The Witch of Portobello Page 0,41

as my tears and the blood from my wounds touched the trunk of the tree, a strange calm took hold of me. I seemed to hear a voice telling me not to worry, saying that my blood and my tears had purified the path of the child and lessened my suffering. Ever since then, whenever I despair, I remember that voice and feel calm again.

That's why I wasn't surprised when I saw her arrive with our tribe's Rom Baro, who asked me for a coffee and a drink, then smiled slyly and left. The voice told me that she would come back, and now here she is, in front of me. She's pretty. She looks like her father. I don't know what feelings she has for me; perhaps she hates me because I abandoned her. I don't need to explain why I did what I did; no one would ever understand.

We sit for an age without saying anything to each other, just looking not smiling, not crying, nothing. A surge of love rises up from the depths of my soul, but I don't know if she's interested in what I feel.

'Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?'

Instinct. Instinct above all else. She nods. We go into the small room in which I live, and which is living room, bedroom, kitchen and sewing workshop. She looks around, shocked, but I pretend not to notice. I go over to the stove and return with two bowls of thick meat and vegetable broth. I've prepared some strong coffee too and just as I'm about to add sugar, she speaks for the first time:

'No sugar for me, thank you. I didn't know you spoke English.'

I almost say that I learned it from her father, but I bite my tongue. We eat in silence and, as time passes, everything starts to feel familiar to me; here I am with my daughter; she went off into the world and now she's back; she followed different paths from mine and has come home. I know this is an illusion, but life has given me so many moments of harsh reality that it does no harm to dream a little.

'Who's that saint?' she asks, pointing to a painting on the wall.

'St Sarah, the patron saint of gipsies. I've always wanted to visit her church in France, but I can't leave the country. I'd never get a passport or permission '

I'm about to say: And even if I did, I wouldn't have enough money, but I stop myself in time. She might think I was asking her for something.

' and besides I have too much work to do.'

Silence falls again. She finishes her soup, lights a cigarette, and her eyes give nothing away, no emotion.

'Did you think you would ever see me again?'

I say that I did, and that I'd heard yesterday, from the Rom Baro's wife, that she'd visited his restaurant.

'A storm is coming. Wouldn't you like to sleep a little?'

'I can't hear anything. The wind isn't blowing any harder or softer than before. I'd rather talk.'

'Believe me, I have all the time in the world. I have the rest of my life to spend by your side.'

'Don't say that.'

'But you're tired,' I go on, pretending not to have heard her remark. I can see the storm approaching. Like all storms, it brings destruction, but, at the same time, it soaks the fields, and the wisdom of the heavens falls with the rain. Like all storms, it will pass. The more violent it is, the more quickly it will pass.

I have, thank God, learned to weather storms.

And as if all the Holy Marys of the Sea were listening to me, the first drops of rain begin to fall on the tin roof. The young woman finishes her cigarette. I take her hand and lead her to my bed. She lies down and closes her eyes.

I don't know how long she slept. I watched her without thinking anything, and the voice I'd heard once in the forest was telling me that all was well, that I needn't worry, that the ways in which fate changes people are always favourable if we only know how to decipher them. I don't know who saved her from the orphanage and brought her up and made her into the independent woman she appears to be. I offered up a prayer to that family who had allowed my daughter to survive and achieve a better life. In the middle of the prayer,