The Barefoot Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

Her mother had kept up her efforts on his behalf every single day, every single hour, every single minute. That had cost her her life. Ana’s eyes grew damp, as they always did when she relived those moments. She saw her mother again, asking for mercy, humiliated, begging judges, officials and prison inspectors for a pardon.They begged for the intervention of dozens of priests and friars, who had refused to even give them the time of day. They pawned everything they had … they stole, swindled and cheated to pay notaries and lawyers. They stopped eating so they could bring a crust of bread to the jail where her father was waiting, like so many others, for his trial to end and his fate to be decided. There were those who, during that terrible wait, cut off a hand, or even an arm, to avoid going to the galleys and facing the fate of most of the galley slaves permanently fettered to the ships’ benches: a painful, miserably slow death.
    But Melchor Vega endured the torture. Ana dried her eyes with her shirt sleeve. Yes, he had survived. And one day, when nobody was expecting him any longer, he reappeared in Triana, wasted away, dressed in rags, broken, destroyed, dragging his feet but with his pride intact. He never again was that father who used to tousle her hair when she came to him after some childish altercation. That was what he always used to do: tousle her hair and then look at her tenderly, reminding her in silence who she was: a Vega, a gypsy! It was the only thing that seemed to matter to him in the world. Melchor had tried to foster that same pride in his race with his granddaughter Milagros. Shortly after his return, when the girl was only a few months old, Melchor anxiously waited for Ana to conceive a boy. “When’s the boy coming?” he would ask again and again. José, her husband, also asked her insistently: “Are you with child yet?” It seemed that the entire San Miguel alley wanted a boy. José’s mother, her aunts, her female cousins … even the Vega women at the settlement of La Cartuja! They all pestered her about it, but it wasn’t to be.
    Ana turned her head toward where José had disappeared after their brief exchange about Melchor. Unlike her father, her husband hadn’t been able to recover from what for him had been a failure, a humiliation, and the scant affection and respect there had been in that marriage arranged by the Carmona and Vega families gradually disappeared until it was replaced by a latent rancor that revealed itself in the harsh way they treated each other. Melchor invested all his affection in Milagros, as did José, once he had resigned himself to not having a son. Ana became a witness to the rivalry between the two men, always taking her father’s side, whom she loved and respected more than her husband.
    Night had fallen; what was Melchor doing?
    The strumming of a guitar brought her back to reality. Behind her, in the alley, she heard people bustling about, dragging chairs and benches.
    “Party!” shouted a boy’s voice.
    Another guitar joined in, trying out a few first notes. Soon the hollow tapping of a pair of castanets was heard, and another pair, and another, and even some old metal ones, getting ready, without order or harmony, just trying to wake up those fingers that would later accompany the dancing and singing. More guitars. A woman cleared her throat; hers was the cracked voice of an old woman. A tambourine. Ana thought about her father and how much he enjoyed the dancing.
He always comes back,
she tried to convince herself. Wasn’t that true? He was a Vega, after all!
    When she went out into the alley, the gypsies were arranged in a circle around a fire.
    “Come on, let’s go!” encouraged an old man sitting on a chair in front of the bonfire.
    All the instruments were silent. A single guitar, in the hands of a young man with an almost black face and a dark ponytail, started in on the first beats of a fandango.
    SHE WAS accompanied by the cabin