Page 183 of The Moon Sister
‘Home?’ María looked at her daughter, trying to gauge where Lucía thought ‘home’ was. After all, the child had been travelling since she was ten years old.
‘Why, Granada of course! You are right, Mamá. We must go back to Spain. It is also where my heart belongs and always will.’ Lucía gazed skywards. ‘I want to wake up in the morning and see the Alhambra above me, smell the scent of the olive groves and the flowers and eat yourmagdalenasfor breakfast, lunch and supper and grow very, very fat . . .’ Lucía chuckled as she gazed down at her tiny bump. ‘Is that not what all mamás do?’
As much as her heart leapt in joy, María knew she had to make sure that Lucía was not romanticising her childhood memories.
‘Querida, you must remember that nothing is the same in Spain. Both the Civil War and Franco’s rule after have destroyed much of what it was. I do not know if there are even any of us left up in Sacromonte, or whether your brothers and their families survived. I . . .’
María’s voice cracked with emotion.
‘Ay, Mamá,’ Lucía went to her. ‘Now the war is ended, surely we must go and find out? I will be there with you. And of course we do not have to live in Sacromonte, but I am sure that we could find a prettyfincato rent that is hidden away. No one will be looking for me in Andalusia, will they? Besides, I wish my baby to be born in its homeland.’
‘You are sure you do not wish to tell Meñique, Lucía?’
‘No, Mamá! Do you not understand?! I wish to travel as far away from him as I can! And he will never think to look in Granada. Maybe I do not wish to dance any more either,’ Lucía sighed. ‘Maybe that time in my life has left with Meñique. So, I must start afresh. Perhaps being a mother will change me, still my restless feet forever. It changed you, didn’t it, Mamá? You hardly danced again after you had my brothers and me.’
‘That was for a very different set of reasons, Lucía,’ María said, realising now that Lucía’s decision was based on nothing more than wanting to run as far as possible from Meñique and what she saw as his betrayal and desertion. ‘I was not you, a world-famous dancer who thousands worshipped, just a simplegitanawho loved to dance for pleasure.’
‘I dance for pleasure too, Mamá, and maybe I can teach my baby like you taught me. Maybe I can learn to cook, makemagdalenasand your sausage stew the way you do. So? We must leave as soon as possible. I do not want to give birth on the water,’ Lucía said with a shudder. ‘You will tell Papá?’
‘Ay, Lucía.’ María disliked herself for feeling a shiver of pleasure at the thought of her errant husband’s distraught face when he heard the news.
‘Do not tell him where we are headed – say we will go to Buenos Aires, Colombia . . . anywhere. I do not trust Papá to keep it a secret from Meñique.’
‘Well, with your permission, I will tell Pepe. One of the family must know in case they need to contact us.’
‘I trust Pepe with my life,’ agreed Lucía, then she smiled suddenly. ‘Spain, Mamá. Can you believe we are going back?’
‘No, Lucía, I cannot.’
Lucía reached out her hand to her mother. ‘Whatever we face, we will face together.Sí?’
‘Sí.’ María grasped it and squeezed it tightly.
*
Before leaving New York, Lucía and María went to Bloomingdale’s on 59th and Lexington, where they bought a trunkful of toys, material to fashion some clothes for the baby, a Silver Cross perambulator and everything María had never had for her own children. Lucía then insisted they go to the women’s department, where they had both been fitted for elegant suits and two tea-dresses. Lucía also bought a wide-brimmed cartwheel hat with a long ribbon tied around the crown. ‘Perfect for the heat of the Andalusian sun!’
She took out wads of dollars from her oversized purse and arranged with the startled cashier to have the purchases packed into trunks and stowed in their cabin aboard their steamer.
‘We don’t want Papá getting any clues, do we? Now, Mamá, just one last stop on our transformation and we will be ready!’
Still, María had been horrified as Lucía had dragged her into a hair salon and had ordered for them both to have their hair cut and styled into the fashionable victory rolls. As her long raven locks were cut to rest on her shoulders, María crossed herself. Lucía’s hair – which fell to beyond her waist – had even more centimetres chopped off.
‘I do not want anyone to recognise me on the voyage or in Granada. So we will pretend for a time that we’re notgitanas, but sophisticatedpayos.Sí, Mamá?’
‘Sí, Lucía, whatever you say,’ María sighed.
31
María and Lucía arrived in Granada on a gloriously sunny May day, after a week on the ocean. They checked into the Hotel Alhambra Palace under María’s maiden name, Lucía hiding her true identity under a pair of oversized sunglasses and her new straw hat. As they walked through the lofty lobby, decorated with colourful Moorish tiles and filled with plush sofas and potted palm trees, María felt as if she had stepped into a different era – one untouched by war and devastation, cushioned in wealth and far removed from reality.
Stepping off the boat into the port of Barcelona had been a shock for her, as she felt the palpable poverty in the air. She and Lucía had taken the train to Granada, and the journey had been rife with delays, as they had had to change carriages several times due to damaged tracks.
María had been relieved to see that Granada’s beautiful buildings appeared untouched – from the newsreels she had seen in New York, of Europe devoured in flame and fire, she had expected it to be a smouldering pile of ash. But the opposite was the case – new buildings were being erected, men carrying bricks in the hot sun, their ribs apparent under their tattered shirts. When she had mentioned this to their taxi driver, he had raised a patronising eyebrow.
‘They are prisoners, señora, repaying their debts to Franco and their country,’ he told her.
Ensconced in the hotel – for once Lucía did not insist on a suite – she was eager not to draw any attention to herselforspend any extra cash out of the amount she had had to beg from José before they left. The first sum José had offered them had been enough for Lucía to threaten that she would never have her father control the finances again. José had relented and quadrupled it, but still, Lucía had had to resort to stealing the same amount again on the day they left to board the ship. She also sold two of her precious fur coats, plus some diamond jewellery she’d been given by a rich Argentinian admirer.
