The Snow Gypsy(27)

The woman stirring the paella looked only a few years older than Lola’s mother would have been if she had lived. Perhaps the woman would have been a little kinder if she had seen what Lola had seen: a mother and a brother lying cold and bloody in the snow; a dying woman begging for the life of her newborn baby. But no. Granada had seen more bloodshed than any other city in Spain. Who knew what horrors those eyes, staring so intently at the bubbling surface of the cauldron, had seen?

Lola knew she must try not to mind the way these women treated her. But their coldness intensified the pain of not having a mother to confide in. The hardest time of all was when she was about to start performing. That was when she longed for someone to soothe her frazzled nerves. Cristóbal was no good—he was nervous enough himself—and Nieve was too young to understand.

Lola stared into the flames licking around the blackened base of the cauldron. The only person she’d opened her heart to in a long time was the Englishwoman, Rose—a complete stranger. And yet Lola had told her things she’d never revealed to the people in the vardos. Why had she done that? Was it just because she and Rose shared the devastating experience of losing a brother? Or was it something else? The feeling that in this outsider, she had found a kindred spirit?

She raked her fingers through her hair. If only she had recognized that face in the photograph. If only she could have softened the pain in Rose’s eyes—the look that so perfectly mirrored her own anguish.

Somewhere behind the wagon a dog barked—so loud it made her jump.

Nieve’s head appeared through the flap of canvas. “That’s Gunesh—I saw him through the hole!” She jumped nimbly over the edge of the wagon and ran around the back. Seconds later she returned, her hand looped through the dog’s collar.

“Look who I found!” Cristóbal appeared next. He was looking over his shoulder at Rose, who was a few steps behind him. “Can you believe she’s never tasted paella?”

Rose didn’t come right up to the wagon. The women by the fire were staring at her. She looked embarrassed, as if she thought Cristóbal shouldn’t have invited her without asking the others first.

“Come and sit here.” Lola patted the cushion beside her. “Don’t worry about them,” she whispered as Rose climbed up. “They might look like witches, but they’re very good cooks.”

“A jalar!” Time to eat! As if on cue the woman with no teeth stood up, scattering the fragments of seaweed caught in her apron.



Rose was on her second helping of paella. She noticed that Lola had hardly touched her food, pushing the little shellfish and the fragments of squid tentacles around her bowl and taking only the odd forkful of rice. Was it because she was worried about keeping that slim dancer’s figure? Or was she nervous about the competition?

“This is a big day for you, isn’t it?” Rose said. “Cristóbal told me about the prize money.”

Lola nodded. “In his head he’s already spent it. But there are some very good flamencas here. Male and female dancers. From Madrid, from Sevilla, from Barcelona . . .” She trailed off, spearing a prawn.

“You make it look so easy—but I suppose that comes from years of practice?”

“I started when I was younger than Nieve,” Lola replied. “I was on an errand for my mother—she’d sent me to buy sugar or something—and I caught sight of some girls in a courtyard. They were learning how to click their toes and heels—the thing we call zapateado. I hid behind a wall so I could watch. The teacher spotted me and asked me if I knew how to dance. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, but I just . . .” She shrugged. “I did it by some instinct, I think. I don’t know how long I stayed—I got into terrible trouble when I got back home. But the next week I was back there, taking lessons.”

“That was in your village, was it? In the mountains?”

Lola nodded. “In Capileira, yes. I had a good teacher there—but I wouldn’t have got to dance for a living if I hadn’t moved to Granada.” She set her bowl aside, the saffron-colored rice already beginning to desiccate in the heat from the sun. “Will you go there? To the mountains, I mean?”

“Yes, I will. Although your cousin warned me I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”

Lola’s face clouded. “What did he say?”

“That people don’t like to talk about what happened during the Civil War. That . . .” Rose hesitated, aware that anything she said might sound like a judgment on whatever had befallen Lola’s family.

“It won’t be easy, I’m certain of that.” Lola turned her face away, gazing into the distance. “It’s a beautiful place—I miss it terribly. But I could never go back there.” She brought her hand up to her heart and held it there. “Fear remains in the blood.”

Rose held her breath for a moment, searching for the right words. “It must have been a terrible time for you,” she said at last.

Lola nodded slowly. “When I’m dancing, I stop feeling the pain. Only dance and tears can get rid of it. If I didn’t dance, I’d be crying all the time.” She closed her eyes as if to shut out images too harrowing to recall.

“I’m sorry to have made you talk about it,” Rose said.

Lola shook her head. Opening her eyes, she turned to Rose. “Don’t let Cristóbal put you off,” she said. “You have to go there. We both have pain—yours might be different from mine, but it won’t go away, will it? Not knowing if someone is dead or alive is a kind of torture.”