The Barefoot Queen Read online

  That same ritual was the one that now, walking close to the Tagarete, he slyly observed in Caridad as she ate the polvorones: she stopped chewing, half closed her eyes and let some time pass, bringing her lips together, salivating before nibbling on another.

  It wasn’t pure Havana tobacco, not pure and not mixed, he remembered Caridad declaring that day. Where was it from? She wouldn’t know, answered the gypsy with an unusual tranquillity, as if the contact with the tobacco leaves had made him confident; she only knows the Cuban. It’s a young tobacco, she declared, slightly fermented, perhaps … maybe six months, at most a year. And too blond, with little sun.

  Fray Joaquín watched how Caridad brought a new crumbly sweet to her mouth, delicately, as if it were a tobacco leaf …

  “Cachita!”

  Milagros’s voice surprised them both. They hadn’t even worked out where the voice was coming from when she started to pressure them, “You are Cuban! You know about tobacco …”

  “Milagros,” mused the friar, trying to make her out among the people, in the dark.

  “Tell them that these cigars are pure Havanas!” the young gypsy urged. “Come!”

  It was Fray Joaquín who first noticed the colorful ribbons in the gypsy girl’s hair and the scarves on her wrists twisting in the air as she gestured wildly amid a group of men.

  “How dare you say that they aren’t Havanas?” complained Milagros, loudly. “Come, Cachita! Come over here!” Fray Joaquín and Caridad both did. “They are trying to take advantage of a girl! They want to cheat me! Tell them that they’re Havanas!” she demanded as she handed her one of the cigars that Caridad herself had crafted with that blond tobacco that the friar was hiding in the monastery. “Tell them! She knows about tobacco! Tell them it’s Cuban!”

  Caridad hesitated. Milagros knew that it wasn’t Havana! How could she …?

  “Of course it’s Havana, gentlemen.” Fray Joaquín came out to rescue her. No one noticed, in the darkness only broken by the faint glow of a nearby bonfire, the complicit smile exchanged between him and the gypsy. “I myself bought a couple this morning …”

  “Fray Joaquín,” whispered one of the men gathered when he recognized the famous preacher of San Jacinto.

  The five men who surrounded Milagros then turned toward the friar.

  “If Fray Joaquín says they are Havanas—” another began.

  “Of course they are Havanas!” interrupted Milagros.

  At that moment, the flickering light of the fire flashed on the features of the man who had last spoken. And Caridad shivered. And the cigar in question slipped from her hands and fell to the floor.

  “Cachita!” scolded Milagros as she was about to kneel to pick it up. But she stopped when she saw Caridad shaking, her eyes lowered and her breathing erratic. “What …?” Milagros began to ask, turning her head toward the man.

  Even in the weak light, Milagros could see the man frown and tense up, but then he shifted his gaze toward the friar and contained himself.

  “Let’s go!” he ordered his companions.

  “But …” one of them complained.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Cachita.” Milagros put her arms around her friend as the group of men turned and disappeared into the multitude. “What’s happening to you?”

  Caridad pointed to the man’s back. It was the potter from Triana.

  “What’s wrong with that man?” asked Fray Joaquín.

  Caridad gently freed herself from the girl’s embrace and, with tears streaming down her face, knelt to pick up the cigar that was still on the ground. Why did she always have to cry there, near the Tagarete, in San Roque?

  The gypsy and the friar looked at each in puzzlement while Caridad wiped off the dirt that had stuck to the cigar. When they realized that the sobbing woman was now cleaning off sand that only existed in her imagination, the friar urged Milagros with a gesture.

  “What happened with that man?” inquired the girl tenderly.

  Caridad continued stroking the cigar with her long, expert fingers. How could she tell her? What would Milagros think of her? The gypsy girl had spoken to her about men on many occasions. At fourteen, she had never been with a man and she wouldn’t until she was married. “We gypsies are chaste and then faithful,” she had affirmed. “There isn’t a single gypsy prostitute in the entire kingdom!” she had later said proudly.

  “Tell me, Caridad,” insisted Milagros.

  And what if she left her? Her friendship was the only thing she had in this life and …

  “Tell me!” the girl ordered, making Fray Joaquín jump.

  But this time Caridad did not obey; she kept her gaze on the cigar she still held in her hands.

  “Did that man hurt you?” asked Fray Joaquín tenderly.

  Had he hurt her? She finally nodded.

  And that was how, question by question, Fray Joaquín and Milagros learned the story of Caridad’s arrival in Triana.

  Milagros missed Caridad. A few days after the goose tourney, Grandfather had received a visit from a galley slave who had rowed with him for several years. The man, like all the convicts who managed to endure the appalling torture of the galleys, appeared as frail as Melchor and, again like all those who survived, knew the ports and peoples of the sea who were like them: traffickers, smugglers and all types of criminals. Bernardo, for that was his name, told Grandfather about the arrival of a substantial tobacco shipment from Virginia into the port of Gibraltar, a rock on the Spanish coast that was under English rule. There, boats with English, Venetian, Genoese, Ragusan or Portuguese flags unloaded tobacco, fabrics, spices and other merchandise on various points of the coast that extended from the rock to Málaga, by night, when the wind blew hard, to avoid being discovered by the Spanish patrol boats. Bernardo had already made a deal for a good shipment of Virginia tobacco, he just needed funds to pay for it and runners to carry it off the beaches.

  “In a few days we will go out in search of a tobacco shipment,” Melchor had announced to Caridad after closing the agreement with Bernardo at Joaquina’s tavern, over a jug of good wine.

  Caridad, who was in the gypsy’s room, sitting in front of a wobbly board on which she continued making cigars with the blond tobacco stored by the friar, just nodded, still rolling her hand over the one she was absorbed in creating.

  It was Milagros who seemed surprised as she watched her friend work with the tobacco leaves.

  “Are you taking Cachita?” she asked her grandfather.

  “That’s what I said. I want to get the best tobacco, and she knows how to recognize it,” he answered in the gypsy dialect.

  “Won’t … won’t it be dangerous?”

  “Yes, girl. It always is,” declared the gypsy, already in the doorway, preparing to leave the room; three people didn’t comfortably fit inside.

  They looked at each other. Didn’t you know that? Melchor seemed to be asking his granddaughter, who hid her eyes in shame, aware that the next thing her grandfather’s penetrating eyes would ask her was: When have you ever asked me that?

  Melchor had no problems getting backpackers and carriers: the Vegas and his relatives in the settlement at La Cartuja were always willing to accompany him; they were tough, bold gypsies and, above all, loyal. He had no problems getting the money either: Fray Joaquín got it for him immediately. What most delayed his shipment, as was often the case, were the pack animals: he needed docile, quiet geldings that didn’t whinny in the night at the scent of a mare. But the Vega family set their mind to it and in a few days, with a couple of raids into the meadows around Seville, they made off with enough horses.

  “Be careful, Cachita,” said Milagros when it was time to leave. The two women were in the settlement beside the Carthusian monastery, standing slightly apart from the men and the horses.

  Caridad shifted uncomfortably beneath the long, dark man’s cape that Melchor had dressed her in to hide her red clothes. She had bartered her straw hat for a black slouch hat with a ro
und crown and wide, floppy brim. From her neck hung a lodestone tied with a string. Milagros extended her arm and weighed the stone. The gypsies believed in its powers: smugglers, traffickers and horse thieves swore that if soldiers’ patrols showed up, those lodestones would conjure strong dust and sand storms to hide them. What the gypsy girl didn’t know was that the Cuban slaves also believed in the powers of lodestone: “Christ came down to Earth with the lodestone,” they claimed. Caridad would have to baptize it and give it a name, as was the custom in her homeland.

  Milagros smiled; Caridad replied with a grimace on her face, all sweaty from the implacable summer heat of Seville. It got hot in Cuba too, but there she never wore so much clothing.

  “Stay close to Grandfather,” advised the gypsy girl before approaching to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  Caridad seemed startled at the girl’s sudden display of affection, yet her thick, fleshy lips widened, turning the initial forced smile into one of sincere gratitude.

  “I like to see you smile,” declared Milagros, and she kissed her on the other cheek. “It’s not something you do often.”

  Caridad rewarded her by widening her lips again. It was true, she admitted to herself: she had been slow to open up to her friend, but little by little she was putting down roots with the gypsies, and as her anxiety and worries faded, she trusted in her more and more. In the end, the real cause of the change was none other than Melchor. He was the one who had put her in charge of working with the tobacco. “You don’t have to go with the girl and her mother to sell it on the streets anymore,” he said in the face of Milagros’s insistence on teaching her to do something to contribute to her upkeep. “I’d prefer you to roll what they sell.” And Caridad felt useful and grateful.

  “You be careful, too,” she advised her friend. “Don’t fight with your mother.”

  Milagros was about to reply, but her grandfather’s shout stopped her.

  “Come on, Negress, we’re leaving!”

  Then she was the one who kissed Milagros.

  AFTER CARIDAD’S departure, the girl felt lonely. Since her engagement had been announced, Caridad had become the person who patiently listened to her complaints. She wasn’t able to follow the advice she had given her on her departure.

  “I won’t marry Alejandro,” she assured her mother, practically every other day.

  “You will,” Ana would answer without even looking at her.

  “Why Alejandro?” she would insist other times. “Why not—?”

  “Because that’s what your father decided,” her mother would repeat in a weary tone.

  “I’ll run away first!” she threatened one morning.

  That day, Ana turned on her daughter. Milagros sensed her features would be pinched, serious and icy. She was right.

  “Your father gave his word,” muttered her mother. “Be careful that he doesn’t hear you say that; he’s liable to chain you up until your wedding day.”

  Time passed slowly with mother and daughter angry with each other and constantly arguing.

  Milagros couldn’t even find comfort in her friends on San Miguel alley, many of whom were also engaged to be married. How could she admit to Rosario, María, Dolores or any of the others that she didn’t like the man who had been found for her? They didn’t do it either, despite the fact that most of them, before learning of their fate, had freely criticized the boys they would later be promised to. Milagros wasn’t exempt from such guilt. How many times had she mocked Alejandro? Now they all lied to each other, kept each other at a distance; it was as if their innocence had suddenly ended. It wasn’t that they were growing up or coming of age, it was simply that with their fathers’ decision—a word, a simple agreement made behind their backs—what had been true the night before meant nothing at sunrise. Milagros missed the spontaneity of those conversations with her girlfriends, the whispering, the laughter, the knowing looks, the dreams … even the arguments. The last one had happened the night she danced with Pedro García. Most of her friends were horrified when she declared her intention to do it. She was a Vega, Melchor El Galeote’s granddaughter, she would never be able to get that boy, they all knew it, so … why get involved? But Milagros paid them no heed and threw herself into her dance, until her mother intervened and slapped the boy. Who among the gypsy girls in the alley didn’t long for Pedro García, El Conde’s grandson? They all did! And yet now, after her engagement, it would be a serious affront to the Vargas family if Milagros encouraged Pedro García to pursue her. Alejandro would have to defend her and his father and uncles behind him; the Garcías would respond and the men would pull out their knives … But Milagros couldn’t stop sneaking glances at the boy whenever she saw him walking down San Miguel alley, rambling slowly, as purebred gypsies did, haughty, proud, arrogant. Then she missed Caridad, with whom she could have spoken freely about her longing and misfortunes. They said the young man had inherited the age-old gypsy wisdom for working iron, that he knew instinctively when to begin each of the processes, when the iron was ready for forging, cooling, soldering.… So much so that the elders sometimes consulted him. And yet she was tied to Alejandro. Even Fray Joaquín had wished her the best in her engagement! The friar had given a start when Ana mentioned it to him near San Jacinto. He let out an “already?” And Milagros had listened, crestfallen, to how the clear, sharp voice with which he intoned his sermons had cracked when it came time to congratulate her.

  “Caridad, I need you,” the girl whispered to herself.

  SHE WASN’T paying attention! Beyond the group of girls busy with the countess, Ana glared at her. What was she doing? Why was she hesitating? She’s distracted, thought her mother when Milagros dropped the delicate white hand the countess’s daughter had extended to her and faked a coughing fit. Milagros couldn’t remember what it was that she had predicted for her the last time she read her fortune. The little countess and her two girlfriends who encircled the gypsy moved aside with a disgusted expression at the hacking the girl was using to buy time.

  “Are you feeling poorly, my daughter?” asked her mother, coming to her aid. Only Milagros noticed the harshness in her tone. “Excuse me, your excellency,” she apologized to the countess, addressing the group of girls. “Lately, my girl has had a cough. Let’s see, my lovely,” she added after replacing her daughter and grabbing the young woman’s hand without ceremony.

  The noise of the countess’s silk hoop skirt rustling was clear in the large hall when she decided to approach curiously; the little countess’s two girlfriends closed the circle and Milagros moved a few steps away. From there, forcing herself to cough every once in a while, she heard her mother skillfully hoodwink the little countess and her two friends.

  Men? They would marry princes! Riches, of course. Children and happiness. A few problems, a few illnesses—why not?—but nothing they wouldn’t overcome with the devotion to and help of Jesus Christ and Our Lady. With her hand on her mouth and her mother’s familiar routine in her ears, Milagros shifted her attention toward the countess’s chambermaid, standing beside the doors to the hall, making sure that neither of the gypsies pocketed anything; later, in the kitchens, they would also have to read her palm. Then she looked back at the group of women: her mother, barefoot, dark-skinned, almost black, wearing colorful clothes and with silver beads around her waist; large hoops hanging from her ears and necklaces and bracelets tinkling as she gesticulated and passionately declared the future of those women white as milk, wearing dresses with silk hoop skirts, all decorated with endless embroidery, bows, flounces, ribbons.… What luxury there was in those clothes, in the furnishings and vases, in the mirrors and clocks, in the chairs with golden arms, in the paintings, in the shiny silver objects placed all around!

  The Countess of Fuentevieja was a good client of Ana Vega’s. On occasions she would have her called in: she liked to listen to her telling fortunes, she would buy tobacco from her and even some of the baskets that the gypsy women from the settlement made.

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sp; Milagros heard one of the little countess’s friends giggle nervously, instantly joined by restrained, affected exclamations of joy from the other two and some delicate applause from the countess. The lines of her hand seemed to predict a promising future, and Ana talked at length about it: a good husband, rich, attractive, healthy and faithful. And why didn’t she say the same to her, her daughter? Why was she doomed to marry a clod, just because he was a Vargas? The chambermaid, beside the immense doors, jumped when Milagros tightened her fists, furrowed her brow and stomped on the floor.

  “Are you feeling better?” her mother asked her with a hint of sarcasm.

  The girl answered her with a new, loud attack of coughing.

  The evening was becoming unbearable for Milagros. Ana Vega, not worrying about the time, displayed all of her gypsy wiles for the three girls. Then, when they left, satisfied, whispering amongst themselves, she directed her efforts at the countess.

  “No,” she objected when the aristocrat suggested that Milagros wait in the kitchen, where they would look after her. “She’s better here, isolated, we don’t want her to infect your ladyship’s servants.”

  The new sarcasm infuriated Milagros, but she contained herself. She put up with the long hour that her mother spent talking to the countess; she put up with the farewells and the payment, and she put up with the attentions she then had to pay to the chambermaid and some members of the staff, who bartered tobacco and fortune telling for some food pilfered from the count’s larder.