Page 186 of The Moon Sister
That afternoon, María put Lucía next to her in the passenger seat of the old Lancia touring car that Alejandro had sourced for her through a friend. Although this had once been an elegant and powerful vehicle, years of neglect had led to copious amounts of rust on its once royal-blue body, and it seemed that the engine was in no better condition, as mother and daughter lurched and stalled their way towards thefinca.
‘If only Papá could see you now,’ Lucía uttered a chuckle, as María pressed the brake instead of the clutch and they swerved towards a ditch.
‘I don’t know why you are laughing.’ María feigned irritation as she righted the car back onto the road. ‘Your father struggles to keep a mule’s nose in the right direction.’
As they bumped down the dusty track, María only prayed that Lucía would approve of what she’d worked so hard on to turn into a home for them both.
‘There she is! The Villa Elsa, named after Alejandro’s great-grandmother. Isn’t she pretty?’
‘Not as pretty as my house in Mendoza, but yes, she is,’ Lucía added quickly, realising that negativity would no longer wash with her mother.
María gave Lucía the grand tour, proud of the way the house now smelt fresh, and how all the rooms were filled with soft summer light since the window boards had been taken down.
‘This will be the nursery, Lucía,’ she said as they stood at the doorway of the small room that lay between her own and Lucía’s. ‘Just to think how you slept on a straw pallet with me and your father when you were small. How we have moved on, and all thanks to you and your amazing talent. Aren’t the rooms a good size?’
Lucía opened her mouth to say thefincawas hardly the Waldorf Astoria, then shut it immediately, cowed by the threat of the phone call.
‘And look,’ María continued, opening a door and proudly displaying the toilet and the small bathtub. ‘It’s all attached to the well, which is filled by the stream that flows down the mountain. Alejandro tells me it has never run dry in forty years. Would you like some orange juice?’ she asked Lucía as they reached the kitchen. ‘I pressed some this morning.’
‘Thank you,’ Lucía said. María poured them each a glass and they went out to sit on the shady terrace that fronted thefinca.
‘See?’ María pointed to her left, high above them. ‘There is the Alhambra in the distance. The night of theConcursowas the start of everything for you,querida.’
‘Yes, it was. For better or worse,’ Lucía agreed.
‘I am only glad that we bought everything for us and the baby in New York. It is impossible to get anything in Granada unless I buy it on the black market. And the prices . . .’ María shook her head as she sipped her orange juice. ‘Can you believe the little one will be here within three months?’
‘No. I feel that everything in my life has changed in the last few months, Mamá.’
‘This is the biggest change of all, Lucía. Having my children is the greatest achievement of my life. I am so proud . . . of you all.’
It was María’s turn to stifle a tear.
‘Have you . . . made any enquiries yet about Carlos and Eduardo?’ Lucía asked tentatively.
‘I asked Alejandro where I should start. He told me that . . .’ María wavered, having just managed to threaten Lucía out of her depression, she hardly wanted to push her straight back in.
‘It’s okay, Mamá, I can take it.’
‘Alejandro says . . .he says that it is difficult to trace anyone who is missing. There are,’ María swallowed, ‘a number of mass graves around the city where the Civil Guard dumped the bodies of men, women and children alike at the height of the Civil War. He said there are few records. I was thinking . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I was thinking that I would take a walk up to Sacromonte to see if anyone knows anything. In fact, I have thought of it every day since I’ve been here, but I am frightened of what I might find. Or not find.’ María put a hand to her brow. ‘At least for all these years, I have been able to believe that one day I will find my cherished sons and grandchildren alive, but here we are, two weeks on in Granada, and I dare not go.’
‘I will come with you, Mamá,’ Lucía said, putting a hand on María’s. ‘We will face it together like we promised each other,sí?’
‘Gracias, daughter.’
Lucía wondered whether it was this lovely peaceful place that her mother had worked so hard at to turn into their new home that had cheered her spirits. And besides, in all the destruction and devastation that war had wrought on Spain, she was alive, with a new life inside her. Whereas her brothers and their families . . .
‘Mamá?’
‘Sí, Lucía?’
‘I am sorry for being . . . difficult since we arrived.’
‘You were always difficult,querida, but I understand why. You have been grieving.’
