The Return Read online

  Sonia was frozen to the spot. The energy of this woman and the flexibility of her body were impressive, but the sheer physical power locked inside that insubstantial frame was what really amazed her.

  Once or twice, the dance seemed to reach a natural end, when the girl would pause and look away from the guitarist and towards the palmists, but then she herself would begin to clap and moments later her stamping and swaying would begin again, and her arms would resume their snakelike motion. Several times Sonia heard a quiet, encouraging ‘Olé’, the acknowledgement that this woman was not just impressing her peer group but also stirring their emotions as they rocked and swayed in their seats.

  When the dance did truly come to an end, the rhythmic claps immediately turned to rippling applause. Some of them stood up and embraced her, and there was astonishing beauty in her broad smile.

  Sonia had pushed the door slightly more open at one point and now one of the accompanists strode purposefully towards it. He had not seen her but she slunk guiltily away before he could spot her and disappeared into the cloakroom. It was not as though she had witnessed a crime, but she felt she had seen something illicit, an event that might never have been on public display.

  That night, Sonia returned willingly to the salsa club. She had lost her anxiety about venturing into places where she knew so few people. Once she had relaxed and accepted a few invitations to dance, she enjoyed herself just as she had done the night before. Salsa was easy on the mind and the body, a far cry from the intensity of flamenco. She could not entirely put out of her mind the image of the girl she had seen that afternoon dancing with such consuming passion in front of her gitano, her gypsy.

  Chapter Seven

  THE NEXT MORNING, for the first time, Sonia understood why the nearby mountains were called the Sierra Nevada, the snowy mountains. Although the sky was bright there was an icy freshness in the air and when she pushed open the door of the hotel to leave, it was like stepping into a fridge.

  Today was their last full day in Granada. Sonia was already feeling nostalgic about her visit, though it was not yet over. There was still one more dance lesson and one more chance to emerge from a nightclub as dawn was breaking.

  The sun would struggle to appear above the pale turrets of the Alhambra today and would cast a golden glow only briefly on the squares before it sank behind the mountains. The owner of her favourite café, El Barril, as she had now noticed it was called, knew that few of his customers would be wanting to sit outside when the temperatures had plummeted so had not bothered to put any chairs out that day. Sonia entered the dark interior and gradually her eyes adjusted to the dimness.

  The old man was behind the bar polishing glasses and he emerged to greet her. He did not need to ask what she wanted to drink and there was soon the shriek of the coffee grinder as he began to prepare her coffee with all the diligence of a scientist conducting an experiment.

  Even he was finding it difficult to operate in the gloom and he crossed the room to switch on the lights.The place was transformed by the sudden illumination. It was much larger than Sonia had realised, a big square room, with perhaps thirty round tables, each with two or three chairs, and at the back of the room several dozen more piled up to the ceiling. The space was unexpected. There was nothing remarkable about the furniture or the décor, but what caught Sonia’s eye were the walls. Every square inch of them was covered.

  On one wall were several dozen corrida posters. Sonia had seen something like these in the prints sold all over Spain, customised with the tourist’s name, so that people could imagine themselves famed toreadors.The posters on the walls here were not souvenirs, though. They carried the patina of age and authenticity. Sonia rose to read them.

  The fights advertised by these posters had taken place in bullrings all over the country: Sevilla, Madrid, Málaga,Almería, Ronda . . . The list went on. The venues were all different, but one name was common to them all: Ignacio Ramírez.

  Sonia walked slowly along the row of prints, taking in detail, like an art critic at a gallery opening.The posters eventually gave way to a montage of black-and-white pictures of a man, presumably Ignacio Ramírez. Some of the pictures were stiffly posed portraits and in each one he wore a different bullfighting costume: tight, embroidered breeches, a short, heavily brocaded bolero jacket and a tricorn hat. He glowered, violent, handsome, an arrogance burning through the picture. Sonia wondered whether this was the same look he gave the bull in order to terrify him into submission.

  Another set of pictures showed him in action, apparently doing that very thing. There he was, facing the bull, only a few metres from five hundred kilograms of untamed fury. In several, the swish of his cape was a passing blur, just captured by the photographer’s lens. In one picture, the animal passed close enough to brush the matador’s body and his horns seemed wrapped up in the cape.

  By now, a cup of the deepest black coffee, along with a jug of steaming white foam, had been set down on a table close to where Sonia stood. She stirred in a drop of milk and sipped slowly, hardly taking her eyes away from the pictures. The café owner stood next to her, almost poised to answer a question.

  ‘So who was Ignacio Ramírez?’ she asked.

  ‘He was one of the boys who once lived here, and a star bullfighter. ’

  ‘And was he eventually killed by a bull?’ asked Sonia. ‘He looks slightly too close for comfort here.’

  ‘No, that wasn’t how he died.’

  They stood in front of a picture that showed the bullfighter with arms raised, sword held high and the bull only feet away. It captured the dramatic pause when the matador was ready to plunge his weapon between the animal’s shoulder blades. Man and bull looked each other in the eye.

  ‘That,’ said the café owner, ‘is “la hora de la verdad”.’

  ‘The hour of . . . ?’

  ‘Well, you would translate it as “The moment of truth”. It’s the moment when the matador must make the kill. If he gets his timing wrong, or doesn’t do it cleanly then that’s the end of him. Terminado. Muerto.’

  It was only when she had studied every single one of the pictures and gazed into the impenetrably dark eyes that stared out at her, that she noticed the massive head and shoulders of a bull on the wall at the far end of the bar. He was as black as coal tar, with shoulders nearly a metre across, and, even in death, a look of terrifying ferocity. Underneath, though almost too high to read, Sonia could make out a date: ‘3 de Septiembre 1936’.

  ‘That was one of his best kills,’ said the old man. ‘It was here in Granada. The bull was a beast and the crowd went completely wild. It was a stupendous day. I can’t even begin to describe to you the excitement in the bullring. Have you ever been to a corrida?’

  ‘No,’ said Sonia, ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘You should,’ said the old man with passion. ‘Even if it’s just once in your lifetime.’

  ‘I’m not sure I could sit there. It looks so brutal.’

  ‘Well, the bull usually dies, it’s true. But there is much more to it than that. It’s like a dance.’

  Sonia was unconvinced but knew it was not the moment for a discussion on what she imagined to be a cruel sport. She wandered to the wall opposite, which was covered with equal density by dozens of photographs, mostly of young women in flamenco costume. In some of them, there was a man too.

  At first glance they looked like a series of shots of different girls, but on closer examination Sonia saw that they were in fact one and the same person, metamorphosing from child to adult, from little girl with puppy fat in polka dots to glowering, voluptuous beauty in lace, from ugly duckling to elegant swan complete with feather fan. In each one her hair was different, coiled, plaited or knotted into a chignon, and in some an enormous comb stood up from the back.The outfits varied too.There were dresses with extravagant ruffled trains, sometimes a fringed shawl or a knee-length skirt and even one with trousers and a short jacket. She wore a different outfit in every photograph but in all of
them she had the same provocative, fiery expression, what Corazón would have called ‘actitud ’.

  ‘That was Ignacio’s sister,’ said the old man, volunteering the information.

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Mercedes Catalina Concepción Ramírez.’ He spoke the name slowly, as if reciting poetry.

  ‘That’s quite a name.’

  ‘It’s a fairly typical one here. Her family all called her “Merche”.’

  ‘She was beautiful, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she was . . .’ For a moment he seemed lost for words. ‘. . . very beautiful. Her parents doted on her and her brothers nearly ruined her with the way they spoiled her. She was a rebellious child, but everyone adored her. She was a dancer, you see, a flamenco dancer - and a very good one, a very, very good one. She was famous in the region.’

  The image of the dancer she had spied on that afternoon still lingered in Sonia’s mind. The woman in these pictures was physically very different.

  ‘Where did she dance?’

  ‘She danced at all the local fiestas, at juergas, which are private parties, and sometimes in the bar. From about the age of three, she would amuse everyone by pretending to be a flamenco dancer, endlessly practising the moves as though she was a wind-up doll. On the day she turned five, Mercedes had her first proper lesson up there in the Sacromonte and for her birthday she was given her first pair of proper dancing shoes.’

  Sonia smiled. She was touched by the formal manner in which the old man spoke. His was the careful English of an elderly foreigner, and she could tell he enjoyed recounting the minutiae of the past.

  ‘She sounds very determined about it all. Did her mother dance?’

  ‘No more than most women here,’ replied the old man. ‘Everyone around here grows up seeing people dancing flamenco. It’s part of the city. You can’t avoid it, at fiestas, at parties, up in the Sacromonte, and most girls at some point have a go, but not to the extent of that little girl.’

  ‘Who accompanied her? Did her father play the guitar?’

  ‘He did a little. But one of her brothers was very musical, so she always had someone willing to play for her. She gave her first performance when she was about eight years old, right here in the bar. Emilio, the musical brother, was playing and she got a fantastic reception, not just because everyone in the audience had watched her growing up - they weren’t patronising her, I promise. It was more than that. When this little girl danced, she took on some other dimension. It was like magic. Even when people had got used to seeing her dance, she could still pull in a crowd every time she performed.’

  The elderly man was silent for a few moments as he gazed at the photographs and Sonia thought she saw his old eyes water. He coughed, as if to clear his throat. She could tell that he had something else to say.

  ‘She had duende.’

  There was that word again. She remembered him using it the previous day and had not really understood it then, but today, in this context, she did. It was something otherworldly, as far as she could understand it, like the power that made hairs stand on end.

  They both stood in front of the wall of photographs for a few minutes and Sonia looked at this woman. Yes, she could imagine that this woman had duende.

  She said farewell and promised the café owner that she would come and see him if she ever returned to Granada. In their brief acquaintance, Sonia had grown fond of the old man and she kissed him on both cheeks as she left. How unlike Maggie she was. This was the closest she had come to a holiday romance. And she did not even know his name.

  Chapter Eight

  IT WAS THEIR final dance class that afternoon. As the week progressed, the late nights had begun to take their toll. The class was suffering from lack of sleep and it affected their ability to follow instructions.

  Sonia and Maggie were no exception and their legs felt like lead as they tried to perform the moves they were being taught that day. Several times, Sonia found herself apologising to her partner and an audible cry of pain was heard from the usually patient taxi dancer who had been landed with Maggie. Corazón’s patience was wearing thin.

  ‘Vamos, chicos! Let’s go, everyone!’ she kept saying, to try to inject some energy into the class. Then she would issue cries of encouragement if they achieved anything that even remotely resembled the turn she had demonstrated. ‘Eso es! Eso es! That’s it! That’s it!’

  Even the taxi dancers were jaded that day and it was clear that if they had not been getting paid they would have been anywhere but in this room.The energy and exhilaration of this joyful dance seemed to have evaporated for everyone and however hard they tried, Felipe and Corazón failed to lift the class. Eventually they gave up.

  ‘Vale, vale. OK,’ said Corazón.‘We will try something new. Have a break and then we will show you a new dance that even your grandmothers could do.’

  A different rhythm now boomed from the sound system.

  ‘Merengue!’ cried Corazón, grabbing Felipe. ‘If you can count up to two then you can do this.’

  She was right: it was the simplest of dances and the clockwork, ‘one-two, one-two’ beat demanded nothing but the willingness for two people to fasten themselves together like limpets and rock from side to side. It was banal in its simplicity, but it did revive their spirits. After ten minutes or so, some simple turns were added and a new atmosphere pervaded the class. Faces lit up into smiles.

  ‘That,’ gasped Maggie, ‘is about as intimate as you could get with your clothes on!’

  ‘It’s amazing that they even call it a dance,’ agreed Sonia, laughing.

  The two friends were bound together again in laughter. The mood of merengue was as far from the unsettling effect of flamenco as it could possibly be.

  This was a dance that gave instant results and could be learned in a lesson rather than a lifetime. It sanctioned almost unholy communion with a partner, whereas flamenco required the utmost introspection and self-absorption. It was the diametric opposite of the gypsy dance, and few people were immune to its instant charm and energy; while it had none of the darkness of flamenco, it also had none of the depth.

  It was time for the members of the class to disperse, to kiss each other extravagantly several times on both cheeks as though they had become lifelong friends, to exchange mobile phone numbers, make promises of reunions in salsa clubs, and commitments to visit each other’s countries. Corazón told them all how wonderful they were and how she hoped they would all come back one day for more lessons. Felipe allowed his wife to speak for them both and stood there smiling in agreement. It was a weekly ritual for them both.

  Once out in the street, their spirits heightened by the exhilaration of the lesson’s conclusion, Sonia and Maggie linked arms.

  ‘Let’s go and celebrate our new dance careers,’ trilled Maggie.

  ‘Good idea. Where shall we go?’

  It was an idle question. There were at least a hundred and one possibilities not far from this sunny patch on the pavement where they now stood.

  ‘Let’s just stroll until somewhere takes our fancy.’

  They walked for ten minutes. The shops were still closed and few people were about. One or two elderly couples, diminutive, silver-haired, smart, took a mid-afternoon constitutional to stretch arthritic legs, perhaps en route stopping to take coffee and a cognac. Sonia and Maggie turned into the main street.

  They almost missed Casa Enrique. It filled a small space between two shops. No sign swung outside, but an old barrel now used as a table stood on the pavement, almost blocking the entrance. Two distinguished-looking men, one in an olive-toned jacket, the other in a dark suit, talked companionably in the late afternoon glow, glasses of Rioja in one hand, cigars as thick as cucumbers in the other. They epitomised Granadino respectability and affluence.

  Maggie steered Sonia into the dark interior and smiled at the two men as she passed. The bar was little more than a corridor and the space for customers scarcely a metre wide. They ordered
glasses of wine and chose tapas from the blackboard above the entrance.

  ‘Well,’ said Maggie, clinking her glass against Sonia’s, ‘have you had a good time?’

  ‘A wonderful time,’ replied Sonia honestly. ‘I’ve really enjoyed the dancing.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Maggie, hardly able to suppress her happiness. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time too.’

  ‘Not just because of the dancing,’ teased Sonia.

  ‘No, I suppose not . . .’

  They finished their drinks and walked out into the street. Maggie caught the eye of one of the men as she passed and he touched her arm.

  ‘Señora . . .’