The Barefoot Queen (5 page)

But Melchor Vega endured the torture. Ana dried her eyes with her shirt sleeve. Yes, he had survived. And one day, when nobody was expecting him any longer, he reappeared in Triana, wasted away, dressed in rags, broken, destroyed, dragging his feet but with his pride intact. He never again was that father who used to tousle her hair when she came to him after some childish altercation. That was what he always used to do: tousle her hair and then look at her tenderly, reminding her in silence who she was: a Vega, a gypsy! It was the only thing that seemed to matter to him in the world. Melchor had tried to foster that same pride in his race with his granddaughter Milagros. Shortly after his return, when the girl was only a few months old, Melchor anxiously waited for Ana to conceive a boy. “When’s the boy coming?” he would ask again and again. José, her husband, also asked her insistently: “Are you with child yet?” It seemed that the entire San Miguel alley wanted a boy. José’s mother, her aunts, her female cousins … even the Vega women at the settlement of La Cartuja! They all pestered her about it, but it wasn’t to be.

Ana turned her head toward where José had disappeared after their brief exchange about Melchor. Unlike her father, her husband hadn’t been able to recover from what for him had been a failure, a humiliation, and the scant affection and respect there had been in that marriage arranged by the Carmona and Vega families gradually disappeared until it was replaced by a latent rancor that revealed itself in the harsh way they treated each other. Melchor invested all his affection in Milagros, as did José, once he had resigned himself to not having a son. Ana became a witness to the rivalry between the two men, always taking her father’s side, whom she loved and respected more than her husband.

Night had fallen; what was Melchor doing?

The strumming of a guitar brought her back to reality. Behind her, in the alley, she heard people bustling about, dragging chairs and benches.

“Party!” shouted a boy’s voice.

Another guitar joined in, trying out a few first notes. Soon the hollow tapping of a pair of castanets was heard, and another pair, and another, and even some old metal ones, getting ready, without order or harmony, just trying to wake up those fingers that would later accompany the dancing and singing. More guitars. A woman cleared her throat; hers was the cracked voice of an old woman. A tambourine. Ana thought about her father and how much he enjoyed the dancing.
He always comes back,
she tried to convince herself. Wasn’t that true? He was a Vega, after all!

When she went out into the alley, the gypsies were arranged in a circle around a fire.

“Come on, let’s go!” encouraged an old man sitting on a chair in front of the bonfire.

All the instruments were silent. A single guitar, in the hands of a young man with an almost black face and a dark ponytail, started in on the first beats of a fandango.

SHE WAS
accompanied by the cabin boy with whom she’d shared her tobacco. They docked on a quay in Triana, past the shrimp boats’ port, to unload some goods destined for that part of town.

“You get off here, darkie,” ordered the captain of the tartan.

The boy smiled at Caridad. They had smoked together a couple more times over the voyage. Under the tobacco’s influence, Caridad had even answered the boy’s questions, mostly in timid monosyllables. He had heard many of the rumors swirling around the port about that distant land. Cuba. Was it really as wealthy as he’d been told? Were there a lot of sugar factories? And slaves, were there as many as they said?

“Someday I will travel on one of those big ships,” he claimed, letting his imagination run rampant. “And I’ll be the captain! I will cross the ocean and see Cuba for myself.”

Once the tartan was docked, Caridad, just as in Cádiz, stopped and hesitated before the very narrow strip of land between the riverbank and the first line of buildings in Triana, some of them so close that their
foundations were exposed by the movement of the Guadalquivir’s waters. One of the porters shouted at her to move out of the way so he could unload a large sack. The shout attracted the captain’s attention, who shook his head from the gunwale. His gaze briefly met the cabin boy’s, who was also watching Caridad; they both knew where she was headed.

“You have five minutes,” he conceded to the boy.

The boy thanked him with a smile, jumped onto land and tugged at Caridad. “Run. Follow me,” he pressed. He knew that the captain would leave him on land if he didn’t hurry.

They passed the first line of buildings and reached the church of Santa Ana; they continued two blocks further from the river, the cabin boy nervous, pulling Caridad along, dodging the people who looked at them curiously, until they were in front of La Cava.

“These are the Minims,” indicated the boy, pointing to a building across from La Cava.

Caridad followed the boy’s finger: a low, whitewashed building with a modest church; then she directed her gaze to the old defensive moat that stood in her way, sunken, filled with refuse at many points, precariously level in others.

“There are some places where you can cross,” added the boy, imagining what was going through Caridad’s head. “There’s one in San Jacinto but it’s a bit far away. People cross wherever they can, see?” He pointed to some people who were going up or down the sides of the trench. “I have to get back to the boat,” he warned Caridad when she didn’t react. “Good luck, Negress.”

Caridad didn’t say anything.

“Good luck,” he repeated before heading off as fast as his legs could carry him.

Once she was alone, Caridad looked at the convent, the place Don Damián had told her to go to. She crossed the trench along a small open path among the rubbish. There were no dumps on the plantation, but there were some in Havana; she’d had the chance to see them when her master had taken her to the city to deliver the tobacco leaves to the warehouse in the port. How could white people throw away so many things? She reached the convent and pushed on one of the doors. Locked. She knocked and waited. Nothing happened. She knocked again, timidly, as if she didn’t want to be a bother.

“Not like that,” said a woman passing by, who, almost without stopping, pulled on a chain that made a small bell ring.

Soon a latticed peephole opened in one of the doors.

“May the peace of Our Lord be with you,” she heard the caretaker say; from the voice, she was an elderly woman. “What brings you to our house?”

Caridad removed her straw hat. Although she couldn’t see the nun, she lowered her gaze. “Don Damián told me to come here,” she whispered.

“I don’t understand you.”

Caridad had spoken rapidly and incoherently, the way newly arrived blacks in Cuba do when addressing white men. “Don Damián …” she struggled, “he told me to come here.”

“Who is Don Damián?” inquired the nun after a few moments of silence.

“Don Damián … the priest on the boat, on
The Queen.
”

“The queen? What did you say about the queen?” exclaimed the nun.

“
The Queen,
the boat from Cuba.”

“Ah! A boat, not Her Majesty. Well … I don’t know. Don Damián, you said? Wait a moment.”

When the peephole opened again, the voice that emerged was authoritative and firm. “Good woman, what did that priest say you should do here?”

“He only told me to come.”

The nun didn’t speak for a few seconds. Her voice was then sweet. “We are a poor community. We devote ourselves to prayer, abstinence, contemplation and penitence, not charity. What could you do here?”

Caridad didn’t answer.

“Where do you come from?”

“Cuba.”

“Are you a slave? Where are your masters?”

“I am … I’m free. I also know how to pray.” Don Damián had urged her to say that.

Caridad couldn’t see the nun’s resigned smile. “Listen,” she said. “You have to go to the Brotherhood of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, do you understand?”

Caridad remained in silence. Why did Don Damián have me come here? she wondered.

“The Brotherhood of the Negritos,” explained the nun, “yours. They will help you … or give you advice. Take note: walk to the church of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, near Cruz del Campo. Continue northward along La Cava, toward San Jacinto. There you can cross La Cava, turn to the right and follow Santo Domingo Street until you reach the pontoon bridge, cross it and then …”

Caridad left the Minims trying to retain the itinerary in her head. “Los Ángeles.” They had told her she had to go there. “Los Ángeles.” They would help her. “In Cruz del Campo,” she recited in a soft voice.

Absorbed in her thoughts, she went on her way unaware of how people stared: a voluptuous woman with black skin, dressed in grayish rags and carrying a small bundle, who murmured to herself incessantly. In Altozano, awed by the monumental castle of San Jorge by the bridge, she bumped into a woman. She tried to apologize but the words didn’t come out; the woman insulted her and Caridad fixed her gaze on Seville, on the other bank. Dozens of carts and pack animals crossed the bridge in one direction or the other; the wood creaked on the pontoons.

“Where do you think you’re going, darkie?”

She was startled by the man who blocked her way.

“To the Los Ángeles church,” she answered.

“Congratulations,” he said sarcastically. “That’s where the Negroes are. But to get to your kind, you’ll have to pay me first.”

Caridad surprised herself by looking straight into the toll keeper’s eyes. Alarmed, she corrected her attitude, removed her hat and lowered her gaze.

“I … I don’t have money,” she stammered.

“Then you don’t get any Negritos. Get out of here. I’ve got a lot of work.” He made a gesture of heading over to a muleteer who was waiting behind Caridad, but seeing that she was still standing there, he turned toward her again. “Get out or I’ll call the constables!”

After getting off the bridge she was aware that eyes were on her. She didn’t have the money to cross over to Seville. What could she do? The man on the bridge hadn’t told her how she could get money. In her twenty-five years, Caridad had never earned a single coin. The most she’d ever had, besides the food, clothing and sleeping quarters, was the “smoke,” the tobacco that her master had given her for personal consumption.
How could she earn money? She didn’t know anything besides tending tobacco …

She moved away from the other people, retreating toward the river and sitting on its bank. She was free, sure, but that freedom was of little use to her if she couldn’t even cross a bridge. She had always been told what to do, from sunrise to sunset, day after day, year after year. What was she going to do now?

There were many folk from Triana who observed the black woman sitting on the bank, stock-still, with her gaze on the horizon … looking at the river, at Seville, or perhaps lost in her memories or meditating on the uncertain future opening out before her. Some of them passed again an hour later, others after two or even three and four, and the black woman was still there.

As night fell, Caridad realized she was hungry and thirsty. The last time she had had anything to eat or drink was with the cabin boy, who shared a hard, moldy cake and some water with her. She decided to smoke to cover up her craving, as all the slaves on the tobacco plantation did when waylaid by weariness or hunger. Perhaps that was why the master was generous with the “smoke”: the more they smoked, the less food he had to give them. The tobacco replaced many assets and was even bartered for new slaves. The smell of the cigar attracted two men who were walking along the bank. They asked for a smoke. Caridad obeyed and handed them her cigar. They smoked. The men chatted between themselves, passing the cigar, both standing. Caridad, still seated, asked for it back by extending her arm.

“You want something in your mouth, darkie?” said one of the men, laughing.

The other let out a chuckle and pulled on Caridad’s hair to lift her head as the first man lowered his pants.

Caridad offered no resistance and fellated the man.

“Looks like she likes it,” the one who had her by the hair said nervously. “You like it, Negress?” he asked as her pushed her head against his friend’s penis.

Then they both mounted her, one after the other, and left her lying there.

Caridad readjusted her dress. Where was the rest of her cigar? She had
seen one of them toss it before grabbing her hair. Maybe it hadn’t landed in the water. She brushed through the grasses and rushes, feeling along the ground carefully in case the tip was still burning.… And it was! She grabbed it and, with her belly flat against the ground, right at the water’s edge, she inhaled with all her strength. She sat down again and let her feet go into the water. It was cold, but in that moment she didn’t notice; she didn’t feel anything. Was she supposed to like it? That was what one of them had asked her. How many times had she been asked that same question? The master had asked when she was just fresh off the boat, recently plucked from her homeland. Then she hadn’t even understood what she was being asked by that man who groped her and slobbered before tearing her open. Later, after many more times, after her pregnancy, he replaced her with a new girl, and then it was the overseer and the other slaves who asked her that between their puffing and panting. One day she gave birth again … to Marcelo. The pain she felt that time, when her womb tore after hours of labor, told her that she would never have another child. “Do you like it?” they would ask her on Sundays, at the dance, when some slave took her by the arm out of the hut, there where other couples were fornicating as well. Later they would go back to singing and dancing frenetically, in the hopes that one of their gods would mount them. Sometimes they would leave the quarters again for a repeat. No, she didn’t like it, but she didn’t feel anything anyway; they had gradually robbed her of her feelings, bit by bit, from the first night her master had taken her by force.

Less than an hour had passed before one of the men returned and interrupted her thoughts.

“Do you want a job in my workshop?” he asked her, illuminating her with an oil lamp. “I’m a potter.”