The Barefoot Queen (61 page)

“This man …” Martín started to say, pointing to Melchor.

The people at the door looked at him expectantly, waiting for his next words. Melchor understood the young man’s intentions and they both pounced on them at the same time, as if they were a wall.

Several of the men fell to the floor. Martín and Melchor did too. The ones behind backed away. Others stumbled. Outside darkness reigned. The Virgin lurched. Most of the brothers shifted their attention to her image. Martín, covered by arms and legs, grabbed Melchor again, who couldn’t move with his hands tied behind his back, helped him up, stepped on several brothers and ran.

Many didn’t understand what had happened. Among complaints and cursing they heard the sound of laughter disappearing down Almirante Street.

YOUNG MARTÍN
was surprised when Melchor, after thanking him for his help with a couple of sincere kisses, refused to go to El Cascabelero’s house and instead asked him to take him to Peligros Street.

“OK, Uncle,” agreed the boy, stifling his curiosity. “But the other Garcías … when they get word of your escape …”

“Don’t worry. You just take me there.”

Eleven full days and nights. Melchor had kept track.
Will she still be at the hostel?
he thought as he hurried the boy. A disheveled Alfonsa, whom they got out of bed after banging repeatedly on the door to her apartment, dashed the gypsy’s hopes. “She went with the cutter,” she said. “That’s what the washerwoman told me.” Caridad was gone. The guests came and went at the whim of their purses, which was often, by the way, she added when Melchor wanted to see the washerwoman. She knew nothing of the cutter either. Had she asked him for references when he showed up in the middle of the night with Pelayo and some black woman? There were countless possibilities as to Caridad’s fate that had occurred to Melchor while he was locked up, each more disquieting than the one before, yet none of them were that she had voluntarily left with another man.

“It can’t be!” he spat out.

“Gypsy,” replied the innkeeper with feigned weariness, “you abandoned
her; you left her alone for several days. Why are you surprised she went off with another man?”

Because I heard her sing. Because I was the only company she had. Because I loved her and she … Did he love Caridad? He had never admitted it, but he was sure he did, because of all the women he had known throughout his life, he had never felt, until being with Caridad, that union of body and spirit that gave his pleasure a hithertofore unknown dimension. If he didn’t satisfy his desire completely, he could quell that frustration by merely brushing the back of his hand on the
morena
’s cheek. It was absurd and alarming: constant desire and satisfaction, endlessly intermingling. Of course she loved him! Because he had heard her scream with pleasure; because she smiled at him and caressed him; because her singing was starting to lose the grief and affliction that seemed to haunt her.

Alfonsa held the gypsy’s gaze, now saddened, missing the spark it had held the night he had showed up with Caridad. She had thrown out the cutter after finding out what had happened; she didn’t want scandals in her hostel. Then she had gathered Caridad’s things and taken the money she had in her bundle. Her documents ended up burning in the stove, and the red clothes and hat were sold off cheaply to a secondhand clothes shop. If the woman ever came back and denied her version, all she had to do was insist that that was what the washerwoman had told her. And if they asked about the bundle, she would just say that the cutter and the washerwoman had divided it up amongst themselves …

“Uncle …” Martín tried to attract Melchor’s attention from the dismay he sensed in him. “Uncle,” he had to insist.

“Let’s go,” said the gypsy, finally reacting but not before shooting a look, his eyes sparkling again but now with a terrifying gleam, at the innkeeper. “Woman, if I find out that you’ve tricked me, I will come back to kill you.”

The boy headed toward Comadre Street.

“Wait,” urged Melchor when they reached Alcalá Street. It was pitch black and an almost absolute silence reigned. El Galeote took Martín by the shoulders and faced him. “Are you planning on taking me to your father’s house?”

Martín nodded.

“I don’t think I should go there,” objected the gypsy.

“But …”

“You freed me and I will be grateful all my life, but you were the only one there, no other Costes men, no gypsies allied with the Costes family.” Melchor let a few seconds pass. “Your father … your father decided not to fight for me, right?” The boy’s gaze, glued to the ground, was enough of a reply for Melchor. “Going to his house now would only mean humiliating and shaming him, him and all your family.”

Melchor left out the misgivings that were also filling him: if they hadn’t helped him, what guarantees did he have that they wouldn’t sell him out to the Garcías? Maybe not El Cascabelero, but those around him, those he had surely consulted before making the decision to abandon him to his fate. It wasn’t something he could have settled alone.

“Do you understand?” he added.

Martín lifted his head. He felt ashamed by his family’s attitude. “Yes,” he answered.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll land on my feet. I have to … I have to find someone.”

“The
morena
?” Martín interrupted.

“Yes.”

“Is it the one they also condemned in Triana?”

“Yes. Don’t mention it to anyone.”

“I swear to it on my Vega blood,” declared the boy.

He will be true to his word, Melchor told himself. “Good. The problem now is you.”

Martín was confused by his words.

“You have to disappear, boy. Here, in Madrid, they will kill you, one day or another. I know what I am going to say will pain you, but don’t trust anyone, not even your father. He, probably … surely he wishes you no harm, but he could find himself forced to choose between you and the rest of his family. You must leave Madrid. Go say goodbye to your father and leave, this very night if possible. Don’t look for protection in your family even in other cities, even if your father insists, because they will find you. I don’t know where there are other Vegas—I’m afraid they’ve all been arrested. But there is a place on the border with Portugal, Barrancos, where you will find protection. Take the road to Mérida and then head toward Jerez de los Caballeros. From there it is easy to reach. Look for a
tobacco dealer named Méndez and tell him I sent you; he will help you and teach you the art of smuggling. Don’t trust him either, but as long as you are useful to him you won’t have any problems.”

Melchor looked the boy up and down. He was only fifteen, but he had just shown greater fearlessness and valor than his own father. He was a gypsy. A Vega, and those of his line could take care of themselves.

“Did you understand me?”

Martín nodded.

“Well, this is where we part, although I have the feeling we will meet again, if the devil doesn’t get me first.”

Melchor still held him tightly by the shoulders. A slight tremble was transferred to the palms of his hands. He drew close to the boy and hugged him hard. The grandson his daughter hadn’t given him!

“One more thing,” he warned him after they separated. “There are worse people out there than the Garcías. Don’t wield your knife until you’ve learned to use it well.” Melchor was shaken by the memory of the sudden attack at the inn, how he’d held the knife out in front of him like a pike. “Don’t let yourself be blinded by your rage in quarrels, that will only lead to mistakes and death, and remember that bravery is worth nothing if it’s not matched by intelligence.”

THE DAWN
found Melchor leaning against the wall of the salt-cod warehouse at the gap in the wall near Embajadores, with the gully behind the wall opening up at his feet. There the city ended; there he had hidden to spend the rest of the night after bidding farewell to young Martín. Weary, he had fallen into a sleep that was constantly interrupted by Caridad’s image. At some moments Melchor tried to convince himself of the impossibility of her running off with the cutter; at other times he was gripped by anguish when he tried to imagine where she could be. Remaining still, he tried to organize his thoughts: they would look for him—the Garcías and their allies would be looking for him; he couldn’t go to anyone for help and he didn’t have a penny. He didn’t even have his knife or his yellow dress coat. He sighed. Bad start. The Garcías had taken everything from him. He had to find Caridad.
It’s not possible that she went off with another man,
he told himself once again in the light of day, but then … why hadn’t she waited at the guesthouse? Ten, eleven, twenty days if
need be. The
morena
was capable of that, she was as patient as the best of them and she had enough money to deal with all expenses. As a shiver ran up and down his spine, he rejected the thought that something bad had happened to her, that someone had forced themselves on her and killed her. No. The law, perhaps. Had she been arrested? In that case they would have arrested Alfonsa too for hiding her in a secret guesthouse; besides, the
morena
had her documents in order and never got into trouble—at least not voluntarily, smiled the gypsy, remembering the beaches of Manilva and the bags of tobacco they had stolen from her. He could only imagine … She was a tremendously desirable woman, voluptuous, black as ebony, showy and fascinating for a lusty city like Madrid. Any ruffian could make quite a profit off her. His stomach shrank and he trembled as he imagined Caridad being passed from man to man, disgracefully sold in any disgusting hole in the wall. He would find her! He got up stiffly, leaning on the wall. Absorbed in his thoughts, he hadn’t realized that the people of Madrid were already up and working. Below the gully, on a plain, they were trading livestock. He extended his neck and the breeze brought him the market’s hubbub and the neighing and braying of the animals, but not their scent, which was canceled out by what came from the salt-cod warehouse. The water the workers for the Provisions Board soaked the salted cod in, so it could later be sold, was tossed into the gully. Madrid consumed more cod than any other fish, including sardines, hake and tuna. The pious Spanish Christians paid enormous sums of money to their bitter enemies, the heretical English, for the supply of enough salted cod for their countless days of abstinence. The horses and the scent of fish made him think of Triana, the Guadalquivir, the pontoon bridge that linked it to Seville, the San Miguel alley and the gypsy settlement. There, among the orange trees, he had found Caridad. And Milagros, what had become of his girl? Had she forgiven him yet? José Carmona had deserved that stabbing. He sighed as he thought that Ana was the only one who could fix it. She was her mother. Milagros would listen to her … if he could get her freed.

MADRID LIVED
in its streets, which ended up becoming the gypsy’s home as well, blending into the army of beggars that populated them; he wore a splint on his right leg under his britches to fake a limp, and an old
cloth cap and a worn blanket, both stolen, to cover part of his face even in the summer heat.

Melchor set out in search of Caridad. He traveled through the neighborhoods of Madrid’s eleven districts. Whether in Lavapiés, in Afligidos, in Maravillas or any other, he spent the days sitting in the streets and plazas, attentive to the patrols of magistrates who could arrest him, as much as the daily comings and goings of Madrid’s women: to mass, to buy food, with jugs for water, to bake bread, to wash clothes, to sell the darning they did at home and on all sorts of errands; few of them remained inside their gloomy dwellings more than strictly necessary, and the gypsy listened to the din of their conversations and witnessed their numerous disputes.

Men. They were the cause of the bitterest fights between women in a society where women who were single, widowed or abandoned outnumbered the married by thousands. He told himself often that it wouldn’t be hard to recognize a Negro woman among them. He saw several; some he ruled out from a distance, others he followed limping until he was sure of his disappointment. On feast days and holidays, almost one hundred a year thanks to ecclesiastical zeal, he saw the women of Madrid leave their homes smiling and proud, all spruced up and dressed in the Spanish style: narrow waists and generous necklines, mantillas and combs, and he followed them to the Migascalientes copse, to the Corregidor plain or the fountain of La Teja, where they flirted with men and snacked, sang and danced until the men got into quarrels and started throwing rocks at each other. He didn’t find his
morena
there either.

However, it was at night when Melchor searched most. He was looking for prostitutes.

“You are lovely,” he would flatter them. “But …” he pretended to hesitate, “I’m looking for something special.”

Before they insulted him or spat at him as some had done, Melchor showed them his money.

“Like what?” they would respond once they’d seen the coins.

“A virgin girl …”

“You’ll never have enough money for that.”

“Well … a black girl. Yes, a black girl. Do you know of any?”

There were some. They took him around, to dark alleys and squalid
rooms. On every occasion, he squandered on the matchmakers the few coins he had been able to gather with his hustling.

“No! A real Negro,” he then insisted if he sensed that the woman might be able to help him. “I want a black, black girl. Young, beautiful. I’ll pay whatever it takes. Find her for me and I’ll pay you well.”

Money. That was his biggest problem. Without money he couldn’t sustain the greed of the various women of the night whom he had sent in search of Caridad. His sustenance was taken care of by the Church, but it had been some time since he’d smoked a cigar or drunk a good jug of wine.
I must really love you,
morena! he told himself as he passed the many taverns and bars without stopping. When he was hungry he would join the long lines of indigents at the doors of a monastery waiting for the watery slop that was handed out daily at most of them. He also kept an eye out for the bread and egg patrol that left the church of the Alemanes every night to attend to the needy. Three brothers from the Brotherhood of the Refugio—one of them a priest—along with a servant who lit up the street with a lantern, alternated neighborhoods in their rounds to pick up the dead, take the sick to hospitals, offer spiritual comfort to the dying and feed the rest: a piece of bread and two hard-boiled eggs; big eggs as was to be expected of a prestigious brotherhood, because the little ones, those that fit through a hole that the brothers had made in a wooden board to check their width, were rejected.