The Barefoot Queen (66 page)

Those around her leapt to get a look at her. The news spread rapidly through the rest.

“Hey …!” The actor tried to get his colleagues’ attention.

“Where is the director?” insisted the constable.

“Crying,” joked the man. “He must be crying on the stage. Nicolás and Celeste can’t agree on anything when it comes to rehearsals.”

“If the leading man would treat her with more respect, the director wouldn’t be in this fix.”

“The great Celeste?” A mocking expression appeared on the actor’s face. “Lofty, splendid, magnificent! If everything was left up to that woman’s whims, or even those of the supporting actress, none of you would enjoy the shows.”

The constable opted not to argue, swatting the air with one hand and heading toward the stage. They reached it through one side of the set along with other members of the company. With Pedro’s arm still around her, squeezing as if he wanted to protect her from the stares and whispers
around her, Milagros stopped as soon as she stepped on the floorboards. Pedro urged her to follow the constable. She refused and shook his arm off her shoulder. Then, alone, she walked almost to the edge of the stage, where it rose above the pit. A shiver ran through her, which seemed to spread as some of the actors fell silent and watched the gypsy girl standing in front of the empty theater, barefoot, her simple clothes dirty and wrinkled from her long voyage, her matted hair stuck to her back. They knew full well how she was feeling: passion, yearning, anxiety, panic … And Milagros, her throat stiff, ran the gamut of those emotions as she looked around: at the front rows beneath her feet, the stalls behind, the upper balconies for the women and vendors; at the upper level, the hiding place for priests and intellectuals, at the dozens of unlit lamps, at the magnificent columns, at the boxes on the sides and the rounded boxes facing her that rose above her on three levels, of richly carved gilded wood … It was all so intimidating!

“Two thousand people!”

Milagros turned toward a gaunt bald man with a beard, who was the one who had spoken.

“Don José Parra, the director of the company,” the constable introduced him.

Don José greeted her with a slight nod of his head.

“Two thousand,” he then repeated to Milagros. “That is the number of people who will be watching you when you get up on stage. Do you dare? Are you willing to be the object of that much attention?”

Milagros pursed her lips and thought for a few seconds before answering but Pedro spoke first. “If she said she didn’t dare, would you let us go back to Triana?”

The director smiled patiently before extending his arms; in one hand he held Milagros’s papers rolled up in a tube.

“And go against the Council? If you are here you already know that isn’t possible. Many comic players from out of town don’t want to come to Madrid because they lose money. Isn’t that right?” He directed his question at Milagros, who nodded. “The Chief Magistrate told me about your arrival and he seemed enthusiastic. What is it that so impressed his lordship, Milagros?”

“I sang and danced for him.”

“Do it for us.”

“Now?” she objected without thinking.

“Aren’t we a good enough audience to you?”

With the hand that held her papers Don José pointed to the people on the stage. There were about thirty: members of the company, both male and female, their understudies, the wardrobe master, the “villain,” the extras and the “fools,” the actor who played the old man roles, the prompter, the ticket collectors and the music conductor. Then there were the orchestra musicians, who weren’t considered part of the company, the stagehand and the theater staff who had rushed to see what was happening onstage when they were told the new player had arrived.

“My wife is tired,” interjected Pedro García.

Milagros ignored the excuse: her eyes remained fixed on Don José, who also disregarded her husband and held her gaze, smiling, provocative.

She accepted the challenge. She extended her right arm and with her hand open, fingers rigid, without accompaniment, she burst into a fandango in the style of those sung in the fields in the kingdom of Granada when it was time to harvest the green olives. The sound of her voice in the empty theater surprised her and it took her a few more seconds to set her hands and hips to the joyful rhythm of those stanzas. The director’s smile widened; many others got gooseflesh. One of the musicians made a gesture to run for his guitar, but Don José stopped him with a wave of Milagros’s rolled-up documents and, brandishing them in the air, he indicated to the gypsy girl that she should turn and sing to the empty seats in the stalls.

Milagros rose up on the tips of her bare toes, with her arms bent over her head, to end the fandango. However, the applause she was expecting didn’t arrive. She was panting, sweating, she had given her all, more than ever before, but the cheers and ovations she thought she deserved were mere claps mixed with impertinent murmurs of disapproval that were increasing dangerously in pitch. She saw the hundreds of men who stood clustered in the pit, beneath the stage, not understanding where their apathy came from. She looked up toward the large closed-off balcony at the back where the women sat, chatting distractedly. She raised her eyes further, up to the boxes, filled with people: nobody seemed to be paying her any attention.

“Go back to Triana!”

Milagros’s gaze searched for the groundling who had shouted from the orchestra pit.

“You’re not worth what it cost to get you here!”

“Learn to dance!”

She turned her head to the other side, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“This is the great singer advertised on the sign in the Puerta del Sol?”

She felt her legs grow weak.

“With singers like you, the
chorizos
at the Teatro de la Cruz will be
happy!” a woman shouted her head off, pointing at her over the railing of the balcony.

Milagros thought she was going to collapse and she looked for Pedro; he had told her that he would watch the show, but she couldn’t find him. Her vision blurred. The shouting intensified and tears ran down her face. A hand grabbed her by the elbow just when she was about to let herself drop to the floor.

“Gentlemen!” shouted Celeste, shaking Milagros to revive her. “We’ve already told you …! Gentlemen …!”

The commotion didn’t stop. Celeste’s eyes questioned the royal magistrate who, along with two constables and a notary, remained seated on the stage itself, in one corner, to keep order in the theater. The magistrate sighed because he knew what the leading lady was trying to do. He nodded. He hadn’t even finished moving his head before Don José started giving instructions to the musicians to play the same piece that had just sunk Milagros.

Celeste allowed the strains of the violins to sound a couple of times before she began singing. The audience settled; the men in the orchestra calmed down.

“Now that’s what I call a great singer!” echoed before she even started.

“Gorgeous!”

Celeste sang the first verse. Then, when it was time for her to begin the second one, she confronted the groundlings, as the music repeated, waiting for their decision. “Is this the mercy we asked for during the presentation of a new player?”

Milagros, with Celeste still holding her elbow, remembered the entry to the
tonadilla,
a musical intermission that never went over a half an hour and was performed between the first and second acts of the main show, although she had been told that the audience went to the theater more for the
tonadillas,
the short farces and the
sainetes
that followed between the second and third acts, than for the main show. They told him that many even left after the
sainete
and gave the third act of the comedy a pass. During the presentation, Celeste herself, after introducing Milagros and extolling some of her virtues, which drew applause and whistles, had addressed the public begging for leniency with the new girl. “She’s only eighteen years old!” she shouted, eliciting exclamations. Several of the players had sung and danced together, leaving the closing act to Milagros
alone, who had launched into it with the confidence of her years of experience singing in Seville. Yet her body did not accompany her magnificent vocal interpretation at any point. She had been warned.

“Stop!” Celeste had shouted as soon as she saw her dancing in the rehearsals. “You’ll be the ruin of us and you’ll end up in jail if you do that in front of people.”

When she asked why, confused, they explained that the authorities did not allow dances as lascivious as hers.

“Such sensuality,” Don José had tried to teach her, despite the hesitation that showed in his face at the gypsy girl’s ease with her body, “it has to be shown in a more … more …” He searched for the right word as he shook a hand in the air. “… more artful … more concealed, covert … private. That’s it, private! Your dances have to be sensual, because you are, because it comes naturally to you, never because you want to excite the audience. As if you were trying to hide your God-given charms and nurture restraint to avoid vulgarity. Do you understand? Restrained passion. Do you know what I mean?”

Milagros had answered yes, although she had no idea how to do that. She also said yes when they explained to her that those groundlings, and the women on the upper balcony, the noblemen and the rich in the boxes, and the priests and intellectuals in the gallery were not only expecting a good performance: they also wanted what she now witnessed from the leading lady. But she hadn’t really understood anything; her dance movements had been rigid and coarse, she herself had seen that, and as for what those Madrileños were expecting of her …

“You’re complaining about the girl’s awkwardness, you of all people?” She now saw how Celeste brazenly replied to a blacksmith, known for his intolerance with players, who had complained about the gypsy girl’s performance again. “They say the first grille you forged couldn’t even protect your daughter’s virginity.”

The crowd burst into hearty laughter.

“Are you questioning—?” the man tried to respond.

“Ask the baker’s assistant!” interrupted someone from the pit. “He’ll be able to tell you what happened to the grille and your girl’s virtue.”

New laughter accompanied Celeste’s graceful movement across the stage. At a sign from Don José, the music increased in volume when the blacksmith tried to make his way, pushing and elbowing through the motley
groundlings in search of the one who had insulted his daughter. One of the constables was carefully watching to make sure it didn’t go too far. Milagros remained alone in the middle of the stage, her gaze darting between the blacksmith and Celeste, who was now to one side. She didn’t dare to turn her back to the audience, nor to walk off the stage. She remained stock-still like a statue in a packed theater on the first day of the season.

Celeste, in the corner, took up the song again. People began to sing along; she fell silent again and pointed to an obese, bowlegged, slovenly man with sweaty, bright-red cheeks. “How can we actors ask generosity of those who use all theirs up on themselves?”

Before the crowd broke out into laughter, she began singing again and ran toward where Milagros was standing.

“Let your hair down,” she encouraged her between verses. “You can do it.”

For a moment Milagros remembered Old María and Sagrario, who had given her her start in Bienvenido’s inn in Seville. She had risen to the challenge then and she had become a success. She was a gypsy! She took a deep breath and sang with Celeste, until the leading lady gave her a little push toward the audience, encouraging her.

Thousands of eyes were on her.

“What are you looking at?” Milagros challenged the pit. She was tempted to swagger her body voluptuously, but instead she crossed her arms over her breasts with sham modesty. “Don’t your wives satisfy you?” The royal magistrate gave a start. “Or maybe it’s you who don’t satisfy them?”

The insinuation earned her the applause and whoops of the women on the upper balcony. Milagros feigned shock at the string of obscenities that came from their mouths.

“So,” she shouted to be heard over the groundlings, “what’s happened to your manhood now?”

Many responded to the provocation by turning toward the balcony to argue with the women. The royal magistrate stood up and ordered Don José to end the act. One of the constables positioned himself on the edge of the stage and the other, with his back to the magistrate, whispered to the notary:

“Don’t write down those last words.” The notary looked up in surprise.
“I know her. She’s young. She’s not a bad girl, she’s just new. Let’s give her a chance. You know that the Chief Magistrate …”

The functionary understood and stopped writing.

Rich men, aristocrats and clergy enjoyed the fight and the exchange of insults between the groundlings and the women. Gradually, for want of music, they calmed down and the audience focused their attention on the two women who remained still on the stage.

“My husband wouldn’t know what to do with you, gypsy!” echoed through the theater.