“attack on Count Orloff.” He had kept in contact with Juanillo, and in that way followed Moncada’s movements from afar. The footman was not very bright, and he detested anyone who was not a Catalan, but he tolerated Bernardo because he never interrupted him, and he knew that the Indian had been baptized. Once Amalia acknowledged Moncada’s dealings with the Gypsies, Bernardo had decided to find out more about him. He made a visit to Juanillo, taking as a gift a bottle of Tomas de Romeu’s best cognac that Isabel had slipped to him when she learned that it would be used for a good purpose. The footman did not need liquor to loosen his tongue, but he was grateful nonetheless, and soon he was telling Bernardo the latest news: he himself had carried a missive from his master to the military chief of La Ciudadela, a letter in which Moncada accused the tribe of Gypsies of smuggling contraband weapons into the city and of conspiring against the government.
“Those Gypsies are eternally cursed because they forged the nails for Christ’s cross. They deserve to be burned at the stake. Give them no mercy, that’s what I say,” was Juanillo’s conclusion.
Bernardo knew where to find Diego at that hour. He headed straight for the open country outside the walls of Barcelona, where the Gypsies had their filthy tents and beat-up wagons. In the three years they had been there, the camp had taken on the look of a village of rags. Diego de la Vega had not renewed his trysts with Amalia because she was afraid that she would endanger her own fate forever. She had been saved from being executed by the French; that was more than enough proof that the spirit of her husband Ramon was protecting her from the Other Side. It was not a good idea to provoke his anger by continuing to bed a young gadje. It was also in her heart that Diego had confessed his love for Juliana to her; in that case they were both being unfaithful: she to the memory of her deceased husband, he to the chaste maiden.
Just as Bernardo had supposed, Diego had gone to the camp to help his friends set up the tent for the Sunday circus, which that day would not be in a plaza, as usual, but right in the camp. They had several hours yet, since the spectacle would not begin until four. When Bernardo arrived, Diego and the other men were singing a tune that Diego had learned from the sailors on the Madre de Dios while heaving on the ropes to tighten the canvas. He had sensed his brother across the distance and was expecting him. He did not need to see Bernardo’s troubled expression to know that something was amiss. The smile that was always dancing on his lips vanished when he heard what Bernardo had learned from Juanillo. Immediately, he called the tribe together.
“If this information is accurate, you are in grave danger. I wonder why they haven’t arrested you before this,” he said.
“That must mean that they plan to come during the performance, when we are all together and they have an audience,” Rodolfo theorized. “The French like to set examples; this will keep people frightened, and what better way than to use us.”
They began gathering up the small children and animals. In silence, with the stealth of centuries of persecution and nomadic living, the Gypsies tied up bundles of things they could not do without, climbed onto their horses, and in less than half an hour had ridden off in the direction of the mountains. As they left, Diego told them to send someone the next day to the old cathedral. “I will have something for you,” he told them, and added that he would try to entertain the soldiers and give them time to get away. The Gypsies lost everything.
Behind them they left a desolate camp with its sad circus tent, wagons without horses, still-smoking bonfires, abandoned tents, and a sprawl of pots and pans, mattresses, and rags. In the meantime, Diego and Bernardo were parading through nearby streets, beating on drums and wearing clown hats to attract potential showgoers and lead them back to the circus. Soon there was a goodly number of spectators waiting beneath the canvas. When Diego appeared in the ring dressed as Zorro, with mask and mustache, he was greeted with impatient whistles. As he juggled three lighted torches, passing them between his legs and behind his back before tossing them up again, his public did not seem too impressed and began to shout crude remarks. Bernardo took away the torches, and Diego asked for a volunteer for a trick of great suspense.
A husky, pugnacious sailor came forward and, following instructions, stood a few paces away with a cigarette in his lips. Diego snapped his whip on the ground a couple of times before flicking the tip. When the volunteer felt the air whistle by his face he reddened with anger, but as tobacco flew through the air and he realized that the whip had not touched his skin, he and the crowd bellowed with laughter. At that same moment someone remembered the story that had circulated around the city about a certain Zorro who dressed in black and wore a mask and who had dared get Le Chevalier out of bed to save some hostages. “Zorro? A fox? KfoxT flashed through the audience, and someone pointed to Diego, who made a deep bow and then scurried up the ropes toward the trapeze. At the precise instant that Bernardo gave the signal, Diego heard the horses’ hooves. They had been waiting for that. Diego did a somersault on the bar of the trapeze, dropped, and hung by his feet, swinging through the air above the heads of the audience. Instants later a group of French soldiers burst into the tent with drawn bayonets, led by an officer bawling threats. Panic broke out as people tried to escape, a moment Diego seized to slide down a rope to the ground. Several shots were fired, and a monumental panic ensued as spectators, shoving to get out, stumbled into and over the soldiers. Diego slipped away like a weasel before they could lay a hand on him, and with Bernardo’s help cut the ropes that held up the tent. The canvas dropped onto the people trapped inside, soldiers and public alike. In the confusion the two milk brothers jumped onto their horses and set off at a gallop for Tomas de Romeu’s home. On the way, Diego shed the cape, sombrero, mask, and mustache. They calculated that it would take the soldiers a good long while to fight their way out of the tent, realize that the Gypsies had fled, and organize a party to give chase. Diego knew that the next day the name of Zorro would again be on everyone’s lips. Bernardo threw Diego an eloquent look of reproach; his arrogance could cost him dear, since the French would be moving heaven and earth to find this mysterious Zorro. The brothers reached their destination without incident, went inside through the service entrance, and shortly afterward were having chocolate and biscuits with Juliana and Isabel. They did not know that at that moment the Gypsy camp was going up in smoke. The soldiers had set fire to the straw in the ring, which burned like dry under, reaching the ancient canvas in only minutes. The following day at noon Diego took up a position in a nave of the cathedral. Gossip about the second appearance of Zorro had made the complete rounds of Barcelona and come back to his ears. In one day the enigmatic hero had captured the people’s imagination. The letter Z had been scratched with a knife on several walls, the work of small boys inflamed with the desire to imitate Zorro. ”That is just what we need, Bernardo, many foxes to distract the hunters.“ At that hour the church was empty except for a pair of sacristans changing the flowers on the main altar. It was dark and cold, and quiet as a tomb; the brutal sunlight and noise of the street did not penetrate that far. Diego sat waiting on a bench, surrounded by statues of saints and breathing the unmistakable metallic scent of incense that had impregnated the walls. Timid, reflected colors filtered through the venerable stained-glass windows, bathing the interior with unreal light. The calm of that moment brought memories of his mother. He knew nothing of how she was; it was as if she had vanished. It surprised him that neither his father nor Padre Mendoza mentioned her in their letters, and that she herself had never written him two lines, but he wasn’t worried. If something bad happened to his mother he would feel it in his bones. One hour later, when he was about to leave, convinced that no one would be coming to the rendezvous now, the slim figure of Amalia materialized like a ghost. They greeted one another with their eyes, without touching. ”What is to become of you now?“ Diego whispered. ”We’re moving on until things calm down. Soon everyone will forget all about us,“ she replied. ”They burned the camp; you have nothing left.“
“That is nothing new, Diego. We Roma are accustomed to losing everything; it has happened to us before, and it will again.”
“Will I see you someday, Amalia?” She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “That I do not know, I do not have my crystal ball.” Diego gave her everything he had been able to gather in the few hours since he had seen her: most of the money he had left from an allowance his father had sent and also what the de Romeu girls had been able to contribute once they knew what had happened. From Juliana he had also brought a package wrapped in a handkerchief. “Juliana asked me to give you this as a remembrance,” said Diego. Amalia untied the handkerchief to find a delicate pearl diadem, the one Diego had seen Juliana wear several times; it was the most valuable jewel she owned. “Why?” Amalia asked, surprised. “I suppose it must be because you saved her from marrying Moncada.”
“That may not be certain. Her destiny may be to marry him anyway ”
“Never!” Diego interrupted. “Juliana knows now what a swine he is.”
“The heart is fickle,” Amalia replied. She hid the jewel in a pouch tucked among the folds of her full over skirts wagged her fingers at Diego in a gesture of farewell, and faded into the icy shadows of the cathedral. Instants later she was running through the alleyways of the barrio toward the ram blas Shortly after the exodus of the Gypsies, but before Christmas, a letter arrived from Padre Mendoza. The missionary wrote every six months to
