The Snow Gypsy(53)

Before Nieve could reply, a small liquid missile splattered into the flour.

“What was that?” Rose tilted her head back. Whatever it was had come from the rafters high above them.

“It’s the swifts,” Nieve said. “Can you see the nests?”

“Oh yes, I can!” There were at least half a dozen of them, smooth brown cones of mud tucked into crevices in the roof. The parent birds were flying in and out of the hole in the wall, where an iron shaft the size of a tree trunk linked the grinding stone to the mill wheel outside. Watching them dart back and forth reminded Rose of the strange incident with the swift in the tavern. Her wish had come true almost at once—in a way she would never have wanted. She wondered what Lola was doing at this moment, cooped up all alone in a prison cell, pining for the child she had sent away.

“Alonso says their poo makes the flour taste better.” Nieve shot a mischievous look at Rose. It was good to see the child smiling.

“Hmm—I wonder if the baker in the village gets his flour from here,” Rose whispered. “I hope not!” She looked over her shoulder for the boy, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s Corpus Christi tomorrow. Alonso’s in it—can we go and watch?”

“Yes, if you want to. What is it?”

“Don’t you have it in England?” Nieve looked back at her, wide eyed. “It’s when boys and girls take the bread and wine at church for the first time.”

“Ah.” Rose nodded. “We do have that in my country, but it’s called something different.”

“Alonso says he has to wear a white sailor suit—and he hates it. But all the children in his class are in it—so he has no choice. The girls wear white dresses with veils. After church they follow the priest around the village. We have it in Granada—people put flowers and candles and pictures of Jesus outside their houses.”

It suddenly occurred to Rose that the children Nieve was talking about would all be about the same age as Nathan’s child would have been if he or she had survived. If Nathan had died or been taken prisoner, would his fiancée have stayed in the village? Could his son or daughter be living here?

Perhaps it was too much of a leap of the imagination. The letter had said that Nathan and his girlfriend planned to get out of Spain. Perhaps the discovery that they were expecting a baby had triggered that decision. To be pregnant by a man who had fought on the losing side must have felt like a ticking time bomb. Even if the girl had wanted to stay in the village, it was unlikely to have been an option.

But the Corpus Christi event might be an opportunity to talk to local people. She could start with the mothers of the children in the procession. Watch their faces when she showed them Nathan’s photograph. Perhaps she should try out the strategy on the miller’s wife. But no—there was something about the woman that made her afraid of exposing the real reason for her presence in Pampaneira. It wasn’t just the dismissive way the waiter had talked about her. She had left a cold, unwelcoming feeling in the room—despite only being in it for a matter of minutes. Better to wait, Rose decided. Talking to other people in the village first might give her a clue as to which side the Carmona family had been on.



Rose was woken the next morning by the crowing of the mill’s cockerel. She rolled over, wondering if the noise had disturbed Nieve. But the child was still fast asleep, clutching the silk shawl patterned with peacocks that she insisted on taking to bed with her every night. Its edges were frayed and there were several holes in it. But it was hardly surprising she was so attached to it.

The images on the shawl reminded Rose of the feather Bill Lee always wore in his battered brown hat. She had asked him about it once. Why a peacock? Why not a pheasant or a jay—birds whose feathers were surely much easier to come by? He replied that the feather had belonged to his father, who had passed it on to him. He explained that to the Gypsies, the peacock was a symbol of protection and safeguarding.

In Nieve’s case, Bill’s words seemed bitterly ironic. The images on the shawl had been of no help to her mother that cold, cruel day in the mountains.

A young pregnant woman with black hair and a peacock shawl.

Who was she? Somebody’s daughter. Somebody’s sister. Were any of her family still alive? Someone in this village must know who she was. Just as someone must know the identity of the person Nathan had fallen in love with. Rose tried to suppress the voice inside her head, enticing her to believe they were one and the same woman.

Rose left Nieve sleeping and went downstairs. She let herself out, shooing away the chickens as they clustered around her legs. There was a bench on the terrace, and she sat down among the flowers, breathing in the cool, scented air. From this vantage point, she could see rows of tomatoes and peppers laid out on the roof of the mill to dry in the sun. They glistened in the morning light, as if they were covered in frost. But it wasn’t cold enough at night for that—not even up here in the mountains. Rose guessed that it was salt—probably sprinkled on to keep the flies away.

Behind her she could hear the gurgle of water from a stream that wound its way through the orchard to join the river below. This place was very different from the dry, dusty plains she had traveled through on the way to Granada. The fruit trees, the flowers, the abundance of water were a rarity so far south. Nathan must have thought he’d stumbled on a sort of paradise. How tragic that it was a bitter, bloody war that had brought him here.