The Return (21 page)

Read The Return Online

Authors: Victoria Hislop

Tags: #British - Spain, #Psychological Fiction, #Family, #British, #Spain - History - Civil War; 1936-1939 - Social Aspects, #General, #Granada (Spain), #Historical, #War & Military, #Families, #Fiction, #Spain

BOOK: The Return
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Mercedes’ favourite dresses were those with wired lower hems that would move in perfect wave motion as a dancer rotated. These were the ones she yearned to own, but they cost many thousands of pesetas and she had to make do with fantasy.Though she had three costumes sewn by her mother, she still wanted what she called a ‘real’ dress and the shopkeeper never tired of discussing quality and cost of fabric with her. For her sixteenth birthday, her parents had promised to grant her wish.
 
People had been marvelling at the way she performed since she was eight. It was common for girls to start dancing in public at that age and it was never considered unsuitable or precocious. From the age of eleven, she had been going up the hill into the Sacromonte, which was where the gypsies lived in their dank homes hollowed out of the hillside. Though she had several friends in the area, the real reason she went to the Sacromonte was to see an old
bailaora
known as ‘La Mariposa’.
 
Most people thought her a mad old witch. Indeed, María Rodríguez had lost some of her reason, but she still had the memories of her great dancing days. They were as clear to her as if they had been yesterday. She saw in Mercedes a glimpse of her younger self, and perhaps in her elderly mind she thought that she and the child were one and the same as she relived her dancing through the adolescent girl.
 
Mercedes did have friends of her own age but it was at this woman’s crumbling home that her mother would always look for her first. It was her retreat and the place where her obsession grew.
 
Señora Ramírez was worried about Mercedes’ schoolwork and reports from her teachers were unimpressive. She wanted to see her daughter take advantage of what this changing world might offer.
 
‘Merche, when are you going to stay at home to do your studying?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t spend your entire life spinning around. It’ll never make you a living.’
 
She tried to make it sound light-hearted but she was serious and Mercedes knew that.The girl bit her tongue to prevent herself from answering back.
 
‘There’s no point arguing with Mother,’ Emilio told her. ‘She will never see your point of view. Like she never sees mine.’
 
Concha’s view was that without gypsy blood Mercedes could never be a ‘proper’ dancer. She believed that the
gitanos
were the only ones who could dance, or play flamenco guitar, for that matter.
 
Even Pablo disagreed with her. ‘She’s as good as any of them,’ he would say defensively to his wife when they watched her at a fiesta.
 
‘Even if she was,’ responded Concha, ‘I would rather she was doing something else. That’s how I feel.’
 
‘And she “feels” that dancing is the right thing for her to be doing,’ interrupted Emilio bravely.
 
‘This is nothing to do with you, Emilio, and we’d rather you didn’t egg her on quite so much,’ snapped Concha.
 
Her father had always encouraged Mercedes’ love of dancing but he was now beginning to worry about it, though not for the same reasons as his wife. Since the conservative government’s win in the elections and the unrest in the north, the Civil Guard were beginning to tighten the screws on those who were not seen to conform. Anyone who fraternised with the gypsies, for example, was now regarded as a subversive. The amount of time Mercedes spent in the Sacromonte was beginning to worry even him.
 
 
One afternoon Mercedes came running back from La Mariposa’s and burst through the door of El Barril. The place was empty except for Emilio, who was behind the bar drying cups and saucers. He was working almost full time in the café now. His parents were resting in the apartment, Antonio was at school teaching his last lessons for the term and Ignacio was away in Sevilla for a
corrida
.
 
‘Emilio!’ she said breathlessly. ‘You have to take the evening off.You’ve got to come out with me!’
 
She came up to the bar and he could see droplets of perspiration on her forehead. She must have been running hard and her chest was heaving from the exertion. Her long hair, sometimes neatly plaited for school, was dishevelled and hanging loose about her shoulders.
 
‘Please!’
 
‘What for?’ he asked, continuing to dry a saucer.
 
‘A
juerga
. María Rodríguez just told me that Raul Montero’s son is coming to play. Tonight. We are invited to go - but you know I can’t go on my own . . .’
 
‘What time?’
 
‘About ten o’clock.
Please
, Emilio!
Please
come with me.’ Mercedes gripped the edge of the bar, wide-eyed, pleading with her brother.
 
‘All right. I’ll ask our parents.’
 
‘Thanks, Emilio. Javier Montero is meant to be nearly as good as his father.’
 
He could see that his sister was excited. The old lady had told her that if Javier Montero was even a fraction as handsome as his father or one tenth as accomplished on the guitar, then he was worth going to see.
 
Javier Montero was not exactly a stranger because many of the
gitanos
knew of him. He had come at their invitation from his home in Málaga. Musicians often came in from the outside but this one had excited local anticipation more than most. Both his father and his uncle were among the biggest names in flamenco, and that summer night in 1935 ‘El Niño’, as he was known, was to play in Granada.
 
When they entered the long windowless room, a seated figure was already quietly playing a
falseta
, a variation on the piece that he would eventually open with. All they could see of him was the top of his head and a mass of glossy black hair that hung down and entirely screened his face. Bent lovingly over his guitar, he appeared to be listening, as though he believed it was the instrument itself that would give him his melody. Someone was subtly rapping out the rhythm on the table top nearby.
 
For ten minutes, while people were still coming into the room, he did not look up. Then he raised his head and gazed into the middle distance towards a point that only he could see. It was an expression of pure concentration, the pupils of his dark eyes just registering the outlines of the few figures already seated.With the light behind them, their faces were in the shadows, their silhouettes haloed.
 
The young Montero was spot-lit for all to see. He looked younger than his twenty years and his dimpled chin gave him an unexpected innocence. There was something almost feminine about him, with his copious, glossy tresses and features that were finer than most gypsy men.
 
From the moment she saw him, Mercedes was transfixed. She thought he was extraordinarily beautiful for a man and when his face disappeared once again behind the shroud of his mane it was like losing something. She willed him to look up so she could resume studying him. He continued idly moving his fingers across the strings, vain enough to want a bigger crowd and clearly not planning to start his performance until the room was filled to capacity.
 
More than half an hour later, and without apparent warning, he began.
 
The effect of his playing on Mercedes was physical. At that very moment, it was as though her heart expanded. The powerful beating that resounded in her ears as loudly as a drum was entirely involuntary. On the low uncomfortable stools on which they sat, she hugged herself in an attempt to still her shaking body. In her life, she had not heard anyone play like this. Even the older men who had been playing for half a century did not produce such an exquisite sound.
 
This
flamenco
was at one with his guitar, and the rhythms and melodies that he could draw from it passed through the audience like an electric current. Chords and melody emanated from his instrument along with percussive taps on the
golpeador
. It was as though a third invisible hand was at work and the sureness of his technique and the originality of the music astounded them all. The rise in room temperature was palpable and the murmured utterance of ‘
Olé
’ was passed around the room like a hat.
 
Beads of sweat streaked Javier Montero’s face and for the first time, as he tipped his head back, the audience could see that his features were distorted with concentration. Rivulets of moisture coursed down his neck.The drummer took over for a few minutes, allowing him to rest and once again he stared out blankly across the heads of the audience. He did not engage with them even for a moment. From where he sat, they were a single, amorphous mass.
 
There was one further piece and then, twenty minutes from the start of the performance, he gave a brief nod of his head, rose from his seat and edged his way past the applauding crowd.
 
Mercedes felt the edge of his jacket brush her face as he went past and caught the sweet-sour scent of him. Something akin to panic seized her now. It was as strong as pain and her heart resumed its earlier violent beating. In one thunder-clap instant, the postured gestures of love and grief that she had copied from other flamenco dancers over the years became something real. The play-acting had been a dress rehearsal for this moment.
 
The anguish, the despair that she might never again set eyes on this man almost made her forget herself and shout aloud:‘Stop! Don’t go!’ Reason and reticence could not hold her back, and she got up and slipped away, leaving Emilio discussing with others in the
cueva
what they had all just witnessed.
 
Such heightened atmosphere was not uncommon in these performances but even so, the player had been a cut above the best of them, they all agreed, and their slightly rivalrous envy of his brilliance gave way to admiration.
 
As the fresh air hit Mercedes, she nearly lost courage. Just outside the door, in the shadows, was the figure of the
guitarrista
. The fiery glow from a cigarette gave away his presence.
 
Suddenly her boldness seemed almost shameful.
 
‘
Señor
,’ she whispered.
 
Montero was used to such advances. The allure of a masterful player invariably proved irresistible to someone in the audience.
 
‘
Sí
,’ he replied. The lack of depth in his voice was a surprise.
 
Mercedes was set on a course of action and, in spite of a very reasonable fear of rejection, she continued. She was on a tightrope with an obligation to move forwards or backwards. Having come this far she had to speak the words she had rehearsed in her head.
 
‘Will you play for me?’ Overwhelmed by a sense of her own audacity, she braced herself for rejection.
 
‘I
have
just played for you . . .’
 
There was a weariness in his voice. For the first time he bothered to look at her. He saw her features picked out in the lamplight. So many women approached him like this, seductive, available, aroused by his playing, but when he saw them in the light he could see they were old enough to be his mother. Sometimes, though, high on the adrenalin of his performance, it did not deter him from an hour or so of intimacy with them. Being the object of worship never failed to have some appeal.
 
This girl was young, though. Perhaps she genuinely wanted to dance. That would make a change.
 
‘You’ll have to wait,’ he said roughly. ‘I don’t want a crowd.’
 
He had done enough performing for the day but the thought of seeing what this girl wanted from him was quite intriguing. Her audacity was enough to persuade him, even without her pretty face. He lit another cigarette and remained in the shadows. The minutes passed and the crowd drifted away.
 
Mercedes, hovering out of sight, saw the willowy figure of her brother slope down the narrow cobbled street and out of sight. He would assume that she was already at home. Only the
cueva
owner remained, eager to lock his doors for the night.
 
‘Could we have just a moment inside?’ Javier asked him.
 
‘All right,’ he said, recognising Mercedes.‘If you like. But I need to go in ten minutes. No more.’
 
Mercedes switched the light back on. Javier resumed his position, head bent, listened to the intervals between the strings, adjusted two of the pegs and then looked up. Now he was ready to engage with this
señorita
.
 
Until this moment, he had taken in little about her, merely her youth, but now, poised and ready to dance, he saw that she was no coy child. She had everything of the haughty madam about her: the poise, the ‘attitude’, a sense of drama.
 
‘So what do you want? Some
alegrías
?
Bulerías
?’

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