The Poet's Wife (27 page)

O
ur daughter is born
in 1943 in the very same room in which I came into the world. She has a thick tuft of jet-black hair that stands on end like Henry’s as well as her papá’s sea-blue eyes and enormous feet which look incongruous against the rest of her dainty features. Because of my difficult pregnancy, I assume my labour will also be hard but I am lucky; as painful as it is, she comes quickly and quietly. It isn’t until several hours later, when Mother cradles the baby in a white blanket in her arms, her tiny perfect mouth opening and closing like a little bird’s, that I feel a wave of relief that we won’t have to decide whether or not to call her Eduardo. As if reading my thoughts, Mother looks at me. The expression I see on her face makes me catch my breath for I realise immediately that this is the best thing that could have happened: for me to lay a baby in my mother’s arms and for new life to be breathed into the walls of Carmen de las Estrellas, heaving with memories and ghosts. This is the first time since before Father’s death that her eyes are clear and bright; that they are free of the pain that shines through them even when she is smiling.

‘What are you calling her?’ Mother whispers.

Henry crouches down beside the chair Mother sits on. He has barely taken his eyes from our daughter since she has been born but now he turns to me, his eyes lost in the creases of his smile.

‘We’ll christen her Carmen,’ I say, ‘because officially we must give her the name of a saint. But her name is Paloma.
Se llama
Paloma. Henry, what’s the word for that in English again?’

‘Dove,’ Henry whispers. He bends down and tenderly kisses our daughter’s forehead. ‘Symbol of peace.’

S
emana Santa
, Holy Week. Probably the most important event in the Catholic church’s calendar and, as such, we have to ‘be seen’ attending. It gives me the creeps, the long black gowns and pointy hoods on the heads of the
penitentes,
walking solemnly along the streets; many people even walk with no shoes to make their journey of repentance more severe.

‘We’ll go if we must,’ grumbles Papá in the safety of our home, ‘but I’ll be damned if I allow my children to scratch their feet up.’ Mamá whole-heartedly agrees and shoes, much to my relief, stay on. But we do carry small candles that flicker amongst the thousands of others as we wind agonisingly slowly along the Paseo del Darro, the river rushing alongside us.

Everybody
comes to Semana Santa. And I mean everybody. Even elderly people who are too ill or wheelchair-bound are carried. On this occasion, I’m stuck with my family behind a particularly gruesome, bloodied statue of Christ carried on a float on dozens of shoulders. The procession seems to be moving even slower than I remember on previous years, probably because a number of people keep breaking off to hurl themselves to the ground, begging forgiveness from
Christo y los santos
.

I am feeling claustrophobic and the constant bugle calls from the army trumpeters are giving me a headache. No more,
por favor
, no more, I think after one showy demonstration of an elderly woman hurling herself to her knees and wailing a never-ending prayer of repentance. I’m right behind the woman and am forced to stop and watch but the crowd to my right are carried forward in the surge, taking with it my entire family. I crane my neck upwards to catch sight of them, only to see Papá waving at me and mouthing ‘See you back at home!’ before he’s swallowed and disappears from sight. Great, I think. Now I’m stuck behind this wailing woman who’s clearly begging forgiveness for every minor misdemeanour in her life and there’s no sign of escape.

And right at this moment, I hear a sigh of impatience coming from beside me. I turn to see a boy of around the same age as me with thick brown hair, dressed in black. He’s glaring at the old woman, his mouth clenched grimly and I know, instantly, that I’ve found an accomplice. He doesn’t want to be here any more than I do and he too is being pulled along in this Semana Santa charade under the watchful eye of civil guards, mayors, Falangists, bishops and priests.

As the old woman arthritically pulls herself to her feet, the boy looks at me and, in much the same way that I make an instant judgement of him, he does the same. He reads ‘friend’ in my eyes and grins. I smile back and at that moment the crowd behind the woman starts to move again. As we’re carried forwards, I suddenly care a little less about the snail’s pace the procession is moving as I become more aware than I ever have been in my life of the male presence beside me. Just five minutes later, the old woman repeats her theatrical performance in front of us and perhaps it’s the volume of her cries that gives the boy the confidence to lean in ever so slightly towards me and whisper through one side of his mouth, ‘
¿Como te llamas?
’

I glance nervously around me but every other noise is drowned out by the call of the bugle and, grabbing my chance, I attempt his method of speaking through the side of the mouth whilst barely moving my lips.

‘Paloma,’ I whisper as I lean close.

‘
Yo soy Antonio
.’

With that, the bugle stops and as the woman drags herself up once again I notice in horror that blood is pouring from one of her knees, spraying the cobbles beneath us. I glance at Antonio but he just shakes his head slightly. As we start to move again around a particularly narrow section of the street, a surge of people push from behind like the swell of a wave and I’m thrown against Antonio’s side. It all happens so quickly, but as I am pushed against him, he catches my hand in his. I don’t even look at him. I know if I did, we’d draw attention from behind. As my cheeks burn, I stare unblinkingly ahead of me, more grateful at that moment than any other that I’m wearing long sleeves that cover my hands.

His hand is warm and smooth and as we walk, thankfully all crammed in together as the narrow stretch of road continues, I feel giddy with happiness. And something else. This is a boy, the opposite sex. I’ve never been interested in a boy before but this unexpected warmth and contact makes me feel weak with something I instantly recognise as desire. I long to drop the candle I’m holding in my left hand, turn to this stranger and run my fingers through his thick hair and kiss him hard on the lips. I want the road to never widen again so that we can stay pressed up together like this, my hand in his, forever. I don’t know if his family are beside him and he doesn’t care or whether, like me, he’s become separated from them. But as we continue our slow and steady pace I feel my hand tingling and burning.

Incredible, really, that up until this point and unlike many of my friends, I haven’t even been curious about what it’s like to hold a boy’s hand or to kiss him. I’ve always felt there are far more interesting and important things to think about. There was the cinema incident, not long ago, when a boy from the school across the street from ours asked a girl in my class to go with him. This, of course, isn’t the done thing, particularly not for impressionable teenagers. Either my friend had to be chaperoned by a parent who’d sit in the middle of the two of them, or she had to go with a group of friends and he’d sit on the opposite side of the cinema. The boy in question opted for the latter, poor soul, having to pay for a gaggle of schoolgirls’ cinema entrances whilst he could only sit and cast the occasional glance over in my friend’s direction. Although this was nothing to do with me and I was uninterested in the mechanics of the secret longing that must have passed between the two of them, the experience left me horribly frustrated. What I really wanted was to beckon the boy over to sit with us beside my pretty friend and if they wanted to hold hands or steal a kiss, well, so what?

But now, suddenly, because of a chance encounter with a boy walking beside me at Semana Santa, I want it all. I want to kiss him, to stroke him, to feel him in my arms and to peel his clothes off so I can see what his body is like under them. And suddenly the hushed moans from my parents’ room next door come into focus and make sense and I want it; I want to discover what it’s all about and what makes a person make sounds like that.

I wonder if Antonio is feeling even a fraction of what I am. I can’t know for sure, but I sense that he might be. Something is passing through our hands, a kind of current, travelling along every nerve ending into our bodies. As the procession continues, I know that any minute the road will widen once more and that will be it, we must drop hands. As though he’s thinking the same thing, Antonio gives my hand a slight squeeze and then, seconds later, I hear a collective exhale, almost like the loosening of a belt after a heavy meal, as people spread out more comfortably along the street.

At the moment his hand drops, the flame of my candle blows out. My hand feels cold without the warmth of his and I stretch out my fingers that have been still for so long. Antonio reaches in towards me with the candle he holds in his right hand and, as the flame ignites the wick, his eyes catch mine for just a moment. But in this moment I see a few things: I see that he has a small mole directly above one eyelid and I see that he has a few freckles scattered across his cheeks. But more importantly, I see the desire that is stamped, without question, across his face.

And that is it. I hear the man on the other side of him say something and realise it’s probably his father and stare straight ahead as Antonio vanishes with the fading bugle calls and I’m left alone to continue my agonisingly slow journey home.

Over the following weeks, I can’t stop thinking about Antonio. Actually, the truth is, I can’t stop thinking about sex. What does it feel like? Does it hurt? How often do my parents do it? Do my friends think about it much? I’m consumed with a sexually charged curiosity and in the privacy and dark of my own bedroom at night, I begin to creep my fingers further and further down between my legs.

It must be a couple of months after Semana Santa
that I see him again.
I’m out with my father and brothers on one of our customary trips to the city. Papá has had his shave at the barber’s, we’ve bought some fruit from the market and now we’re making our way back home. It’s a beautiful day so we decide to go home the long way by the river. When I see a group of boys sitting on the wall chatting, I know immediately that the one closest is Antonio. As I walk past, I stare hard at him, willing him to turn and look. And as he turns, he does a small double-take. I don’t look back but hear the murmur of voices and the sound of feet against cobbles and I know that he’s following me.

Every so often, but not enough to raise my father and brothers’ suspicion, I glance back and sure enough, there he is, about a hundred yards behind, hands in pockets as he whistles to himself. My heart beats furiously and several times I think how absurd this all is and that I should just tell Papá I’ve seen a friend. At least that would be a legitimate way to get him into the house, as no doubt Papá would invite him in for a drink. But I purse my lips; I know that my brothers would tease me horribly for having a male friend and it’s the last thing I feel like at this moment.

When we reach Carmen de las Estrellas, Papá fumbles for his key in his pocket, which gives me an opportunity.

‘Papá,’ I say, before I’ve barely had the chance to think. ‘My hair clip has fallen out.’ I am already walking away from them. ‘I think it dropped just round the corner.’

Papá looks at me, his blue eyes surprised but trusting, and I feel the slightest pang of guilt. ‘Alright,’ he calls. ‘I’ll leave the door open,’ and with that, he and my brothers vanish into the courtyard.

As I hurry round the corner, Antonio is there. He catches my hands in his, quickly looks around and then murmurs in a low voice, ‘Can I come to you tonight?’

‘Tonight?’ I repeat as I feel my stomach flipping. I feel my head move up and down and my cheeks burn. ‘Come at one o’clock. My parents will definitely be asleep by then.’

‘
Bueno
,’ he says, and as I turn to move, he catches my arm and hurriedly pulls me back and kisses me deeply on my lips, the kind of kiss I so longed to give him at Semana Santa. I pull away and run back to my house, not looking back.

We are unspeakably foolish to take such a risk; every step of our meeting that night is hazardous, from Antonio avoiding the
guardia civil
or other prying eyes as he makes the journey through the streets up to the Albaicín late at night, to not awaking my parents, grandmother or brothers. And of course there is the question of who he really is and if it is safe to be with him – I know nothing about him. But instinct plays its hand and, even more than that, desire. Risky as it is, I know I have to see it through.

Long after my family are asleep, I tiptoe down the stairs, avoiding the single step with the creak (I’ve been testing them that afternoon) and then standing with my back against the door, waiting and hardly breathing. Moments after I hear the grandfather clock from the conservatory strike one, there is a gentle tap on the door and slowly, very slowly, I open it. We stand there and look at one another as I scan his open face that, somehow, I implicitly trust. Without a word, I take Antonio’s hand, pull him through and, after closing the door behind him, lead him through the courtyard and house to the garden. I know that there is one tiny corner of the garden out of sight of all the upstairs bedrooms and I lead Antonio to this corner where the lone fig tree stands, as the warm summer night breeze floats through my hair.

Romantic it isn’t. It’s lust of the purest kind and as we grope and fumble under a mercifully slender crescent moon, I remember the small mole above his eyelid as he moves over me and a searing pain, mingled with something far more pleasurable than I’ve ever experienced on those dark nights alone in my room. But more than any of that, as he lies next to me when it’s all over, his breath heavy and irregular and we stare up at the canopy of leaves, I feel triumphant. Not that I’ve lost my virginity, but that we’ve done something unthinkable in the strait-laced world we live in. And as I pull my skirt back on and listen to Antonio’s breathing regulate beside me whilst my family sleep just metres away, I grin up into the star-streaked sky.

I don’t discuss anything that’s going through my head with Antonio. It’s strange, but I don’t want to know what he’s thinking, because that would make us closer. And I don’t want to be close to him, not in that way. I do believe that we’ve used each other but somehow, without words, we implicitly understand that our relationship won’t go anywhere. We are two creatures trapped in the system’s undergrowth but we have managed to break through to the surface together, for just a short while. Which proves to us that the system isn’t without cracks.

Over the following days, I veer between a crippling fear –
What if I get pregnant? Did somebody see him come to my house? What was I thinking?
– and an elation which leaves me breathless in its wake. When my period comes, I stand in the bathroom at home and laugh and laugh.

‘Paloma?’ Mamá calls from outside. ‘
Estás bien?
’

‘I’m fine,’ I call back. ‘I’m just remembering a funny joke from today.’

She doesn’t, of course, suspect a thing. And I never tell a soul about my encounter with the boy from Semana Santa. A short while later, the nuns run a door-to-door campaign across the city, asking girls to avoid dresses with short sleeves. As I open the door and listen to what the nuns have to say, I smile sweetly and nod my head, all the while thinking
if you only knew.

T
he Granada
of my childhood is not a beautiful place. It is full of neglect (not of me, of my city which is poor, damp and dusty), suspicion and cinema. From a young age, I’d catch the tram with Mamá from Plaza Nueva to Cine Doré for our fortnightly reality escape. I was so excited, I thought I might be sick. We’d hand over our precious
pesetas
(we sacrificed a sack of wheat every other week for our cinema experience but I tell you, it was worth it) and squeezed into the narrow seats. From there, we watched images of glamorous women, cowboys and pirates flit across the screen. I didn’t listen to the words much as the storylines had been censored and dubbed but I couldn’t care less. I wasn’t even bothered that the
policia armada
lurked in the aisles each and every show. I was in heaven and I could sit there forever, breathing in the smell of burnt popcorn and cigarette smoke.