Golden Earrings (43 page)

The attendant at the gate had marked on the cemetery’s map the location of la Rusa’s grave. Jaime checked it, then pointed in the direction we had to go.

‘If there was a soundtrack for this cemetery,’ he asked me, ‘what would it be?’

‘Something hauntingly beautiful,’ I said. ‘I know … Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No 6,
Pathétique
”.’ I remembered
it was one of the pieces that Xavier had played at the Cerdàs’ supper where Mamie first met Avi.

La Rusa’s gravestone was black granite and it was covered in flowers. She was supposed to have betrayed my great-uncle and yet for some reason I found it comforting that she was still venerated by lovers of flamenco.

‘It’s poignant that someone who became such a recluse later in life is buried in one of the most densely populated areas of the cemetery,’ I said.

Jaime squeezed my hand. ‘Are you all right here for a while? I’ll go visit Jim.’

He was referring to Jim Morrison from The Doors, who had died a few years before. Jaime was a big fan.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I told him.

I watched Jaime walk away up the winding path. The golden earrings tingled in my pocket. I had explained to Jaime that I wanted to see la Rusa’s grave but not that I wanted to try to contact her. I had shared everything about Mamie’s story with him, but for some reason I wanted to keep this part to myself. I hoped that la Rusa would appear again so I could ask her why she had visited me. It was strange, but since she had helped me at my examination, I was no longer afraid of her.

I took the earrings out and examined them in the sunlight. They looked in every way like an ordinary pair of hooped earrings. Who could believe that they had crossed worlds? Mamie’s heart attack had made me forget my intention of throwing them in the Seine. I was glad that I hadn’t.

‘La Rusa … Celestina,’ I whispered.

I waited for a response. But there was none: only the rustling of the breeze through the trees.

Jaime returned about half an hour later. ‘Fans keep stealing the markers for Jim’s grave,’ he told me. ‘But it’s still easy to find because of all the people standing around it. The cemetery has even placed a security guard there.’

I knew that Jaime had to leave to play guitar for Carmen’s advanced classes, but I wanted to stay by la Rusa’s grave a little longer. Although cimetière du Père-Lachaise was a place for reflection and peace, there were sometimes reports of muggings and rapes occurring there. But there were plenty of summer tourists wandering around, so I felt safe to be on my own.

‘Will you give me a call later on?’ Jaime asked.

I nodded, and we kissed. Although Carmen and the others weren’t there, I had a strange sense that someone was watching us.

‘
Hasta luego!
’ Jaime said, and waved before heading in the direction of the exit.

I waited a while longer, but when la Rusa didn’t appear, I decided to leave by the porte de la Réunion gate so I could visit the memorial for the Second World War deportees and Resistance fighters. I paused for a moment to remember Avi and how he had ‘lost’ his music in a German prisoner-of-war camp. The suffering of Spanish Republicans hadn’t finished with the end of the Civil War.

‘You seem very interested in la Rusa.’

I spun around to see a man standing behind me. My blood went cold. There was something menacing in the way he’d asked the question. What did he want? He appeared to be in his seventies and was short with a round face and body. But he looked physically powerful. What was he? A mugger? A rapist? I didn’t have anything valuable on me except for the golden earrings. And then I realised that the man had spoken in a marked Spanish accent. Something about his clothing struck me too. He wasn’t shabbily dressed but he wore his clothes badly. The leather jacket and crocodile-skin shoes seemed expensive but were all wrong on a man his age. A gold chain nestled in the hairs of his barrel chest. There was an underworld air about him. Was he a drug dealer? I found myself wishing that I had left the cemetery with Jaime.

‘You are not a reporter, in any case,’ the man said. ‘You are a descendant of the Montellas.’

I didn’t like the way he said ‘Montellas’, as if it gave him a bad taste in his mouth.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, feeling braver now that I was sure he wasn’t a rapist. I was obviously known to him in some way.

He fixed his eyes on me. ‘I am Ramón Sanchez. La Rusa was my sister.’

A blow to the head couldn’t have stunned me more. I stood with my mouth open.

Ramón’s eyes darted from me to the memorial and back to me again. ‘Why is a Montella wanting information about my sister?’

Now I knew who he was, I had no hesitation: I reached into my pocket and showed him the earrings.

He seemed startled by the sight of them, but quickly recovered. ‘You’d better come with me,’ he said. ‘I’m parked over there.’

I turned to where he was pointing. Outside the exit was a brown BMW Longue. It was the car I had seen when I went to visit where la Rusa had died; and again outside my apartment building.

‘You’ve been following me?’

‘I wanted to know who you were and what you wanted. I have something of great importance to tell you.’ He sounded less antagonistic and more awe-struck.

I wondered again how he’d known who I was. Then I remembered the policeman who had kept staring at me the day I went to the prefecture pretending to be a reporter investigating la Rusa’s death. Now Ramón’s earlier comment made more sense to me. It must have been the policeman who informed him. I still wasn’t sure that going with him was a wise idea. Should I telephone Jaime or Carmen first? Then I realised that the man standing before me could answer every question I had. He could tell me why la Rusa had appeared to me.

Ramón drove me to Orly, an outer suburb of Paris. It wasn’t far from where la Rusa had killed herself. He parked the car and I followed him into his apartment building, feeling that I was getting more and more out of my depth.

His apartment on the tenth floor made me wonder what he did for a living. My gaze moved from the shag-pile rugs to the brown leather chairs. A Marantz stereo system took up one wall of the living room. Like Ramón’s dress style, everything in the apartment looked expensive but somehow in poor taste. Through a door I saw another room with an open trunk bursting with flamenco dresses and an antique Spanish dressing table. I no longer had to wonder who had cleared out la Rusa’s apartment.

‘Take a seat,’ Ramón said. ‘Would you like a drink? I would.’

I shook my head. His attitude towards me had improved markedly and I wondered why.

Ramón headed towards his bar to mix himself a Cinzano Bianco. He returned and sat uncomfortably close to me. His spicy aftershave made me want to sneeze. ‘So how did you get those earrings?’

‘Your sister gave them to me.’

‘I buried them with my sister.’

Ramón stared at me intensely, but I wasn’t sure if that meant he believed me or not. After all, who could believe my story? Was he going to accuse me of graverobbing?

‘How many times have you seen her?’ he asked me.

‘Twice.’

To my surprise, he nodded. ‘She said she’d return with them, although I didn’t understand everything that she was explaining to me then. I didn’t understand that she was going to kill herself.’

‘My grandmother thinks la Rusa betrayed her brother, Xavier, during the Civil War. That she was responsible for his death.’

Ramón hesitated a moment at the mention of Mamie. ‘Of course she does,’ he said, staring into his drink. ‘It didn’t matter how high my sister rose or what she became, she would always be worthless in the eyes of the Montellas. Well, let me tell you, my sister was the most loyal person I’ve ever known. She was loyal to her family, she was loyal to her gypsy clan, she was loyal to her country. And, despite what Evelina Montella believes, she was loyal to the man she loved … and the child that they’d had together.’

‘A child!’

‘Yes,’ said Ramón. ‘A dark beauty who would grow up to dance magnificently.’

I turned away from Ramón. A thought was jabbing into my mind like a needle no matter how hard I tried to resist it. Mamie’s journal entries to Margarida came back to me:
I do not want to reveal to her the one thing she doesn’t need to know. If she found out, it would destroy her peace of mind for good …
I didn’t know if I had the strength to bear my life being turned upside down yet again. But was there any choice?

I turned back to Ramón. ‘If you know something, please tell me. Your sister is visiting me for a reason. I don’t think it’s because she wants something. I think it’s because she wants to help me.’

‘Yes,’ he said, looking at his hands. He sounded gentler and less bitter. ‘That’s exactly what she would do.’ He looked up at me again, his eyes misted with tears. ‘After all, you are her granddaughter.’

D
espite the care that Xavier and I had taken, I discovered in March 1936 that I was pregnant. After the doctor had confirmed my pregnancy, he assured me that under the new Republic abortion was legal.

‘I can recommend a reputable clinic,’ he said, which I assumed, even in those days of social equality, meant it catered for women of means. ‘You’re healthy. You’ll recover quickly,’ he promised me. ‘You can go home again that night and no one need ever know.’

I returned to my hotel suite and sat for a long time staring out the window. How could this have happened? I had no mothering instincts at all; children had never interested me. There were other considerations too. Even though I was wealthy and famous, I had none of the power of the privileged classes. Senyor Montella and his wife tolerated me. Even Conchita, though she had words to say about me, had stopped protesting my existence. In her eyes I had saved her from more babies after she had produced an heir in Feliu. But if I were to start having children with Xavier at a time when laws about property were rapidly changing and even illegitimate children might have claims, they would turn against me. Then what would that mean for Xavier and me? It appeared that the doctor had been right: abortion was the only option available.

I got up from the window and paced the room. The idea of destroying something that was part of Xavier sent a shudder through me. My stomach churned with panic. No, I couldn’t kill this child. What could I do? Go to France and give birth discreetly? Give the child to someone else to bring up?

Yes, that’s much better, I thought, and calmed down a little. But then doubts assailed me again. Was that a life for a child? To be fed and clothed but never to have parents? I thought of my own childhood after my parents had died: I had been unhappy and alone.

Xavier was away on business in Switzerland, so I couldn’t confide my troubles in him. Never in my life had I been so conflicted about what to do. Then one morning Evelina Montella came to pay me a visit. When the maid showed her in, I noticed that Evelina looked pale and shaken. I hadn’t heard from her in a few months and I wondered what had happened.

‘Please, sit down,’ I said, inviting her to take a place on the sofa.

Even after my maid had left the room, Evelina didn’t speak. She stared in front of her like a person who has suffered a shock.

‘Evelina, what is it?’

‘I lost it,’ she said. ‘I lost my child.’

She brought her hands to her face and sobbed hysterically.

Child? What child? At first I wasn’t sure what she had meant and then the truth dawned on me. ‘Evelina, are you saying that Francesc gave you a child and you miscarried?’

‘It was Gaspar’s child,’ she replied, taking her hands from her face. ‘We were together in January and I conceived his child. Like you said I should.’

What I was hearing sounded so uncharacteristic of Evelina that I was astonished. I hadn’t
told
her to have an affair with Gaspar. I’d simply suggested it could be a solution for her. And that conversation had taken place years earlier.

‘I was pregnant to Gaspar but I lost the child,’ Evelina repeated slowly. It was as if she was trying to get the facts of the matter clear in her own head. ‘I felt its heart beat for a short time and then it stopped. A few days ago, everything gushed out of me including the tiny unformed baby in its sac. The doctor said there is something wrong with my uterus, that I will never be able to have a baby.’

Evelina began to sob again and I put my arm around her. I felt pity for her, remembering what she had said to me once: ‘What I want more than anything else in the world is a child to love.’ Was God playing some sort of joke on us? Why had I become pregnant against my will while a woman who desperately wanted a child had lost the one she was carrying?

Then it occurred to me that maybe God was not playing a joke at all. Maybe Evelina’s problem was the solution to my own dilemma.

‘Does Francesc know?’ I asked her.

‘About the baby, yes … Not about what happened. He is away.’

‘But he was all right with accepting it? I mean, it does look much better for you to have a child than not — as long as people think it belongs to him.’

‘Yes, he was all right with it,’ she said, sadly.

‘And nobody else knows that you lost the baby besides the doctor?’

Evelina shook her head. She was puzzled by my question. ‘I didn’t go to the Cerdà family’s physician. I was too ashamed.’

I stood up and took a deep breath before speaking. ‘Evelina … I think there is a way I can help you.’

Evelina didn’t respond at first. She was too caught up in her grief. I sat down next to her and took her hand. ‘This is probably the most unselfish thing I’ve ever done, but I want to do it for you,’ I told her.

I watched Evelina’s expression change from despair, to surprise, to pensiveness, then slowly to joy as I told her my plan.

‘The baby won’t be Gaspar’s,’ I said, ‘but you will have a child to love. And one that shares your family’s blood. And,’ I added with a smile, ‘who might even turn out to be a good dancer.’

Evelina grabbed my hands and kissed them. ‘I now know what a true friend you are,’ she said, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘You are the answer to my prayers.’

She and I made our arrangement. Only Xavier and Evelina’s mother were to know. Everyone else could be fooled if she padded herself convincingly and mimicked the symptoms. I would go to France when I began to show, and she could join me at the close of her supposed pregnancy. She could use the good reputation of French doctors as an excuse to give birth to her first child in Paris.

After Evelina left, I was stunned at what had taken place. How perfect, I thought. Evelina would be a beautiful, doting mother, and the child would be brought up in the midst of Xavier’s family without anyone except Xavier and his mother being any the wiser. A sense of calm came to me: I had made the best decision for the life that had taken root in my womb. But when I undressed for my bath that evening and placed my hand on my stomach, a sense of loss swept over me; a feeling so profoundly sorrowful it was as if I had pledged not only the baby but my soul.

‘I wish we could have kept the baby,’ Xavier said when I told him. ‘But you did the best possible thing in the circumstances, and my sister is blissfully happy.’

Most of the time I felt that way too. Evelina would be the perfect mother; I was simply carrying the baby for her. She feigned everything so well, from the dreamy look that came to her face whenever she rested her hands on her belly, to
the fainting spells, which, ironically, I never experienced. But sometimes I felt angry in a way I hadn’t expected. This child would be brought up in the Montella house, Xavier’s house, but I would not be there. I would be on the outside. When I thought like that, I almost hated Evelina. I wanted to tell her, ‘The baby is growing under
my
heart, not yours!’ But most of the time, I numbed myself to all emotions. I had to accept things as they were. After all, this had been my choice.

I had always been slim, but the baby hardly showed under my flamenco skirts and loose dresses. No one seemed to suspect my pregnancy. I decided to take myself and my gypsy clan to Paris in the summer of 1936. They had grown to over forty adults and children now. Once there, I took a separate apartment, hoping to continue to keep my pregnancy hidden. Still, I wondered how I was going to absent myself for the birth.

Being so preoccupied with what was happening inside me, I hadn’t paid much attention to what was going on in Spain, where dark and dangerous forces were at work. No sooner had my clan and I arrived in Paris than we heard that a military uprising had taken place in Spain. It was unbelievable to me. The mood in Barcelona had been festive when we’d left: the city was about to host an alternative Olympic Games to those to be staged by Hitler in Berlin. The city had taken on the air of a popular beach resort and had been crowded with athletes and foreign tourists. How could a military coup take place in such a holiday atmosphere?

I sent a telegram to Xavier but did not receive a reply. I didn’t know then that the army had disrupted communications.

I read the French newspapers with trepidation and a sense of outrage. The coup had started in Morocco and spread to Spain in the form of garrison revolts. There had been some hesitation by the Republican government in arming the workers, but once they were given weapons, both men and women formed militias along with the loyal elements of the police and army. They
managed to quell the revolts in industrial areas like Barcelona and Madrid, but Spain was not out of danger. The Republic had been weakened.

‘Franco and his army had no right to attack the legitimate government of Spain!’ I shouted, even though there was no one to hear me.

While the mainstream French newspapers preached the need to stay calm lest intervention on the part of France bring on a full-scale European war, French workers and students took to the streets.
If Fascism isn’t stopped in Spain, it won’t be long before the whole of Europe is burning,
read the pamphlets they handed out. Every day, volunteers from around the world arrived in Paris, preparing to go to Spain to fight for the Republic that had been the dream of my father, Anastasio and Teresa. I ached to think the Republic had been attacked, but I was in no condition to do anything to help now that the baby was kicking and moving.

Xavier was eventually able to send a telegram, but he arrived in Paris before it did.

‘I’m here on a diplomatic mission to try to persuade the French to change their policy of non-intervention,’ he told me. ‘They are afraid to do anything without the British, who in turn are scared of provoking Hitler.’

When I listened to Xavier’s stories of how the workers had fought the army in Barcelona and brought down the coup, I felt as if a flame ignited in me. I wanted to be there fighting with them.

That night as we lay together, Xavier rested his head on my stomach. ‘It will be fine, won’t it?’ he asked me. ‘We’ll respect Evelina and Francesc in how they bring the child up … but it will be special knowing that it is a little bit of you and me.’

It comforted me that Xavier felt that way. I had never thought that I wanted a child, but as the baby moved inside me and became real, I found the idea of giving it away much harder.

‘Listen,’ said Xavier, ‘I have some unpleasant news. I think you’d better send your clan to America. Through the committee I’m on, we’ve received intelligence that the Nazis have set up a central office “For the Suppression of the Gypsy Nuisance” in Berlin. They are passing new race laws by the day. The Romani people are being herded into work camps to make armaments. According to the reports, they are being forcibly sterilised there.’

‘What?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘But surely my clan is safe here in Paris? They can hardly be accused of being criminal vagabonds when they live in an apartment near place Vendôme.’

‘There are Nazi supporters all over Europe, even here in France,’ said Xavier. ‘They’ll be better off if they leave the continent altogether.’

It broke my heart to think of sending away the people who had been my family for the past twenty-seven years, but I sensed what Xavier had said was right. Paris had a liberal atmosphere in many ways, but it was true that there were plenty of right-wing extremists, and gypsies were always easy targets for racists.

I arranged for my clan’s passage to New York, from where they would travel to California. It was windy the day that they set sail from Le Havre. Although they were travelling on the luxurious Île de France, the women were nervous about the trip. Gypsies have a terror of dying at sea.

‘If the waves don’t get us, the sharks will,’ lamented Blanca.

Manuel’s other sister Pastora, who was a great-grandmother now, wept openly.

‘You’ll be all right,’ I assured her. ‘It will be like when we travelled to South America on tour.’

‘Yes, but you came with us then,’ she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. ‘I’m more terrified that something bad is going to happen to you than to me. My dreams have been full of bad omens.’

Diego was nearly seventy now and he’d mellowed with age. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that, due to Xavier, I controlled my entire income now so he’d had to become more accommodating if he expected to be kept like a king.

‘I hope we will see you soon, little
paya
,’ he said, resting his hand on my shoulder. ‘Keep safe, eat a bit less and dance a bit more: you are starting to put on weight.’

When I returned to my Paris apartment, I found a note from Xavier saying that he’d had to return urgently to Spain. So I was alone again, with only my memories and the baby inside me.

In late October, Evelina and her mother came to Paris to await the birth of the baby. I had organised a Spanish midwife for my time when it came. If I was going to suffer, I wanted to suffer in my heart language. I went into labour on 7 November, the day Franco’s forces began their assault on Madrid. The pains were severe from the onset and didn’t subside. Evelina and her mother arrived to give me support. The midwife, a woman with muscular arms and a downy moustache, shouted orders at me as if I were a cow she was trying to herd into a field. I pushed and strained to steer the baby through my narrow pelvic area. I had never imagined it was possible to endure such physical agony and not die.

Finally, in the early, quiet hours of the morning, when I didn’t think I had any strength left, the baby emerged into the world.

‘A girl!’ Senyora Montella’s eyes misted with tears when the midwife held the child up.

I glimpsed the baby’s dusky skin and mop of black hair. I couldn’t believe that she had come out of my body. The midwife bathed her and handed her to Evelina. My heart sank.

‘I’m naming you after my maternal grandmother,’ Evelina whispered to the child. ‘Julieta.’

Now the agony of the birth had subsided, a different kind of pain gripped me. What had I done? How could I have given something that Xavier and I had created away? Only the happiness in Evelina’s eyes gave me any comfort.