The Barefoot Queen (51 page)

“
MORENA!
”

Caridad half opened her eyes. The burgeoning light of dawn still left most of the house in shadow. She struggled to understand. José was snoring, hugging her. She tried to clear her vision. A yellow spot, blurry, was standing beside her.

“What are you doing there?”

Caridad leapt up when she recognized the voice.

“And my daughter? Where is Ana?”

Melchor! Caridad sat on the mattress before him, her breasts exposed. She pulled on the blanket to cover them; a wave of suffocating heat rushed to her face. José grumbled in his dreams.

The old gypsy wasn’t able to keep his gaze from focusing on those black breasts and the large areolas that surrounded their nipples. He had desired them … and now …

“Why are you sleeping with that … that …?” He couldn’t get the words out; in their place he pointed to José with a trembling hand.

Caridad remained silent, hiding her eyes.

“Wake that scoundrel up,” he then ordered.

The woman shook José, who was slow to understand.

“Melchor,” he greeted him with slurred voice as he got up, disheveled, and tried to fix his shirt. “About time you came back. You’ve always had a talent for disappearing in the most—”

“And my daughter?” the grandfather interrupted him, his face flushed. “What is the
morena
doing in your bed? And my granddaughter?”

José brought a hand to his chin and stroked it before answering. “Milagros is well. Ana is still in prison in Málaga.”

José turned his back to his father-in-law and headed to the cupboard to serve himself a glass of water from a pitcher that Caridad always kept filled.

“They won’t let her out,” he added, facing him after drinking a sip. “It seems that Vega blood always causes problems. The
morena
?” he added with a contemptuous gesture toward Caridad. “She warms my nights; not much more could be expected of her.”

Caridad surprised herself by daring to scrutinize Melchor: the wrinkles that lined his face seemed to have multiplied, but despite the yellow
dress coat that hung from his shoulders like a sack, he hadn’t lost his proud gypsy bearing or that gaze that could cut through stone. Melchor felt Caridad’s interest and turned his head toward her. She couldn’t hold his gaze and lifted the blanket covering her breasts up higher. She had failed him, his eyes reproached her.

“She sings well,” said Melchor then with a tremendous sadness that made Caridad’s hair stand on end.

“You call that singing?” laughed José.

“What would you know!” muttered Melchor, dragging out the words, his eyes still on Caridad. He had come to desire her, but he had renounced her body in order to continue hearing those songs that oozed pain, and now she was in José’s hands. He shook his head. “What have you done to free my daughter?” he suddenly spat in a weary voice.

With that question Caridad knew that she was no longer the focus of Melchor’s attention and she lifted her gaze to watch the two gypsies in the light of dawn: the gaunt grandfather in his yellow dress coat; the blacksmith, with his strong chest, neck and arms, planted arrogantly in front of the old man.

“For my wife …” José corrected him slowly. “I have done all that can be done. It’s your fault, old man: the stigma of your blood has been her undoing, like all Vegas. Only a pardon from the King would get her out of jail.”

“What are you doing here then, enjoying my Negress, instead of at the court getting that pardon?”

José just shook his head and pursed his lips, as if what Melchor suggested were impossible.

“Where is my granddaughter?” Melchor then asked.

Caridad trembled.

“She lives with her husband,” answered José, “as is her duty.”

Melchor waited for an explanation that didn’t come.

“What husband?” he finally asked.

The other man straightened up, threateningly. “Don’t you know?”

“I walked day and night to get here. No, I don’t know.”

“Pedro García, El Conde’s grandson.”

Melchor tried to speak but his words came out in an unintelligible stammer.

“Forget about Milagros. It’s not your problem,” spat out José.

Melchor gasped in search of air. Caridad saw him raise a hand to his side and double over with a grimace of pain.

“You’re old, Galeote …”

Melchor didn’t listen to the rest of his son-in-law’s words.
You’re old, Galeote,
the same words El Gordo had spat at him on the Barrancos road. Caridad in the arms of José, his daughter imprisoned in Málaga, and Milagros, his girl, whom he loved most in this damn world, living with Rafael García, obeying Rafael García, fornicating with the grandson of Rafael García! The wound he’d thought was healed now struggled to burst his stomach. He had renounced taking revenge on Rafael García for Milagros, the baby that Basilio put in his arms when he came back from the galleys. What good had it done? His blood, the Vega blood, that very girl’s, would mix with that of those who had betrayed him and stolen ten years of his life. He twisted in pain. He wanted to die. His girl! He stumbled. He searched for some place to rest. Caridad leapt up to help him. José took a step forward. Neither of them reached him. Before they could, the pain shifted to wrath; berserk, blind with rage, he pulled his knife from his sash and as soon as he opened it he pounced on his son-in-law.

“Traitor! Son of a bitch!” he howled as he sank the weapon into José’s chest, into his heart.

He only realized the magnitude of what he had done when he saw José Carmona’s surprised eyes, knowing his death was near. He had just murdered his granddaughter’s father!

Caridad, naked, remained still, out of reach, and watched the convulsions that announced the gypsy’s death, lying on the floor with a large pool of blood forming around him. Melchor tried to stand up straight, but he couldn’t quite manage it, and he brought the bloody hand that held the knife to the wound that El Gordo had given him.

“Traitor,” he then repeated, more for Caridad than the corpse of José Carmona. “He was a traitorous dog,” he said to defend himself against the terror in her face. He thought for an instant. He ran his eyes over the room. “Get dressed and go get my granddaughter,” he urged. “Tell her that her father wants to see her. Don’t tell her about me; nobody should know that I’m here.”

Caridad obeyed. As she crossed the alley and returned with Milagros, worried by the Negro woman’s persistent silence in response to her questions, Melchor dragged José’s corpse with great difficulty over to the next
room to hide it. How would Milagros react? Carmona was her father and she loved him, but he had asked for it … Melchor didn’t have time to clean up the trail of blood that streaked the floor, or the large stain that shone damply in the middle of the room, or his knife blade, or his yellow dress coat; Milagros only saw him and leapt into his arms.

“Grandfather!” she screamed. Then her words caught in her throat, mixed with sobs of joy.

Melchor hesitated, but in the end he hugged her too, and rocked her. “Milagros,” he whispered again and again.

Caridad, behind them, couldn’t help following the trail of blood with her eyes, before focusing again on granddaughter and grandfather, and then back at the bloodstain in the middle of the room.

“Let’s go, girl,” said Melchor suddenly.

“But you just arrived!” responded Milagros, leaning back from him with a wide smile on her lips, her arms still holding him, to get a better look at him.

“No …” corrected Melchor. “I mean let’s leave … Triana.”

Milagros saw her grandfather’s stained coat. Her expression soured and she checked her own clothes, impregnated with blood.

“What …?” The girl looked beyond Melchor.

“Let’s go, girl. We’ll go to Madrid, to beg for your mother’s freedom—”

“What’s that blood?” she interrupted him.

She pulled away from her grandfather and kept him from tugging her back. She discovered the trail. Caridad saw her first tremble and then bring her hands to her head. Neither Caridad nor Melchor went into the next room, from which a shriek emerged, blending with the hammering of the blacksmiths who had already begun their working day. Caridad, as if her friend’s heart-rending scream was pushing her, backed up until she was against the wall. Melchor brought a hand to his face and closed his eyes.

“What have you done?” The accusation emerged cracked from Milagros’s throat; the girl searched for support in the lintel of the doorway between the rooms. “Why …?”

“He betrayed us!” reacted Melchor, raising his voice.

“Murderer.” Milagros was dripping with rage. “Murderer,” she repeated, dragging out each syllable.

“He betrayed the Vegas by marrying you—”

“It wasn’t him!”

Melchor straightened his neck and squinted his eyes toward his granddaughter.

“No, it wasn’t him, Grandfather. It was Inocencio. And he did it to free Mother from prison in Málaga.”

“I … I didn’t know … I’m sorry …” Melchor managed to say, awed by his granddaughter’s pain. Yet he rallied instantly. “Your mother would never have accepted that arrangement,” he declared. “A García! You married a García! She would have chosen prison. Your father should have done the same!”

“Families and their quarrels!” sobbed Milagros, as if detached from her grandfather’s words. “He was my father. He wasn’t a Vega or a García or even a Carmona … he was my father, do you understand? My father!”

“Come with me. Leave behind those—”

“He was all I had,” she lamented.

“You have me, girl, and we will get your mother’s free—”

Milagros spat at her grandfather’s feet before he could finish his sentence.

The contempt in that gob of spit, from the person he most loved in the world, made his face quiver and his eyelids tremble. Melchor was silent even when he saw her shout and pounce on Caridad.

“And you?”

Caridad couldn’t move; frozen in that spot as she was, she wouldn’t have anyway. Milagros screamed in her face.

“What did you do? What did you do?” she demanded again and again.

“The
morena
didn’t do anything,” intervened Melchor in her defense.

“That’s it!” shrieked Milagros. “Look at me,” she demanded. And since Caridad didn’t lift her eyes, she smacked her. “Fucking nigger! That’s it: you never do anything. You’ve never done anything! You let him murder him!”

Milagros started to beat her breasts with both fists, up and down. Caridad didn’t defend herself. Caridad didn’t speak. Caridad couldn’t look at Milagros. “You killed him!”

For the first time in her life Caridad felt pain in all its intensity and she realized that, unlike the wounds inflicted by the overseer and the master, these would never heal.

One girl screamed and hit; the other cried.

“Murderer,” sobbed Milagros, letting her arms fall to her sides, unable to hit her even one more time.

For a few seconds the only sound to be heard was the hammering that came from the forges. Milagros collapsed on the floor at the feet of Caridad, who didn’t dare move; nor did Melchor.

“Morena,”
she heard him say. “Gather your things. We’re leaving.”

Caridad looked at Milagros, hoping, yearning for her to say something …

“Go,” was all she spat out. “I never want to see you again as long as I live.”

“Gather your things,” insisted the gypsy.

Caridad went to find her bundle, red outfit and straw hat. While she grabbed her few belongings, Melchor, without daring to look at his granddaughter, calculated what effect his actions would have: if they caught them in the San Miguel alley or in Triana, they would kill them. And even when they fled, the council of elders would pronounce a death sentence against him and most likely the
morena
as well, and they would let all the families in the kingdom know about it. It was in Milagros’s hands whether they would be able to escape Triana alive.

Caridad returned with her things and looked for the last time at the only friend she had ever had. She hesitated as she passed by her, huddled, crying, cursing between moans. She couldn’t have stopped Melchor. She remembered running toward him, and the next thing she had seen was José’s badly injured body.

Milagros had told her that she didn’t want to ever see her again. She tried to tell her that it hadn’t been her fault, but at that moment Melchor pushed her out of the apartment.

“I’m sorry for you, girl. I trust that someday your pain will ease,” he said to his granddaughter before leaving.

Then they both left the building, hastily. They needed time to flee. If Milagros sounded the alarm, they wouldn’t even make it out of the alley.