Read Online The Barefoot Queen by Ildefonso Falcones - Free Book Online Page B

each with a face run through with deep wrinkles, thick brows that came together over the bridge of his nose and a penetrating gaze. The others were chatting outside. Melchor unbuttoned his short blue jacket, revealing a white shirt and a sash of shiny red silk. He searched in one of his inner pockets and pulled out a bundle of a dozen medium-size cigars that he placed on the table, beside the jug of wine that his nephew had given them.
    “Pure Havana tobacco,” he announced, and gestured for each man to take one.
    “Thank you,” some of them replied.
    “To your health,” murmured another.
    In a matter of minutes, the hut filled with an aromatic, bluish smoke that overpowered all the other smells in the small dwelling.
    “I have a good shipment of powdered tobacco,” commented Uncle Basilio after expelling a mouthful of smoke into the air. “From the factory in Seville, Spanish, very finely ground. Interested?”
    “Basilio …” Melchor reproached him with a weary voice, dragging the syllables.
    “It’s excellent quality!” said the other in his own defense. “You can get a better price for it than I can. The priests will be snatching it from your hands. They really squeeze us on the prices. What do you care where it comes from?”
    Melchor laughed. “I don’t care where it comes from, just how it got here. You know that. I don’t want to sell tobacco that someone has been carrying hidden in their arse. Just thinking about it gives me chills …”
    “It’s well wrapped in pig intestine,” insisted his brother Tomás in defense of his business.
    The others nodded. They knew he would give in; he always did, he never refused a request from the family, but first he had to complain, drag the discussion out, make them beg.
    “Even still. They carried it in their arses! One day they’re going to get caught—”
    “It’s the only way to get around the guards at the factory,” Basilio interrupted. “At the end of every work day, they strip several workers, at random.”
    “And they don’t look up their arses?” laughed Melchor.
    “Can you imagine one of those soldiers sticking his finger up a gypsy’s arse to see if he’s carrying tobacco? They can’t even imagine doing such a thing!”
    Melchor shook his head, but the obliging way he did so showed them that the deal was coming to a close.
    “One day one of them is going to burst and then …”
    “The
payos
will discover another way to use snuff,” declared Uncle Juan. “Sniffing it up their arse!”
    “I’m sure plenty of them would like that better than up their nose,” ventured Basilio.
    The gypsies looked at each other over the table for a few seconds and burst into laughter.
    The conversation went on long into the night. The nephew, his wife and three little kids came in when the murmurs from the street began to ebb. The children lay down on two straw mattresses in one corner of the hut. Their father noticed that the jug of wine was empty and went to fill it.
    “Your Negress has drunk—” the woman started to say to him from the mattresses.
    “She isn’t mine,” interrupted Melchor.
    “Well, whatever, you’re the one who brought her here,” she continued. “Aunt María gave her a potion of barley boiled with egg whites and her fever is going down.”
    Then the couple lay down alongside their children. The men continued chatting, with their wine and their cigars. Melchor wanted to know about the family, and the others filled him in: Julián, married to a Vega,a traveling blacksmith, had been arrested near Antequera as he was repairing the tilling tools of some farmers. “He wasn’t carrying any identification!” muttered Uncle Juan. The gypsies couldn’t work as blacksmiths, nor leave their homes. Julián was jailed in Antequera and they had already begun the steps to free him. “Do you need anything?” offered Melchor. No. They didn’t need his help. Sooner or later they’d release him; he was eating for free and