Summer Snow (29 page)
“Not well,” Felipe said modestly. “But when I got interested in flamenco I started spending a lot of time in the Gypsy caves, and I got tired of not understanding what everyone was saying behind my back.”
“Who’s Lili?” Tejada asked, remembering that Fernando had said something about his younger brother being involved with a flamenco dancer.
Please, dear God, let him say she’s the woman he’s
been staying with,
he thought, but the prayer lacked the urgency it would have had half an hour ago.
“The person we’re going to meet.” The road forked, and Felipe unhesitatingly dived down the narrower of the two paths, adding over his shoulder, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this place to the rest of the family, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Tejada nodded and followed his cousin with some curiosity. They were not quite in the neighborhood of the Gypsy flamenco bars yet. And the neighborhood was too inconvenient to house the exclusive brothels that Felipe had patronized in his youth. All in all, Felipe seemed out of place in these surroundings. The roof of the house on one side had been seriously damaged by what looked like cannon fire and ill repaired, but the walls were scrupulously whitewashed. The sheets hanging out of the windows to dry were threadbare but there was no garbage in the little alley. The whole place had an air of shabby respectability, and Tejada did not associate either adjective with his cousin.
“Here we are.” Felipe stopped in front of a heavy door with the number twelve painted on it in black. Tejada expected his cousin to knock, but instead Felipe dug in his pocket and produced a ring of keys. He fitted one into the outer lock and shoved open the door.
They were in a
carmen
, but a far humbler one than the elaborate ornamental gardens belonging to Felipe’s mother or sister. This was simply a cobblestone-covered courtyard with some raggedy bougainvillea clinging to one wall and a well in the center, around which someone had placed a few clay pots of begonias. A whisk broom was lying against one wall and a dented washtub sat beside it, tangible reminders that the courtyard required constant upkeep. Felipe turned unhesitatingly and unlocked an interior door. “It’s the second floor,” he explained, beginning to climb a narrow staircase, lit only by the light that filtered through tiny windows.
Tejada followed, wondering with one half of his mind about their final goal and with the other about whether the alarming creaks emitted by the wooden steps signaled some structural instability in the building. They passed the door to the first landing. It was closed. As they reached the second landing, the smell of tortilla began to seep into the darkened stairwell. Felipe opened the door to an apartment, calling as he did so, “Hi, Lili! I’ve brought a guest.”
Tejada’s first impression was of a darkened foyer. He heard the clatter of pots in a nearby kitchen, and then a shrill voice saying, “Marianita,
no!
” Then he was standing beside Felipe in a long, low room cluttered with books and toys. A dark-eyed girl of perhaps ten with a toddler on her hip was about to deposit the child into a playpen. She looked up and smiled at Felipe, and then froze as she saw the lieutenant in his cape and tricorn and regarded him with suspicious eyes.
Felipe smiled ruefully at the child. “Hi, sweetie. Don’t be scared. This is your cousin, Carlos. Carlos, this is my daughter Maya, and the baby is Mariana.”
For a moment the lieutenant and the little girl regarded each other with mutual shock. “Aren’t you going to say hello to your cousin?” Felipe prompted.
“Hi,” Maya murmured at the same instant Tejada responded, “Hello, Maya.”
Awkwardly, Tejada leaned forward and kissed the little girl’s cheek. The baby, who had taken advantage of Maya’s distraction to lever herself up onto the rail of the playpen, now wriggled over the edge and took a few toddling steps toward the two men. “Hi!” she said distinctly, smiling happily in anticipation of praise for her cleverness and stumbled into the lieutenant.
“Marianita!” Maya snatched her sister back, cheeks flaming. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Officer!”
Tejada laughed, still unsure of himself but relieved by the ordinariness of the scene. “It’s all right. Why don’t you call me Tío?” he suggested and heard the echoes of Felipe’s words in his own.
She nodded, but said nothing, still shy. Tejada put Mariana back into her playpen. “And this is Lili and Pepín,” Felipe said, sounding both relieved and approving, as the lieutenant straightened. “Lili, my little cousin, Carlos.”
Tejada turned to see a woman coming out of the kitchen with a boy of about Toño’s age clinging to her skirts, who was observing him carefully. It was difficult to estimate her age. Childbearing had probably broadened her figure, and there were lines carved in her dark face and threads of silver as well as hennaed red showing in her hair, but the lieutenant guessed that she was near his age. She checked for a moment at the sight of his uniform, and then came forward, wiping her hands on her apron and holding one out. “A pleasure to meet you. It’s Lieutenant Tejada, isn’t it? Andrés’s son?”
“Yes. Likewise.” Tejada glanced sideways at Felipe, looking for cues as he shook hands.
Felipe ignored him and squatted to be at eye level with the little boy. “How is the king of the household this afternoon?”
“Good.” Pepín emerged from behind his mother and was rewarded by being picked up and thrown into the air. “I set the table all by myself, because Marianita was fussy,” he added with pride, when he was once more safely in his father’s arms.
“I knew there was a reason we kept you around,” Felipe said. “Listen. Your cousin is going to have lunch with us. Can you set another place all by yourself or do you need Amayita to help you?”
“I can do it!” Felipe set Pepín down, and the boy scurried back into the kitchen, intent on proving himself useful.
“Maya, put the baby in her chair before she gets out of her playpen again,” Felipe ordered. He smiled at Lili, slid an arm around her, and murmured, “Give us ten minutes.”
“It’ll take that long to make salad anyway,” she answered.
When Lili and the children had returned to the kitchen, Felipe turned back to his guest. “Questions, Lieutenant?” he asked sardonically, gesturing toward the couch.
Tejada sank down gratefully, and then immediately started up. He removed the square block caught between the cushions, put it on the floor, and seated himself again more carefully. He was silent for a moment, unsure what to ask first. This cluttered apartment certainly explained the empty rooms on the Gran Vía, and Felipe’s dismissal of his valet made sense in the light of the expenses of three children, but Lili’s existence raised almost more questions than it answered. “Tío Fernando said you were having an affair with a flamenco dancer,” he said finally.
Felipe smiled and sat beside his cousin. “He’s right in a way. Lili was one of the best dancers in Granada. She could
really
dance, you know. She didn’t just look pretty and shake her ass. Although with a body like hers . . .” He trailed off, contemplating a fond memory.
Tejada blinked, trying to reconcile the image of the matronly figure he had just seen with Felipe’s warm praise. He was unable to manage it until he considered that Maya might resemble her mother. He mentally aged Felipe’s daughter ten years and discovered that Lili had probably been beautiful. “She doesn’t . . . er, dance now?” he hazarded. It was a measure of his confusion that he was genuinely uncertain of the answer.
“Oh, no. She says she’s out of practice. She still sings, and sometimes we’ll do a little
sevillanas
when her people come over and there’s a decent guitarist. But it’s hard for us to go out in the evenings because of the kids.”
“Her people come over?” Tejada said faintly, wondering what kind of affair Felipe was conducting. It was unlike him to socialize with his mistresses’ families, and Lili had seemed uncommonly well informed about the Tejada and Ordoñez families as well.
“Her cousins and their husbands. Lili’s an orphan, actually, but the Gypsies take care of their own, you know, so she’s never lacked for family.”
Tejada swallowed. “She’s a Gypsy?”
“Of course. The best flamenco artists always are.”
“And how long have you been . . . involved with her?” Tejada asked, longing to demand what exactly the involvement consisted of, and why Felipe was so positive that the children were his own.
“You don’t need to use that tone of voice,” Felipe said mildly. “It got serious a little before Maya was born. I found Lili a room near a doctor when she was pregnant, and she wasn’t used to being alone so I ended up spending a lot of time with her and one thing sort of led to another.”
“How old is Maya?” Tejada asked, dazed.
“She’ll be ten at Christmas.”
Pepín appeared in the doorway. “Papa! Lunch is ready.”
“Coming.” Felipe rose, and Tejada followed him into the kitchen.
The room was warm and lit by electric bulbs. A long narrow table against one wall held five plates, and Marianita was wriggling in a high chair in the corner. Lili and Maya passed around slices of tortilla and pieces of bread. Felipe opened wine and offered a glass to the lieutenant. Tejada drank and noticed with amusement that the wine was good, a vintage Cáceres, that seemed out of place with the setting. The drink was a faint reminder of the expensive tastes of the young Felipe whom Tejada remembered. Conversation was stilted at first, made awkward by the stranger’s presence. Tejada complimented Lili on the meal, and she thanked him politely, but with reserve. “Have you been settled here long?” he asked, remembering the end of his chat with Felipe.
“Since just after the war ended,” Lili answered. “It’s a miracle we found it when housing was so short.”
“San Miguel found it for us,” Maya interjected, smiling mischievously.
Both her parents and Pepín laughed, as at a familiar joke, and Lili explained. “We were living in a tiny studio, and Maya desperately wanted her own room. When she was four we took her up to San Miguel Alto during the pilgrimage, and she insisted on lighting her very own candle to the saint. We had been talking for a while about having another baby, and we thought maybe she had decided to pray for a baby brother or sister. But when her papa asked her, she said she had prayed for her own room.”
“We found an apartment right after that,” Maya pointed out, triumphant. “And I had my own room until Mariana was born, so San Miguel listened.”
“A skeptic would also say that I knew the landlord,” Felipe added.
Tejada laughed. “My wife and I have lived in temporary quarters since our son was born, and I’ve been promised a new barracks for the last six months. Maybe we should start lighting candles also.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Maya said.
“How old is your son?” Felipe asked at the same moment.
“Four and a half.”
“Close to Pepín’s age,” Lili commented.
“No, it’s not,” Pepín interjected with disgust. “I’m almost six.”
“Practically ancient,” his father agreed with a smile.
The conversation continued—aimless, casual, and friendly. Tejada found himself more relaxed than he had been since arriving in Granada. He spared a moment to feel guilty about abandoning Elena, and then reflected uneasily that it would be awkward to explain his cousin’s domestic arrangements to her. When the meal had been cleared away, Pepín was shooed off to nap, grumbling, and Maya disappeared into her room, murmuring something about a book she wanted to finish. Felipe took his guest back into the living room, and Lili picked up Mariana and carried the baby into the master bedroom. Within a few moments, the sound of a flamenco lament rearranged into a lullaby emerged from the bedroom. Felipe looked smugly at Tejada. “Doesn’t she have a great voice?”
“I suppose,” Tejada said, a little embarrassed.
Felipe leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and spoke seriously. “You understand now why I’m not down on the Gran Vía much, and why I don’t have much spare cash, don’t you?”
“I guess so,” Tejada nodded slowly. “But . . . I’m sorry, Tío, I still don’t know why Doña Rosalia was so angry with you, or what you went to see her about.”
Felipe sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask about that.”
“Y
ou know I have to ask.” Tejada regarded his cousin steadily. “I know, I know. You always did take yourself too seriously.” Felipe smiled wryly. “Look, Carlito, I was hoping you’d understand after you met Lili and the kids, and saw all this.” He waved one arm, an expansive gesture that took in the battered furniture, the abandoned playpen, the faint smells from the kitchen, and the song from the bedroom. “That this is important, you know? That I’m not just—” He paused and his mouth twisted. “Not just being irresponsible and self-indulgent. I didn’t
mean
to get this involved with Lili, but I am, and nothing can change that now and I’m not sorry for it!” he finished defiantly.
“I didn’t say anything,” Tejada pointed out.
“I know.” Felipe let out a breath and smiled. “But Mother and Dani have said more than enough. Even Nando thinks I should get married and settle down, and not spend all my time and money on my mistress.”
“They know about Lili?” Tejada asked, surprised.
Felipe shrugged. “Nando knows in a general sort of way that I have a couple of kids to provide for. I haven’t told him that I’m basically living here. I never told Dani or Mother details, of course. They just assume that I’m out with a different girl every night of the week, and that it’s high time I got married.” He grimaced.