Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
"And?"
"And," Al-Cerraz said it louder, "
listen!
As if that's helpful advice."
"But Justo, you
do
listen.
You have an amazing ear. You've said so yourself: Your brain is a huge repository of melodies and rhythms from all the places we 've traveled. Isn't that right?"
"Falla knew," Al-Cerraz whispered. "He knows my secret. That nothing in here is real." He banged a fist against his chest. "Nothing in here." He banged his fist against his temple and winced. The action drew my eye to the dark hair pasted against his head in that spot. I'd taken it for sweat. It was blood, from a nasty cut, the wet edge of which ran just inside his hairline.
"
La osa!
" I leaned toward him and held a hand out toward his face, but he leaned away from me. "What did you do?"
"Fell."
"Where?"
"On the steps."
"Don't you know to put your hands out when you fall?"
"My hands? Are you deranged?" He tucked his fists into his lap protectively and cocked his head. "How can anyone listen when there's not a quiet place in this whole goddamned world?" And he squinted his eyes and covered his ears, as if to block out the crash of cymbals.
I listened too, but could hear only the faintest rattle—a breeze far below us, rustling the blades of a palm tree. But then, there—where was it coming from? Behind us: notes as light as distant birdsong at first. Then louder. It was a boy singing, voice high, jumping an octave, falling back, nonsense words repeated. Then he switched to a whistle. It
was
birdsong—or rather an imitation of it. He was whistling a folk song about springtime that I remembered from my own youth. It brought a smile to my face.
"It's just a boy," I said, relieved, and reached up to pull Al-Cerraz's fingers away from his ears. "Justo, do you remember the time in Madrid, years ago, when you told me a story about a boy playing a violin placed between his legs—and you said you wanted to be like that boy, immersed in music? There are two things I've always meant to tell you. One: You
are
immersed. Your entire heart is in your music, all the more so when you're playing for a few people instead of in some stuffy concert hall."
He looked dubious. "And the second thing?"
"That boy was me."
"I don't believe it." But a small smile had formed on his lips.
I slapped my leg. "You knew it all along, didn't you?"
"Maybe yes, maybe no. I
did
know that we were destined to perform together." His smile faded; he grew serious again. "But I was destined for many things. That doesn't always make them happen."
The boy came up the stairs toward us slowly, alternately whistling and singing. As he approached, I saw that he was dragging one leg behind him with every step. I watched him advance toward us over the rooftop of broken stone, hopping up and over a low ruined wall with the alacrity of an injured pigeon that has adapted long ago to a broken wing and still manages to get its share of plaza crumbs. This was the same boy we'd seen on our way to the Alhambra gate, but I hadn't seen him before—hadn't noticed his leg; hadn't seen his face lit up with song. I couldn't stop staring at the boy's dust-covered shoe, split at the side where it dragged against the ground, and his open face, crowned with disheveled black hair, now directly before us.
"Father says you shouldn't be here now." The boy's chest puffed importantly. "Father says he is closing all the gates."
When we didn't respond immediately, the boy lost his brio and let his chest cave inward again. "You don't want to spend the night here," he said more quietly, directly to me, with real concern in his dark eyes. "There are ghosts."
"We don't mind apparitions," I said jovially, reaching out a friendly hand toward the boy's tousled hair. Al-Cerraz's booming voice stopped me.
"Don't tell me when to go," he threatened the boy. "If I'm not ready..."
He pushed himself to standing, legs spread shoulder-wide to support his bulk. But he wasn't fully upright before his legs wobbled and he reached for my shoulder.
"I'm ready now," he said. "Help me."
"Of course," I said. "Always."
Something changed in me that evening, in that ancient place that had failed to move Al-Cerraz in the way he had expected. I tried to settle into that feeling, to prolong it, remembering above all the image of the boy, his song and his light step, the sense of hope and self-acceptance it had inspired.
Al-Cerraz visited his mother in Monte Carlo, before returning to his lady-friend's villa in Málaga. I accepted an interim post as a symphony conductor in Salamanca. Conducting was something I'd never even thought of doing, and now I found myself enjoying it, intellectually, physically, and emotionally. And what a relief to be in control, yet out of the spotlight, or at least sharing it with other fine musicians.
Somehow, this respite from my own ego dissolved barriers around me. Instead of staring at the country through a train window, I found myself walking daily around that ancient scholars' city. I attended lectures—on subjects other than music, no less. I had no idea where our country should go but I attempted to educate myself, remedially, on how we had arrived at our current situation: led by a weak king and an ineffectual parliament, pulled various directions by the army and the Church, which together threatened to have more power than any of our democratic institutions. When a group of university professors sponsored a two-day conference at which various liberal groups debated current events, I accepted their invitation to perform at the concluding dinner. It was the least I could do. Even though my reputation had grown considerably in the last decade, I still saw my role as a citizen first, a ceremonial figure second, perhaps a well-recognized advocate of certain reforms (none of them particularly radical and certainly not antimonarchical)—always off to one side.
I began to accept dinner invitations, allowing myself to be seated next to young, eligible women. Over Easter, I rented a cottage in the mountains and invited my family to visit; Mamá made excuses, saying Tía needed daily assistance and it was too hard to bring her. But Luisa came with Enric, and I reflected with satisfaction that I was beginning to have a normal life, as best I could imagine it.
Enrique wasn't there, of course. He had arrived in Morocco by way of ferry to Algeciras, handpicked by his friend Paquito—now known as Paco—to help lead Spain's new Tercio de Extranjeros. The Tercio was a mercenary legion, modeled after the French Foreign Legion. While Al-Cerraz was covering his ears, alarmed by the sound of a young boy singing, Enrique and Paco had been screaming at the top of their lungs into the hardened faces of two hundred recruits: common criminals, malcontent Great War veterans, dangerous thugs, pathetic misfits. They were telling these men that their lives had been worthless, but that they might have a new life, as long as they were willing to pay for it with the ultimate sacrifice. "Consider yourselves
novios de la muerte
—bridegrooms of death!"
Sitting in the Alcazar with Al-Cerraz, I had not been able to imagine what a medieval battle really felt like, let alone a modern-day battle in those lands just a short boat ride across the Strait of Gibraltar. I could not imagine what desert thirst felt like; the monotony of scrub-covered dunes; the terror of approaching hoofbeats; the smell of cadavers left for six weeks in the sun. Clouds of flies. The sticky awfulness of sand-soaked blood. What did I even know of real purpose and real camaraderie, or of its essential ingredients, sacrifice and self-denial? Nothing—that's what my brother would have said.
I could imagine, though, that my brother felt the sense of purpose he'd not felt in peacetime, while polishing his saber in El Ferrol. Better to be an
africanism
than a
peninsnlare,
especially when the folks back home didn't appreciate a career soldier's efforts. In Morocco, unlike in Spain, there were opportunities for fast advancement, and also opportunities to change the course of history. It was the beginning of something terrible and new—for one soon-to-be-lauded
africanista
hero at least, my brother's friend, whom Enrique might not have befriended in the first place had not the runt reminded him of me.
Regarding this time in my brother's life, I know only what I read later from books. That may sound like a boast, but there is no boast in it. Who wants to read in cold print what one should have read in a man's own hand—or, better yet, heard from his own living voice?
I read that Enrique was one of his battalion's best mapmakers. He never went anywhere without the compass he 'd inherited, the same day I'd inherited my bow. I read that he had helped route fresh water from the nearby mountains to the barracks. Certainly, there were legionnaires who tortured prisoners and brandished Moors' heads on pikes—they even presented a duchess, a philanthropist dedicated to nursing, with two heads cradled in a basket of roses.
But not Enrique—I won't believe it. And not most of the thousands of regular soldiers who inhabited that godforsaken place—endless square kilometers of parched terrain that we'd spent years struggling to keep. They did it to make up for losing Cuba and Puerto Rico way back when—that's how Enrique had explained it to me once. One disaster spawns another, and another, on down the years;
da capo
, back to the top, again and again.
***
I invited Al-Cerraz to visit me several times, but he said he was too busy, which I interpreted as a good sign. Not far away, in Segovia, the director of a music festival beseeched me and my duet partner to play. I was willing, but Al-Cerraz didn't even answer the director's telegram. Two more invitations arrived, from León and Ávila. These were convenient for me, but Al-Cerraz said he couldn't tolerate the distraction. Our manager wrote to ask if we were adopting some new strategy, trying to enhance our reputations by becoming reclusive. If so, he wrote, it was working. We were more in demand than ever.
Finally Al-Cerraz agreed to visit me—not to perform, but only to share a dinner, a play, and a walk around the university. He teased me about my pride in the city and accused me of becoming a homebody. I reminded him he'd spent the same nine months in Málaga, to which he said, "Oh, but I haven't noticed. I rarely leave my room, in the mansion's quiet wing; even the maids forget I'm back there. I didn't even emerge for Carnaval. One evening I asked my hostess, the Doña de Larrocha, if we might watch any of the processions together, and she laughed and said I'd already missed them—every last party."
I tried to talk him into staying another day, but he begged off, even when I promised him a grand dinner in his honor. Walking with him to the train station, I asked, "Will you keep turning down concert requests?"
"Only until I'm done. It's very close now. I'll be finished by summer. In fact, it's now that I need your help, to premiere the work. It's for solo piano—a suite. I may orchestrate it later. For now, I'm just hoping to find a really grand venue for it."
"Certainly. The symphony hall here—"
"No," he bowed his head apologetically. "I was thinking of Madrid. A royal premiere."
"That would be something."
"I have the Queen Mother's ear, which might not hear so well anymore. You have the Queen's. I was hoping you'd help me arrange it. It should be a night of several acts, to keep the press from asking too many questions about my part in it. They'll be expecting Al-Cerraz the performer of Chopin and Liszt, not Al-Cerraz the composer. I want the audience to have an open mind. I want them to be surprised."
"I don't get to hear a preview?"
"It's an autobiographical work. You've been with me for years—that's your preview."
"So you're writing about indigestion and mischief."
He didn't smile.
"Give me the title at least." It was a warm spring night, and breezy; a girl with fashionably short-cropped hair chased her cap down the street; it looked like a bird's nest that had tumbled off a tree. The alleyways were full of students looking for the entrances to dark, cheap restaurants. I was feeling jocular. "So this is a fantasia of the Alhambra—a reverie of Andalucía? Tell me."
His face darkened. "You're mistaken. After our last trip, I started over completely. It's nothing of the kind."
His touchiness surprised me. "I'm sorry, Justo. I'm looking forward to it, that's all. It will be a new start for you. Just as you've said."
A month later, I sent him the word for which he was waiting:
The perfect opportunity has presented itself. Better than Madrid, and fully royal. King Alfonso is planning a great public event on July 25 at Burgos, to coincide with the Feast of Santiago.
I followed it almost immediately with a second letter:
The King, I hear, will also be making a speech honoring El Cid, whose remains are being translated to the Burgos Cathedral. Word is that he will use the same platform to extol our troops in Morocco; evidently he
is counting on his latest favorite, General Silvestre, to produce some good news worth celebrating by that date. Yon wanted a "night of many acts"? This one will have a half-dozen at least, only a few of them artistic.
I paid a visit to Queen Ena. Modernity had caught up with her; her hair was bobbed and crisply waved, and her skirt had risen one or two centimeters for every year since I'd last seen her. She took my hand in hers, asked after my family, mentioned that she'd seen my photograph in the newspapers many times. It didn't seem to bother her that I had become publicly associated with political causes that did not necessarily favor her husband's positions.
Tired as she looked that day, Queen Ena seemed excited about planning a national party. Special Masses were scheduled in more than one location, and arrangements for the evening's concert were made: this cathedral, that hall—no, better an entire square, given the thousands that would be expected. Diplomatic invitations must be sent. The rail schedule must be adjusted. And more entertainment—would that be all right? Another musical prelude wouldn't overshadow our plans? Not at all—medieval
cántigos
by a children's choir before the classical concert, the more the better. And all to set the stage for what I hoped would satisfy my partner—my friend. Had I ever called him simply that?