The Barefoot Queen by Ildefonso Falcones Read Free Book Online Page B

continued. He stopped in a patch of trees. It was there, right there.
    “Oloddo yemayá. Oloddo …”
    Melchor squinted his eyes. One of the persistent clouds that had covered Seville during the day allowed a faint glimmer of the moon to come through. Then he could make out a grayish form on the ground, before him, just a few paces away. He approached and knelt until he could make out a woman as black as the night dressed in gray clothes. She was sitting with her back against an orange tree, as if seeking refuge in it. Her gaze was vague, unaware of his presence, and she continued singing softly, in a monotone, repeating the same refrain over and over again. Melchor noticed that, despite the cold, her forehead was beaded with sweat. She was shivering.
    He sat down beside her. He didn’t understand what she was saying, but that weary voice, that timbre, the monotony, the resignation that impregnated her voice revealed immense pain. Melchor closed his eyes, hugged his knees and let himself be transported by the song.
    “Water.”
    Caridad’s request broke the silence of the night. Her singing could no longer be heard; it had died out like an ember. Melchor opened his eyes. The song’s sadness and melancholy had managed to take him back to the galley benches. Water. How many times had he asked for the same thing? He thought he could feel the muscles of his legs, arms and back tensing,just as when the galley master increased the pace of the rowing to chase some Saracen ship. His torturous whistle goaded their senses as his whip tore off the skin on their bare backs to get them to row harder and harder. The punishment could last hours. Finally, with all the muscles in their body about to burst and their mouths bone-dry, from the rows of benches there arose a single plea: Water!
    “I know what it is to be thirsty,” he murmured to himself.
    “Water,” begged Caridad again.
    “Come with me.” Melchor got up with difficulty, numb from an hour sitting beneath the orange tree.
    The gypsy stretched and tried to orient himself to find the road to La Cartuja—the Carthusian monastery. He had been heading toward its gardens, where many of the Triana gypsies lived, when the soft singing had attracted his attention.
    “Are you coming or not?” he asked Caridad.
    She tried to get up, grabbing on to the orange tree’s trunk. She had a fever. She was hungry and cold. But, more than anything, she was thirsty, very thirsty. Would he give her water if she went with him, or would he trick her like so many others had over the course of her days in Triana? She walked behind him. Her head was spinning. Almost everyone she’d met had taken advantage of her.
    A series of lights coming from a cluster of shacks on the road lit up the gypsy’s sky-blue silk jacket. Caridad struggled to keep up with him. Melchor didn’t pay her special attention. He walked slowly but erect and proud, leaning just for show on the two-pointed staff that marked him as the patriarch of a family; sometimes he could be heard speaking into the night. As they approached the settlement, the beads on Melchor’s clothes and the silver edging on his socks shone. Caridad took the shimmering gleam as a good omen: that man hadn’t laid a hand on her. He would give her water.

That night, the partying in the San Miguel alley went on for a long time. Each of the smithing families insisted on demonstrating their talents at dancing, singing and playing the guitar, castanets and tambourines, as if it were a competition. The García family was there, along with the Camacho family, the Flores family, the Carmonas, the Vargases and many more of the twenty-one surnames that inhabited that alleyway. All the traditional gypsy songs were heard—
romances, zarabandas, chaconas, jácaras,
fandangos,
seguidillas
and
zarambeques
—and they danced in the glow of a bonfire fed by the women as the hours passed. Around the fire, sitting in the first row, were the gypsies that made up