Authors: Belinda Alexandra
‘Welcome to our special world of flamenco,’ Carmen said in her strong Spanish accent. There were deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, but her body looked as well-toned and supple
as a healthy thirty year old’s. ‘You are about to enter a world of fierce passion,’ she promised us, flashing a mesmerising smile. ‘Flamenco incorporates three types of expression:
cante
,
baile
and
guitarra
— the song, the dance and the guitar. There is some controversy as to its origins: the gypsies claim it is theirs, while the Andalusians argue it rose from their culture. In my opinion, it is a beautiful intermarriage of the two worlds. The gypsies could not have given birth to flamenco without Spain, and the spirit of flamenco would have lain dormant in the Andalusian soil if the gypsies had not breathed life into it.’ Carmen paused a moment to look into each of our faces. ‘I am going to teach you some steps, but how you interpret them, how you express them when you dance, must be totally your own. There is nothing that flamenco aficionados appreciate more than the internal force of your spirit combining with the spirit of the dance and the music: what we call
duende
.’
The seven other women on the floor were as mixed in body shape and size as the students I’d just seen in Mamie’s adolescents’ class. They were all different ages too. One woman looked to be in her sixties. The closest one in age to me was in her early twenties: blonde with a ski-slope nose, like the singer from ABBA. I wondered what they each did when they weren’t dancing, and what had attracted them to flamenco.
After some warm-up exercises, including rotating our wrists and ankles, Carmen began the class by demonstrating a step where we had to swing our leg back from the knee and strike the floor with the ball of our foot, then snap down our heel.
‘
Planta
! Heel! Change weight!
Planta
! Heel! Change weight!’ she called, bringing the class into rhythm.
I picked up the step easily. My classmates had more trouble, but nobody seemed worried about it. They looked at each other and laughed.
Carmen gave them encouragement. ‘Don’t worry if you don’t get it at first; it takes a little while,’ she said. ‘But soon dancing
flamenco will be as natural to you as walking … or even as breathing … you’ll see. The main thing is to not take yourselves too seriously.’
In terms of my experience of dance lessons, Carmen might as well have been speaking a foreign language. In ballet school, the teachers were much less sympathetic. If you couldn’t pick up at least the basics of a routine after one or two tries, you were out.
‘Now I’m going to talk about posture,’ Carmen announced. ‘In flamenco, this is the most important element of all, even more important than the steps. When you think of flamenco I don’t want you to think elegant or dainty. There are two words that you must hold in your mind: majestic and powerful.’ She drew in a breath and raised her arms in the air. ‘From the navel down, you are firmly planted into the earth. But from the navel up,’ she stretched her arms higher and arched her back, ‘you are reaching to the sky. This is the true flamenco dancer: her feet are always planted firmly in the earth but she is striving for heaven at the same time.’
She was about to teach us another step when her attention was drawn towards the door. We all turned to see a young man with a guitar case entering the room and heading towards the stage. He was tall with long, glossy black hair. The lustre of it was like a thoroughbred’s mane and I had an urge to touch it when he passed by me.
Carmen clapped her hands. ‘I have a special treat for my beginners’ class tonight,’ she said. ‘My nephew has returned from Spain and is studying at the Conservatoire de Paris. He will be accompanying us for the lesson.’
The young man put his guitar case down near a stool and turned to us. He had a striking face: luminous dark eyes framed by thick eyebrows, broad cheekbones and a full-lipped mouth. His open-necked shirt revealed a muscular chest, and around his neck he wore a silver chain with a pewter bat pendant.
‘Good evening, ladies. My name is Jaime,’ he said. ‘And it will be an honour to accompany you.’ He spoke French perfectly, and with a lighter accent than his aunt’s.
The collective sigh of female desire that swept through the room was almost palpable. The blonde woman grinned and winked at me.
I had been surrounded by examples of male physical beauty at the Ballet School, but there was something especially intriguing about Jaime. When he sat down on the stool and adjusted his guitar, he looked around the room as if trying to take in everyone. The expression on his face was intense, as though he were reading the dancers’ minds. Our eyes met, and he tilted his head and gazed at me curiously. I quickly turned away.
He tuned his guitar then began a
tangos
; his hands moving smoothly over the strings. Carmen clapped out the rhythm, putting the emphasis on the first and fourth beat. Most of the class fell in and out of rhythm, but I hit the
compás
perfectly each time. I held my posture as Carmen had instructed and lifted my chin in the air. A shadow briefly passed in front of my eyes and I blinked as some unformed image sprang to mind. The movement … the music … I had felt this way before. But how could I have? Flamenco was foreign to everything I had been doing in my life. Still, the sense of
déjà vu
was there. It was as if something had temporarily possessed me. Was that what Carmen had meant by
duende
?
I sensed Jaime’s eyes on me. I assumed my sinewy arms and legs made me stand out as a trained dancer, or the fact that I could respond to the music so well. Jaime finished the piece and Carmen added another step to our routine. We were working on that when Jaime stopped playing, leaving Carmen to clap out the accompaniment. He jumped to the floor and came to stand behind me, gripping my raised arms and bending them slightly. He turned my face to his with his hand. ‘You are a
ballerina, yes? But when you think of flamenco,’ he whispered, ‘you must think of fire, not of air.’
He let go of me and returned to playing his guitar. I joined with the others in practising the new step. It was easy to think of fire now: my skin burned where he had touched me.
When the class was over, we applauded to thank Carmen and Jaime, and to congratulate each other.
‘Well, ladies,’ Carmen said, smiling proudly, ‘you have taken your first step on what will be a wonderful, wonderful journey.’
The class broke up and Carmen moved to speak with Jaime. I sat down on the bench at the back of the room to take off my shoes. The blonde woman who had danced beside me sat down too and nudged me in the ribs. ‘I think
you’ve
started a
wonderful, wonderful journey
,’ she said, nodding her head in Jaime’s direction. ‘He couldn’t take his eyes off you the whole lesson.’
‘Not for the reasons you’re thinking,’ I told her. ‘It must be obvious to him that I’ve been dancing for years.’
The woman’s face twitched and her smile faded. I realised I’d alienated another potential friend with my serious attitude. ‘But if you put
tu
in the middle of his name, you’ve almost got
Je t’aime
— I love you,’ I said quickly. The joke didn’t really make sense, but it was my attempt to soften my abruptness.
‘You’re right,’ the woman said and giggled. She stood and picked up her handbag. ‘I’ll see you next week,’ she said, and gave me a beaming smile, which I did my best to return, silently berating myself for my awkwardness.
I noticed Carmen heading towards me, Jaime in tow.
‘I hope you enjoyed the class,’ she said. ‘It’s obvious that you have danced before. I think the beginners’ class is too easy for you, but you aren’t quite ready for the advanced level yet. Why don’t you come for private lessons? You’ll learn more that way, and I think it would be a great pleasure to teach you.’
I had enjoyed the class much more than I had expected. It had stirred something in my heart: perhaps the Spanish part of my blood that I was so unfamiliar with. I nodded my agreement. I preferred private tuition anyway, and I wasn’t too worried about the cost. There wasn’t anything I spent my money on besides dance: lessons, tickets, workshops, shoes.
‘Good!’ Carmen said, clapping her hands. ‘Now all we have to do is work out a time. I have other students that I must sort out first … Can I telephone you early next week?’
Jaime picked up a notepad and pen and handed it to me so I could write down my telephone number. Although I could feel his gaze on me, I avoided his eyes.
‘If I’m not at home and my grandmother answers the telephone,’ I said, writing down my number, ‘do you mind not mentioning that you are calling about flamenco lessons?’
Carmen raised her eyebrows quizzically.
‘She’s Catalan,’ I explained. ‘She doesn’t … appreciate flamenco.’
‘But if she’s Catalan, she should know that the most famous flamenco dancer of modern times came from Barcelona,’ replied Carmen. ‘She is considered the mother of modern flamenco.’
‘Really?’ I asked, wondering if Mamie knew that or not. Perhaps I should be honest with her about taking flamenco lessons; it might appeal to her Catalonian pride.
‘Her family was originally from Andalusia, but she was born in Barcelona,’ added Jaime, placing his pleasingly shaped hands on his hips. ‘It was the city that made her famous. She was taught by gypsies.’
‘What was her name?’ I asked, focusing on his chin to avoid his intense eyes.
‘La Rusa.’
‘La Rusa?’ I repeated, surprised. ‘The Russian? Why, if she was Spanish?’
‘It was her stage name,’ Carmen explained. ‘Many flamenco singers and dancers had names like that: la Argentina, la Serneta, la Chunga. Either because that was the town they came from, or in honour of a relative or the person who made them famous.’
‘Is she still alive?’ I asked.
Jaime shook his head. ‘No, la Rusa died in the 1950s. In Paris, in fact.’
‘She committed suicide,’ added Carmen. ‘She’d led a tragic life.’
‘Suicide? How sad.’
‘Well, suicide was how it was reported, but there’s always been controversy about that,’ Jaime said, rubbing his chin. ‘There are many who are convinced she was murdered.’
After warming up during the class, my skin suddenly felt cold. I was getting uncomfortable tingles down my spine.
‘Who do they think killed her?’ I asked.
Jaime frowned. ‘No one knows for sure — or if they do, they aren’t telling. Let’s just say she had a reputation for being ruthless … and that she’d made a lot of enemies during the Civil War.’
D
earest Margarida,
The inevitable has happened: Paloma has asked me to talk to her about Spain. For so long I have been able to avoid reliving the past. Julieta did not possess the same desire to understand her heritage. But Paloma, one step removed from the upheaval and missing her mother, is naturally curious. What shall I tell her? What can I say that doesn’t rip at my heart? If I try to remember Mama and Pare and the beautiful house on the passeig de Gràcia where we spent so many happy years, all I can think about is how they were torn from us. And how can I talk about Barcelona without remembering our dearest brother? For many years, I could not bear to recall his kind eyes, his open face, his deep belief that the human race could evolve with compassion and reason. He loved the world so much that he wanted to change it — but he paid the price for such dreams. When I think of him, all I can see is that terrible day when you and I burned all that was precious to him: his papers, his party badge, his photographs … Oh, Xavier! Our darling Xavier! Forgive us! And then, of course, if I think of Barcelona I remember that
whore
… the one who betrayed him …
A
fter that day at the port, civil order in Barcelona began to break down. Workers and their families took part in nightly demonstrations against the war. They marched to the residence of the Marqués of Comillas to shout, ‘Down with the war! Long live Spain and death to Comillas!’ The protests ended with the police firing into the air and arresting the leaders.
Every evening, no matter how tired he was after work, Papá stayed late at the Casa del Pueblo’s café to learn the latest news. Newspaper reports cabled from Madrid informed the people gathered there what was happening before the Barcelona newspapers could print it: that the reservists, seasick and with inadequate military training, were being marched off the transport ships and straight into battle. They were being routed.
To stop the flow of news from Madrid to Barcelona, Governor Ossorio ordered the cable lines cut. The Radicals called on Prime Minister Maura to reopen the Cortes, Spain’s parliament, which he had closed to avoid debate on the war. The street demonstrations grew in mass, forcing the merchants to close their stores early. Workers were told to prepare for a general strike. Governor Ossorio prohibited groups from meeting on thoroughfares and warned that demonstrators could be shot. His proclamation further inflamed the workers. The editor of
El Poble Català
observed that all the valves had been
closed and the steam was rising:
Does Ossorio truly believe that there won’t be an explosion?
The following Sunday, the Civil Guard made its presence felt on the streets, and sand was spread over the boulevards — a measure to prevent the horses of the mounted guards from slipping when they galloped in pursuit. Such a precaution was only adopted when serious trouble was expected. Unlike the previous Sunday, when Anastasio’s battalion had marched down las Ramblas, the theatres and cafés were deserted.
Believing he had done all that was necessary to deter unrest, Governor Ossorio retired to his summer home on Mount Tibidabo, which overlooked Barcelona, with instructions that he was not to be disturbed until the following morning. Several hours before that, however, strike leaders had started gathering on street corners and in front of factories to alert workers that the general strike had begun.
‘Celestina!’
I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake. I opened my eyes: it was still dark. The only light in the room came from a bulb above the door. Surely it couldn’t be five o’clock already?
‘Celestina,’ Papá repeated, lifting me out of the cot. ‘I must take you to Teresa earlier this morning.’
I yawned and tried to concentrate on what Papá was saying about us not seeing him for a few days, but everything was still blurry. I noticed Ramón standing by the door, dressed and with his shoes on.
‘Here,’ Papá said, sitting me on his bed and slipping on my sandals. But it was hopeless. My eyelids drooped again and my head lolled. The last thing I remember was Papá hoisting me over his shoulder.
When I awoke a few hours later, Teresa was leaning over me. ‘Come on,’ she said, sitting me up and holding a spoonful
of soft-boiled egg near my lips. ‘Quickly, eat this. Ramón has already had his. I need you both to be alert today and to listen to everything I say.’
She was wearing a white bow pinned to her sleeve. I didn’t know the meaning of the bow, but I understood that something in our lives had changed.
‘Aren’t we going to the flower market this morning?’ I asked.
Teresa shook her head. ‘No. I will not be selling flowers today.’
Out on the street women with shopping baskets laden with bread and fruit hurried home from the market. They sensed trouble was brewing. Some factory workers strolled to work as if it were any other Monday, until other workers stopped them. ‘Join us in protest against the war,’ they said.
A few streets away, Juana, Paquita and some other women from Damas Rojas, also wearing white bows, were waiting for us. Laieta was there too. She told Teresa that Governor Ossorio, to promote himself as an able administrator, had cracked down on prostitutes and gamblers.
‘Can’t work in a factory. Can’t work in a brothel. I’m screwed from all sides,’ she said wryly.
We started walking in the direction of the port; from the women’s conversation, I gathered we were heading towards a garment sweatshop owned by the Montella family.
‘The workers there have been frightened out of striking,’ Teresa explained to the women. ‘But they take a break at eight o’clock. We will talk to them then, and explain how important this is.’
As we drew closer to the factory, more women joined us, spilling out of homes and shops. Some brought their children with them.
We arrived shortly at a building that looked similar to the tenement building where we lived, except waiting outside it was a carriage drawn by two white horses. The Montella family’s
crest was engraved on the carriage doors, and a driver in elegant black livery sat on the box.
‘It looks as if Montella himself is here today,’ noted Laieta. ‘I’ve heard he likes to check up on the management of his sweatshops.’
‘It’s his wife’s carriage,’ said Paquita. ‘He gets around in a motor car. I didn’t think she’d ever set foot in this place.’
I remembered baby Evelina. Would she be here today with her sister, Margarida?
Teresa expressed her surprise that no security guard was in attendance at the factory door. ‘They usually have them to stop workers stealing things,’ she muttered.
‘You’d think today of all days there would be a guard,’ Juana noted. ‘But it’s to our advantage that there isn’t one. We won’t have to wait until the break to speak to the workers.’
We piled into the factory after Teresa and Juana. There were gas lamps on the walls, but they hadn’t been lit and the filtered daylight through the windows was barely enough to illuminate the interior. It was hotter inside the factory than it was out on the street. Many of the female machinists and cutters had stripped down to their camisoles and underskirts. The source of the heat was the pressing machines, worked by two men. The fabric dust burned my nostrils and I sneezed. It made me sad to remember that my mother had once worked in a place like this one.
‘
Hola!
’ Teresa cried out.
At first no one heard her above the din of the machines. She called out again. This time one of the machinists noticed her and took her foot off the pedal. Other workers looked up. When they saw the delegation of women and children, they stopped what they were doing.
‘Come, join us!’ Teresa urged them. ‘If we don’t all go out together, nothing will ever change.’
A couple of the women swept the pieces of fabric off their tables and stood up to join us. But most stayed at their places.
One young woman, perhaps only fourteen years of age, spoke up. ‘Senyora, the foreman tells us he will hire prostitutes in our place if we walk out. I have no parents and six siblings to feed.’
‘He can’t replace all of us, Jimena,’ one of the women who had joined us told her. ‘And he’d be stuck to find any prostitute who can sew on buttons as quickly and as perfectly as you do.’
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs caught our attention. We turned to see two men and a woman and child looking at us from the first-floor landing. The woman was more a vision than a human being. She wore an elegant gown of cream silk and white lace with a pink satin taffeta belt. On her head was a hat of black satin decorated with roses, buds and foliage. The hobble skirt of her dress just touched her black satin boots, which were embroidered with rosettes. The woman must have been around thirty years of age, but she did not look anything like the other thirty-year-old women in the factory. Her skin was soft and white, without a wrinkle or blemish. Next to her was a young boy of about ten years of age. He had the same honey-coloured eyes and chestnut hair as Evelina, and I guessed in an instant that he was her older brother. While his mother’s eyes darted around the room like those of a frightened animal, the boy looked directly at me. I had the impression from the way his mouth twitched at the corners that he was trying not to smile. His eyes seemed gentle, and his stare captivated me for reasons I didn’t understand. I remembered one of the women at the port saying, ‘Don’t the Montellas have a son?’ She couldn’t have been talking about this boy. He was too young to go to war.
The older of the two men eased himself past the woman and child and stepped onto the floor. ‘I knew there was trouble when I heard the machines stop,’ he said, eyeing Teresa up and down. ‘What’s going on here?’
Although his unruly hair was oiled down and he wore a suit, something told me that he was the foreman of the sweatshop.
The other man was too elegantly dressed, and I assumed he must be senyor Montella, the owner. He had a pug nose, like an Englishman; and the touches of grey in his hair and moustache, as well as the slight heaviness of his build, made me think he was in his early forties. But unlike Papá, his skin was still smooth except for some wrinkles around his eyes. It was the complexion of a man who went into the sun for leisure, not for work.
If Teresa was aware that she was being watched by one of her best customers, she didn’t show it. ‘If you don’t let these workers join the strike, the men will come and smash your windows,’ she warned senyor Montella and the foreman.
Senyor Montella moved onto the factory floor, guiding his wife behind him. ‘Quickly, Rosita,’ he said, nodding towards the waiting carriage. ‘Take Xavier and go straight home. It is not a day to be out visiting.’
‘But la senyora de Sagarra is expecting us,’ his wife protested. ‘And she’s been so sick.’
‘She has her nurse and her maids. She will understand,’ senyor Montella assured her.
His wife took her son’s hand and slid past us like a person trying to avoid a herd of predators. The boy, Xavier, wasn’t afraid, however. He didn’t take his eyes off me, as if he were puzzled by something. What fascinated him so?
‘I don’t know what you are hoping to achieve,’ senyor Montella said to the women of Damas Rojas once his wife’s carriage had departed. ‘Without the iron mines in Spanish Morocco, our economy will collapse. There won’t be jobs for anyone. Then what will you do?’
‘If that is true,’ said Juana, facing him squarely, ‘then why aren’t the twenty-year-old rich boys going to war instead of poor young fathers and husbands?’
Senyor Montella lifted his chin. ‘That,’ he said, tugging at his shirt cuffs, ‘is simply the workings of the economic system in which we live. Those who can pay reap the benefits.’
The women of Damas Rojas scoffed and catcalled at such outrageous arrogance.
‘You see,’ said Teresa, turning to her supporters. ‘These are the words of a devout Catholic!’
One of the older machinists who had been listening rose from her seat. The movement was so regal, so calm and dignified, that everyone in the room fell quiet. All eyes were on the grey-haired woman, who said nothing as she packed away her fabric and wrapped her shawl over her shoulders. She then walked slowly across the factory floor to join the women of Damas Rojas. The rest of the workers followed her. It was only when the factory was cleared that the woman lifted her eyes to her employer.
‘If that’s the economy we exist in, senyor Montella, then it must be changed. I can accept that the rich can buy better shoes and clothes and live in nice homes. But I cannot accept that one human’s life is worth more than another’s simply because he has money.’
By nine o’clock that morning, the strike had closed factories all over the suburbs of Barcelona. Two hundred and fifty workers at the Hispano-Suiza automobile works had walked out on their jobs and had persuaded the workers in more than a dozen other plants to join them. The movement now headed towards the centre of the city.
Ramón and I marched with the women of Damas Rojas and their supporters towards the passeig de Gràcia, where many of the shops were still open. The wide, tree-lined boulevard was a striking contrast to the place where we lived. Even the air smelled different, free of the disease that plagued the atmosphere of the barri Xinès. Everywhere we saw boys on bicycles, women being chauffeured in motor cars, men with bowler hats and walking canes, as if it were any normal day.
Our group ran to the shops and banged on the doors. ‘Close now for our brothers in Morocco!’ we shouted. The shopkeepers
hurriedly locked their doors and pulled down their grilles as if they had been only awaiting our command.
I had never seen such luxury. Apart from the bookshops,
chocolatiers
, delicatessens and shops selling porcelain and silverware, there was a shop devoted entirely to silver spice and tobacco boxes. The store next to it was full of strange stick-like devices with numbered dials on them. ‘They are telephones,’ Paquita explained to me. ‘So people in one part of the city can speak to those in another.’ I was amazed.
The protest might have remained a peaceful one-day strike if not for the trams, which were still running. Mariano de Foronda, the director of Barcelona’s tram system and a close friend of King Alfonso, was a known opponent of the labour movement. The rumour was that he was driving around the city in his motor car, threatening the tram drivers if they stopped work.
Teresa and the women hurled abuse at the drivers when the trams passed us. ‘You are traitors to the cause!’ they shouted.
‘We are just obeying orders!’ the drivers replied.
We met some more women from Damas Rojas and Damas Radicales. They were carrying a banner that read ‘Down With the War!’
‘The workers from Poble Nou are here,’ Pilar, the fishmonger, told Teresa. ‘They say trams have been attacked by workers in that district and now Governor Ossorio has put armed security guards on them. But that won’t stop us!’
‘Be careful,’ warned Juana. ‘The authorities might be deliberately trying to provoke violence. That way they can declare martial law and bring in the army.’
Pilar shrugged. ‘We’ve been asked to walk in front of the workers with our sign so the guards and police won’t shoot.’
I looked around the crowd and wondered where my father was right now. Things were beginning to sound dangerous.