Golden Earrings

by Belinda Alexandra

  Papa shook his head. ‘Audrey said we should wait, but I wanted to give you a stable home life as soon as possible. I thought that you and Mamie could both come here. I believed you’d like having a brother in Pierre and a mother figure in Audrey. But it went terribly wrong. I underestimated how badly you would take things. You think I always do what Audrey wants? Well, that was an occasion when I should have listened to her.’

  I was so astounded by what I was hearing that at first I couldn’t say anything.

  Then it occurred to me how badly I had misunderstood my father’s intentions. ‘But you didn’t explain any of this to me,’ I said. ‘How was I to know?’

  I was about to stand up and embrace him, so that we could begin our reconciliation, but Papa frowned.

  ‘How were you to know? Indeed!’ he said. ‘You moved out to go live with Mamie as soon as I mentioned Audrey. You walked away from me every time I went to see you to explain. I assume that you didn’t read any of dozens of letters I sent to you and you even convinced Mamie I was so terrible that she hung up the telephone whenever I called. When Audrey tried to speak with you, you treated her with contempt. What else could I have done? When I tried to explain, you didn’t want to listen!’

  I stared at my hands, feeling as if a heavy weight was bearing down on my shoulders. It was true. Every time he’d tried to speak to me, I’d pushed him away. I hadn’t even given him a chance.

  ‘You’re right,’ I told him, tears choking my voice. ‘I don’t understand why I did that.’

  My father put his hands on his hips. ‘I didn’t understand why either,’ he said. ‘Until I drove you home from the hospital after Mamie’s heart attack … and I realised how much you despised me. If you had any kind of love for me, you would have demanded an explanation. Instead, your expectations of me were so low that you assumed that I was simply a bastard.’

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ I said. I almost couldn’t bear to hear any more. Yes, I had been upset about Mama’s death, but why had I been so cruel to Papa?

  ‘You’re sorry?’ my father continued, his voice growing louder. ‘I lived with a woman who was cold to me for seventeen years, Paloma! I did it for nobody’s sake but yours! What a fool I am! All so you could look down on me with the same contempt your mother did!’

  There had once been a time when Papa couldn’t stand to see me cry. But even though the tears were streaming down my cheeks, he looked away from me and out the window. Avi had often said that there are some things in life that a mere apology couldn’t fix, and it was obvious that my relationship with my father was one of them.

  My father’s revelations about my mother and my own realisation at the lack of understanding between us was as devastating as my failure to get into the corps de ballet the year before. It was difficult to adjust my picture of my mother. I didn’t love or miss her any less, but I could see that she wasn’t as perfect as I had thought. If I hadn’t held my mother on such a pedestal, I might have been more generous to Papa.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve been knocked down and gone over a few times by a steamroller,’ I told Jaime. ‘How could I have been so wrong about my own father?’

  ‘Your father was hurt,’ he said, putting his arm around me and kissing the top of my head. ‘But it sounds to me like you both love each other very much. I’m sure now you’ve gone to see him that he will think things over. Just give it a bit of time.’

  I wanted to believe Jaime, but the truth was that I had never seen Papa look at me so dispassionately. It was as if the feelings he had for me had died. And after the way I had acted, how could I blame him?

  My rehearsals with the Ballet would begin in a few weeks and I had to be in good form. But one thought kept playing over in my mind: I had been wrong about my father, completely wrong, and that convinced me that I didn’t know everything about la Rusa’s betrayal of Xavier either. The only way to find out more was to try to make contact with her ghost myself.

  The light shimmering through the trees of cimetière du Père-Lachaise gave the place an atmosphere that was both tranquil and tragic. Chopin, Proust, Colette and Édith Piaf were buried here, along with Molière, Oscar Wilde and Honoré de Balzac.

  The attendant at the gate had marked on the cemetery’s map the location of la Rusa’s grave. Jaime checked it, then pointed in the direction we had to go.

  ‘If there was a soundtrack for this cemetery,’ he asked me, ‘what would it be?’

  ‘Something hauntingly beautiful,’ I said. ‘I know … Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No 6, Pathétique”.’ I remembered it was one of the pieces that Xavier had played at the Cerdàs’ supper where Mamie first met Avi.

  La Rusa’s gravestone was black granite and it was covered in flowers. She was supposed to have betrayed my great-uncle and yet for some reason I found it comforting that she was still venerated by lovers of flamenco.

  ‘It’s poignant that someone who became such a recluse later in life is buried in one of the most densely populated areas of the cemetery,’ I said.

  Jaime squeezed my hand. ‘Are you all right here for a while? I’ll go visit Jim.’

  He was referring to Jim Morrison from The Doors, who had died a few years before. Jaime was a big fan.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I told him.

  I watched Jaime walk away up the winding path. The golden earrings tingled in my pocket. I had explained to Jaime that I wanted to see la Rusa’s grave but not that I wanted to try to contact her. I had shared everything about Mamie’s story with him, but for some reason I wanted to keep this part to myself. I hoped that la Rusa would appear again so I could ask her why she had visited me. It was strange, but since she had helped me at my examination, I was no longer afraid of her.

  I took the earrings out and examined them in the sunlight. They looked in every way like an ordinary pair of hooped earrings. Who could believe that they had crossed worlds? Mamie’s heart attack had made me forget my intention of throwing them in the Seine. I was glad that I hadn’t.

  ‘La Rusa … Celestina,’ I whispered.

  I waited for a response. But there was none: only the rustling of the breeze through the trees.

  Jaime returned about half an hour later. ‘Fans keep stealing the markers for Jim’s grave,’ he told me. ‘But it’s still easy to find because of all the people standing around it. The cemetery has even placed a security guard there.’

  I knew that Jaime had to leave to play guitar for Carmen’s advanced classes, but I wanted to stay by la Rusa’s grave a little longer. Although cimetière du Père-Lachaise was a place for reflection and peace, there were sometimes reports of muggings and rapes occurring there. But there were plenty of summer tourists wandering around, so I felt safe to be on my own.

  ‘Will you give me a call later on?’ Jaime asked.

  I nodded, and we kissed. Although Carmen and the others weren’t there, I had a strange sense that someone was watching us.

  ‘Hasta luego!’ Jaime said, and waved before heading in the direction of the exit.

  I waited a while longer, but when la Rusa didn’t appear, I decided to leave by the porte de la Réunion gate so I could visit the memorial for the Second World War deportees and Resistance fighters. I paused for a moment to remember Avi and how he had ‘lost’ his music in a German prisoner-of-war camp. The suffering of Spanish Republicans hadn’t finished with the end of the Civil War.

  ‘You seem very interested in la Rusa.’

  I spun around to see a man standing behind me. My blood went cold. There was something menacing in the way he’d asked the question. What did he want? He appeared to be in his seventies and was short with a round face and body. But he looked physically powerful. What was he? A mugger? A rapist? I didn’t have anything valuable on me except for the golden earrings. And then I realised that the man had spoken in a marked Spanish accent. Something about his clothing struck me too. He wasn’t shabbily dressed but he wore his clothes badly. The leather jacket and crocodile-skin shoes seemed expensive b
ut were all wrong on a man his age. A gold chain nestled in the hairs of his barrel chest. There was an underworld air about him. Was he a drug dealer? I found myself wishing that I had left the cemetery with Jaime.

  ‘You are not a reporter, in any case,’ the man said. ‘You are a descendant of the Montellas.’

  I didn’t like the way he said ‘Montellas’, as if it gave him a bad taste in his mouth.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, feeling braver now that I was sure he wasn’t a rapist. I was obviously known to him in some way.

  He fixed his eyes on me. ‘I am Ramón Sanchez. La Rusa was my sister.’

  A blow to the head couldn’t have stunned me more. I stood with my mouth open.

  Ramón’s eyes darted from me to the memorial and back to me again. ‘Why is a Montella wanting information about my sister?’

  Now I knew who he was, I had no hesitation: I reached into my pocket and showed him the earrings.

  He seemed startled by the sight of them, but quickly recovered. ‘You’d better come with me,’ he said. ‘I’m parked over there.’

  I turned to where he was pointing. Outside the exit was a brown BMW Longue. It was the car I had seen when I went to visit where la Rusa had died; and again outside my apartment building.

  ‘You’ve been following me?’

  ‘I wanted to know who you were and what you wanted. I have something of great importance to tell you.’ He sounded less antagonistic and more awe-struck.

  I wondered again how he’d known who I was. Then I remembered the policeman who had kept staring at me the day I went to the prefecture pretending to be a reporter investigating la Rusa’s death. Now Ramón’s earlier comment made more sense to me. It must have been the policeman who informed him. I still wasn’t sure that going with him was a wise idea. Should I telephone Jaime or Carmen first? Then I realised that the man standing before me could answer every question I had. He could tell me why la Rusa had appeared to me.

  Ramón drove me to Orly, an outer suburb of Paris. It wasn’t far from where la Rusa had killed herself. He parked the car and I followed him into his apartment building, feeling that I was getting more and more out of my depth.

  His apartment on the tenth floor made me wonder what he did for a living. My gaze moved from the shag-pile rugs to the brown leather chairs. A Marantz stereo system took up one wall of the living room. Like Ramón’s dress style, everything in the apartment looked expensive but somehow in poor taste. Through a door I saw another room with an open trunk bursting with flamenco dresses and an antique Spanish dressing table. I no longer had to wonder who had cleared out la Rusa’s apartment.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Ramón said. ‘Would you like a drink? I would.’

  I shook my head. His attitude towards me had improved markedly and I wondered why.

  Ramón headed towards his bar to mix himself a Cinzano Bianco. He returned and sat uncomfortably close to me. His spicy aftershave made me want to sneeze. ‘So how did you get those earrings?’

  ‘Your sister gave them to me.’

  ‘I buried them with my sister.’

  Ramón stared at me intensely, but I wasn’t sure if that meant he believed me or not. After all, who could believe my story? Was he going to accuse me of graverobbing?

  ‘How many times have you seen her?’ he asked me.

  ‘Twice.’

  To my surprise, he nodded. ‘She said she’d return with them, although I didn’t understand everything that she was explaining to me then. I didn’t understand that she was going to kill herself.’

  ‘My grandmother thinks la Rusa betrayed her brother, Xavier, during the Civil War. That she was responsible for his death.’

  Ramón hesitated a moment at the mention of Mamie. ‘Of course she does,’ he said, staring into his drink. ‘It didn’t matter how high my sister rose or what she became, she would always be worthless in the eyes of the Montellas. Well, let me tell you, my sister was the most loyal person I’ve ever known. She was loyal to her family, she was loyal to her gypsy clan, she was loyal to her country. And, despite what Evelina Montella believes, she was loyal to the man she loved … and the child that they’d had together.’

  ‘A child!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ramón. ‘A dark beauty who would grow up to dance magnificently.’

  I turned away from Ramón. A thought was jabbing into my mind like a needle no matter how hard I tried to resist it. Mamie’s journal entries to Margarida came back to me: I do not want to reveal to her the one thing she doesn’t need to know. If she found out, it would destroy her peace of mind for good … I didn’t know if I had the strength to bear my life being turned upside down yet again. But was there any choice?

  I turned back to Ramón. ‘If you know something, please tell me. Your sister is visiting me for a reason. I don’t think it’s because she wants something. I think it’s because she wants to help me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, looking at his hands. He sounded gentler and less bitter. ‘That’s exactly what she would do.’ He looked up at me again, his eyes misted with tears. ‘After all, you are her granddaughter.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Celestina

  Despite the care that Xavier and I had taken, I discovered in March 1936 that I was pregnant. After the doctor had confirmed my pregnancy, he assured me that under the new Republic abortion was legal.

  ‘I can recommend a reputable clinic,’ he said, which I assumed, even in those days of social equality, meant it catered for women of means. ‘You’re healthy. You’ll recover quickly,’ he promised me. ‘You can go home again that night and no one need ever know.’

  I returned to my hotel suite and sat for a long time staring out the window. How could this have happened? I had no mothering instincts at all; children had never interested me. There were other considerations too. Even though I was wealthy and famous, I had none of the power of the privileged classes. Senyor Montella and his wife tolerated me. Even Conchita, though she had words to say about me, had stopped protesting my existence. In her eyes I had saved her from more babies after she had produced an heir in Feliu. But if I were to start having children with Xavier at a time when laws about property were rapidly changing and even illegitimate children might have claims, they would turn against me. Then what would that mean for Xavier and me? It appeared that the doctor had been right: abortion was the only option available.

  I got up from the window and paced the room. The idea of destroying something that was part of Xavier sent a shudder through me. My stomach churned with panic. No, I couldn’t kill this child. What could I do? Go to France and give birth discreetly? Give the child to someone else to bring up?

  Yes, that’s much better, I thought, and calmed down a little. But then doubts assailed me again. Was that a life for a child? To be fed and clothed but never to have parents? I thought of my own childhood after my parents had died: I had been unhappy and alone.

  Xavier was away on business in Switzerland, so I couldn’t confide my troubles in him. Never in my life had I been so conflicted about what to do. Then one morning Evelina Montella came to pay me a visit. When the maid showed her in, I noticed that Evelina looked pale and shaken. I hadn’t heard from her in a few months and I wondered what had happened.

  ‘Please, sit down,’ I said, inviting her to take a place on the sofa.

  Even after my maid had left the room, Evelina didn’t speak. She stared in front of her like a person who has suffered a shock.

  ‘Evelina, what is it?’

  ‘I lost it,’ she said. ‘I lost my child.’

  She brought her hands to her face and sobbed hysterically.

  Child? What child? At first I wasn’t sure what she had meant and then the truth dawned on me. ‘Evelina, are you saying that Francesc gave you a child and you miscarried?’

  ‘It was Gaspar’s child,’ she replied, taking her hands from her face. ‘We were together in January and I conceived his child. Like you said I should.’

  What I was hearin
g sounded so uncharacteristic of Evelina that I was astonished. I hadn’t told her to have an affair with Gaspar. I’d simply suggested it could be a solution for her. And that conversation had taken place years earlier.

  ‘I was pregnant to Gaspar but I lost the child,’ Evelina repeated slowly. It was as if she was trying to get the facts of the matter clear in her own head. ‘I felt its heart beat for a short time and then it stopped. A few days ago, everything gushed out of me including the tiny unformed baby in its sac. The doctor said there is something wrong with my uterus, that I will never be able to have a baby.’

  Evelina began to sob again and I put my arm around her. I felt pity for her, remembering what she had said to me once: ‘What I want more than anything else in the world is a child to love.’ Was God playing some sort of joke on us? Why had I become pregnant against my will while a woman who desperately wanted a child had lost the one she was carrying?

  Then it occurred to me that maybe God was not playing a joke at all. Maybe Evelina’s problem was the solution to my own dilemma.

  ‘Does Francesc know?’ I asked her.

  ‘About the baby, yes … Not about what happened. He is away.’

  ‘But he was all right with accepting it? I mean, it does look much better for you to have a child than not — as long as people think it belongs to him.’

  ‘Yes, he was all right with it,’ she said, sadly.

  ‘And nobody else knows that you lost the baby besides the doctor?’

  Evelina shook her head. She was puzzled by my question. ‘I didn’t go to the Cerdà family’s physician. I was too ashamed.’

  I stood up and took a deep breath before speaking. ‘Evelina … I think there is a way I can help you.’

  Evelina didn’t respond at first. She was too caught up in her grief. I sat down next to her and took her hand. ‘This is probably the most unselfish thing I’ve ever done, but I want to do it for you,’ I told her.

  I watched Evelina’s expression change from despair, to surprise, to pensiveness, then slowly to joy as I told her my plan.