Of Curses and Beards: Reclaiming Herstories

Abstract

Of Curses and Beards: Reclaiming Herstories Ana Roncero-Bellido Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. The Curse of the Gypsy: Ten stories and a Novella. Arte Público P, 2018. 224 pp. ISBN: 978-1558858626. The Curse of the Gypsy: Ten Stories and a Novella, by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, offers readers two fascinating and complex literary projects: first, a collection of ten interconnected stories that shape what Alicia Gaspar de Alba describes as a deconstructed novel with the title “The Curse of the Gypsy.” Following this is the historical-mythical novella recovering “The True and Tragic Story of Liberata Wilgefortis, Who, Having Consecrated her Virginity to the Goddess Diana to Avoid Marriage, Grew a Beard and Was Crucified.” With these two texts, Gaspar de Alba’s (historical) fiction engages in a critique of patriarchal, heteronormative, and white supremacist ideologies across both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and the Atlantic, as the stories take readers to early 20th century Spain, Mexico and the U.S., and to the Hispania Lusitania of the 2nd century A.D. The stories in “The Curse of the Gyspy” weave different narrative voices that reveal the complexity of the characters Gaspar de Alba re/creates. “The Curse of the Gyspy” begins with the story of Margarita Vargas, a gypsy from Granada (Spain) who is victim of a lifelong curse her mother puts on her when she finds out Margarita is pregnant with the Grenadian poet Federico García Lorca’s child. This curse has taken the shape of a petrified fetus Margarita carries for eighty years, even after Lorca’s execution at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. As Margarita confesses her captivating romance with Lorca and their tragic fate, readers learn that her mother’s curse was dictated by the King of the Gypsies, Chorrojumo, who foresaw the disgrace of the Vargas family’s honor. This shame comes from Margarita’s double treason to her family and the gypsy community, for not only has she corrupted herself with a payo—a non-Gypsy—but she has also betrayed her husband’s heart well before he dies at war. The novel progresses with Margarita’s departure from Granada and subsequent marriage to a famous Mexican bullfighter, Benito Rivera, whom she follows to Mexico, as will the curse. Rivera’s family rejects his marriage to a gypsy, which they consider a step backwards towards Jose Vasconcelos’ cosmic race (39); and her husband, unable to accept Margarita’s presumed infertility, abandons her for years until they move to the border city [End Page 168] of Juárez. The family’s destiny thus lies in the hands of Margarita’s great-granddaughter, who is to take Margarita’s ashes back to Granada to break the curse. As the deconstructed novel progresses through the ten interconnected stories, readers get to meet two generations of complex characters who are descendants of Margarita, known as Maggie across the U.S.-Mexico border, and who all get reunited for her funeral. The stories of Margarita’s descendants tell the reality of many lives across the border: the rivalry between sisters that prompts a trip to Oaxaca; the story of Little Jay, a queer teenager who struggles with her sexual identity and deported parents; or the hopeless prayer of a woman whose sisters have locked in a convent when she confesses her father’s sexual abuses, among others. With these stories, Gaspar de Alba breaks the boundaries between history, myth, and fiction as she recreates the historical figure of Garcia Lorca and even his poetry; the popular actress Margarita Xirgú; the mythical character of Mariano Fernández Santiago, commonly known as Chorrojumo, patriarch of the Gypsies, whose statue still guards the entry to Granada’s gypsy neighborhood of Sacromonte (Cárdenas); and the Aztec warrior goddess Coyolxauhqui. Importantly, Margarita’s curse is actually inspired by true events. However, it is only at the end of the book that readers realize of the true nature of the supposedly fictional story, which is a verbatim translation of the news published in El Diario de Juarez in 1984 (23). Next, in a historical-mythical novella, Gaspar de Alba recovers the story of one of the...