The Snow Gypsy(58)

She wound her way down through Calle Veronica until she reached the main square. The stalls were a riot of color, piled high with peppers, eggplants, onions, and tomatoes. Great flat fillets of salted cod glistened like snow in the sunshine, and fat black sausages dangled from lines of string rigged overhead.

Over by the fountain there was a man selling cherries. Cherries were just right for a trek up the mountain—sweet, moist, and easy to carry.

She felt very conspicuous as she crossed the square. It wasn’t just Gunesh that made her stand out from the other women clustered around the stalls—she was the only female over twenty-five not dressed in black.

“Quiero algunas cerezas, por favor.” I’d like some cherries, please.

He looked up from what he was doing—picking leaves and the odd shriveled berry from the baskets of glistening fruit. Rose was immediately struck by his warm smile. His eyes were blue—not blue green like Cristóbal’s, but a clear, pale shade, like the sky on a frosty morning. He was dressed like a Gypsy, with a red neckerchief and a leather waistcoat. But he didn’t have the olive skin. His hair was light brown. And he was the tallest person she had seen since coming to Spain.

“Por supuesto, ?cuántas quiere?” Of course—how many would you like? He had a different accent from the other people she had spoken to.

Rose hesitated. “?Una libra?” She still hadn’t got the hang of the units of weight in Spain. She thought a libra was roughly equivalent to a pound—but she had no real idea how many cherries that would give her.

As the man began scooping them into the scales, a wasp buzzed around her head. Gunesh jumped up, snapping at it. Then she felt it flying into her hair.

“Get off me!” She hissed the words in her own language as she batted it away.

The man hovered over the scales, the scoop in his hand. “It’s a little over a libra—is that all right?” He spoke in English.

Rose smiled in surprise. “Your English is very good,” she said.

“Thank you.” He smiled back. “But it’s not nearly as good as my cherries. If it was, it would be excellent.” He looked at his stall and shrugged. “I would have brought twice as many as this down from the mountain, but my other mule is unwell.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He has a sore on his back—at the base of the neck—that won’t heal. I can’t put a saddle or panniers on him.”

“What’s the sore like? Does it scab over?”

The man shook his head. “It just keeps weeping. I’ve tried bathing it with iodine, but it doesn’t seem to help.”

Rose nodded. “It might be something called fistulous withers. It’s an infection of a fluid sac near the animal’s spine.”

His eyes widened. “Really? You sound as if you know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m a vet.” She felt herself blushing. She wasn’t sure why. There was something disarming in those blue eyes. “Where do you live?” she asked. “If you could take me to the animal, I might be able to help.”

He tipped the cherries into a paper bag and handed them over, leaning across to stroke Gunesh as he did so. “It’s kind of you to offer. But it’s a mile or so up the mountain—near the old bunkers.”

“Bunkers?”

“Where the partisans had their base. Have you been up there?”

Rose caught her breath. For the first time since she’d arrived in this village, someone was talking openly about the Civil War. “I haven’t,” she said, “but I’d like to.”



Rose went back to the cherry stall at two o’clock, when the market traders were packing up for the day. She knew his name now—Zoltan Varga—and the fact that he was a Hungarian Gypsy who had come to Spain as a refugee at the end of the war in Europe. He had listened intently when she had told him about Nathan. He told her he’d found boxes of documents, some of which appeared to be in English, in the abandoned cottage where he was now living.

It had been too difficult to go on talking after that—a queue of customers had formed behind Rose—but he had asked her to come back in the afternoon.

“How did you do today?” she asked as he smiled a greeting.

“Not bad,” he replied. “It’s going to be an easy ride home.”

Rose desperately wanted to go with him. It was tantalizing, knowing that he had papers that could hold some clue to what had happened to her brother. But there was Nieve to consider. She would be coming out of school in an hour’s time, tired and hungry. It wouldn’t be fair to drag her up the mountain.

“If you don’t mind coming down again tomorrow, I could meet you by the school,” she said. “Do you have any potatoes at home?”

“Potatoes?” His forehead crinkled.

“For the sick mule. If it is fistulous withers, the remedy I’d use is a mixture of potato skins and garlic. If you haven’t got any, I can buy some and bring them with me.”

“You don’t have to do that. I can get them from Maria Andorra—the old woman who supplies the cherries.”

Rose nodded. “You’ll need to peel about six potatoes and boil the peelings in a big pan of water for an hour. Then add four cloves of garlic and leave them to soak overnight. If you do that, I can get started with the cure right away.”