Golden Earrings (45 page)

Despite the circumstances, I laughed. ‘I think all the beautiful women are busy right now. Will I do?’

‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ he said.

I leaned over and kissed his burning lips. ‘Is there anything else you’d like?’

What a question to ask a twenty-year-old man, I thought. Perhaps he would like to have lived the next sixty years of his life, with a wife and a family and food on the table.

‘Do you have a cigarette?’ he asked me.

I reached into my pocket and took out one of the Gauloises Xavier had given me to use for bartering. I helped the man sit up so his head was resting in my lap, then I put the cigarette between his lips and lit it for him.

‘Hmm, this is good,’ he said. ‘I would have been happy with the eucalyptus-smelling shit they’ve been giving us. But this … what is this?’

‘It’s a French cigarette,’ I told him.

‘Who would have thought,’ the soldier said, half-smiling, half-wincing with pain, ‘that one day I would be lying in the lap of a beautiful woman and smoking a French cigarette?’

A few minutes later, he died. The medical officer returned and we carried his body down to the washhouse where several other recently dead soldiers were lying. I was about to return to my ambulance when the officer touched my arm.

‘They’ve run out of anaesthetic here,’ he said. ‘I heard that when a field hospital further up the line ran out of anaesthetic, the Spanish doctor there did the most humane thing he could for the dying. He had them taken outside and he put a bullet in their heads. Do you think he will be tried?’

‘I hope not,’ I said.

Before climbing into the driver’s seat of my ambulance, I gave each of my passengers a cigarette. I smoked too as I drove, partly to stop the tears that were threatening to blind me, but also to get rid of the stench of blood and rotting flesh that seemed to have settled in my pores.

I had to drive through the night without headlights. We passed a village that had been bombed that day. It was close to midnight, but men and women were still digging frantically with whatever tools they had, or their bloodied hands, to get their families from under the rubble. They only had a partial moon and candlelight to guide them. Could anybody who had
not witnessed anything like this ever understand? I wondered. I thought of Xavier, who was working without sleep to procure weapons and help for the Republic: even he had never seen what it was like so close to the battle.

I had received a letter from him a few days earlier, telling me that his family didn’t fully understand the danger in Spain and that his mother and Evelina had returned to Barcelona a week after I had departed Paris. He asked me to take responsibility for them if the city was ever in danger and he was away. For now, the front was still far from Barcelona and I’d heard that the city was carrying on largely as normal. But things could change quickly. I thought of Julieta and winced. I’d have to somehow persuade Evelina to go back to Paris with her. But meanwhile, there was nothing I could do until I was given leave.

I arrived at the convalescent hospital as dawn was breaking. One of the patients had died on the journey, but Doctor Parker informed me that an ambulance had arrived earlier with all the patients dead, so mine was considered a successful journey.

‘The driver hit a shell crater and that was it for the lot of them.’ He glanced at my stomach. ‘You’re bleeding by the way.’

I looked down to see that my hip was covered in blood, my own blood.

‘Let me treat the patients you’ve brought me,’ said Doctor Parker. ‘And then I’ll take a look at you.’

I lay on the examination table and he prodded at my wound. ‘It appears you caught a piece of stone,’ he said. ‘It’s only started bleeding because you’ve been moving around.’

‘We were bombed on our way to the field hospital. It must have happened then.’

‘Often medical staff get injured and don’t notice,’ he said. ‘It’s the adrenalin.’

Despite heavy losses and the lack of equipment and supplies, the Republican army and the International Brigades held the
Jarama Valley. Other places became of greater importance and the field and convalescent hospitals moved frequently. By June, Bilbao was taken and the proud Basque country fell to Franco’s army. I was so overcome by the tragedy of the situation I danced a
seguiriya
in the courtyard of the convent we were now using as a hospital. It was the most solemn of the flamenco rhythms, and I used sharp, blunt movements of my feet to expressing my grief. Some Spanish patients noticed me and began to accompany me with
palmas
. Soon others joined in with them. I finished the dance in a fury of steps so wild that the wound in my side opened again.

Doctor Parker made a point of admonishing me while sewing me up again. ‘La Rusa. Now I understand who you are,’ he said. ‘You are certainly a fine dancer, but I’d prefer you to keep your performances for our scheduled social occasions. It doesn’t do well for the patients to get too excited.’

I smiled at Doctor Parker. I had come to admire him, and was grateful in my heart that he had left the comfort and safety of his practice in London to come and help us. But it amused me to think that there could be any such thing as ‘too excited’. As long as the British thought that, they would never understand the Spanish.

One day in October, after Gijón and Avilés had fallen and the Republican government had moved to Barcelona, Doctor Parker came to me as I was repairing one of the tyres on my ambulance.

‘Lift up your shirt and show me how that wound is going,’ he said. He took one look at it and said, ‘I want you to go back to Barcelona for some rest. If you keep lifting things, that’s never going to get better.’

‘Franco doesn’t rest,’ I told him. ‘How can I?’

‘Because if that wound doesn’t heal properly, you won’t be any good to anyone,’ he said. ‘You’re one of the best drivers. We need you. But we need you in good health.’

So I took his advice and returned to Barcelona. I was angered to find that the revolutionary fervour that had characterised the city when the coup had first been repelled had faded. The government had taken back control from the workers, ordering the police to disarm them. There had been an explosion of street fighting in the city when the police were used to eject the workers’ committee from Barcelona’s Central Telephone exchange. Many of the Anarchist leaders were being arrested and accused of rebelling against the Republican state while it was at war.

The glaring differences between the wealthy and the poor had become obvious again too. The blockades had led to shortages in the stores, but if you had money you could buy what you wanted on the black market. There were no cigarettes, except the ersatz kind, to be found in Barcelona’s shops. Although I hated the black market, I paid a wad of cash for a few cartons of Lucky Strikes. If a dying soldier requested a cigarette, I wanted to make sure I gave him a good one. I myself had become addicted to them: they kept away the stench of death, which seemed to remain on my skin no matter how much I scrubbed myself.

I had given Xavier and my apartment over to a group of refugees from the south, so I booked myself into a hotel and, for the first time in a long time, soaked myself in a bath. I looked at the red-blue wound in my side and thought how many times I had come close to death. I closed my eyes and remembered the earrings that Francisca and I had buried when I was a child.

After my bath, I dressed in the new overalls I had bought for my work and made my way to the park by the beach. To my relief, the palm tree where we had buried the earrings was still standing, and when I dug into the sandy soil I found them easily. I washed them in the ocean, then put them in my ears, feeling the weight of them. The earrings had been in my family for generations; my mother had told me they were passed from
mother to daughter. Whoever took them to the grave could return three times after death to help someone they loved.

But this supernatural crossing between the worlds could only occur for one woman, so it was obvious none of my foremothers had chosen to wear the earrings at the time of her death. I understood why. The idea of returning from the Otherworld was something anyone with gypsy blood feared in case they could not go back and would be left to haunt this world forever. Only the most courageous woman would attempt it. As I faced death every day, I decided to wear them. Perhaps someone I loved would need me one day.

Xavier was away from Barcelona for a few days, so I called Evelina to see if she would meet me. I hoped she would bring Julieta, but was afraid to ask her. I longed to see the little girl, although I accepted more and more that she wasn’t mine and that I had made the right decision in giving her to Evelina.

To my disappointment, Evelina came alone. She was wearing a navy flannel suit with wide lapels and a polka-dotted cravat. She looked so pretty and so untouched by the war that the sight of her made me feel tainted. To get rid of the feeling, I smoked more, despite the disapproval on her face.

I tried to convince her that her family should leave. She seemed concerned about the war, but didn’t want to go anywhere without her parents.
If not for you or them, then for Julieta
, I wanted to scream.

Like most people in Barcelona, she seemed oblivious to the type of enemy we were facing. I wanted to tell her about the village I had been to where a German pilot had flown a captured Republican plane overhead and dropped leaflets. Thinking they were messages from the government, the people of the town, including the entire population of children, had run out of their houses to collect the papers. The plane had returned and machine-gunned the lot of them. But I knew if I told Evelina
the story, she wouldn’t believe me. If things ever became really dangerous, I promised myself, I’d drag the whole Montella family across the border if I had to.

A few nights later, I danced at the Samovar Club. I was supposed to be resting, but I was too haunted by the images of what I had seen. I enjoyed performing for the workers and soldiers much more than I ever had dancing for highbrow society. It took me back to the days when my clan and I had been real gypsies, living by our wits in the barri del Somorrostro and performing in flamenco bars.

Xavier brought along Evelina and Margarida, who had returned to Barcelona when the government relocated there. Having had to evacuate from both Madrid and Valencia, I’d expected Margarida would have had a better idea of the conditions of war. I was shocked when she asked me about the morale of the men on the frontline.

I eyed the little banquet of olives, pickled vegetables and fresh bread on the table: black-market goods. The sight of them filled me with outrage. I loved the Montella siblings, but I was sure they thought the rations a hardship. For some of the soldiers at the front, it was the best they had ever eaten in their lives. A soldier’s ration was a feast compared with the starvation they had known as peasants. And now their hope of a social revolution was gone. What were they fighting for?

‘How do you expect it to be?’ I snapped. You’ve taken away their revolution. They were fighting for a better life. What should they fight for now? Franco or the Republic? Either one is just another form of capitalism. After the war, everything will be the same for them — the rich will be rich and the poor will starve.’

Margarida coloured with anger. ‘It won’t be that way,’ she answered. ‘Whether it’s a revolution or reform, the Republic will be much better for the workers and the poor than Franco ever will be!’

I thought about the young soldier who had died in my arms and as I described him to the Montellas I wished I could fully explain to them the powerlessness and humiliation of being poor. But as well intentioned as they were they could never understand. They had only ever been rich.

Xavier took me back to my room at the hotel, making the excuse to his sisters that I was overtired. I followed him mechanically.

‘Celestina,’ he said, shutting the door behind us and taking me in his arms. ‘Tell me what’s going on. What are you thinking?’

I wanted to tell him about the horrors I had seen, to explain that the only thing that helped me face them was thinking about him … and Julieta. But I didn’t. I couldn’t say anything.

Xavier caressed my cheek then led me to the bedroom. We made passionate love that night. When he tried to withdraw, I wrapped my legs around his waist and wouldn’t let him. The only thing that could comfort me about losing Julieta was to make another baby with him. But with the war and all the hardships it wrought on my body, it wasn’t to be.

‘Why are you crying?’ Xavier asked me afterwards.

‘All those men are going to die,’ I told him. ‘All those men fighting for the Republic are going to perish. And plenty of civilians too. It’s true, isn’t it? As much as you try, Xavier, you can’t get us better weapons. You can’t get the British, French and Americans to help us.’

He leaned over me and stared into my eyes. Every detail of him that night was etched in my memory: his skin that smelled like tea and vetiver; the warmth of his breath; the hard, muscular strength of his arm around my waist.

‘Even if every one of us who believes in the Republic dies, somehow our spirits will live on,’ he said. ‘They will emerge somewhere in another generation … and it will be us,
our
spirits, spurring them on to create a better and fairer world. Everyone
who lays down his or her life for the Republic does not do so in vain, Celestina. Not one of those lives will be wasted. No matter the sacrifices, no matter the appearance of defeat, it will all add to the progress of the human race. In my studies of history, there is one thing that repeats itself again and again and which gives me faith: All honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail.’

A
fter Ramón had finished relating the story that la Rusa had told him, I fell into a kind of shock. La Rusa, not Mamie, was my grandmother? Yes, I could believe that la Rusa had given birth to my mother. The similarities were obvious. I remembered Mamie’s description of la Rusa’s dancing: powerful, hypnotic, majestic. They were the words the ballet critics had used to describe my mother. No one in the history of the Paris Opera Ballet had progressed as quickly from
quadrille
to
étoile
as Mama had. I was astounded. So many emotions and questions rushed at me, I didn’t know how to face them. I loved Mamie deeply but I was her brother’s granddaughter. I felt that I had lived the past eighteen years as one person, and now I discovered I was another. I didn’t feel angry at Mamie, only confused. There was no doubt that she loved me fiercely — and that she had loved Mama in the same way. Had she been afraid that if she ever revealed the secret, she would have had to share Mama with la Rusa — or lose her altogether?

Considering that Mamie believed la Rusa was responsible for Xavier’s death, I could understand why she had kept the facts of my mother’s birth from me. But was it ever possible to know what was truly in another person’s heart, even someone we loved? I didn’t know. All I knew was that there had been too
many assumptions made about who did what and why; just as I had wrongly drawn conclusions about Papa and Audrey.

My heart pounded in my chest. ‘
All honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail
. Did your sister request that you put that on her gravestone?’ I asked Ramón.

‘It was stated in her will.’

I realised that I had to review much of Mamie’s story. What Ramón had told me explained many of the things that had mystified me. ‘From what you are saying, it sounds as though la Rusa loved Xavier very much. I believe you when you say that she didn’t betray him.’

Ramón studied me before taking a deep breath. He seemed relieved.

‘Let me relate to you what happened in January 1939,’ he said. ‘And you will see how wrong Evelina Montella was for ever believing that of my sister.’