The Snow Gypsy(55)
The children started to move forward, followed by a priest in richly embroidered robes who was swinging a censer. The perfumed smoke wafted over the parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles assembled on either side of the street. As Rose watched, she couldn’t help remembering what Cristóbal had said about the aftermath of the Civil War in small communities like Pampaneira:
In the villages, it’s worse than in the cities because everyone knows what their neighbor did. It’s like waking up with the worst hangover you’ve ever had.
What had these people done to each other? Had any of the men gazing proudly at their sons and daughters been members of the death squad that had raided Lola’s house the day Nieve was born? Had any of these families lost mothers or sisters in the massacre that had followed?
It was strange to think that Nieve could be a blood relative of one or more of these people, that the gray-haired woman standing next to the miller’s wife could be her grandmother, or the ruddy-faced man in the doorway of the church her uncle.
A young pregnant woman with black hair and a peacock shawl.
There had to be a way to find out the identity of Nieve’s mother. But it would require an even greater degree of subtlety than the search for information about Nathan. And it could put Nieve in danger. If people found out the child was not Rose’s daughter but an orphan, she could be at even greater risk from the authorities than if she’d remained in Granada. And what if there was a relative still living—someone who might claim her and prevent her going back to Lola?
As the procession wound its way along Calle Veronica, Rose caught sight of another group emerging from the church—strange adult figures robed in white like the children but with their faces obscured by hoods with tall pointed tops. They reminded Rose of grainy newspaper images she had seen of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Who are they?” she asked Nieve.
“The penitentes,” Nieve replied. “They’re people who’ve done bad things. They need to ask Jesus to forgive them—but they don’t want to show their faces, because if they did, everyone would know they were bad.”
In light of what had just been going through Rose’s mind, the hooded figures looked very sinister indeed. The body shapes beneath the robes were all male. She wondered just how bad a person had to be to take part in this public display of repentance—and whether the sins they were atoning for were recent or historic. Could some of these men have been involved in the slaughter Lola had described?
Behind the penitentes came a group of middle-aged women chanting a mournful song. The intense, painful quality of the sound they made reminded Rose of the songs Cristóbal sang. She looked away, raising her head in case Nieve saw the look on her face. A blur flashed across her field of vision. Then another. Swifts were diving over the procession, feasting on the flies attracted by the smell of so many human bodies.
Rose, Nieve, and Gunesh fell into step at the back of the procession. After only a short distance, it came to a stop at the first of the little shrines. The priest sprinkled holy water on the olive boughs woven with lilies, reciting prayers that the children in white dutifully repeated. When they moved on again, Nieve asked if she could take Gunesh to the front to walk behind the children. Rose let her go. After a couple of minutes, the procession stopped at a second shrine. Rose turned to the woman walking alongside her.
“?No son encantadores?” Aren’t they lovely?
“Sí, encantadores,” the woman replied.
“Which one is yours?”
“That one.” The woman pointed to a girl whose white satin frock was embellished with silver sequins at the neck and wrists.
“What a pretty dress.” Rose paused for a moment, then she said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before—I’m visiting from England.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “What brings you to Pampaneira?”
Rose came out with the line about writing a book. Then she said, “My brother used to live here.”
“In the village?”
“No—in the mountains. We . . . lost touch a few years ago. I’m not sure if he’s still living around here . . .” She broke off with a shrug.
“How long ago did you last hear from him?”
Rose drew in a breath. There was no way of avoiding a direct answer. “About eight years ago.”
The woman’s face clouded.
“I have a photograph—perhaps you . . .”
She turned away before Rose could finish, elbowing her way through the crowd until she was hidden from view behind the shrine.
By the time the procession had completed its circuit of the village, Rose had had similar conversations with four other people. She had tried an elderly man, a woman in her fifties, and two young mothers. All four had reacted in the same way, polite interest turning to blank indifference the moment they realized that Nathan had been in the area during the Civil War.
As the crowd dispersed, Rose felt utterly despondent. Cristóbal had been right. It was as if a collective amnesia had fallen upon the inhabitants of Pampaneira. How on earth was she going to find out what had happened to Nathan if no one would even look at his photograph?
A breath of wind gusted through the square, sending a drift of petals from the little shrines. It caught Rose’s earrings. She felt the twists of copper wire brush against her neck. She pushed her hair aside, checking that she hadn’t lost either one. As her fingers touched the tiny blue beads, she thought of Jean Beau-Marie and what he’d said when he’d given them to her. She thought of what he had endured, seeing his entire family wiped out by the Nazis, and of the daily battle he now faced just to carry on living. It put her own despondency into perspective.