The Snow Gypsy(43)
It was a relief to get back into the sunlight. She found herself in another courtyard, walking through a forest of elegant pillars with overhanging wooden eaves, delicately carved, like fringes of lace hanging from the sky. At the center of the courtyard was a fountain of twelve stone lions standing in a circle and facing outward, supporting the bowl of the fountain on their backs. The guidebook said that to the Moors, water was a symbol of hospitality. An inscription carved into the walls said “Whoever should come to me thirsty, I shall lead him to a place where he will find clean, fresh water of the sweetest purity.” It might have been a quote from the New Testament.
She glanced again at the book in her hand. Apparently, this part of the Alhambra had been built during a period of tolerance and an exchange of cultural ideas between Christians and Muslims. Rose blew out a breath. That was six hundred years ago. Why couldn’t people be more tolerant now? Had human beings learned nothing in more than half a millennium?
“I thought I might find you here.”
The voice made her jump. It was Cristóbal, so close behind her that when she whipped around, her hair brushed his face.
“I went to the posada, but they said you’d gone for a walk.”
“How did you know I’d come here?” Her heart was thudding treacherously against her ribs. Why did he still have this effect on her?
“The landlady said you’d borrowed the guidebook. And Nieve told me she was meeting you up here later for a picnic. I’ll be there, too, of course. It would look odd if I wasn’t, with the performance being here tonight. So I thought I’d better get you alone while I had the chance.”
“There’s nothing else to say, is there?” She made herself look right into the blue-green blaze of his eyes, willing herself not to weaken.
“Isn’t there?”
“Please don’t say you’ve told Juanita.” The thought of her bending over the baby, her face swollen with tears, piled on fresh agony.
Cristóbal shook his head. “I’m not that stupid. I came to say sorry. To make things right.”
“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”
His face clouded. “You . . . you’re not . . . ?”
“No, Cristóbal, I’m not. No thanks to you. What if I had been? What then?”
“You would have managed, I’m sure.” He shrugged. “You came all that way to France on your own. You don’t need people, really, do you?”
She glared back at him, floored by his casual disregard, this knack he had of always turning the spotlight away from his own shortcomings.
“What were you expecting?” he went on. “Did you think we had any kind of future, you and me? A woman with a university degree and a Gypsy who can’t even read music, let alone books?”
“The only thing I was expecting was the truth,” she hissed. “If you’d been honest with me at the start, it would never have happened.”
“Are you telling me you didn’t enjoy it?” His eyes narrowed. “Do you know how long I was in prison? Four miserable, stinking years—four years of my life that I’ll never get back. Do you have any idea what that does to a man? It changes you forever, Rose—makes you grab whatever you can, whenever you can.”
Her lips parted, ready to launch a biting rebuke. But the words stuck in her throat. What he had said was a garbled echo of the very sentiment Nathan had expressed in his last letter.
We might not have a lifetime to live together, might not have what people are always supposed to have. Living as I do now, I must concentrate it all into the short time that I can have it.
The memory of Nathan’s words made her understand Cristóbal a little bit better—but she still wanted nothing to do with his lies.
“You’re right,” she said coolly. “I have no idea what you went through in prison. I thought I knew you—but I didn’t. I won’t make that mistake again.” Without a backward glance, she swept out of the courtyard, past the unseeing eyes of the stone lions. She didn’t stop until she reached the wisteria bower in the Jannat al-?Arīf. She curled herself up on the bench, hiding like a child behind the fronds of blossom.
Chapter 15
Lola stood barefoot on a patch of grass in front of the harem courtyard. She raised her arms above her head, and Rose, who was facing her, mirrored her posture.
“You have to make flowers with your hands. Show her, Nieve.”
Nieve took Rose’s right hand, moving the fingers into position.
“The wrist movement is most important,” Lola went on. “Think of the way water swirls.” She jerked her head at the fountain behind her.
Nieve began clapping out a rhythm, and Rose attempted to follow Lola’s movements. It was hard to move her arms and wrists gracefully while maintaining the very erect posture Lola displayed. And when the escobilla began, Rose tripped over her own feet and fell into a quivering, giggling heap on the grass.
“It’s no good,” she gasped. “I’ll never be able to do it—it’s much too hard!”
“You can’t expect to get it straightaway.” Lola was trying to look stern, but her cheeks were pink with suppressed laughter. “It’s taken me years of study and discipline.”
“But you said flamenco was spontaneous!” Huffing out a theatrical sigh, Rose propped herself up on one arm. “I thought once you got a few of the moves, you could . . . well . . . sort of make it up as you went along.”