Masquerade (17 page)

An hour later Luz still lay awake, replaying everything that had happened that evening and, with the recollection, came a flash of realization that she was leaping blindfolded into a marsh of quicksand that could totally engulf her. Her feelings for Leandro were overwhelming. What would happen, she wondered dreamily, if she just went with the flow, guided only by intuition and her newfound love? Or should she walk away now, before it was too late, turning her back and shutting the door firmly on all that might be? Should she try to fight for her gypsy or would it be more sensible to fight against her love for him?

Suddenly the events of the past few hours seemed to crowd in upon her. Unbidden, the face of Andrés swam into her vision and she remembered the sting of his evasiveness. Why was she thinking of him at the very moment of contemplating her love for Leandro? She turned and pulled a pillow to her chest in frustration. Why did everything with the young gypsy have to be fraught with such complications?

Luz couldn’t cope with the dizzying spin of her emotions, but still she clung to her pride and the tears that threatened her eyes burned
like acid. She would not cry, even though she was on her own and could let her body have the release it needed.

Sleep did not come easily that night.

Not too far away in the darkness, Leandro sat beneath the stars, strumming a melancholy tune on his guitar, deep in thought. The young gypsy was in one of his dark moods. He leaned his head back against the stump of an ancient olive tree. The moon that a couple of hours ago had witnessed his passion now smiled benignly on him.

What was he doing? Where would all this lead? Well-bred
gajo
ladies didn’t bring home gypsies. Luz, in turn, could never live in his world. He remembered how she had looked at him as if she was fighting with all her might not to give in to her own desire. The thought sliced through him. He was a gypsy, what did he expect from a
gajo
? But he was proud; he would not beg. He had never had to beg. So he had almost walked away from her then. Still, it would be she who would one day turn her back on him. ‘The day obliterates the promises of the night,’ went the ancient Moorish saying. Luz would soon realize her mistake and flee. Heartbreaking as it was, he had to concede he was on a road to nowhere. Their short-lived idyll could only end in disaster. Hadn’t he already had warning of that?

The night he’d argued with his mother after taking Luz back to L’Estrella was still vivid in his mind, as well as what had happened subsequently.

When he’d walked briskly away from Marujita’s cave, dread and horror burning within him, his uncle Juanillo had been hunched over on a bench. The older gypsy was leaning one arm, gnarled with muscle, on his knee while slowly dragging his whetstone across a short
navaja
. The butt of a cigar was clenched between his teeth.

Juanillo was still as strong as an ox despite his greying hair and side-whiskers. In fact Leandro had once seen him throw a man, who had drunkenly challenged him, across a table as if he were
a bag of old rags. Leandro had never gone out of his way to befriend his uncle and, in turn, Juanillo usually kept his distance. Perhaps he sensed and respected his nephew’s own fearless flashes of temper. As a result the two men managed to preserve a wary tolerance of each other.

Juanillo glanced up when he saw his nephew and narrowed his eyes. ‘You’ve a face like boiled milk,
sobrino
,’ he rasped, his voice like a heel over broken glass. ‘I’m thinking that you didn’t like what your mother had to say.’

‘That’s between me and her,’ answered Leandro in a flat voice as he came level with his uncle. He wasn’t about to get into a discussion with Juanillo about Marujita’s plans for revenge against the man and woman she regarded as her sworn enemies – or that she wanted an innocent young woman to pay the price.

He would have walked on but Juanillo stuck a booted foot across Leandro’s path, halting his progress.

‘Nephew, the dishonour of my sister concerns me, too.’

Leandro looked down at the boot before his gaze settled coolly on Juanillo’s coal-black eyes. His uncle clearly knew what Marujita planned to do.

‘We gypsies must stick to our
lachirí
, justice, or where would we be? No better than the filthy
gajos
.’ He spat out the butt of his cigar on the ground.

‘What is your point,
Tío
?’

Juanillo let out a dramatic sigh, drawing in his outstretched leg. ‘You run too fast in the opposite direction,
sobrino
. You’ve always been that way. Anyone would think that you’re shunning your own kind. You should know who you are.’

‘I know who I am.’

‘That’s good.’ The older gypsy nodded slowly, raising his eyebrows. ‘Then you also know that as the eldest son of Marujita, our queen, your duty is clear.’

‘I have always done my duty by my mother,’ Leandro said quietly. ‘She knows that, and so do you.’ What he didn’t say was that never
before had he felt the need to challenge her, or their way of life. Yet what she was asking of him now was tearing at his insides.

Juanillo stuck his knife into the bench beside him and leaned forward. ‘What I know is that your mother is owed her
lachirí
now,’ he growled.

Leandro didn’t react but continued to gaze steadily at the older man.

‘My sister has the power of the
olajai
, curse,’ Juanillo continued, ‘and
Il Diabolica
is feared by any man with sense in his head. Me, I’m different. I don’t need the power of curses, I have this.’ He held up his knife. ‘This is my power … I’m not afraid to draw my
navaja
against another man who wrongs me, or a
gitano
who breaks gypsy law either.’

Juanillo stood, drawing himself up to his full height. ‘Do not make your mother go to her grave unavenged and cursing you for it.’ He wrenched his dagger out of the seat and shoved it under his belt. ‘You may be my sister’s son but if you fail her, you will suffer a fate worse than death for a gypsy. We will cast you out forever. And then I will hunt you down and kill you, make no mistake. Remember, the Devil always sleeps with one eye open and that eye can still burn a man to nothing.’ He began to saunter away. ‘You can’t escape who you are.’

Leandro opened his eyes and shook his head, as if banishing the memory. He returned his gaze to the dark outline of olive trees, lit by the ghostly moonlight. Juanillo had simply stated the truth: if he ignored his mother’s demands there would be repercussions. He couldn’t imagine turning his back on his own people, but the pull of familial loyalties fought against the pull of his heart. As he plucked a few notes from his guitar, he tried to push Luz from his mind but it was no good. How could he ever do that? She ran through his blood like his very life force.

He stared into space, visualizing Luz, an exquisite, slim-hipped creature in a moon-flooded garden. How beautiful and graceful she had looked running down to the lake as he followed her. He recalled
the soft bloom on her face, the slender curved line of her brows, the look in her deep-blue eyes when he had threatened to go and the shiny silken waves of her raven-black hair.

But mostly, he remembered the way her body, soft and pliable as a liana, had pulsated and quivered under his touch, willing and responsive, with a generosity and abandonment the like of which he had never imagined a woman capable. Ever since Leandro had turned fifteen, women from all walks of life, young and old, solicited and unsolicited, had fallen for him and come to his bed. The years had long gone when a woman had surprised him, but tonight, even though in his book their embraces had been relatively innocent – after all, they were fully dressed – Luz had thrilled him like no other.

He had pulled back from her in amazed wonderment, never having felt so much unbridled desire, never so alive, but then reality swept back over him like an ominous thundercloud in the angry heavens. He knew it now: he loved Luz with all his heart, but he found himself in a terrible situation and had no idea how to deal with it.

L
uz woke with a start. The first pale rays of dawn gleamed through the windows. She sat up in a daze, still breathless, her body throbbing and on fire. She had just been dreaming of Leandro naked in the Garden of Eden – or was it Andrés? – as he moved swiftly through the magical paradise, trying to elude her. All through her dream she could glimpse his glistening bronzed figure appearing then disappearing behind trees and shrubberies, only to resurface next to a marble colonnade and vanish again suddenly without warning, always inaccessible.

Sliding out of bed she made her way shakily to the bathroom: she needed a shower. She discarded her damp, flimsy nightdress that clung to her uncomfortably, stepped into the cubicle and turned on the tap. Yes, that felt good. She lingered for a long time under the jet of cool water, her eyes closed, recalling her passionate rendezvous the night before at the lake. Carrying the image of Leandro and the feel of him powerfully in her mind, she let the stream drizzle slowly down the length of her body, caressing her hair, her face, her neck, refreshing her overheated breasts, her stomach, her hips and her thighs.

Whether this overpowering emotion assailing her was motivated by love or purely lust for the young gypsy, she couldn’t tell. The only thing she knew was that she must see him again. Every time Luz remembered the way his hands had touched her body, she lost the ability to analyze it; and every time his bleak parting words drifted back to her mind, she grew more determined to find him.
She hated the way he had raced off so abruptly and the uncertainty in which he had left her.

She was wide awake now. The idea that Leandro might be down at the orange grove with the gypsies crossed her mind, starting up a sudden flutter in her stomach. The El Pavón annual ball was held to celebrate the harvesting of Valencia late oranges, but the gathering would still be going on for another couple of days. Each year gypsies would come from all parts of Andalucía to help, rolling up on wagons and pitching their tents among the fruit trees. They were paid well for a long day’s work, filling the baskets and giant boxes. At night, the sound of guitars, pipes and raucous laughter, encouraged no doubt by the generous sharing of manzanilla, floated up through the orchards and gardens of the hacienda. Even as a child, Luz often lay awake listening to the distant sounds, imagining what it would be like to run down to the orchard in her nightdress and join in with the gypsies’ wild dancing.

As a rule they started the picking in the early morning, long before the sun reached its zenith. Luz glanced at the clock on her bedside table: just gone seven o’clock. She quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a short, blue-and-white gingham top, eager to escape before her parents woke up. They would surely have noticed her absence at the prize giving at midnight and later as the guests were leaving the ball. No doubt they would question her. She had already dreamt up an excuse but she loathed the idea of lying to them, so was postponing the time of reckoning for as long as possible.

She walked down to the orange grove where she knew the harvesting would be well under way. It was a cool and tranquil morning. Everything at that hour glistened with moisture and sunshine and the ground was saturated with dew. Later in the day it would have evaporated and the bare earth would become scorching hot. The singing of birds was enchanting. There was buzzing in the branches overhead: humming bees, chirruping crickets and the soft murmur of leaves. The sunny path that led down to the grove
was streaked with broad patches of shadow, which flitted to and fro, uniting and breaking asunder again.

As Luz drew closer she could hear the harvesters chanting. Dense rows of orange, lemon and tangerine trees appeared in the distance, stretching out where the land sloped down. The air around her was filled with the sweet smell of orange blossom brought out by the first heat of the day. She quickened her pace, the tempo of her heart rising as it moved into racing mode at the thought of Leandro.

Men, women and children gathered in the harvest. The men were dressed all in brown with black broad-brimmed hats; the women wore bright-coloured handkerchiefs tied round their heads. They had bare arms and feet, either skirts hitched up and tucked into waistbands or trousers rolled to the knee, toiling under the huge blue dome of the sky. Some of them used ladders to reach fruit in the top branches; others simply shook the trees, allowing the oranges to fall to the ground before placing them in their picking sacks. The heavy jute receptacles were then emptied into bin boxes, which were carried and stacked on the side of the grove, ready to be loaded on to trailers for transportation to the packing house.

The harvesters were very merry, cheering and singing as they picked. On one side of the grove, a group would sing a monotone refrain while another on the opposite side would answer, echoing the preceding verse. There was a close and intimate feeling among them, an atmosphere of mirth and comradeship.

Luz scanned the grove looking for him. Though the sight was a magnificent one, it was hard to distinguish anything at this distance. The trees were planted very close to each other; there were ladders, tall baskets and a sea of people milling under the dappled branches. This year’s crop was especially large and the oranges and lemons hung like illuminated lanterns in the foliage. For a while she stood at the edge of the orchard, staring at the beauty of lines and colours. The scene reminded her of a vivid turn-of-the-century Fauvist painting.

She hesitated before walking further into the orchard. The change of ambiance was instant. Before she knew it, the rows of
men and women widened to let her pass. The singing stopped. There was complete silence, save for the trickling murmur of a nearby stream as it rippled gently over stones, the rustle of leaves in the branches as fruit was broken off, and the continuous buzzing of insects. As she walked past, men removed their caps, dark eyes flashed upon her their slow fire; lips parted in courteous, aloof smiles. Luz wanted to stop and be with them but she felt cut off. It was plain they could not really relate to her.
Gajos
, cocooned in their alien shells, with their fancy ways, were too far removed from them. She was sorely aware that her presence was more of an intimidation and it made her feel awkward and uneasy. Still, she wanted to find Leandro and so she walked on, ignoring the new, stilted atmosphere.

As she came to the end of one of the rows, she saw the rose seller, who had accosted her on the way back from the horse fair. The
gitana
was standing halfway up a ladder, a sardonic grin on her sunburnt face, watching Luz. As the young woman approached, she came down from her perch, a basket of oranges under her arm, propped against her hip. She paused for a moment, gave in to a fit of coughing and then plucked an orange from her basket.

‘Juicy and warm from the first rays of the sun,’ she said, offering it to Luz.

Close up, Luz could see that there was a sickly hue beneath the bronzed complexion of the gypsy. Immediately she felt a pang as she realized that her family was employing someone so obviously unwell, but then she met the powerful gaze of the older woman’s jet-black eyes, gleaming with an unconcealed malevolence that belied the smile of welcome on her face.

‘Thank you,’ Luz managed to say, taking the lustrous fruit from her before turning away to move on.

The
gitana
coughed roughly and laid a hand on her arm as if to steady herself as much as to grab Luz’s attention. She quickly straightened, putting her hands on her hips. ‘The one you are looking for is not here today,’ she said with an arrogantly triumphant air.

Luz’s cheeks f lamed hotly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about …’ The invisible wall around her was vibrating with defensive caution.

The gypsy’s mouth drew back from her teeth in a wide smile teetering on the edge of a sneer. ‘You have refused me your palm once before but you can’t deceive my gypsy eye. I don’t need to look at the lines on your hand to read you, my girl!’

Luz felt her gut tighten. This woman had a menacing power over her. She wanted to run but moving away now was an admission of fear. She looked the gypsy straight in the eye and shook her head. ‘How can you be so sure it was me you spoke to? I don’t remember ever having laid eyes on you before. I would have remembered, you are a very handsome woman.’

The
gitana
’s sardonic smile died away, her eyes glittering dangerously as her gaze fixed hard on Luz. ‘Ah, beautiful lady, but I never forget a face. Remember, gypsies have long memories.’ With those words she turned and, without a backward glance, climbed on to the ladder.

Luz stood for a moment, not knowing where to look, then squared her shoulders. She thought of all the clever, dignified responses she could have made but the moment was gone. Leandro was clearly gone, too. The harvesters parted once more as she walked back through the grove, hearing the soft murmur of their chant start up again behind her as she left.

Luz had been back at L’Estrella since the beginning of the week. After her eerie conversation with the gypsy on the day of the harvest at El Pavón, she made a conscious effort to push Leandro out of her mind. No matter that she had feelings for him that were new to her, he had disappeared into thin air and had scarcely beaten a path to her door. She wanted to forget him and the crazy fantasy that had taken hold on the night of the ball. What would be the point of continuing with it all?

Confusion and the nag of common sense clouded Luz’s mind but now they seemed to go hand in hand with some other feeling, darker and more threatening. Every time she had encountered one of the gypsies, be it Paquita, the dusky flower seller or even Leandro himself, she sensed something obscure lurking in the shadows. The way they appeared out of nowhere, with their convoluted words and eerie gift of divination, was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable. She was beginning to understand what Agustina meant. Perhaps she was right and no good could ever come to those who became mixed up with the
gitanos
. They were an uncanny lot who seemed to project a sinister aura around them or, at the very least, a dangerous and beguiling lure to the unwary, as the housekeeper had warned. Given the choice, it was better to have nothing to do with them. Still, forgetting did not come easily to her.

Luz knew the gypsies were still camped in the grounds of the El Pavón estate and there was still the chance that Leandro might be somewhere among them. Secretly, so very secretly, she hoped that he would somehow materialize in front of her, his astonishing eyes mesmerizing her as they always did, so that she would be made to submit to him. However, Leandro carried on being elusive and Luz therefore remained safe.

Since the masked ball the phone had not stopped ringing at the hacienda; she was the flavour of the month. Word was out that Luz, after years of working abroad, was now back in Spain for good. Invitations were showered upon her as covetous mothers saw in her an enviable catch, and endless queues of young men pursued her. But she was not one for wild parties, particularly those frequented by the Andalucían aristocracy. She found the people in that particular circle shallow and two-faced. To her parents’ exasperation, she much preferred quiet evenings spent with the same handful of friends, long walks in the countryside around Jerez and riding her mare.

So, as soon as she could, she returned to L’Estrella.

She spent her mornings working on Eduardo de Salazar’s biography and her afternoons swimming. On one of her outings of
exploration, as she climbed through the opaque forest of thick vegetation that wound up and down the coast, she had burst into a clearing. From there, as if out of nowhere, she had come upon an expanse of shimmering blue ocean enclosed within a small cove. It lay at the bottom of the escarpment, surrounded by little creeks and rocky caves, with lonely golden beaches sandwiched between haciendas. Since it was impossible to reach by foot, the next day she hired a small boat and, using her sense of direction, found one of the approaches to this magical place through the rocks. It looked lonely, with only a few seagulls strutting about on the wet sand at the water’s edge. And there, in complete seclusion, she bathed until sunset. After that, she came every day.

She was scheduled to meet Andrés at the end of the week for a first review of the book’s plan and to discuss the way to proceed. Pleased with the progress of her outline, she hoped that Andrés would be, too. It would be a working dinner at his hacienda, Puesta de Sol, his secretary had told her when she rang to make the appointment. Don Andrés had a very busy diary during the days ahead and hoped that this invitation would not inconvenience her.
Very cunning,
Luz thought,
he was going to have his intimate tête-à-tête dinner after all. Nothing like determination!

Now that her previously tangled emotions over the urbane businessman had been cloaked by an overwhelming desire for the young gypsy, Luz’s antagonism towards Andrés had faded into a more convenient indulgence, or at least that’s how she chose to view it. Whereas she had been infuriated that night of the masked ball and even piqued by his attentions towards other women, now, every time she recalled the way he had tried to elude her, it made her smile. It had been his way of capturing her attention: matching her rejection of him. She told herself that this playful brand of mischievousness had a childish charm, safe enough now she would not fall for it again. Nonetheless, it kept her amused.

Luz’s reflection stared back at her as she surveyed herself in the mirror before setting off for her dinner engagement. In England,
a working dinner suggested smart-casual attire. Spain had a completely different etiquette. If you were invited to dinner, be it for leisure or work, you dressed up and never down – anything less would be insulting to your hosts.

Luz had complied, wanting to make the right impression and at least feel armed with the confidence to handle this unpredictable man who was, she admitted, to all intents and purposes her new boss. Whether she liked it or not, Andrés de Calderón would have a good deal of input into her work. Besides, if he decided to engage her in another battle of wills, she would be armoured appropriately.