She made the shape of bird wings with her fingers. She thrust out her chest and angled her hips, holding her head erect and proud. She didn’t need music. It was all there, in her head. With a defiant stamp of her right foot, she launched into the dance sequence she had performed on the last night of the competition in Provence. The one that had won the prize.
She danced with her eyes open for fear of crashing into the walls, but she didn’t see the dingy, graffiti-covered bricks or the rusty barred door. What she saw was Nieve’s face, glowing with excitement as she clapped out the rhythm.
“What’s going on in there? Gypsy whore!”
There was a rattle of metal as the door hatch slid open. She could see a pair of eyes through the slit.
“Nothing,” she hissed.
“It didn’t sound like nothing,” the guard replied. “Sounded like hammering. What have you got hidden away?”
“Nothing,” she repeated, holding out her hands. “I was dancing, that’s all—there’s no law against that, is there?”
“Dancing?” He made a sound like a pig grunting. “Well, there won’t be much time for that where you’re going! The only dance they do at Málaga prison is the shitters’ shuffle!”
Lola stared at him in horrified silence.
“Do you know what they’ll do when you get there?” he hissed. “It’s the same thing they did to the red whores during the war: First they shave your head. Then they force-feed you with castor oil to clean out all the evil shit inside you. Then they strip you naked and march you through the streets on a mule so everyone can see your disgrace.” He huffed out a breath. “You’d be there now, but there’s no space. Still, it won’t be long—something to look forward to, eh?” He slammed the hatch shut.
Lola slumped on the bed, burying her face in the rough blanket.
Don’t cry, Mama. Rose is writing letters. She won’t let them do that to you.
“Oh, Nieve,” Lola sobbed. “Where are you?”
Chapter 21
Pampaneira, Spain: Three days later
The village school was on the northern outskirts of the village, beside a track that led farther up the mountain. Each morning, when Rose, Nieve, and Gunesh made their way there, they passed a fingerpost with three place names carved into it: Órgiva, Trevélez, and Capileira. The last one was Lola’s village. According to the sign, it was four miles up the mountain. Rose wondered if she could get there and back by the time Nieve finished school. Given its altitude, the terrain was likely to be even more difficult than the route up from Órgiva had been. It would be foolish to set out without food and water, neither of which she had with her.
Glancing up as she waved goodbye to Nieve, Rose caught sight of a group of women coming down the hillside. They carried big baskets on their heads. As they passed by, Rose could smell the herbs they had been gathering—fennel, wild garlic, mint, and thyme. She recognized the leader of the group as one of the people she’d tried to talk to at the Corpus Christi procession.
The silent treatment meted out that afternoon had been repeated at the post office the next day. Rose was beginning to wonder whether the whole village had been on the side of the fascists. That would explain their antipathy to anyone who had fought on the opposite side. But if that was the case, would Nathan really have risked coming here to buy tobacco? And would a girl from a fascist family have embarked on a relationship with an enemy soldier?
The second scenario was not as unlikely as the first—she’d heard of many instances of British girls marrying German or Italian prisoners of war. But perhaps there was another way of interpreting the villagers’ reticence to talk: Could it be that they were still afraid, as Lola was afraid? Were they republican sympathizers, still scared of reprisals? Did General Franco’s network of neighborhood spies extend to a place as small as this?
They were questions that she couldn’t answer. All she knew was that she had come up against a brick wall. Traveling to Lola’s village seemed like the only option left to her. In Capileira at least, Rose knew that there had been people who sided with the partisans—people like Lola’s family, who had risked their lives to help men like Nathan. Surely, they couldn’t all have been executed? There must be some who had survived the war.
She was still thinking about it as she led Gunesh down the path that led back to the village. The route took them through a meadow covered in wildflowers—chamomile, parsley, sorrel, and goat’s rue. And among the creamy whites and pale yellows, swathes of poppies splashed the hillside like bloodstains. It was as if the landscape itself were a silent witness to what had happened in this place.
Rose let Gunesh run free for a while before summoning him back with a shrill whistle. Then they made their way toward the village. Before they reached the houses, they passed a weaving shed with baskets outside, heaped with raw silk. There was a mule tied to a post, and she went to stroke it. But before she could, a surly-looking man emerged from the shed and yanked the animal loose of the rope that tethered it, leading it into the building. Moments later it emerged, its panniers loaded with bales of woven silk. She remembered that today was market day in Pampaneira. No doubt the silk was on its way there.
She wound her way down through Calle Veronica until she reached the main square. The stalls were a riot of color, piled high with peppers, eggplants, onions, and tomatoes. Great flat fillets of salted cod glistened like snow in the sunshine, and fat black sausages dangled from lines of string rigged overhead.
Over by the fountain there was a man selling cherries. Cherries were just right for a trek up the mountain—sweet, moist, and easy to carry.
She felt very conspicuous as she crossed the square. It wasn’t just Gunesh that made her stand out from the other women clustered around the stalls—she was the only female over twenty-five not dressed in black.
“Quiero algunas cerezas, por favor.” I’d like some cherries, please.
He looked up from what he was doing—picking leaves and the odd shriveled berry from the baskets of glistening fruit. Rose was immediately struck by his warm smile. His eyes were blue—not blue green like Cristóbal’s, but a clear, pale shade, like the sky on a frosty morning. He was dressed like a Gypsy, with a red neckerchief and a leather waistcoat. But he didn’t have the olive skin. His hair was light brown. And he was the tallest person she had seen since coming to Spain.
“Por supuesto, ¿cuántas quiere?” Of course—how many would you like? He had a different accent from the other people she had spoken to.
Rose hesitated. “¿Una libra?” She still hadn’t got the hang of the units of weight in Spain. She thought a libra was roughly equivalent to a pound—but she had no real idea how many cherries that would give her.
As the man began scooping them into the scales, a wasp buzzed around her head. Gunesh jumped up, snapping at it. Then she felt it flying into her hair.
“Get off me!” She hissed the words in her own language as she batted it away.
The man hovered over the scales, the scoop in his hand. “It’s a little over a libra—is that all right?” He spoke in English.
Rose smiled in surprise. “Your English is very good,” she said.
“Thank you.” He smiled back. “But it’s not nearly as good as my cherries. If it was, it would be excellent.” He looked at his stall and shrugged. “I would have brought twice as many as this down from the mountain, but my other mule is unwell.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He has a sore on his back—at the base of the neck—that won’t heal. I can’t put a saddle or panniers on him.”
“What’s the sore like? Does it scab over?”
The man shook his head. “It just keeps weeping. I’ve tried bathing it with iodine, but it doesn’t seem to help.”
Rose nodded. “It might be something called fistulous withers. It’s an infection of a fluid sac near the animal’s spine.”
His eyes widened. “Really? You sound as if you know what you’re talking about.”
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“I’m a vet.” She felt herself blushing. She wasn’t sure why. There was something disarming in those blue eyes. “Where do you live?” she asked. “If you could take me to the animal, I might be able to help.”
He tipped the cherries into a paper bag and handed them over, leaning across to stroke Gunesh as he did so. “It’s kind of you to offer. But it’s a mile or so up the mountain—near the old bunkers.”
“Bunkers?”
“Where the partisans had their base. Have you been up there?”
Rose caught her breath. For the first time since she’d arrived in this village, someone was talking openly about the Civil War. “I haven’t,” she said, “but I’d like to.”
Rose went back to the cherry stall at two o’clock, when the market traders were packing up for the day. She knew his name now—Zoltan Varga—and the fact that he was a Hungarian Gypsy who had come to Spain as a refugee at the end of the war in Europe. He had listened intently when she had told him about Nathan. He told her he’d found boxes of documents, some of which appeared to be in English, in the abandoned cottage where he was now living.
It had been too difficult to go on talking after that—a queue of customers had formed behind Rose—but he had asked her to come back in the afternoon.
“How did you do today?” she asked as he smiled a greeting.
“Not bad,” he replied. “It’s going to be an easy ride home.”
Rose desperately wanted to go with him. It was tantalizing, knowing that he had papers that could hold some clue to what had happened to her brother. But there was Nieve to consider. She would be coming out of school in an hour’s time, tired and hungry. It wouldn’t be fair to drag her up the mountain.
“If you don’t mind coming down again tomorrow, I could meet you by the school,” she said. “Do you have any potatoes at home?”
“Potatoes?” His forehead crinkled.
“For the sick mule. If it is fistulous withers, the remedy I’d use is a mixture of potato skins and garlic. If you haven’t got any, I can buy some and bring them with me.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can get them from Maria Andorra—the old woman who supplies the cherries.”
Rose nodded. “You’ll need to peel about six potatoes and boil the peelings in a big pan of water for an hour. Then add four cloves of garlic and leave them to soak overnight. If you do that, I can get started with the cure right away.”
“Okay.” He bent over to fasten the buckle that held the panniers in place on the mule’s back. “Actually, it might be interesting for you to meet Maria—she used to supply the partisans with food.”
“Would she talk to me?” Rose frowned. “No one else around here seems to want to discuss what went on during the war.”
“Well, it’s a tricky subject. But Maria’s not like other people—she’s a force of nature. She’s not afraid of anyone.” He tapped the side of his nose with his finger. “She has friends in high places.”
Rose tried hard to suppress the surge of hope his words had set off. But it wasn’t easy.
“See you in the morning, then.” His lips parted, revealing perfect white teeth. Unusual for a Gypsy. The combination of tobacco smoke and a nomadic lifestyle tended to make the men’s mouths their least attractive feature.
“Yes.” Rose smiled back. “See you in the morning.”
Chapter 22
Zoltan was waiting for Rose a few yards from the school gate when she dropped Nieve off the next day. He tipped his hat to them as they came up the track.
“Who’s that?” Nieve whispered.
“It’s the man I was telling you about—the one who has the sick mule.”
“It doesn’t look very sick to me.”
“He’s got two, that’s why!” Rose ruffled Nieve’s hair.
“Are you both going to ride on that one?” The child gave her a mischievous look.
“Nieve! He’s brought it for me to ride—though I’m perfectly capable of walking up the mountain.” Rose shooed her off to join her classmates.
When she reached Zoltan, Gunesh was already there, jumping up and licking his face.
“Get down, Gunesh!” She grabbed the dog’s collar.
“It’s all right,” Zoltan said. “He’s a fine animal, isn’t he?” He cocked his head toward the school. “And your little girl is very pretty.”
“Thank you.” Rose turned to stroke the mule, unable to meet his eye. “Her name is Nieve.”
“As in the Spanish for snow?”
“Yes. It was snowing when she was born.” To change the subject, she asked him where he’d learned to speak English.
“From the soldiers who liberated the camp I was in.”
Rose’s hand stopped halfway down the mule’s neck. “You were in one of the death camps?”
“Yes.” His eyes went to his feet. “I was in a place called Mauthausen. In Austria.”
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to . . .”
“You don’t have to apologize.” He cupped his hands, making a step to help her to climb onto the mule’s back. “I try not to think about it.”
“I can understand that.” She settled herself into the saddle. “Two of my relatives died in concentration camps.”
He looked up at her, blinking as the sun caught his eyes.
“They were Jews living in Paris.”
“That’s terrible. I . . .” He trailed off, looking away.
Rose wondered if, like Jean Beau-Marie, he had lost family members in the camp. Perhaps, like Jean, he wished he had died alongside them. Clearly it was a part of his life he didn’t want to revisit. His awkward silence made her change the subject. “This is a very beautiful part of Spain, isn’t it?” she said. “I love all the rivers and wildflowers.”
“You’ve come at the best time.” He took the reins and began leading the mule up the track. “It’s hard to believe now how cold it was in March—much colder than anywhere else I’ve lived. I was snowed in for a whole week.”
“How did you survive?”
“On chestnuts.” He made a wry face. “Luckily I had plenty of firewood—the partisans had left a stack of logs behind. Otherwise I might have frozen to death up there.” With his free hand he pointed to the rugged peak of the mountain silhouetted against the sky. “It’s higher than the highest peaks of the Pyrenees. Have you heard the name of it?”
Rose shook her head.
“The local people call it the Mulhacén—after the last Moorish ruler of Granada. They say he asked to be buried up there.” He looked over his shoulder at the land falling away behind them. “Not a bad place to spend eternity, is it?”
It was just a throwaway remark, but for Rose it conjured an image of Nathan lying alone and abandoned. She drew in a breath and expelled it slowly, trying to dispel the dark thoughts that crowded in. Zoltan was right. If her worst fears were confirmed, she must console herself with the fact that this wild, beautiful landscape was exactly what her brother would have chosen as a final resting place.
She twisted around in the saddle, following Zoltan’s gaze. She could see the river gorge and the tiny houses hugging the bank. Beyond them, to the east, was another, lower mountain range. The shadows the sun cast on its spurs and ravines gave it the look of crumpled curtains.
“Oh! I can see the sea!” Rose shaded her eyes with her hand.
“Can you see a dark smudge above the blue?”
“What is it?”
“It’s Africa: Morocco. The Rif Mountains.”
Rose felt her spirits lifting. How amazing, she thought, to be able to see another continent when you walked out your front door each morning. No wonder Zoltan had chosen to settle in this place. A view like this was balm to the soul.
“Where in the village are you living?” he asked as he guided the mule around an outcrop of weathered limestone.
“At the mill across the bridge. It’s the only place that allows dogs.”
“How do you like it?”
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��The room is okay.” She shrugged.
“But the landlady is not so nice?” He shot her a knowing look.
Rose hesitated. “I don’t think she likes me very much—I’m not sure why.”
“She’s not a happy person. Her husband was beaten to death by the men of the village during the Civil War.”
“Poor man—what had he done?”
“Well, Maria—the old lady I was telling you about—says he was a spy for the fascists. When people came to buy flour, he used to find out what was going on in the village—who was taking messages to the partisans, who was supplying them with food and ammunition. When they found out who had betrayed them, they dragged him all the way to the village square and clubbed him to death, right in front of the church.”
Rose thought of Alonso throwing stones so aggressively into the river, and his sister, hard faced and imperious. Bad enough that they had lost their father—but to know that he had been murdered by the fathers of their classmates must be unbearable.
“Señora Carmona is a very bitter woman,” Zoltan went on. “She’s always spreading what the Spanish call mala leche.”
“Bad milk?”
“Yes. She never has a good word to say about anyone. I’d be careful what you tell her.”
Rose nodded. “I haven’t mentioned my brother to her. I told her I’d come here to write a book about animals.”
Zoltan tightened his grip on the lead rein as the path narrowed. Ahead of them was a spectacular waterfall tumbling over moss-covered rocks into a pool of turquoise water.
“It’s very dangerous up here,” Zoltan said. “It’s all the meltwater from the glacier at the top of the mountain.”
Rose looked longingly at the pool. It didn’t look dangerous. If she had been on her own, she would have been very tempted to strip off and jump in.
“We’re almost there now.” Zoltan pointed to a clump of trees on the ridge above the waterfall. “The bunkers are just beyond those trees.”
She would never have spotted the bunkers if she’d come up the mountain alone. Bushes camouflaged the entrance to the system of tunnels and trenches that had been dug into the hillside. Bees hovered over the golden blossoms of broom. A skylark flew out of a tangle of ripening brambles. The waterfall was nothing more than a distant murmur.
The Snow Gypsy Page 18
