Page 46 of The Moon Sister
‘Of course!’
‘But, José, she is just ten years old!’
‘And dances like a queen already.’ He executed a shortpalmas, his hands beating lightly together to demonstrate his excitement.
‘I am sure there will be a rule about children performing, José, or else every proud parent would be bringing their own little Macarrona to show off in front of the judges,’ María sighed.
‘Maybe, yes, but I will find a way to show her talent to the world. You must sew her a dress with a train that will catch the eye,’ José said as he lit one of his endless cheroots. The smoke curled above the kitchen table as the boys quickly gulped down the rest of their breakfast, sensing an argument brewing between their parents. They got up and left the cave immediately after they’d finished.
‘We barely have the money to feed our family,’ María said, rounding on José, ‘let alone for a new dress for Lucía!’
‘Then I will find it, I swear,’ he said. ‘This may be our only chance.’
‘Promise you won’t go stealing, José. Swear to me,’ she begged him.
‘Of course, I swear it on my father’s name. And don’t I always keep my promises?’ He smiled and wound an arm around her waist, but she escaped his grasp and went to collect her half-finished basket, then walked wearily to the stable next door where she stored her materials with their skinny mule and the goat. There was only one rule she had ever laid down to José and her sons throughout the difficult life they led, and that was never to steal. She knew many other families in Sacromonte resorted to pilfering pockets in the marketplace when they were desperate. Then they became foolhardy, got caught and ended up being slung into the local jail or given a sentence by an unforgivingpayojudge that far exceeded the crime committed. There was little mercy or justice forgitanos.
So far, she believed that her husband and three sons had kept their word, but the excitement in José’s eyes told her he would stop at nothing to find the money to buy Lucía a dress.
Walking outside, she looked up at the Alhambra, remembering how only recently her daughter had told her she would dance there one day. A thought came to her and she sighed, knowing what she had to do. It brought tears to her eyes, but she steeled herself as she re-entered the cave and found José helping himself to seconds from the pot.
‘I will cut down my own flamenco dress to her size,’ she said.
‘Really? You would do that for your daughter?’
‘If it will keep you out of jail, José, then yes, I will.’
*
‘Mamá, have you heard? I am to dance at the Alhambra, just as I said I would!’
Lucía dug her small feet into the earth and executed a quickzapateado, her tiny feet beating fast against the ground. ‘Papá says there will be thousands watching me and I will be discovered and taken off to Madrid or Barcelona to be a star!’
‘I have heard, yes, and it is very exciting news.’
‘Will you be dancing, Mamá? Papá is entering and says I must sneak onto the stage when he starts to play, because I am too young to enter properly. It is a good plan,sí?’
‘Yes, but, Lucía,’ María put her finger to her lips, ‘it must be a secret. If anyone finds out what your father is planning, they will try and stop you. Do you understand?’
‘Sí, Mamá. I say nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Now, I must go and practise.’
Two days later, María took the scissors to her beautiful flamenco dress. It was a deep red, with black and white ruffles – each one of which she had sewn on herself. She remembered the joy with which she had worn it in her younger years, how her body had felt transformed as it was hugged by the corset, the delicate cotton sleeves dusting her shoulders. It was as if she was cutting out her heart, saying goodbye to all the dreams she’d once had in her youth: of a happy loving marriage, contented children, and dancing into a gilded future with her handsome husband.
Snip, snip, snipwent the scissors as row after row of ruffles on the train fluttered to the ground until only a short length of them – specified by José – was left.
When she had finished, María gathered the entrails of her dress together. And despite knowing that each intricately sewn band could be reused on a future dress, or to liven up the hem or waistband of one of her skirts, María took the scissors to them again and snipped away until nothing remained but a pile of fragments. She swept them into her basket, then took them over to the fire and threw them onto the flames.
*
By the boiling June morning of the firstConcurso de Cante Jondo– the Contest of the Deep Song – the village of Sacromonte had increased its population by twenty-fold and more. Thosegitanoswho had arrived from all over Spain and could not fit into their friends’ and relatives’ caves were camping out along the narrow paths that wound through the maze of caves on the hillside, and in the olive groves beneath it.
Some of José’s Barcelona cousins had come to stay, their Catalan accents as strong as their appetites; María had made a large vat of her famouspuchero a la gitanilla –a thick stew of meat, vegetables and garbanzo beans – for which she had reluctantly snapped the neck of her oldest chicken.
The Barcelona cousins left early in the afternoon with Felipe in tow, eager to take the long walk down the valley across the River Darro and up the steep mountainside to the Alhambra.
‘Felipe, you must take care of yourself and not come home too late,’ María had said as she had helped him tie his bright blue sash around his waist. He twitched out of her reach as she tried to brush dirt from his vest.
‘Enough, Mamá,’ he’d muttered, his thin face reddening in embarrassment as two young girl cousins looked on in amusement.
