Page 122 of The Moon Sister
Lucía cast her mind back to the last time she had seen her mother in Barcelona, eleven years ago now. She remembered how she had sat, gently combing her hair. Then, after María had seen her dance at the Villa Rosa, they had said goodbye outside. Lucía remembered that her mother had been weeping.
‘Whatever happened between the two of you, I must go and see her, Papá.’
‘Yes.’ José turned from Lucía, and made his way towards the wagon, his shoulders stooped.
*
A week later, Lucía entered Sacromonte through the city gate. The sky was a perfect blue, the white wisps of smoke coming from the caves that fell down the hillside trailed up in plumes towards it, and the valley was as green and verdant in late summer as she remembered it.
She looked upwards to the Alhambra, remembering the night she’d sneaked like a thief onto the stage at the greatCante Jondocompetition, and danced in front of an audience of thousands.
‘Papá made that happen for me,’ she reassured herself as she walked up the dusty, winding paths towards her childhood home. She smiled at an old man smoking a cheroot on his doorstep. He looked disdainfully at her as though she was a commonpayo. As Lucía walked, she thought about her father’s newly confessed abandonment of his wife and sons. Despite part of her hating him for lying to her for years, Lucía could not deny what he’d done for her that night at the Alhambra, nor his dedication to her career in the last eleven years.
‘Their marital business is none of mine,’ she told herself firmly as she glanced upwards to see the smoke emanating from her mother’s chimney. When she reached the cave, she let out a small breath of wonder because there was a shiny blue-painted door in the roughly carved entrance, and the cave now boasted two glass windows, with bright red flowers planted in boxes beneath them.
She hesitated nervously at the threshold; presented with its unfamiliar formality, she wondered whether she should knock.
‘This is your home,’ she told herself and reached for the doorknob to swing the door open.
And there in the kitchen, sitting at the old wooden table, now covered in a pretty lace cloth, was her mother. Apart from the odd streak of grey in her hair, María looked exactly the same. There was a little boy of about ten sitting next to her, all black curls and smiles as her mother tickled him.
María looked up at her uninvited guest, taking a moment to gather her senses before she took a deep breath and stood up, hand over her mouth.
‘Lucía? I . . . Is it you?’
‘Yes, Mamá, it is me.’ Lucía nodded uncertainly. ‘And who is that?’
‘He is Pepe. Go play with your guitar outside,querido,’ she told the little boy, who then departed with a smile at Lucía.
‘Dios mío, what a shock this is!’ María said as she opened her arms and went to embrace her daughter. ‘My Lucía is returned! Would you like some orange juice? I have just squeezed a fresh batch.’
María moved to what Lucía recognised as a new set of wooden cupboards that ran along one side of the wall. In the centre of them was a cast-iron sink, and a pitcher of water stood next to it.
‘Gracias,’ she said, not only sensing her mother’s discomfort but also thinking that her mother seemed to have come up in the world since she’d last been here. The wonderful bright light in the valley shone through the windows into the interior of the cave, which had clearly been recently whitewashed.
‘Now, tell me how you are? Why you are here . . . tell me everything!’ María laughed in delight as she offered a beautifully carved rocking chair to Lucía to sit down in.
‘Our troupe is on tour nearby. Last night we were in Granada, performing at a café in the Plaza de las Pasiegas. There were big crowds.’
‘Why did I not hear of this?’ María frowned. ‘I would have given anything to see you dance,querida mía.’
Lucía could perhaps guess why friends and neighbours had not told her that her husband and daughter were visiting the area, but she let it pass.
‘I don’t know, Mamá, but oh, I am so glad to be here!’
‘And I am so glad to see you.’
‘Are Eduardo and Carlos home as well?’
‘Today is a fiesta and they are out celebrating with the rest of Sacromonte, but if you are staying tonight, you will see them in the morning.’
‘I cannot stay so long, Mamá. Tonight we must move on.’
María looked momentarily crestfallen. ‘Well, no matter, you are herenow.’ María drew a stool close to her daughter and sat down. ‘You have grown, Lucía—’
‘Not much, Mamá, but what can I do?’ she shrugged.
‘I meant that you have grown into a woman. A beautiful woman.’
