked to learn I planned to travel alone. But on all my previous jaunts through Spain, this was the way I’d enjoyed travelling.
Bueno
, so North Africa may throw up a few extra challenges than I’m accustomed to, but I know that Ana would never really have agreed to come, and that I’d learn a great deal from travelling alone.

The call to prayer begins. It drifts over the heads of men hurrying to and fro through the mosque’s arched gateway. I watch as large white storks with black-tipped wings are disturbed from nearby and swoop over my head, powerful wings pounding, before settling on the wall near to me. The air is still warm but I’ve been sitting for a long time and decide that a stroll will do me some good to pump circulation back round my body. I replace everything into my bag, jump off the wall and start to walk. I love this city: the brightness of the souks filled with sparkling slippers, curling lampshades and teapots. The pungent smells of sweetmeats and freshly tanned leather. Spices filling my nostrils. But more than anything else, I love the Jemaa-I-Fna, Marrakech’s town square serving as outdoor restaurant, night-time circus and meeting place. It is alive in a way I’ve never imagined possible before: all the colours and textures and sounds and smells melded and fused so powerfully that the square is like a magnet, pulling me back again and again.

This evening it’s filled with dancing monkeys, fortune-tellers and long-haired hippies with glazed grins etched on their faces. I’ve been walking around for a while when I stop at a large crowd gathered around one elderly man and a young boy. Though I can’t understand a word, I’m intrigued by the crowd they’ve drawn and the hold they posses over everyone watching. Dozens of people, both young and old, sit enthralled by the tales they spin as they expertly take up the story from one another. They allow for plenty of pauses, both for dramatic licence and suspense and for the boy to nip round the crowd with an upturned hat.

I’m about to move on when a man in the crowd catches my eye. He looks just like one of the many hippies who’ve set up home in Marrakech, with his long tousled hair and bearded face. But his eyes have a sharpness that I haven’t really seen in the usual band of pleasure seekers. He’s squatting on his haunches, engaged in intense debate with a local man wearing a
jalabi
next to him. I’m curious. I edge round the back of the throng until I’m standing behind them and try to pick up on their conversation through the din of the crowd. They’re conversing in French and although I speak the language well now following my years at university, the noise around me is too loud. The man has a camera slung round his neck and after a while he rises and calls something out to the storytellers that makes them laugh. After placing a coin into the hat, he takes several photos as the pair pose and bow. As he turns to move away, our eyes meet for an instant before he smiles broadly at me and vanishes into the crowd.

I keep an eye out for him around Marrakech in the souks and the fragrant palace gardens. I don’t quite understand why I want to see this person again that I haven’t even spoken to. After a few days, I tell myself that he’s probably moved on; either that, or even if he is here, it’ll be virtually impossible to single him out again in the crowds. But four nights after the evening in the square, my wish to see the stranger again is granted. I’m sitting at a pavement café drinking fresh mint tea, absorbed in my diary writing, when I realise that somebody has sat opposite me at the table. Startled, I look up and am even more surprised to be greeted by the sight of the man with the kind brown eyes in the souk. He is smiling at me and I feel my stomach violently flip with nerves and excitement but manage to smile back.

‘
Bonsoir
,’ he says.

‘
Bonsoir
.’

‘May I join you?’

I want to say that he’s already done so, but just grin inanely back and say ‘Sure.’

There is a pause. I feel completely tongue-tied and have no idea what to say to this man. But he seems perfectly at ease, which I don’t know whether to feel grateful for or annoyed by. He raises a hand and orders another mint tea and cakes from a passing waiter and then looks back at me and gives me that same boyish grin he gave me in the square. He’s wearing a blue T-shirt and red flares over scuffed leather sandals and his arms and face are deeply tanned. Dark brown hair sticks up at haphazard angles on his head; it is the kind of hair that I normally hate because I can never understand why people don’t take more care with their appearance. But I have to admit that the tousled look suits him. And then there are those eyes – deep brown, depthless eyes that somehow make me feel I can instinctively trust him.

‘
Oyé,
you’re Spanish, aren’t you?’ he asks, swapping languages.

‘
Sí
,’ I reply. ‘How did you know?’

‘The Spanish accent’s a hard one to disguise. I should know. I’m Alberto.’ He stretches a long arm across the table and we shake hands. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Granada,’ I reply. ‘And you?’

Alberto leans back in his chair and laughs. ‘Otivar.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He looks straight at me and smiles and my stomach lurches again. Otivar is a small town in Granada province, not that far from my own home. I’ve been travelling in Morocco now for almost three weeks and have met various foreigners from around Europe, America and Canada but, surprisingly, not a single Spaniard. And certainly not a Spaniard whose home is so close to my own.

‘You haven’t told me your name,’ Alberto says.

‘Oh,’ I say, flustered and then, immediately annoyed with myself, tug at my ponytail. ‘Paloma.
Soy
Paloma.’

‘Paloma,’ he repeats quietly, looking suddenly serious, as though weighing up my name. I watch as he stirs two teaspoons of sugar into his tea and then he looks up at me and grins again, the friendliest smile I’ve ever seen. And, in spite of myself, I feel myself relaxing.

Alberto and I sit there for two hours, talking and ordering one tea after another until my teeth and mouth are tingling with all the sugar. A self-employed photographer, he’s spent the past year travelling around North Africa, compiling a portfolio of images depicting all the peoples and landscapes of these nations and eking out a living by selling the black and white prints in market places back home. He doesn’t make much money, but it’s money all the same he says, and he has to be grateful for anything.

When I eventually motion to leave, saying that it’s getting chilly, Alberto jumps up, unties the jumper from around his waist and places it around my shoulders.

I laugh. ‘Very chivalrous,
gracias
. But I should be getting back.’

‘Why should you?’ There is a twinkle in his eye.

I sigh. There’s no reason, really. But I’ve created a little routine for myself back at the tiny riad I’m staying in: tea with the owner’s wife in the courtyard, and then writing my diary from the roof of the building, listening to all the sounds rising from the city beneath me.

‘I just should,’ I say stubbornly.

I stand up and motion for the waiter. I go to hand back Alberto’s jumper but he holds his hand out and says ‘Keep it till tomorrow.’

‘What’s happening tomorrow?’

‘You’re going to meet me if…’ he suddenly falters, ‘if you’d like to?’

I bite my bottom lip and give him a small smile. ‘Well.
Bueno
. Where shall we meet?’

T
he following morning
, I wake up to mottled shafts of bright sunlight streaming through the cracks in the wooden shutter and warming my forehead. Vivid shapes and patterns dance beneath my closed eyelids as, still half-asleep, I listen to the shrill chatter of women scrubbing the courtyard outside my room and the slosh of water upon tiles. I drift in and out of sleep, threads of half-remembered dreams edging their way back into my mind and leading me through a waltz of distant voices and scenes.