The Snow Gypsy Read online

  “He says the fruit is their symbol,” Jean said to Rose. “We hang things up to represent the places we come from. We have cabbages—they have pomegranates.”

  “Where is everyone?” Rose could see no one on the steps of the wagons or on the patches of land in between them.

  “They’ve only just arrived,” Jean replied. “The men are probably sorting out the horses, and the women and children are out fetching water and firewood.”

  “Oh.” Rose tried not to show her frustration. “I suppose I’d better come back later, then? At least I know where they are now.”

  Their guide was climbing up the steps of one of the vardos. He rapped on the wooden door, then put his ear to it. He turned to Rose and Jean and shrugged. “Lo siento.”

  For the first time, Rose understood what he was saying. It meant “I’m sorry.”

  “De nada,” she replied. It’s nothing. She made herself smile as she said it. It had been kind of him to take the trouble to bring her here. She mustn’t keep him from his family. But she couldn’t help feeling that her chances of getting the Granada Gypsies to listen to her would be severely limited without his presence. She had already parted with all the gifts she had purchased in Arles. An outsider with nothing to offer, she feared instant rejection from these new people.

  As she watched him walk away, she heard a shout from the sea side of the field. Through a gap in the wagons, she spotted a group of men with horse tack slung over their shoulders. They were heading toward Rose and Jean. The guide, who had caught sight of them, too, turned back, waving.

  Minutes later the men were passing around Nathan’s photograph. Unlike the Spaniards she had met earlier, they were asking questions. Which brigade did her brother belong to? What was the name of the mountain range where he was based? Did she know the name of the nearest town?

  The first question was easy. She told them that Nathan had been a member of the Fourteenth International Brigade and that he had traveled to the region south of Granada after training in a city called Albacete. But she was unable to answer their other questions. All she could do was repeat the story Nathan had told about the legendary fountain in the village near to where he had lived.

  The men looked at one another and shook their heads. Apparently they had never heard of such a place. It must be on the other side of the Sierra Nevada, they said—the side that faced across the water to Africa. It could be in another mountain range entirely: the Contraviesa, perhaps, which ran west to east between the snowcapped peaks south of Granada and the Mediterranean.

  Rose stared at her boots. They were trying so hard to help her, but she felt more confused than ever. She asked if there was anyone else in their party who might know of the village Nathan had described. The answer was no. The only other people traveling with them were a guitarist and his cousin, a dancer. Both lived in the city and were house dwellers, not travelers.

  Tears blurred Rose’s vision as Jean led her back through the field to her tent.

  “I have to go now.” He took both her hands in his. His eyes, as dark as sea-washed stones, echoed her pain. “We could try again tomorrow. There might be others . . .” He trailed off, looking away, too honest to give her false hope.

  She nodded, dropping her hands to release his. “Thank you,” she said. “You mustn’t worry about me. I knew when I came here that the chances were very slim.”

  “What will you do?”

  “It’s a fiesta.” She managed a wry smile. “I might as well make the most of it.”

  “Well, if you need me, I’m over there.” He pointed to the side of the field closest to the village.

  When he’d gone, she went inside the tent and spent a while just gazing at Nathan’s image, as if she could divine the answers to the Gypsies’ questions by some sort of telepathy. But it left her feeling more miserable and bereft than ever. What on earth had she thought she was doing, setting off on a trek across Europe, grasping at straws? She leaned across to where her rucksack lay and thrust her arm inside it, burrowing among the clothes. She pulled out a book, its cover stained and creased. It fell open at her favorite page.

  “‘All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’” She whispered the words to herself like a mantra. They had been written more than six centuries ago by a British nun who’d had herself walled up alive in a cell inside Norwich Cathedral and spent her days giving words of comfort to unseen people in need on the outside, via a window high up in the wall.

  Rose had turned to this book countless times over the past few years. Its pages contained a profound, reassuring wisdom that transcended the boundaries of religion. But now, as she stared at the familiar phrase, she failed to feel that reassurance. How could all be well? How could she go on with her search for Nathan when she’d failed at the first hurdle?

  You know, Rose, everything that is lost will be found . . .

  How empty those words of Bill’s sounded now.

  She reached out her hand to Gunesh, who had settled himself against her legs. Sensing her sadness, he lifted his head and licked her chin. She buried her face in his coat.

  “I can’t stay here all evening, can I?” She mumbled the words into the silky golden hair. The thought of venturing into the melee outside was daunting. But the idea of being cooped up with her own thoughts was much worse.

  The dog thrust out his legs in a long, luxurious stretch, his front paws almost sticking through the tent flap.

  “Well, you can stay if you want to. I don’t suppose you got much sleep in the guard’s van, did you?”

  Rose wasn’t in the habit of going anywhere without Gunesh if she could help it. But feeling the way she did, there was only one place she could think of going—and it was somewhere dogs were not allowed.

  The setting sun had turned the sky into a bonfire. Tiny charcoal clouds drifted across the sea, glowing red where the dying rays touched them. The smell of cooking was everywhere. As Rose made her way across the field, she felt a gnawing in her stomach. All she’d had to eat since leaving the train was an apple and a slice of bread and cheese. She wondered if there might be stalls selling hot food in the village square. Perhaps. But that would have to wait.

  The tower of the church cast a long shadow across the road. As she drew near, she saw that people were still standing in line to buy candles. A few yards away there was a man selling pancakes. The scent of frying batter made her mouth water. She thought about buying one but decided instead to save it as a treat for later.

  Rose took her place behind an elderly French woman with skin like polished leather who asked her if she would like her palm read while she waited. The word she used—dukeripen—was one Rose had often heard when she was among English Gypsies.

  “Merci beaucoup,” Rose replied. “Mais non.” Having her future told at this precise moment seemed like a very bad idea.

  “Ah, je comprends,” the woman replied. “Vous êtes très pieuse!”

  Rose didn’t try to contradict her. It was too complicated to explain that she was not a Catholic but a Jew—a Jew who belonged to neither synagogue nor church but drew inspiration from the writings of an early Christian mystic. Easier to let this woman think that she was too pious to believe in fortune-telling.

  She bought three candles and stepped into the dark interior of the church. The scent of incense and beeswax hung heavy in the air. At the far end of the huge vaulted nave, the shrine of the two Marys glowed with hundreds of tiny lights. As Rose got closer she could make out the flesh-tinted faces of the plaster saints. Lit from beneath, they had an eerily lifelike look.

  She wasn’t particularly keen on these garishly painted images. From what she’d read in Baedeker’s guide, the statue in the crypt down below sounded more appealing, carved out of wood and unadorned. But she didn’t feel she could venture down there. It was the Gypsies’ special place. Bill Lee had told her that his people would resent anyone who was not of their own blood entering the shrine of the Black Virgin
. It was a pity because Sara sounded like just the sort of saint she could relate to: practical, down to earth, and a friend to wanderers who weren’t quite sure where they were going.

  Rose lingered in the shadows, watching people line up to kiss the feet of the two Marys. She hadn’t come here to do that. What had drawn her to the church was a longing to be in a space that felt calm and spiritual. It wasn’t that she disliked crowds or music or dancing. That was something she loved about the Gypsy way of life—the ability to conjure up a party at the drop of a hat. But after what had happened this afternoon, it was the last thing she wanted to do. In the tent she had felt trapped, surrounded by so many people enjoying themselves. But in here the atmosphere was very different. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scented air, letting the peace of the place soak into her.

  When she opened her eyes, she remembered the three candles she’d stuffed into her pocket. There was less of a crowd around the shrine now. She could go and light them. She walked slowly up to the feet of the statues and took a taper from one of the containers positioned on a ledge in front of the shrine. She placed her candles in a row of others. One for Nathan and one for each of her parents. But when she lit the taper and held it to the wicks, they wouldn’t catch. The moment each one flared up, it blew out. Rose glanced over her shoulder. She couldn’t feel any draft coming from the door. The other candles in the row were all alight. She tried a second time. Then a third. But flame after flame blew out.

  Suddenly Rose felt someone tugging at her arm. She glanced around to see a little girl, no taller than her waist, staring up at her with an earnest expression.

  “Ven, intenta encender las velas para Santa Sara.” The red ribbons in her dark curls bobbed up and down as she spoke.

  “Santa Sara?” Rose smiled at her, puzzled by the foreign words spoken so quickly.

  “Av akai!”

  This was more familiar. It sounded just like a phrase Bill and his sisters had used when they wanted her to accompany them to some place or another. The child was pointing to the three candles. Rose suddenly grasped what the child was trying to say: she was telling her to take them down to the crypt.

  Rose glanced over her shoulder, wondering who the little girl was with. “¿Tu madre?” Your mother? She swept a hand at the people gathered around the shrine.

  “Abajo.” The child jerked her thumb at the floor, then beckoned Rose to follow her.

  The hesitation was momentary. This was an invitation from a Gypsy child to enter the inner sanctum of her people. To turn away would be worse than going where she was not supposed to go.

  “Soy Nieve,” the girl said as they made their way down a narrow flight of stone steps.

  “Nyeh-veh.” Rose repeated the name as it sounded. It was not one she had ever heard before.

  “¿Cómo te llamas?”

  “Rose.”

  “Rose.” The child drew out the word, as if trying it for size. “¿Como Rosa?”

  “Yes, like Rosa.” The Spanish was coming more easily to her now. Perhaps it was because with someone so young, she felt less self-conscious.

  A hum of whispered voices, like a swarm of bees, was coming from the crypt. When Rose reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw a room that looked like a cave, its rough walls studded with pinpricks of light from the candles placed in every available nook and cranny. The statue of Saint Sara was much smaller than the plaster saints in the main part of the church. The wood from which it was carved looked like ebony, but as Rose got closer, she could see that the dark color had been painted on. The Black Virgin had brown almond-shaped eyes and a mane of dark hair crowned with a circle of white roses. Unlike the Mary saints, who had been dressed for the fiesta in shiny satin robes trimmed with gold lace, Sara wore a simple dress of faded blue cotton.

  A Gypsy woman was holding her baby up to the statue, pressing the child’s face to the wooden mouth. When she lifted it back down, Rose could see that Sara’s full lips bore faint traces of red pigment, the paint kissed away by generations of worshippers. Two more children were held up in the same way; then the whole group moved toward the steps, leaving Rose and the little girl alone in the crypt.

  Nieve pointed to a trough of sand at the saint’s feet.

  Rose placed the three tallow wands with their blackened wicks alongside others already burning there. To her surprise they kindled immediately. And the flames held when she stepped back. Rose glanced up at the statue. The dark face, tinted gold by the candles, almost looked as if it were smiling.

  “Nieve!” A female voice hissed across the chamber. Rose wheeled around to see a young woman hugging the child to her. “I told you to stay close!” The words, spoken in kalo, echoed off the walls, clear enough for Rose to understand.

  Nieve glanced at Rose, her eyes brimming with tears. Rose stepped forward, wondering how to address the woman. She looked far too young to be Nieve’s mother. Hard to believe that such a slim, lithe body had born a child. Perhaps she was an older sister.

  “I’m sorry—your . . . she was helping me.”

  “Her candles wouldn’t light, Mama,” Nieve said, “so I brought her down here. Her name is Rose.”

  The woman’s expression softened. She tucked a stray wisp of black hair behind her ear and gave Rose something like a smile. Perhaps she was older than she looked. In England it was not unusual for Gypsy girls to be married off at thirteen or fourteen. Maybe Nieve had been born when her mother was that age.

  “For my family,” Rose said, gesturing at the candles. “This one is for my brother. These are for my mother and my father.”

  The words kindled something in the woman’s eyes. “This one is for my brother. My twin.” She pointed to a guttering stub of wax in the same trough of sand. “And that one is for my mother.” She glanced at Nieve. “She wanted to light them herself—although she never knew them.”

  “She’s a lovely little girl,” Rose said. “And she has such a pretty name. I’ve never heard it before.”

  “Oh,” the woman replied. “It’s like . . .” She raised her hands above her head and brought them down, rippling her long brown fingers. Then she hugged herself and shivered.

  “Ah! Snow!” Rose smiled. “And what’s your name?”

  “Lola.” She held out her hand to Rose. “Where do you come from?”

  “England.”

  Lola cocked her head to one side, surveying her through half-closed eyes. “That’s very far away, yes?”

  “It is.” Rose nodded. “What part of Spain do you come from?”

  “Granada. But I wasn’t born there, and neither was Nieve. We are Alpujarreños.”

  Now it was Rose’s turn to look puzzled.

  “From Las Alpujarras—south of Granada.” Lola outlined a mountain range with the flat of her hand. “Very high—with lots of snow.”

  Rose felt her heart shift against her ribs.

  “Is something the matter?”

  Her face must have betrayed the sudden surge of hope. “I . . .” Rose faltered. She could hear more people coming down the steps. This wasn’t the place to start interrogating Nieve’s mother. And she had left Nathan’s photograph back at the tent. “I’m a little hungry,” she said. “There’s a stall selling pancakes in the square. I wonder if you and your daughter might like some?”

  It was almost dark by the time they’d finished eating. In the twilight it was difficult to read Lola’s face. She was listening intently to Rose’s story. It was frustrating, not having the photograph to show her. But it would have been difficult for her to see it properly anyway. That was going to have to wait until the morning.

  “There was a village near the place where he lived,” Rose said. She racked her brain for the word she needed. Fuente—that was it. The fountain with the legend. She tried to describe it as best she could. Nathan meeting the girl he wanted to marry the evening he’d drunk from it.

  “Yes.” It was almost a whisper. Rose could hear Lola drawing in her breath. “I know that place.
”

  “You do?” She felt as if the last bit of pancake had got stuck on its way to her stomach.

  “It’s only a few miles from where I lived. It’s in a village called Pampaneira.”

  “Pampaneira.” Rose breathed the name as if it were a magic charm.

  “My mother used to work there—before I was born.”

  “Nathan said there were Gypsies fighting alongside him—could any of them have come from your family?” Rose regretted the words as soon as she had uttered them. Lola’s brother and mother were dead. Thousands of people had been killed in the Spanish Civil War—it was highly likely that they had both been among the victims.

  “Not my family.” The tremor in Lola’s voice was enough to tell Rose that she had guessed right. “My brother was too young to fight. I never knew my father.”

  “I’m sorry.” Rose felt wretched, making her relive what had clearly been a harrowing time in her young life. She glanced at Nieve, who was standing a few yards away, watching a juggler tossing flaming torches. It was just as well she wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation.

  “It’s not your fault,” Lola murmured. “I know how it feels, to lose a brother. I understand what you’re trying to do.” She shifted a little on the low wall they were sitting on. “I didn’t know the partisans—but I saw some of them. My brother used to take messages to them when he took the goats out. And my mother let them stay sometimes when they needed to hide. But they—”

  “Mama!” Nieve was suddenly beside them, eager eyed. “Uncle Cristóbal says it’s time to get ready!”

  Lola stood up, her face betraying no hint of what she had been about to reveal. “I can look at your brother’s photograph tomorrow,” she said, “but tonight, why don’t you come and watch me dance?”

  Chapter 8

  Men were lighting flaming torches in the center of the village square. They cast a golden glow on the faces of the people who had already gathered to get the best view of what was about to take place. There was no stage in the square for Lola to dance on. Like all the other flamenco artists at the fiesta, she was required to perform on wooden boards laid on the paving stones.