The Barefoot Queen (77 page)

The gob of spit Milagros launched landed on one of the baron’s legs. The man looked at his stocking; when he lifted his face, his pearly cheeks were red with rage. Only when she had him in front of her, infuriated, snorting, did the gypsy girl realize his true size: he was more than a head taller than her and must have weighed twice what she did.

The baron slapped her.

“Disgusting pig, son of a bitch, heartless bastard!” screamed Milagros as she tried to hit him with her fists and legs.

The baron let out a laugh and slapped her again with incredible strength. Milagros staggered and for a second thought she was going to lose consciousness. When she began to recover her balance, the man ripped off her shirt.

“You prefer to act like a whore?” he shouted. “So be it! I paid a fortune for tonight!”

He beat her to the floor. Milagros’s screams and her struggles against his removing her clothes were no use. She bit him. She could taste his blood; he, blinded, seemed not to notice her teeth. Stripped of her clothes, which were ripped to shreds, the baron dragged her to the bed, lifted her up and hurled her onto it. Then he started to take off his clothes with feigned calmness, placing himself between the bed and the picture windows, in case the young woman was capable of throwing herself out through them. For a second, that possibility crossed her mind, but in the end she sank her face into the fluffy bedspread and burst into sobs.

“
GET OUT
of here!”

The shout came from the bed, from which the aristocrat had watched her efforts to cover herself with her destroyed clothes, which were scattered across the room. “Would you rather my servants dress you?” he had
mocked when he’d had kicked her out of the bed. She showed similar indecisiveness now in front of the bedroom door. She was crying. Pedro would be outside, and she didn’t know how to face him after what had happened. She was overcome with conflicting feelings: guilt, hatred, disgust …

The nobleman’s shouts silenced her doubts. “Didn’t you hear me? Get out!”

The naked man made as if to get up. Milagros opened the door. Her husband leapt on her, pushing aside the two servants and giving her a smack that spun her head.

“Why?” she managed to ask.

The cameo! Pedro held up the jewel the Marquis of Torre Girón had given her.

“No …” she tried to explain.

“You are nothing more than a harlot,” he interrupted. “And that’s how you will live from now on.”

That night Pedro hit her again. And he insulted her; he called her a whore a thousand different ways, as if trying to convince himself that that was what she was. Milagros accepted the punishment: her husband’s violence distracted her mind from the memories; the pain transported her far from the touch of the baron’s hands on her body, his kisses and sighs, his panting as he penetrated her like an animal blinded by lust.

“Go on! Kill me!”

Unhinged, she didn’t hear her daughter crying in the next room, nor the shouts of the neighbors beating on the walls and threatening to call the patrol. Pedro did notice the neighbors’ threats: he’d lifted his hand to smack her again, but let it drop. He had to preserve Milagros’s face; that was what the audience admired.

“Strumpet,” he muttered before walking toward the door that led to the staircase, “I have no intention of finishing you off. You won’t be so lucky,” he added, his back to her. “I swear you will be dead in life!”

The next day Milagros sang and danced at the Príncipe, though the emotions that filled her were very different from the ones she usually felt when she stepped onto the stage. She searched for the Marquis of Torre Girón in his box; he wasn’t there, but some flowers did arrive, which she smelled, heartbroken.

Unfortunately for her, the Baron of San Glorio was soon boasting
about his conquest, while keeping the price quiet. Milagros found that out a few days later, when she discovered that the marquis was in the theater. He would be able to help her! She had thought about it during her sleepless nights. She had to escape with her daughter, leave Pedro, get away from the Garcías! Otherwise, what would they do to her next?

“His excellency says,” Don José informed her, when he returned from delivering the message that she needed to see him, “that only the King is above him.”

Milagros shook her head, not understanding that reply.

“Girl, you made a mistake,” the company’s director explained. “The grandees of Spain never take second-best, and you, by agreeing to lie with the baron, have become that.”

Agreeing! Milagros didn’t hide her tears from any of the comic players who moved about the dressing rooms and looked at her, some out of the corner of their eyes and others, Celeste among them, blatantly. Agreeing?

“It’s a lie,” she sobbed. “I have to tell the marquis …”

“Forget about it,” interrupted Don José. “Whatever happened, the marquis won’t see you. He doesn’t owe you anything—or does he?”

Celeste, who was milling around by the dressing rooms, waited for a response that Milagros didn’t want to give her.

Just like in Seville, when years back she had gone to the palace of the Count of Fuentevieja to beg for her parents’ freedom. Noblemen, they were all the same …

The marquis’s refusal put an end to her hopes. She remembered her grandfather, her mother, Old María … They would have known what to do. Although her husband seemed to know as well, showing up that same afternoon in the house on Amor de Dios Street, when Milagros returned.

“What happened to your marquis?” he taunted in greeting. “Did he fight with the other nobleman over you?”

Her husband’s cynical smile infuriated her. “I will denounce you.”

He, as if expecting that threat, as if he had expressly sought it out, smiled with a gleam of triumph in his eyes; Milagros knew his reply before he even spat it at her. She had thought of it herself.

“And what will you say? That an aristocrat paid to have you? Do you think any judge will believe such an accusation? The baron can have any woman he wants.”

“Not me, not ever!”

“A gypsy?” Pedro let out a hearty laugh. “A comic player? You gypsies are vile and dishonest, libertines and adulterers. The King says so, and it is written in his laws. And if that weren’t enough, you are also an actress. Everyone knows the shamelessness of the players, their love affairs are common gossip, like yours with the marquis …”

“It’s not true!”

“What does it matter? Do you know what they say about you and that marquis in the taverns of Madrid? Do you want me to tell you? There is even a song about the two of you.” He paused and continued in a cold voice. “Go ahead. Denounce me. They will condemn you for adultery without thinking twice. The baron will make sure it’s for life … and I will back him up.”

So she continued going to the parties and singing and dancing at the Príncipe, dissatisfied, unhappy with herself, although to her surprise the audience rewarded her with applause and cheers, which she received with apathy. Then she went home, where Bartola watched over her, not even leaving her alone in her own bedroom. “Orders from your husband,” replied the old woman rudely when she remonstrated with her. “Talk to him about it.” And she followed her with María if she went out on the street. The little money she was allowed vanished, and the García woman, just like Reyes in Triana, interrupted her conversations in the market, on the street or in the sweetshop on León Street, where she liked to buy treats, and put an end to them.

“You don’t look well, Milagros,” commented the sweetshop owner once as she served her a couple of butter biscuits from the bakery. “Is something going on?”

Her stammering response was interrupted by Bartola.

“Mind your own business, nosy!” she exclaimed.

A MONTH
and a half had passed since the night the baron raped her, when Pedro grabbed her by the neck and practically dragged her out of the bedroom. Downstairs two
chisperos
were waiting, along with some of the guitarists who usually accompanied them to parties and a couple of women she didn’t know. The women received her with indifference. Pedro had mentioned another party before pushing her down the stairs. Who were those women?

She soon found out. She was singing and dancing for a small group of five aristocrats; they were in another large stately home with its display of furniture, carpets and all types of ornaments. At one point they interrupted the performance with passionate applause from their armchairs.
The dance isn’t over,
thought Milagros in surprise,
why are they applauding?
She turned toward the new women dancing behind her: one of them had bared her breasts. A cold sweat soaked her entire body. She began to stammer; then she stopped singing and dancing, but the others continued to the rhythm of the guitar and the handclapping. The other woman also opened her shirt and revealed her large wobbly breasts. Milagros moved away from them and searched for a corner.

“What could it matter to you at this point, whore?” said Pedro, stepping in her path and pushing her back toward the center.

A couple of noblemen hooted and laughed.

“Now you, Barefoot Girl!” shouted another.

Milagros was still in front of them, the frenetic strumming of the guitar and the clapping thundering in her ears. She tried to think, but the racket overwhelmed her.

“Take off your clothes, gypsy!”

“Dance!”

“Sing!”

The other two women did so brazenly, both now completely nude. They danced around Milagros, touching her, encouraging her to join their shamelessness. Repulsed, she tried to get away from their caresses and pushed a hand off her inner thigh. Other hands groped her breasts and buttocks, pulled on her skirt and shirt as they spun and spun to the noblemen’s delight. Behind her, someone grabbed her by the elbows and forced her to be still. Milagros managed to see that it was one of the
chisperos
. Pedro, beside him, tore his wife’s shirt with a single knife slash and pulled on the cloth, which slowly came off her body as he mocked her. Milagros struggled, trying in vain to bite the arms that imprisoned her, but her resistance only excited the noblemen’s lust, who came closer to help Pedro when he set to on her skirt and the rest of her clothes until she was left completely naked. She tried to cover herself with her hands and arms, her face filled with tears. They didn’t allow her to: they pushed and hit her as the two women continued spinning in a dizzying dance, lifting their arms above their heads to show their breasts, swinging their hips to exhibit
their pubes. Milagros’s dark skin stood out against the other women’s paleness and excited the noblemen even more, who awkwardly joined the dancing. Then they grabbed the women, groped them and kissed them, Milagros being their favorite target.

Right there, on the carpets, the noblemen fornicated with the two women and then, once, twice, three times … they raped Milagros, her pleading and howls of pain lost amid the sound of the guitars and Pedro and his
chisperos
’ cheering and clapping.

How many times had Pedro sold her over the course of almost an entire year? Five or perhaps seven more times? He was aware that the situation would erupt at any point; that the rich Madrileños would lose interest in the Barefoot Girl as soon as the rumors got around their circles and enjoying her was no longer considered a triumph to boast about, so he sold her to the highest bidder.

María. Milagros sought refuge in her daughter, who was all she had. She hugged the girl, holding back her sobs, whispering songs in her ear in a broken voice, stroking her hair until the little girl fell asleep and rocking her for hours and hours.

She learned to receive her laughter with feigned joy and play animatedly with her, even though she could still—and had done ever since that day—feel the disgusting brush of a brute’s dirty hand on her inner thigh, on her nipples … and on her lips. In the end, most of the noblemen took her violently, blinded, screaming, biting and scratching her. It was as if they were beating her. But when they tried to seduce her, sure that their caresses and their words of love could bend her will as if they were gods, she felt even worse. Arrogant swine! Those were the memories, and not the violent ones, that Milagros couldn’t shake; only the little brown hand of María running clumsily over her face managed to diminish the bitter feelings. Milagros nibbled her little fingers while the girl, laughing,
pressed the other hand over her eye. And she sought out time and again the touch of her daughter’s soft skin, the only balm for the sadness and humiliation that overwhelmed her.