The Snow Gypsy(44)

“It might look like that but it’s not.” Lola sank down onto the grass beside her. “If you lived a whole lifetime, you could never learn it all. When you prepare to dance, you ask, What are the emotions we are trying to express? What are the rhythms of this piece? You have a backbone of material, but your imagination is just as important. You have to work out moves to reflect every single word that comes out of the singer’s mouth.”

Rose shook her head. “That sounds incredibly difficult.”

“That’s why I have to practice so much. When I came to Granada, it helped that I lived in the same house as Cristóbal. A dancer has to get a feeling for what the singer is going to do before he or she actually does it.” She brought her fist up to her chest. “It’s in here,” she said. “Like a sixth sense. It grows the more you practice. When Cristóbal starts to sing, he’s supposed to follow the signals I give with my feet. But he gets so lost in what he’s singing that it doesn’t always work like that. I have to be ready to change what I’ve planned in a heartbeat.”

“Have you told him yet? About going to Madrid?”

“I had to—we’re leaving a week from today.” Lola glanced across the grass at the tavern in the shadow of the palace walls. “It’s going to be strange, performing in this place for the last time.”

“How did he react?”

Lola grunted a laugh. “He said it was a bit drastic, going all the way to Madrid to get away from the husband he’s lined up for me.” She shook her head. “But when he stopped joking around, he said he wasn’t surprised. He knows it’s something I’ve been dreaming about for years. And the prize money will keep him going while he looks for a new dancer.”

“What about Nieve? How does she feel about leaving her cousins behind?”

“She’s sad, of course.” Lola followed the child with her eyes as Nieve chased Gunesh around a magnolia bush. Creamy petals showered down as they careered against the trunk. “But she’s excited, too. Thanks to you, she’s as mad about reading as she is about dancing. She wants to go to school in a place where no one knows her. If she went here, the other children would tease her. She’s a tough little thing, but she doesn’t need that. It’ll be so much easier for her in Madrid.”

“Well, I’m certainly going to miss her,” Rose said. “And so is Gunesh.”

Lola nodded. “Perhaps we’ll get a dog of our own one day. Although I don’t know how we’d find one as handsome as him.” She turned to Rose with a wistful smile. “It’s good that you have him with you. To protect you. There are wolves up there in the mountains.” She could have added that there were people there, too—people even more frightening than wild animals. She could have told Rose the other reason why she couldn’t go with her on her journey to the Alpujarras. That he might still be there. The faceless man who haunted her nightmares.



The performance was about to begin. Rose had taken a seat on one of the low benches that had been pushed against the wall in the back room of the tavern. The place was jam-packed. Word of Lola and Cristóbal’s success in Provence had traveled fast.

Lola had gone somewhere to get changed. She had seemed keen to get away the moment they stepped into the tavern. When Rose had asked her what the matter was, Lola had glanced fleetingly at a man who was standing at the bar.

“That’s the man Cristóbal wants me to marry,” she hissed. “His name’s Antonio Lopez. I can’t stand him.”

Rose had watched the man follow Lola with his eyes as she left the room. There was a furtive hunger in them, like a dog hovering around a dinner table, hoping for scraps. He looked about twenty years older than Lola, and his stomach bulged over the waist of his trousers. His thinning hair was slicked across the top of his head like bedraggled feathers.

She had lost sight of him as people began filing through to the back room, jostling for space on the benches. Nieve had grabbed her hand and led her to a seat. Cristóbal was already there, tuning his guitar. He gave her a brief, hooded look. She pretended not to notice, dropping her hand to the floor to find Gunesh, who had curled up under the bench.

It was hot and stuffy in the room. There was a small window in one wall. Someone had pulled it open. It had narrow-spaced bars on the outside, like the window of a prison cell. Rose was looking at it when something very strange happened. A swift flew straight through the bars, darted across the room, and landed in Rose’s lap.

It sat there, its claws digging into the fabric of her skirt, staring up at her with its bright little eyes. She stared back, hypnotized—not quite believing it was real. Swifts had always been her favorite birds. They were so strange and mysterious, with so many legends attached to them. She’d heard the English Gypsies call them devil birds, for their screaming, for their crossbow shape, and for their uncanny ability to do everything on the wing—to eat, drink, preen, and mate without ever touching the earth. According to Bill Lee, swifts didn’t sleep in the nests they built in the eaves of houses but soared to the moon at dusk to spend the night there, descending to earth with the dew of the morning.

She felt Gunesh brush the backs of her legs, but she hushed him before he could frighten the bird.

Suddenly Cristóbal was standing in front of her. “The bird must go back outside,” he said. “Its kind die quickly if they come out of the sky.”