Page 44 of The Moon Sister
María still remembered how she had shaken with fear at the prospect of theTres Rosasceremony. José’s face was above her in the dark cave, the smell of alcohol on his breath as he kissed her, then mounted her. Outside, María could hear raucous laughter and her heartbeat was as fast as the hands beating on thecajóndrums.
‘It is done!’ roared José as he’d rolled off her and summoned her mother. María had lain there, waiting for Paola to press a white handkerchief against the most intimate part of her, knowing that the three blooms of her virginity would not appear.
‘Don’t make a sound, daughter,’ Paola had warned her in an urgent whisper.
In the flickering candlelight, María had watched as her mother pulled a small blade from a pocket and pressed it into the tender flesh of her daughter’s thigh. María had stifled a cry as she saw blood from the wound drop onto the cloth her mother held.
‘You have made your bed,querida, and now you will lie in it for the rest of your days,’ Paola had whispered fiercely, before leaving the cave with the handkerchief held out in front of her.
Outside, the village had erupted with cheers and applause as Paola had waved it to all for their inspection.
‘So, wife.’ José had reappeared beside her soon after, a flask of brandy in one hand, a cheroot in the other. ‘Shall we drink to our union?’
‘No, José. I do not like the taste.’
‘But you like the taste of this, don’t you?’ He’d grinned at her, as he dropped his breeches to the floor and joined her again beneath the colourful blanket it had taken her a month to crochet.
An hour later, as María had dozed from the strain of the past few days, she’d heard José leave the bed and pull on his clothes.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I left something behind. You sleep now,mi amor, and I will be back soon.’
Yet when María had opened her eyes to the dawn the following morning, José had still not returned.
*
María sighed as she made her way to the smelly public latrine used by the cave dwellers. If she had believed then – eighteen years ago now – that José loved her as much as she loved him, any such romantic thought was now long dead. Perhaps, she thought bitterly, José had known the marriage was to his advantage. Her parents had been wealthy enough to pay for a new cave – albeit far further up the mountain – as a wedding gift, plus an exceptional set of iron kitchenware.
Their first child had been born prematurely at eight months – or so she had been told to say by her mother – but had survived no longer than six weeks. The second and third babies she’d miscarried in the second month. Then finally, Eduardo had arrived and María had buried herself in motherhood. At last she was able to sit with the other women to talk over remedies for colic, fever and the diarrhoea that hit the young and old of Sacromonte like a plague as the rain fell in the winter, the mud running down the dusty narrow pathways and the cesspits overflowing. No matter that her husband was rarely at home, or that there were no pesetas in the tin they kept hidden in a locked wooden cupboard behind a painting of the Blessed Virgin. At least her father had already promised that baby Eduardo would have a future in his forge, and Paola slipped her enough vegetables to keep mother and son alive.
‘No more than this will I give,’ her mother would say. ‘That river rat of a husband would spend any money I gave you on brandy.’
Emerging from the latrine, María smiled as an image of Eduardo rose in her mind. He was such a good boy – now sixteen and working alongside his grandfather. As for her other two sons . . . there was no doubt they took after their father. Both of them had the same wild streak that seemed to be inherent in purebloodgitanos. Carlos was almost fifteen and earned his living bare-knuckle fighting – a fact he would never admit to, but was obvious to his mother when he began to appear in the cave in the mornings, his face swollen and his young body covered in bruises. Felipe, now thirteen, had been sickly as a baby and was more sweet-natured, but easily swayed by the older brother he adored. Felipe was a talented guitarist, for whom his father had great hopes, but instead of developing his talent, he followed Carlos around like a lamb, eager to gain his approval in any way he could. As she reached her cave, to comfort herself, María turned her thoughts to little Lucía, in whom she’d placed so much hope when she’d found herself pregnant after three fallow years.
‘It will be a girl,’ Micaela had told her when María had gone to see her in her third month. ‘She will be possessed of many talents. She will be special.’
María knew now that every word Micaela had spoken was true. As abruja– or ‘witch’, as the ignorantpayoswould call her – she had the third eye and had never been wrong. Everyone in Sacromonte counted on Micaela to give them the prophecies they desired, and they were none too pleased if she told them something they did not want to hear.
And it was María’s own mistake for interpreting Micaela’s words in the way that she’d wished to. ‘Special’ and ‘talented’ had meant to her what she had wanted them to mean: another woman in the house, talented at home-making and rearing children, a daughter who was kind, gentle, who would help and support her through the latter years of her life.
‘That is the problem with seers and their prophecies,’ María muttered as she undressed by the light of the flickering candle, then carefully folded her embroidered bolero, apron, blue skirt and petticoat before donning her nightgown. It was not that they gave the wrong message, but simply that the person who received it could mould it into what they wanted and needed it to be.
She had hoped that one of her children would have inherited her great-grandmother’s gift. She had been the villagebrujabefore Micaela and the gift ran in her family. She’d dreamed that Micaela would inspect the new baby and tell her that yes,thiswas the child who would one day become the nextbruja. Then everyone would have come to their cave to visit, knowing that her baby possessed the gift of seeing and would grow to be the most powerful woman or man in their community.
Returning to the kitchen, María scooped some water out of the barrel to wash her face. Then she tiptoed across the room; to her left lay the boys’ sleeping quarters, separated from the kitchen by a curtain. Twitching the fabric aside and holding the flickering candle in front of her, she could just make out Felipe’s slight form under his thin blanket, his breathing still heavy from a recent chest ailment. Beside him on the straw pallet was Eduardo, his hand flung carelessly across his face as he slept. María suppressed an irritated sigh as she noted that Carlos was not yet home.
She made her way across the earthen floor to her own room right at the back, and saw Lucía sleeping peacefully on her pallet. Using the last of the candlelight, she navigated her way beneath her own blanket. Snuffing out the remnants of the flame with her fingers, she lay her head on the hard straw-filled pillow and stared into the blackness. Even though the evening was warm, María shivered in the stale, fetid air of the cave. She wished that José’s arms were there to embrace her, to take away the fear she felt for the future. But those strong arms did not want a woman whose body was turning flaccid from birthing five children and lack of nourishment. At thirty-three, María felt she looked far older than her age.
What is it all for?she asked the heavens and the Blessed Virgin. Then, receiving no answer, María closed her eyes and slept.
11
‘Why do I always have to help with the cooking?’ Lucía pouted as María dragged her into the kitchen. ‘Papá and Carlos and Felipe – they sit outside, playing guitar and smoking whilst we do all the work!’
It was another morning, and María already felt weary to her bones at the thought of all that lay ahead of her that day.
‘Cooking is women’s work, Lucía. You know very well that is the way it is.’ María handed her a heavy iron pot. ‘The men go out to earn the money, we take care of the house. Now, stop your complaining and peel those vegetables!’
