The Snow Gypsy(71)
Capileira was a slightly larger version of Pampaneira. It had the same steep cobbled streets, with water running from an abundance of springs. There were more shops and cafés and a freshly painted building that bore a sign saying “Hotel,” as well as a humbler posada. Rose wondered if she’d made a mistake choosing to stay in Pampaneira rather than here. But she wouldn’t have been able to afford hotel prices—and if she had settled on Capileira, she would never have met Zoltan.
The memory of his face, smiling as he’d waved them goodbye yesterday, produced an unexpected warmth in her belly. She smothered the sensation like a Gypsy throwing sand on a fire. The humiliation of what had happened with Cristóbal was still raw. She didn’t even want to think about getting involved with another man.
After wandering around for half an hour, she spotted a street sign that led her straight to Lola’s old home. Calle Fragua—Forge Street. Halfway down it, the cobbles gave way to beaten earth peppered with goat droppings. She could hear a hammer striking metal as she approached the building at the far end. There were mules tethered outside and a couple of small naked children kicking up dust as they chased chickens out of an alleyway.
Calle Fragua was on the northern boundary of the village, with sweeping views of the whole valley—an idyllic place for a child to grow up. Rose thought of Lola running around like these children, with no inkling of the horrors that lay ahead. She tried to imagine what it would have been like when the death squad arrived to drag her grandfather away. Probably he would have been working when they arrived, like the man she could hear hammering away now. And she thought of that morning when Lola had gone out with the goats, little knowing that she would never see her mother and brother alive again.
It was hard to reconcile the picturesque scene she was looking at now with the atrocities that had taken place here less than a decade ago. She wondered who had taken over the forge when Lola’s family had been killed. She was tempted to go inside and ask questions. But she sensed it would be a fruitless exercise. There was nothing to be gained here by raking up the past.
She walked back into the village as far as the church, stopping at a spring to refill her water bottle and pouring some into the bowl she carried in her bag for Gunesh. The church had a strange name: Nuestra Se?ora de la Cabeza—Our Lady of the Head. Rose thought it must mean the head of the valley. But it seemed strangely appropriate in view of the mental turmoil she’d been suffering since finding out about Nathan.
The church door was open, and she decided to go inside. It was too hot to leave Gunesh out in the sun, and as there didn’t seem to be anyone else around, she told him to lie down on the cool stone floor near the door.
The whitewashed walls were adorned with life-size plaster statues of saints whose lips were rather too red and complexions a little too pink. But near the altar was a black Madonna—very much like the statue of Saint Sara in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. A plaque on the wall explained that the church was dedicated to the miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary to a Spanish shepherd at a place called Cerro de la Cabeza. She’d come to tell him where to find a painting of herself that had been made by the gospel writer Luke and was hidden in a mountain cave when the Moors conquered Andalucia. This statue, the plaque went on, was a re-creation of the painting.
Rose liked the idea of Saint Luke painting Christ’s mother with dark skin. It seemed a much more accurate representation than the innumerable pale-complexioned, blue-eyed images hanging in art galleries. The statue was wearing a white robe embellished with gold thread. The swirls of gold reminded Rose of one of the dresses Lola had worn at the fiesta in Provence. It was strange to think of her coming to this church as a child. Very likely she had been baptized in the stone font by the door. And she would have knelt at the altar to take her first communion, dressed as a little bride like the girls at the Corpus Christi procession in Pampaneira.
There were candles flickering on a wooden stand to the left of the altar. Rose hadn’t come here with the intention of lighting a candle, but she suddenly felt impelled to do it. Taking one from the box beneath the stand, she held it to a flame. She murmured a prayer as she placed it with the others—for freedom for Lola.
She hesitated as she delved into her bag for money to put in the box. She could hear Nathan whispering in her ear. What about me?
Yes, she should light another one for him. And then two more—for Adelita and her baby.
Have you forgotten us? That was her father. No, of course she hadn’t forgotten. One for him and one for her mother.
And maybe you should light one for yourself.
When all seven candles were burning, Rose stood for a while, staring at the flames until they blurred into each other. In that moment the barrage of voices stopped. She felt a calm she hadn’t experienced in months. It was a sense of timelessness, of life going on in this place generation after generation. It made her feel very small and insignificant. But not alone.
As she made her way back down the nave, she thought of the book she’d carried with her from England, written by the nun Julian of Norwich. She hadn’t picked up the book since the trip from Provence. What had happened with Cristóbal had left her feeling very far away from what she thought of as God. But something in the act of lighting the candles had brought her back.
She considered what had unfolded since the last time she’d stepped inside a church. In a few short weeks, she had found the answer to the question that had been eating away at her for eight years. And while it wasn’t the answer she would have wished for, there was a kind of peace in knowing it.