Golden Earrings (32 page)

I remembered the tortured expression on Xavier’s face when I had lied to him that Celestina Sánchez was dead, and how the pain I had caused him was like a dagger in my own heart. The memory of that had never blurred or softened; it remained crystal clear every time I thought of it. I knew then that whatever hurt Xavier would hurt me too. It’s so strange, I thought, why some people fall in love like this and others don’t. It was as random as the stars.

‘I’ll never harm you,’ I murmured in Xavier’s ear. ‘I’ll never do anything to hurt you ever again.’

By the second year of its birth, the new Republic was in trouble. While it had raised the hopes of the most wretched in society, it had also threatened the interests of those who were opposed to any redistribution of wealth and power — the monarchists, the Church, the army, the industrialists and landowners. While the world looked on in amazement, Spain went from a backward, conservative country to one where freedom of conscience was honoured, women were given the vote, civil marriage and divorce were permitted, education became compulsory and secular, and the Church and state were separated. But those who did not like the changes were bent on destroying the Republic … and soon, very soon, circumstances were to play into their hands.

In the October of 1933, I returned from a tour of Portugal to find Xavier waiting for me at the railway station. As soon as he spotted me, the light came to his eyes and he moved towards the carriage where I was sitting. How I loved these moments of reunion. We had been lovers for as long as the Republic had been in power, but every time we met again felt as fresh as the first.

I let him approach me, noticing that even his gait was attractive. He walked with his shoulders relaxed, his arms swinging. We couldn’t kiss like lovers in public, but even the feel of his lips on my cheeks sent tingles down my spine.

‘Where is everybody?’ Xavier asked, looking over my shoulder. He was referring to my clan.

‘They will be here,’ I told him. ‘They are gathering their things.’

No sooner had I spoken than Diego and his sisters alighted from the train along with Manuel’s sisters. Their husbands and children followed. With Raquel’s twins the latest additions to my clan, I was now looking after twenty-five people. The travellers waiting on the platform stared at the gypsies. Even when travelling on trains, the women wore their finest jewellery and tiaras; but they eschewed the Hermès suitcases I had bought for them and wrapped everything they owned in bundles tied with string.

Although el Ruso and Xavier had, between them, wrested control of my income away from Diego so I could keep it for myself, Diego still greeted Xavier like an old friend. The gypsies liked Xavier, but our affair was only possible because they considered me mostly a
paya
. If I’d been born a gypsy, they would have cut off my nose for sleeping with a married man. It also helped that Diego approved of Xavier because he had money and was generous with it.

‘I’ve organised taxis for everyone,’ Xavier announced, steering the group towards the exit like a tour conductor. He leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, ‘For us, I have my car. I’ve missed you so much I’m whisking you straight to the apartment.’

In the chauffeured car, Xavier and I held hands underneath my coat.

‘I’ve been invited to perform at the Samovar Club tomorrow night,’ I told him. ‘It’s going to be Gaspar on the piano and me. Are you coming?’

Although I had been performing in grand concert halls for crowds of people for years now, I still preferred the intimacy of dancing in clubs and cabaret shows. And with Gaspar back in Barcelona for a month, I’d seized the opportunity to perform with my old friend again.

Xavier shook his head. ‘I can’t make the show but I’ll meet you afterwards.’

I knew the reason. He’d promised to do something for Conchita.

I never made Xavier feel guilty about having to divide himself between two lives. I’d seen his wife once when el Ruso had taken me to the Liceu. She was sitting in the family box with Xavier: a foxy-faced beauty in form-fitting clothes. Very few people knew about my and Xavier’s love affair. Xavier never treated me as a mistress, and I never badgered him to divorce his wife, even though it was now legal. Laws might change but attitudes didn’t, and I much preferred our secret life to one embroiled in scandal. I might not have had him all the time, but when we were together Xavier and I were happy. He opened up the cold part of me and made it warm again. He’d brought me back to life.

‘Margarida sends her regards,’ he said.

‘How is her arm?’

‘On the mend.’

I found it unusual that Margarida had taken a liking to me. It wasn’t only that she despised Conchita and thought Xavier was happier with me; her affection seemed genuine. I smiled as I remembered the day she’d invited me to join her on a teaching mission. With the support of the Republican government, she was going to tour the poorest villages in Spain with a group of artists and performers. The idea was that they would put on plays, give art exhibitions and talks, and show films to people who were still living as if it were the Dark Ages. While I loved performing and wasn’t averse to living rough — I still preferred it to fancy hotel rooms — I couldn’t imagine anything worse than
touring the country with a gathering of intellectuals and poets. I hated the way the dance critics overanalysed my performances and, besides that, I’d never read a book in my life. I’d learned to autograph my name artistically, read the newspaper, and speak some English and French quite well. That was enough for me.

‘The peasants need food and livelihoods, not high culture,’ I’d told Margarida.

‘Actually,’ she’d said, straightening her spine and staring at me with her intense eyes, ‘they need both — to feed the body
and
the spirit.’

Margarida had a passionate energy about her. I knew she was good at winning people to her cause. But she wasn’t going to win me.

‘I’ll give your group money for the costumes and travel expenses,’ I told her. ‘But I’m not going.’

Margarida had written to me about the tour almost every day she had been away:
We performed to a full house tonight
.
Even though it started to rain, the peasants would not move. They were so enthralled by our performance.
But the bus she had been travelling on had overturned on its way back to Madrid and now Margarida was nursing a broken ulna.

The apartment Xavier and I secretly rented was off the carrer Gran. When we walked into it, the first thing I noticed was a vase of blood-red roses in the foyer. I turned to Xavier and smiled before sitting down in the drawing room and staring at the new painting above the mantelpiece. It was a distorted depiction of a woman painted in yellow, red and green oils.

‘Where did you get that?’ I asked.

‘It’s a Picasso,’ replied Xavier. ‘He’s a Spaniard. Do you like it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps it will grow on me … as you did.’

He laughed. ‘Hopefully faster than that! I paid a small fortune for it!’

I kicked off my shoes and Xavier sat down next to me. ‘I’m exhausted,’ I said.

He rubbed my feet and blew on my toes. ‘I’ve missed these feet. These delicate but powerful instruments. How did the Portuguese like your shows?’

‘You’ve tamed me,’ I told him, leaning back and closing my eyes. ‘Reviewers no longer use words like “spitfire” or “hellcat” to describe me. Now they are calling me “refined” and “sophisticated”. You’ve put out my fire.’

Xavier leaned over me, easing my skirt up over my hips and kissing my thighs. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is yet to be seen.’

When we woke a few hours later, it was already dark. For some reason I had been dreaming of Teresa’s flower stall, overflowing with geraniums and begonias. It took me a few moments to register where I was.

‘It’s six o’clock,’ Xavier said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’d better get going.’

I watched him put on his trousers and shirt. My show wasn’t until ten. I had plenty of time.

‘So what’s been happening in Spain?’ I asked. ‘It’s impossible to believe anything the Portuguese papers print.’

‘For the Republic to survive it needs to raise wages and cut unemployment, but that’s next to impossible in the midst of a depression,’ he said, pulling on his socks. ‘The workers are becoming impatient and are seeking more radical solutions. To keep the support of the middle classes, the Republic has to provide stability and order. They’ve come down too hard on some protests and now they’ve alienated the workers even more.’

‘Did we change too fast?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Yes, probably. But how can you not change quickly when people are starving?’

I thought of Teresa again and realised he was right. The Republic was something the Spanish people should have
demanded when the French achieved theirs. We were hundreds of years late, although our transition had been less bloody. While King Alfonso had been tried in his absence for high treason, the sentence that had been passed down was permanent exile. Spain hadn’t sent the aristocracy and other opponents to the guillotine.

‘The Left is breaking up into factions of conservative reformers and extreme anarchists, while the disgruntled members of the Right are uniting,’ Xavier said, straightening his tie. ‘If the Left doesn’t get its act together, they will lose the next election. Then I am sure the Right will dismantle the reforms that have been achieved and put the country even further behind than it was before.’

Xavier fixed his hair before kissing me goodbye. After he left, I rested my head back on the pillow. I could still smell the cedar scent of his aftershave. I breathed in the restful atmosphere of the apartment. It was a haven we had created in an unstable world.

‘I hope that we always have this,’ I sighed, before drifting off to sleep again.

A
lthough el Ruso was now living in Paris, he still owned the Samovar Club in Barcelona. Zakharov had been made the manager. He was in the foyer when I arrived, looking as handsome as ever, although greyer around the temples.

‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said, taking my hands and kissing both my cheeks before nervously looking around for my clan.

‘They have a fiesta,’ I explained. ‘It’s just me tonight.’

‘
Well, look who is here!
’

I turned to see Gaspar rushing towards me. It was nearly a year since we had last seen each other, and we grabbed each other’s hands tightly. Gaspar knew about Xavier and me, and was happy for us. But I felt sorry for him. I wasn’t the marrying type, but he was — yet he hadn’t settled down. Surely he wasn’t still pining for the young woman who’d married someone else?

Zakharov glanced from me to Gaspar. ‘You two have rehearsed this act, haven’t you?’

Gaspar and I answered in unison: ‘No!’

The three of us laughed. Zakharov had come to respect my need to improvise.

After all the challenges I’d had with highbrow conductors and orchestras who couldn’t keep the
compás
, it was a relief
to return to dancing with a single instrument played by someone who had known me as long as Gaspar had. Senyora Dávilo had dressed me on this occasion in gold and silver, and I performed against a black background with my hair swept back into a low chignon. I was relaxed, and improvised my performance from start to finish. It was true what the reviewers in Portugal had said: I no longer had to whip myself into a frenzy in order to dance expressively. The wild and the untamed were still in me, but I preferred to show my elegant, feminine side now.

Afterwards, I rushed to my dressing room. I was pleased with how well my new style had been received, but I was eager to clean off my stage make-up and freshen up before Xavier arrived. I sat down at my mirror and gave a start. In its reflection I saw the head of a man sitting with his back to me in the armchair. I swivelled around. The man rose and my blood turned to ice. It was Salazar.

‘So you refuse all my invitations,’ he said.

Although I hadn’t seen Salazar for over a decade, he had never been out of contact. Wherever I performed in the world, he always sent expensive gifts and an invitation to a bullfight for when I returned to Spain. The gifts had unnerved me, but as Salazar had not appeared in person for all that time, I had disposed of them and put Salazar out of my mind.

‘I only accept invitations given in person,’ I replied. Then realised my mistake.

An amused look came into Salazar’s eyes. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘My wife has been dead for a year, so I can now invite you to my ranch. We’ll raise bulls together. I’m trying to breed one with violet eyes.’

I’d been stalked in New York, and once a man in Paris had held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot himself if I didn’t marry him. But neither of those encounters had terrified me as much as seeing Salazar now did. He had a demon too, but it
was nothing like the one I danced with, or the one that had brought me and Xavier together. Salazar’s demon was straight from hell.

‘We’ll have to do something about the peasants first,’ he said, taking a step towards me. ‘Do you know, the Republican government thinks that I’m going to share my land with them? Land that’s been in my family for generations?’

‘I believe the intention is to pay you for it,’ I said coldly. ‘And to prevent thousands of people starving to death each year. Land given over for hunting parties and the breeding of bulls doesn’t feed the population.’

Salazar lifted his eyebrows. ‘They are going to pay the landowners according to what we’ve been putting on our tax documents, as if that’s any indication of the land’s worth!’ He laughed. ‘Don’t they realise that peasants are nothing better than animals and a lot less noble? I’ve threatened those on my land that if they don’t vote for the CEDA and the monarchists in the next election, I’ll let them and their children starve.’ He put a long, yellow nail to his nose. ‘It’s a delightful twist, don’t you think? The Republican government gives everyone an equal say — and the peasants will vote against it for a little bit of sausage!’

I thought of my Andalusian grandparents, both of whom had died before they reached forty. They had lived at the mercy of men like Salazar. Still, I stayed quiet. I remembered how, when I’d danced at the Villa Rosa, Salazar had carried a gun. I assumed he still did. All I wanted was to get him out of my dressing room as quickly as possible. But he showed no intention of leaving.

‘What this country needs is a man like the one they have in Germany,’ he said. ‘Hitler.’

I shrank away and moved towards the door, but he followed me. ‘So you will come with me to the fight tomorrow?’

‘I don’t like bullfights,’ I said.

‘That’s because you don’t understand them. Come with me tomorrow and I shall explain everything to you: the nobility of surrendering oneself to death.’

I shivered. The demon around him was strong. I tried again to move away from him — and it. ‘There is nothing to understand. They are just cruel.’

Salazar bit the side of his thumb. ‘What sort of gypsy are you?’ he asked, an annoyed expression on his face. ‘Have you become a soft Catalan? Or should I say, has a
certain Catalan
softened you?’

I had no doubt that he meant Xavier. How did he know about us? His spying must have involved more than keeping track of where I was performing. The murderous look in his eyes chilled me and a terrible thought came to my mind. I saw Xavier arriving at my dressing room and Salazar shooting him. No sooner had I thought it than there was a knock at the door. Salazar and I both turned towards it.

I remained silent, terrified it might be Xavier.

‘Senyoreta, I have some flowers for you,’ came a female voice. ‘Shall I put them in your room?’ It was the club’s maid, Consuelo.

Salazar shook his head, but I ignored him. ‘Yes,’ I answered.

Consuelo walked in with a bouquet of long-stemmed calla lilies that was taller than she was. She settled them in a vase on an end table before she realised that Salazar was with me. She glanced at my face and must have seen the fear there. Bless you, I thought, as she began moving noisily around the room, dusting everything in sight and violently fluffing the cushions.

Her frenetic activity made Salazar uncomfortable. He moved towards the door, where he grabbed my arm and forced me to look into his bloodshot eyes. ‘So you think bullfighting is barbaric, do you?’ he asked. ‘What you don’t understand is that some beasts … and some people … are born doomed.’

Salazar let me go with such force that I stumbled backwards.

He strode out the door and his demon scuttled after him. I realised now what the demon was. It was death.

Xavier arrived a quarter of an hour later with a bouquet of white roses. Salazar had so unnerved me that I collapsed in his arms.

‘You’ve exhausted yourself again, haven’t you?’ Xavier laughed. ‘You didn’t give yourself much of a break after Portugal.’

I feigned a smile. I didn’t want to tell Xavier the real reason for my alarm. To whom had Salazar been referring when he had said that some people were born doomed? I held Xavier to me as a chill prickled my skin. Dear God, I prayed, if one of us is doomed, let it be me.

Xavier was right when he said that I needed to rest after Portugal. But I found it impossible to settle my thoughts while Salazar’s words rang in my head like a threat. I didn’t go anywhere for a few days. I stayed in my hotel suite and read the newspapers to occupy my mind. I made Xavier call me every day even if I was seeing him that night. Salazar had disappeared from my life for months and years at a time before. I prayed he might disappear from it forever.

The articles in the newspapers were depressing: unemployment was rising and unrest among the workers and peasants was increasing. The brutality with which their protests were put down was causing many commentators to suggest that the only way forwards for the poor was through revolution, not reform.

One day, Evelina Montella arrived to visit me. I was touched that both Xavier’s sisters frequently called on me; I had expected to be snubbed by them. Xavier had told me that, unlike Margarida, who openly despised her sister-in-law, Evelina was friends with his wife and doted on his son, so I was pleased that she viewed me without any resentment. Whether Xavier’s parents knew of my existence or not, they didn’t acknowledge it.

Evelina was wearing a white knitted dress and matching bolero jacket. While Margarida was boisterous, Evelina was quiet in a way I found intriguing. She reminded me of a rosebud — tightly closed but full of potential.

‘Francesc is travelling again,’ she said, when I invited her into the suite’s sitting room. She did her best to smile, but I noticed the frown lines that had appeared on her forehead.

I wasn’t surprised that Francesc Cerdà spent as much time away from home duties as he could. The fact that he preferred men to women was obvious to me. I had worked and performed with many homosexual men and enjoyed them as friends. But I couldn’t imagine that Evelina and Francesc’s marriage was bliss for either of them.

‘I saw you dance at the Samovar Club the other night,’ Evelina said in her soft, cultivated voice.

‘Oh? Why didn’t you come and greet me afterwards?’

She folded and unfolded her hands. ‘It was late … I didn’t want to bother you.’

She fell silent and I sensed there was something weighing on her mind that she wanted to talk about. Then it occurred to me that she might have witnessed Salazar leaving my dressing room. I hoped it hadn’t given her the wrong idea.

‘Xavier came to visit me afterwards,’ I told her. ‘You should have come too.’

But she wasn’t listening. She took a breath and looked at me. ‘I was wondering if you would teach me to dance flamenco?’

I was startled and didn’t respond straight away.

Evelina blushed. ‘It’s presumptuous of me to ask a star like you … but you don’t just dance flamenco, you embody it.’

I was flattered and confused. It was true I had become a polished performer, but flamenco was considered a lowbrow form of dance compared to Spanish dance and ballet. It wasn’t a pursuit for upper-class women, let alone Catalan ones. Why did Evelina want to learn it? She’d never be able to dance it for anyone.

‘I don’t know if I can
teach
you,’ I explained to her. ‘I learned from watching others and from living with flamenco dancers. But I would be happy to try. When should we start? Now?’

Evelina looked surprised, then enthused. ‘Truly?’

‘Why not? I have nothing else to do today.’

I found a rehearsal dress for her to wear. She was a natural dancer. When I showed her how to use her arms, she mirrored me exactly. She had a good sense of rhythm. But she was all technique and no fire.

‘I enjoyed that,’ she said, when we had finished and the maid brought us coffee and cakes.

I had found her company pleasing too. Although there was something sad and a little repressed about her, she’d lifted my spirits.

‘Why don’t you come again tomorrow?’ I asked her.

Her face broke into a smile. ‘Truly … I’m not wasting your time?’

It touched me that she should speak so humbly to me. I remembered the first time I had seen Evelina, as a baby in a pram. She had been so pretty, like a fairy princess.

‘Of course not,’ I reassured her. ‘I love everything about dance.’

‘So do I!’ she said, a sparkle coming to her eyes for the first time.

I watched from the window as she sent me a girlish wave before stepping into her chauffeured Bugatti. In many ways Evelina was my opposite: she was reserved and I was not; she was cultivated and I was a savage. What an unusual friendship we are making, I thought. I wondered if asking me to teach her flamenco might be the most daring thing Evelina had ever done.

Because Evelina progressed with the individual flamenco steps so quickly, we soon moved on to combining them into basic patterns. By the time we were a few weeks into our lessons, she was moving well enough for us to dance with each other.

‘Don’t try to imitate me,’ I told her. ‘Find something of your own.’

I could see that she understood what I was asking of her, but she had trouble executing it. I wondered if she had ever been given the opportunity to be her true self.

One day when we were dancing, the door buzzer rang. A minute later, my maid appeared and told me that Gaspar Olivero had come to see me.

‘Tell him to come in,’ I said.

I glanced at Evelina, expecting her to be pleased to see her friend. But she had turned pale and was standing frozen to the spot. I wondered what was wrong with her. Had she overexerted herself?

Gaspar strode into the room and stopped in his tracks when he saw Evelina. For a fraction of a second they held each other’s gaze before looking away. Then I understood. The young woman Gaspar had been pining for all these years was Evelina Montella.

What followed was a stilted and awkward conversation. Gaspar told me he’d only dropped by for a minute because he was in the area. He looked towards the door as if intending to leave, but didn’t move. Evelina said several times that it was a pleasure to see him again, all the while staring at her feet. I wondered if I should make an excuse to leave the room, or whether being alone was going to make everything worse for them.

Before I could decide, Gaspar said that he would call me later about doing another show at the Samovar Club and finally mustered the courage to actually leave us. I walked him to the door of the suite and kissed his cheeks. His skin was ice cold.

When I returned to the sitting room, Evelina was sobbing.

‘I’m so unhappy,’ she told me. ‘I’ve been married for two and a half years and everyone keeps asking when Francesc and I are going to have a baby. This morning, the Marquesa hinted that
maybe I should see her specialist. Even the old doyennes are whispering their fertility secrets to me at parties or at the Liceu. What I want more than anything else in the world is a child to love. Each birthday that passes without a child sends me into a depression — but Francesc won’t come anywhere near me!’