The Barefoot Queen (96 page)

He dodged his thrust again.

“The Vega line ends with you,” muttered Pedro, “all your descendants are women.”

Melchor didn’t answer.

“And they’re all whores,” those who were closest to Pedro heard him say.

Melchor swallowed his rage, Caridad could tell, then she saw him provoke his enemy with his free hand.
Come on,
it said. Pedro accepted the invitation. The crowd broke out in whispers when the García’s knife cut El Galeote’s forearm open. In just a moment the blood dyed Melchor’s sleeve dark and he responded to the wound with a couple of ineffective charges. Pedro smiled. He attacked again. Another stab, this one to the wrist that Melchor used to protect himself. The crowd fell silent, as if they could foresee the outcome. Melchor attacked clumsily. Pedro’s knife reached his neck, near the nape.

Caridad looked at Ana, who was on her knees, lifting her head with difficulty, her hands intertwined between her legs. Behind her was Milagros. She brought her gaze back to the fight just in time to feel, as if in her own flesh, the stab that Melchor got in his side. As the blade went into him it was as if it were wounding her. Beyond the knives, she saw Reyes, and her husband, and the Garcías and the Carmonas smiling. Melchor was dragging one leg, panting … and bleeding profusely. Caridad recognized that her man was going to die. Pedro was playing with his rival, delaying his death, humiliating him by dodging his weak thrusts easily, and laughing heartily.
Devil,
thought Caridad,
how does one go down to hell?
She turned toward Martín, who was motionless by her side, and tried to grab the handle of the knife that emerged from the young man’s sash.

“No.” He stopped her.

They struggled.

“He’s going to kill him!” moaned Caridad.

Martín didn’t yield. Caridad finally gave up and she was about to jump in to help Melchor with her bare hands when Martín grabbed her. They struggled again, and he hugged her as tightly as he could.

“He’ll kill him,” she sobbed.

“No,” he assured her into her ear. Caridad wanted to look at his face, but he didn’t let up on his grip and continued speaking. “He doesn’t fight like that. I know. He taught me how to fight, Caridad; I know him. He’s letting him get a few stabs in!”

A second passed. She stopped trembling.

Martín let Caridad go, and she looked back at the fight when Pedro, exultant, sure of himself, looked at his grandparents as if he wanted to dedicate the end of this enemy to them, now that he was about to strike the definitive blow. La Trianera was slow to grasp what was going on, and tried to react when she saw her grandson attack El Galeote languidly, filled with vanity. The warning died in her throat when Melchor dodged the stab aimed right at his heart and, with a vigor born of rage, hatred and even pain itself, sank his knife to the hilt in Pedro García’s neck, who stopped short with a grimace of surprise, before Melchor viciously dug deeper, until he finally pulled it out with a spurt of blood.

In the most absolute silence, the old gypsy spat on the body lying on the ground, still gushing blood. He wanted to look over at the Garcías, but he was unable to. He tried to stand up straight. He couldn’t do that either. He only managed to look into Caridad’s eyes before collapsing. She ran to his side.

Two days had passed since the fight. Melchor woke up in the middle of the night and adjusted his eyes to the faint light of the candles in the empty apartment on the alley where they had set themselves up; he looked at Ana and Milagros, who stood at the foot of the straw mattress.

Then he asked them to take him to Barrancos.

“I don’t want to die near the Garcías,” he managed to mutter.

“You aren’t going to die, Grandfather.”

Carmen, a gypsy healer whom Ana had called from Osuna, turned toward her and shrugged.

“Whatever will be, will be,” she confirmed. “Here, in Barrancos … on the road to Barrancos,” she said, anticipating Milagros’s question.

Melchor seemed to be listening to her.

“You shouldn’t stay in Triana,” he managed to say. “Never trust the Garcías.”

Several of the gypsy women in the room nodded their heads to the sound of Melchor’s labored breathing.

“And the
morena
?” he asked.

“Dancing,” answered Milagros.

The answer didn’t seem to surprise Melchor, who moaned as he smiled.

Caridad watched over Melchor during the day. She followed the
healer’s instructions and, with Ana and Milagros, changed bandages and dressings, and replaced the damp cloths on his forehead to combat the fevers. She sang softly as if Melchor could hear her. One of the gypsy women tried to stop her, making a displeased face when she heard the Negro songs, but Ana shot her a severe look and Caridad kept on singing. When night fell she slipped away and ran to the orange grove where she had first met the gypsy. There, timidly at first, and later with wild abandon, a convulsive shadow among the shadows, hitting sticks together in her hands, she sang and danced to Eleggua, he who decides men’s fates. She hadn’t earned his favor, but the supreme god hadn’t yet decided to take her man either. Melchor had made her a woman; he had taught her how to love, how to be free. Could it be this was the lesson she was missing? Knowing the real pain of losing the man she loved? She had been just a girl when they took her away from her mother and siblings; the pain was then blended with her childish lack of understanding, and it was tempered by the distractions of new experiences. Years later Don José had sold her first son and he ended up separating her from the second, Marcelo; Caridad was a slave and slaves didn’t suffer, they didn’t even think, they just worked. On that occasion, the pain came up against the impenetrable scab with which slaves covered their feelings in order to keep on living: that’s how things were; their children didn’t belong to them. But now … Melchor had destroyed that scab, and she knew, and felt; she was free and she loved … And she didn’t want to suffer!

“Don’t let her go to the fields alone,” said Melchor.

“Don’t worry, Father, Martín is watching out for her.”

The gypsy was satisfied, nodded and closed his eyes.

“It doesn’t seem prudent to take Melchor to Barrancos.”

The comment, directed at both mother and daughter, came from Fray Joaquín. Once the fight was over, the priest had followed them discreetly, as if he were part of the family, blending in with the other Vegas who had nowhere to go and some of the gypsy women who were delaying their departure awaiting what they saw as an imminent denouement. Many gathered around the house. With Melchor’s anguished situation as he hovered between life and death, the burials of Luisa and Pedro, the crying and moaning in the funeral, the tension over what could happen with the Garcías despite their promises … nobody was paying much attention to Fray Joaquín.

“Prudence has never been one of my father’s virtues, wouldn’t you agree, Fray Joaquín?”

“But now … in his state, you are the one who should decide.”

“While he still has a single breath of life, he will decide, Father.”

“It isn’t a good idea,” insisted the friar. He words were addressed to Ana, but his gaze was fixed on her daughter. “You should find a good surgeon who—”

“Surgeons cost a lot of money,” interrupted Ana.

“I could …”

“Where would you get the money from?” interjected Milagros.

“From the statue of the Immaculate Virgin. Selling it. It was valuable before, but now it’s even more so. It seems the locusts jumped into the river at the sight of her.”

“Thank you, Fray Joaquín, but no,” Ana refused his offer.

Milagros studied her mother carefully. No, Ana repeated with her head.
If you let the friar make another sacrifice for you, you won’t be able to refuse him,
she wanted to explain to her.

“But …” Fray Joaquín started to say.

“With all due respect, I think my father would feel humiliated if he knew that a Virgin had had to help him out with money,” Ana said as an excuse, while thinking it was probably true.

“Are you sure, Mother?” asked Milagros after the downcast friar left them alone.

Ana hugged her, and they both looked at Melchor, lying down with cloths and bandages all over; the worst injury, the worrying one according to the healer, was the stab in his side, near where El Gordo had wounded him. Ana squeezed Milagros’s shoulder before answering.

“Are you sure, my daughter?”

“What do you mean?”

Her mother’s look was explanation enough.

“Fray Joaquín has treated me very well,” said Milagros. “He saved my life and then …”

“That’s not enough. You know that.”

She did know it. Milagros shivered.

“In Madrid,” she whispered, “when he saved me, I thought … I don’t know. Then later, on the way to Barrancos … you can’t imagine how well he took care of me, his attentiveness, his efforts to get money, food,
places to sleep. All I had was him and I thought … I felt … But then I found Grandfather, and Cachita, and you, and I got my girl back.” Milagros sighed. “It’s … it’s as if the love I thought I felt for him has been diluted by the others. Now I look at Fray Joaquín with different eyes.”

“You have to tell him.”

Milagros shook her head as she made a dismayed face. “I can’t. I don’t want to hurt him. He gave up everything for me.”

Ana Vega made a meaningful gesture toward one of the Vega women, who instantly took their place at the foot of the straw mattress, and she gently pushed her daughter toward the door of the house. The heat of the night was oppressive and humid. They walked through the courtyard in silence and then they sat down on two rickety chairs.

“The friar will understand,” said Ana.

“And what if he doesn’t?”

“Milagros, you have already made one mistake in your life. Don’t make another.”

Milagros played with a ribbon she wore around her wrist. She was dressed in a simple red skirt and a white shirt, which she had swapped for the black clothes she’d brought from Madrid. They had also given her several colorful ribbons.

“A very big mistake,” she admitted after a little while. “I didn’t heed your warnings then. I should have—”

“It was probably my fault,” her mother interrupted her. “I didn’t know how to convince you.” Ana put her hand over Milagros’s. Her daughter grabbed it.

“You know?” Her voice was trembling. “Things change when you’re a mother. I hope that someday my daughter is as proud of me as I am of you today. All of Andalusia came to your aid! No. It wasn’t your fault. When you have a daughter, things look differently than they did when you were fifteen. Now I understand: your family comes first, the ones who won’t let you down; nothing and no one else exists. I trust I’ll be able to teach that to María. I’m sorry, Mother.”

The ones who won’t let you down
echoed in Ana Vega’s ears as she shifted her damp eyes toward the house where her father lay.
El Galeote is strong; all sinew,
the healer had said to cheer her up as Melchor struggled to curse all the women who were badgering him.
Don’t give up, gypsy,
she had heard Caridad say when his teeth chattered from the fever. She
remembered the almost superhuman effort that Melchor had made when he found out that Pedro had killed Old María, as if he wanted to get up off the straw mattress to run and kill him again. They had hesitated over whether to tell him about it after Milagros had told them the story.
And what if he dies without knowing that he also avenged Old María?
said Caridad, ending the debate. It was Milagros who told him.
Your family, the ones who won’t let you down
.… Ana hugged her daughter.

“Fight, my father, fight!” she whispered.

THE SUN
was high in the sky the following day when Martín entered the house looking for the women.

“I’ve got everything prepared,” he announced.

Caridad made no motion to leave, as she was busy feeding Melchor a cold broth. Ana sensed Fray Joaquín perking up his ears.

“You go and have a look,” she then said to Milagros.

The friar soon followed her to the alley, where they found a ramshackle cart with two wooden wheels, without sides or a driver’s seat, and a miserable old donkey yoked to its shaft.

Milagros examined the straw on which Melchor would travel.

“Back to Barrancos,” said Fray Joaquín.

Martín looked the friar up and down before leaving him alone with Milagros, who continued moving the straw around as if she were looking for something.

“Yes,” she confirmed, still rummaging through the straw. “That’s what Grandfather wants.”

The silence extended between them.

Finally, Milagros turned.

“What does my hand foretell?” Fray Joaquín surprised her by holding it out for her to read.

She didn’t touch it.

“Fortune telling … You know that’s all just bunk.” Her voice scratched at her throat; she didn’t want to cry.

“It depends on what the gypsy who reads it wants to see,” insisted Fray Joaquín, extending his hand further, encouraging her to take it in her own.

Milagros wanted to lower her head, hide her gaze. She didn’t because
of the memory of her childhood in Triana, his help in Madrid and on the way to Barrancos, his having saved her life and all the tenderness and affection he had showed her afterward. Yet she said nothing.