stepped in.’
‘No!’ Teresa laughed again. ‘I’ve heard he is incompetent.’
‘He is as long as he has men from Barcelona in his command. Did you hear what happened at the docks yesterday evening?’
Teresa shook her head.
‘That bastard General Brandeis ordered his dragoons to fire on the dock workers and their wives. But the people hoisted themselves onto crates and trolleys and shouted, “Don’t shoot, our brothers, we are fighting for you! We are fighting for your lives!”’
Teresa’s jaw dropped. ‘What happened?’
‘The soldiers refused to fire. How could they do otherwise? They may as well be shooting their own families.’
Teresa put her hands to her mouth in delighted amazement.
Laieta smiled. ‘Now the workers all over the town are doing the same thing. They cheer and applaud the soldiers who are sent to attack them and the men won’t fire.’
Despite our elated mood after Laieta’s news, the streets around Teresa’s apartment looked different on our way home from the market. The residents were ripping up the cobblestones to build barricades, and adding sewer covers, bed frames, lampposts and anything else they could get their hands to reinforce them. Where there were electrical lines, they were being cut. It looked as though people were preparing for a full-scale battle.
‘What’s going on?’ Teresa asked one of the women.
‘We’ve been told something big is going to happen this afternoon, and to ready ourselves against mounted charges.’
Teresa glanced at the men wielding weapons and practising their aim. I could see she was torn between her promise to protect us and her longing to be part of the action. We were about to move on when a boy on a bicycle came to a halt in front of us.
‘Are you Teresa Flores García?’ he asked. Teresa nodded and the boy handed her a slip of paper. ‘It’s instructions from your friends at the Casa del Pueblo.’
The boy rode off and Teresa opened the paper. Ramón and I stared over her shoulder, anxious to know what information it contained. I couldn’t read the words; all I could see was thatit was a list along with a map. Ramón, who was more advanced in reading than I was, muttered the names: ‘Sant Antoni, Sant Pau del Camp …’
Teresa looked at us, then turned to the workers at the barricade. ‘It has begun!’ she cried. ‘The Revolution!’
The people stopped what they were doing and stared at her. She waved the paper in the air so they could see it.
‘They are burning the churches!’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘This afternoon!’
TEN
Paloma
T he day after my first flamenco lesson, I returned to the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, intending to continue my research on the supernatural. It was coming up to examination time at the Paris universities, and the library was even more crowded than it had been on my previous visit. The atmosphere had transformed from scholarly zeal to exhaustion and edginess. I noticed one student leaning against the staircase, who appeared to have fallen asleep standing up. I was glad to see that he shook himself awake after a few seconds and picked up his books before his knees relaxed and he toppled to the floor. If I had gone to a regular school, I could have been one of the students swotting here now. What would I have studied? Art, or the history of music, perhaps? I couldn’t even imagine it. It seemed to me that from the moment I had opened my eyes and taken my first gasp of air, I had lived and breathed ballet. Hadn’t my mother been dancing the part of Giselle when she first realised she was pregnant? Hadn’t she been listening to the waltz from Sleeping Beauty when she went into labour?
While I waited for the librarian to retrieve the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, I found myself thinking about Jaime. I wondered whether he had been born in Spain or France. I guessed Spain because of his slight Spanish accent. Which region was he from? Then I
‘No!’ Teresa laughed again. ‘I’ve heard he is incompetent.’
‘He is as long as he has men from Barcelona in his command. Did you hear what happened at the docks yesterday evening?’
Teresa shook her head.
‘That bastard General Brandeis ordered his dragoons to fire on the dock workers and their wives. But the people hoisted themselves onto crates and trolleys and shouted, “Don’t shoot, our brothers, we are fighting for you! We are fighting for your lives!”’
Teresa’s jaw dropped. ‘What happened?’
‘The soldiers refused to fire. How could they do otherwise? They may as well be shooting their own families.’
Teresa put her hands to her mouth in delighted amazement.
Laieta smiled. ‘Now the workers all over the town are doing the same thing. They cheer and applaud the soldiers who are sent to attack them and the men won’t fire.’
Despite our elated mood after Laieta’s news, the streets around Teresa’s apartment looked different on our way home from the market. The residents were ripping up the cobblestones to build barricades, and adding sewer covers, bed frames, lampposts and anything else they could get their hands to reinforce them. Where there were electrical lines, they were being cut. It looked as though people were preparing for a full-scale battle.
‘What’s going on?’ Teresa asked one of the women.
‘We’ve been told something big is going to happen this afternoon, and to ready ourselves against mounted charges.’
Teresa glanced at the men wielding weapons and practising their aim. I could see she was torn between her promise to protect us and her longing to be part of the action. We were about to move on when a boy on a bicycle came to a halt in front of us.
‘Are you Teresa Flores García?’ he asked. Teresa nodded and the boy handed her a slip of paper. ‘It’s instructions from your friends at the Casa del Pueblo.’
The boy rode off and Teresa opened the paper. Ramón and I stared over her shoulder, anxious to know what information it contained. I couldn’t read the words; all I could see was thatit was a list along with a map. Ramón, who was more advanced in reading than I was, muttered the names: ‘Sant Antoni, Sant Pau del Camp …’
Teresa looked at us, then turned to the workers at the barricade. ‘It has begun!’ she cried. ‘The Revolution!’
The people stopped what they were doing and stared at her. She waved the paper in the air so they could see it.
‘They are burning the churches!’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘This afternoon!’
TEN
Paloma
T he day after my first flamenco lesson, I returned to the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, intending to continue my research on the supernatural. It was coming up to examination time at the Paris universities, and the library was even more crowded than it had been on my previous visit. The atmosphere had transformed from scholarly zeal to exhaustion and edginess. I noticed one student leaning against the staircase, who appeared to have fallen asleep standing up. I was glad to see that he shook himself awake after a few seconds and picked up his books before his knees relaxed and he toppled to the floor. If I had gone to a regular school, I could have been one of the students swotting here now. What would I have studied? Art, or the history of music, perhaps? I couldn’t even imagine it. It seemed to me that from the moment I had opened my eyes and taken my first gasp of air, I had lived and breathed ballet. Hadn’t my mother been dancing the part of Giselle when she first realised she was pregnant? Hadn’t she been listening to the waltz from Sleeping Beauty when she went into labour?
While I waited for the librarian to retrieve the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, I found myself thinking about Jaime. I wondered whether he had been born in Spain or France. I guessed Spain because of his slight Spanish accent. Which region was he from? Then I
Similar Books
