The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman (21 page)

O
ne of Soleá's cousins—she called him a cousin, although Atticus was starting to suspect that the term was more symbolic than it was representative of actual relationships between clan members—ran a business in the Sacromonte neighborhood. It was a flamenco show for tourists, staged in one of the whitewashed caves that riddled the hillside. The cave was suitably fitted out with a small dance floor and little wooden tables painted green with flowers.

“My great-grandparents used to live here,” explained Soleá as she showed her boss around the cave. “They had fifteen children, nine survived, and Granny Remedios was the eldest. At the back was the fire and in the middle they had the sleeping mats. There was no water. They carried it up in containers, the ones my mother has on either side of the door, on the back of a donkey, from the river, up and down, down and up, all day long. He was called Jenaro.”

“Your great-grandfather?”

“No! The donkey!” Soleá laughed.

She hadn't stopped laughing since they got to Granada. She was like a plant whose roots had tapped into an underground pool and was now blossoming.

“Jenaro lived with them for fifteen years,” she went on. “All the kids played with him; most of all Granny Remedios, who loved him like a person, you know? And one day Jenaro got too old and was no good for carrying water anymore, so my great-grandfather swapped him for a younger donkey. So the story goes, some merchants were passing through with wagons on their way to Madrid and they made a deal: They would trade a donkey for a donkey and some goats and I don't know what else. So my granny, the poor thing, cried her eyes out for her dear Jenaro and wouldn't have anything to do with the new donkey, which was as black as tar.”

While she talked, Soleá brushed strands of hair away from her face. Atticus walked beside her, more than a meter away, in case any of her cousins got suspicious, and tried hard to keep up with Soleá on the steep path. The sun was beginning to set, casting light the color of pale terra-cotta, or a Gypsy's skin, over the Alhambra.

“The new donkey was really clever. So clever that it learned the way to the river without anyone having to show it. My great-grandfather was pleased to bits for getting such a good deal. And then one afternoon there was a heavy rainstorm, with thunder and lightning and everything, and the donkey was caught in it halfway back from the river.” Here Soleá paused for dramatic emphasis. “My grandmother spotted him from the top bend in the path and saw that black dye was dripping off the donkey! Old Jenaro was underneath the new donkey! The traders had sold him back to his owner!”

“It was the same donkey?”

“Exactly the same one,
Míster Crasman
, Jenaro himself.”

Soleá paused to draw breath. She pulled her hair into a high
bun. She fixed it in place with two hairpins and then carried on up with the wind in her face, her back to the golden Alhambra, and Atticus Craftsman breathlessly following her.

“Is that funny?” he asked shyly.

“Of course it's funny. My family has spent fifty years laughing at that story.”

“Can I laugh, even though I'm not from your family?”

Soleá stared him in the eyes. She thought carefully about her answer and finally said, “Better not.”

•  •  •

Soleá's brother Tomás, her cousin Arcángel, and Potaje, who ran the business, were waiting for them at the entrance to the cave, all three with their hands on their hips.

The tourist buses were starting to appear at the end of the road. Atticus hurriedly said hello to the three men and, guided by Soleá, went backstage to where the dancers, who were none other than Soleá's sisters and cousins, had put on their flamenco dresses and clipped carnations into their hair.

Granny Remedios's sister Dolores was waiting in her thronelike seat at the back of the stage, and next to her were two empty seats, both with Spanish guitars leaning up against them. She wore her hair in a large bun, with a huge flower, and earrings so big that they looked as if they were about to drop off her ears.

The corner that served as a dressing room was separated from the main area by silk curtains. Atticus and Soleá settled in to watch the show from there, elbow to elbow, sharing a jug of wine with lemon and ice.

About twenty Japanese tourists took their seats in the front rows, behind them were some noisy Americans, and at the back,
three or four other couples. In less than ten minutes the room was full to bursting.

“Borrachita is dancing tonight,” Soleá told him. “Poor thing, she's always wasted, has been ever since she was a girl.”

A middle-aged woman stumbled into the center of the stage and clacked some castanets with skill that Atticus admired. Then she began dancing, very gracefully, but Soleá shook her head sadly and started whispering to her cousins.

“She used to be on the street, y'know,” she whispered in Atticus's ear.

Then the younger women came out. The Japanese shouted, “Olé, olé!” and took photos with their digital cameras.

Aunt Dolores shouted and clapped to cheer them on.

They came into the dressing room, changed their dresses—“Don't look,
míster
”—and went out with different flowers, different shoes, different fierce looks.

The show ended a couple of hours later. The tourists left, satisfied, and Atticus got up to go home.

“Where are you going,
Míster Crasman
?” Soleá said in surprise. “This is when the
jarana
really starts, as soon as the last gringo has left, if you'll pardon the expression.”

It was midnight.

Potaje locked the door and everyone moved the seats to the sides. Arcángel grabbed the guitar and moved into the center. He played.

This time Atticus felt a strange magic spreading through his body and taking hold of him. Potaje struck the
cajón
and toothless Aunt Dolores chanted a spell: A youthful spirit thrust her forward into the space. She danced.

The girls let their hair down and formed a group in the middle
of the stage, surrounding the old woman. They all moved their hands like glowworms as they danced. You could feel the blood beating around their bodies from their heads to their toes, while a group of guys led by Tomás feasted on them with their eyes, their hands, their mouths.

Atticus couldn't take his eyes off those writhing waists and the legs that sometimes escaped from the frills of their skirts. Ankles, sweat, heaving chests, smooth hair cascading down backs. Clapping hands, stamping heels, the grandmother's keening song, the beat of the guitar. Little by little, the cave filled with other men and women, other guitars and other echoes, until the air became hard to breathe.

After what felt like an eternity under some kind of hypnosis, Atticus realized that Soleá wasn't by his side. He sought her with his gaze and found her in a dark corner of the cave. A young man was closing in on her, and she was letting him. He put a strong arm around her waist, she flung her head back. He leaned in to say something in her ear, she laughed, lifted her hand to her mouth, blew him a kiss.

And Atticus Craftsman, bewitched by the dark arts of the cave's music, felt the urge to kill that man with his bare hands.

He went outside. He breathed in the fragrant air of the Sacromonte hillside. The heady scent of jasmine turned his stomach. Then he saw the sun rising on the other side of the hill. Dawn had caught him unawares. He didn't know the way back to Soleá's house, so he lay down to sleep by the side of the road, next to a yellow rubbish bin, like a true drunk, muttering curses on all the women on earth.

When he woke up, he discovered Granny Remedios's toothless smile a few inches from his face.

“Good morning,
míster
” she said with a naturalness that didn't square with it being four in the afternoon. “Your stew's getting cold.”

Atticus suppressed the urge to vomit. He got up as best he could and recognized the room, his room, with its collection of fans and dolls in flamenco dresses. The rest of the family was spread about the house. The table was laid, the kids were squealing in the courtyard, the girls were chatting by the window, Tomás was snoozing on a sofa, and Soleá was smiling at him out of the shadows. He imagined her sharing her bed with one of those exotic-looking men, making love to him with a passion comparable only to that shown onstage by her cousins, those three felines.

“I'm pleased to see you,
Míster Crasman
,” she said jokingly. “It looks like you survived your first night in Granada.”

“Good morning, Soleá,” he replied.

“My brother Tomás brought you back,” she explained. “He found you lying in the street and talking English. Bravo!”

“What was I saying?”

“No one knows. I'm the only one here who speaks any English, and I was already in bed.”

Atticus started daydreaming about seeing her asleep.

“I'm so ashamed . . .” he began, but Soleá put her hand over his mouth.

“Shush,” she said. “Don't beat yourself up because you had fun. Y'know what we say here? No one can take away last night's dancing!”

They sat at the table a long while after lunch, digesting slowly. When evening came, Soleá took Atticus out for a walk, leading him as if he were a pet dog, guided by the wind in her hair, through the old streets of El Albaicín. She told him stories about
her family, gradually sharing more. When they got to the San Miguel viewpoint, she stopped by his side, facing the Alhambra, and took a deep breath.

“So,” she said, “it's time to think about the plan.”

“What plan?” Atticus had lost all notion of time and space.

“
Míster Crasman
, what plan do you think? The plan to convince my granny to let us see the poems!”

“Oh, yes! That plan.”

Atticus hadn't thought about any kind of strategy. The matter seemed simple: He would present his credentials to the old lady and make her an offer she couldn't refuse. He had imagined that his visit to Granada would consist of sitting down for a couple of hours of formal negotiation, shaking hands, and then beating a polite but hasty retreat.

However, things had changed radically since he had arrived at Soleá's house. The spirit of
el duende
, the mysterious imp everyone talked about, had seized control of his will to such a degree that he was starting to doubt his true intentions. In the time he had spent there, he had felt like he was being dragged from one scene to another, unable to intervene in the main plot, and, in some way, he had come to the conclusion that the real treasure wasn't the García Lorca poems, it was the blood that ran through these people's veins.

It was May 30, and Atticus Craftsman, standing in front of the Alhambra, understood that up to that moment he had only been sampling flavors with the tip of his tongue, and now he wanted to eat the whole dish. Mop the sauce up with bread, lick his fingers, clean the plate.

“The first thing,” he said, “will be to buy myself a Spanish guitar.”

CHAPTER 34

B
erta didn't have a guest room at her tiny flat on Calle del Alamillo, so María had to make do with sleeping on the sofa, although she was wrapped in the finest linen sheets and covered with a mohair blanket that her boss had bought especially for the occasion, out of maternal instinct, at a housewares shop they passed on the walk home.

Despite having eaten the bowl of hot soup and the potato tortilla that Berta made for her while she had a hot bath, with aromatic candles and relaxing oil, María was still trembling with cold. Her teeth chattered and her joints ached. She bundled herself up in the blanket even more and hugged the pillow as if it were a life jacket and she was on the point of drowning at the bottom of a freezing-cold lake.

Berta sat on the sofa beside her. So far, neither of them had wanted to start the conversation they both knew was inevitable. It had all been kind words and good intentions, a mug of warm milk, cotton pajamas, a bit of classical music, and a few tears of thanks and shame.