In the Street of Christ
Two whitewashed buildings face each other across the village square. One is the Church and one the Police Headquarters. In the morning, the Church casts a shadow over the cobbles - in the afternoon, the Police House casts it back again
So there is always a shadow
But the square is broad, and in the centre is an area of sunlight that shadows cannot reach. Here the children shout and skip and chant their singing games. Here the girls parade on Sunday mornings, arm in arm, chattering and shrieking like parrots in the flashing, clashing brilliance of their Sunday frocks; bright flowers sprout low behind their ears, and dark eyes gleam an invitation beneath demure lace veils. Here the boys strut and lounge self-consciously, their hair sleek with oil, while plump matrons all in black watch the direction of their roving eyes
There is noise and life and gaiety in the sunlight, for these Andalucíans are vital people, leisute-loving, pleasure-loving, indolent and proud. Now and then the shadow catches at the flying skirt of a girl on the edge of the crowd, or moves across the lean face of a fisherman as he passes. But I stand at my front door overlooking the square, it is the life in the sunlight I can see most clearly. It is laughter i can hear, the chatter and the gossip and the click of castanets
And sometimes, faintly in the shadows, the wailing of a hungry child
THE END OF THE SEARCH
It was mid-winter when I found my village, but the sun was shining in the south of Spain. We had searched for a long time, taking local buses a hundred miles in this direction, a hundred miles in that, peering appraisingly at the harsh, exciting landscape. The bus that morning was over-crowded, friendly, and inquisitive. A young man sat beside me, with a hen on his lap, stroking and soothing it when the horn sounded. The hen looked smug, and clucked at intervals
Audibly, for three hours or more, the bus admired Malcolm's beard in the seat in front, with Christopher bouncing irrepressibly beside it. For three hours or more it admired the fair-haired Michael, sitting on my knee as smug as any hen, accepting compliments and sweets as they showered down upon him Flushed with success, he beamed tunelessly
'Ah que guapo, Que bonita' crooned the Spanish ladies, fat and motherly in their tight black dresses. 'And he's a singer too'
But my attention had wandered from the ladies and the landscape to an old man opposite. He nodded, sleepy, and oblivious, while prawns dropped on by one from a soggy paper bag in the luggage rack above his head to nestle in the brim of his sombrero. Prawns dropping slowly from the luggage rack have a soporific effect, like sheep jumping a fence. By the tenth prawn I was nodding too, when he suddenly rattled over a wooden bridge, and screamed to a stop in a little market place.
'Look' said Christopher, bored with travelling 'Will this do?'
I looked
The snow-capped peaks of the Sierra, swept dramatically down to the edge of the sea, and receded inland, towering out of sight. And, wedged between the mountains and the sea, spilling its houses right down the cliff on to the sands, was the village. The houses were white and ochre-red and blue, and sparkled in the sunlight. Fishermen lounged in the market place, stirred to mementary life by the arrival of the bus. Ragged children squatted in the gutter. A great slow-moving tre-cart rumbled past, and dockeys picked their way across the cobbles with precise and busy feet. Women peeped from doorways like shy, black birds
Fruit was cheap, they told us and there were fish in the sea, Wine was 2s 6d a gallon - half the price of petrol, and much nicer. There were no hotels, no pensions, no tourists
And right on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the square, a marvellous little house was under repair, rising from the ruins of an old Moorish fort
'What more could we want? Malcolm said and I exchanged glances
'Yes, this will do' we said
The search was over
HIRED BY HERMOSA
But first there was the long journey back to Málaga for our luggage, to the pension which had been our search headquarters. It is a provincial town, dull and quiet enough, but cocks crow in the streets at sunrise, and the knife-sharpener trundles his barrow, blowing sweet and undulating tunes on plastic pan-pipes. Oranges gleam in the trees along the sea-front, and the wharf itself are stained a rich earth-red with oxide. Everything moves slowly, even the cranes loading oranges and lemons, great straw baskets, and netfuls of goats into the ships
At the pension life was seldom leisurely - it was violent and intense. La Señora was formidable woman, tight-lipped and discontented, who ruled her household in a dressing gown. In the very act of slapping the servants or screaming at her son, she smiled at us. But we were paying guests. There were other guests, too, an elderly French couple from Casablanca, but they were inferior to us - not full pension, just bed and use of the kitchen. When Madame and la señora came face to face, no fear. It was like the meeting of two rival stags. The clashing of their antlers reverberated though the small flat, and bellows from the kitchen. After an impressive scene when the ladies came to blows, Monsieur and Madame departed in voluble retreat, and within half an hour a German professor and his daughter were installed, on equals on full pension, It was obvious that the last conclusive battle had been deliberately induced by la señora, with an eye to business
There were two servants at the pension. One was a small, grey, sad-faced woman who glided unobtrusively about, enduring the abuse with immense and silent dignity. And the other was Hermosa, immense but neither silent nor dignified. Hermosa was the cook - and what a cook! A cook to dream about - a cook to eat forever! Course after course appeared on the table, soups and salads, tortillas and paellas, all prepared with delicacy and imagination. Hermosa was a peasant woman from a village near Sevilla. She was short and enormously fat, as a cook should be, with a bottomless fund of exuberant vitality. Her face was round and shining in the sun. Her coarse, dark hair swept smoothly back to a gigantic bun, which struggled to escape the pins behind as her soaring bosom thrust against the taut confinement of her dress in front. All day she sang flamenco in the kitchen, her powerful voice rising triumphantly above the shriek's of la señora in the pure flamenco melodies of the south. Both she and her sad-faced colleague eluded their strident mistress - one retreated into silence, the other into song
We had heard and admired Hermosa, we had tasted her food, but we had never spoken to her. The night before we left, she burst through our bedroom door while we were packing, without the formality of a knock. She stood and beamed at us through her thick spectacles, her head erect, as broad as she was long. She came straight to the point.
'I'm coming to live with you' she said, with gracious heartiness, 'I'll cook and go to market, I'll clean the house and wash and iron and sew. You will pay me 200 pesetas a month'
We sat back on our heels, and looked at her. All that vitality, that voice, that glorious food, for less than ten shillings a week - it was a tempting offer. But the odious señora was our hostess, if a paid one - perhaps it would not be quite the thing to steal her cook. We played for time
'But why to you want to come? You don't know us'
Hermosa laughed, a deep and fruity belly-laugh, and her huge breasts danced to the music of her laughter
'I know you' she said with conviction 'Your hearts are in your faces'
But there were difficulties, we explained, Our house was not yet ready, we had rented two rooms in the meantime with an old lady and her daughter. Perhaps in a month it might be possible. We would think it over, and let her know
Hermosa burst out again, well satisfied, but already in señora's narrow nose had scented a plot. In five minutes she came sliding round the door, followed by her son. She was subtle now, not strident
'You know our cook' she began 'She suffers from delusions. She is mad. She thinks you're going to offer her a job'
We joined nervously in the general laughter
'Yes, she's mad, quite mad' echoed the son 'Loca loca!'
He tapped his forehead significantly
When they had gone, we hesitated, Could we consider asking a strange woman, possibly a mad woman, to live with us and mind our children? Then we remembered Hermosa's beaming face, round as the sun, child-like, infinitely human. Surely her heart was there, for all to see? And surely, if she could take us on trust, we could do the same for her? But we were tired, and there was no need to worry about it that night. We had a whole month to decide
At dawn next morning we followed our luggage piled high on a handcart through the sleeping city. As the sun came up, we ate our breakfast at the bus station - excellent coffee, and churros hot and sizzling from the oil, round and crisp like elongated doughnuts, and threaded like beads on a fresh green rush.
The warning bell rung and we scrambled for the bus. There in the back, beaming a welcome, sat Hermosa - a tiny fibre suitcase on her monumental knees, containing all her worldly goods
'Ah mis señoritas! Buenos dias!
Panic and consternation!
'Good heavens, Hermosa! You can't come now. There's nothing arranged, nowhere for you to sleep'
Hermosa sat on, beaming, immovable as Gibraltar, her voice as calm and soothing as a half-remembered nanny
'Don't worry, now - we'll manage somehow. You've go to eat, you know. And there's bound to be a floor that I can sleep on'
We looked desperately round. Could be borrow a crane from the wharf nearby ? Nothing less would shift her But the bell rang again, and with a roar and a hoot the bus got underway. Too late! It was the first of many rounds to Hermosa
GOSSIP
So we came to Pueblo with twenty pieces of luggage, two sons, and a brand-new cook. And, until our house was ready, we settled down to wait for it in the heart of the village, in the Street of Christ
But 'settled down' is hardly the phrase to describe life in that narrow, noisy, fascinating, dynamic little street. There were cats and goats and donkeys everywhere, and children - an incredible number of children erupting from the doorways, making the street ring and echo with their games. There was singing and laughter, but never a sound in winter before 9 or 10 am. The people of Pueblo and their children go to bed after midnight, and get up late; they are not fond of hard work, and besides, there is little work to do.
We, too, lay late in bed each morning, and listened to the village tuning up for the day, slowly waking to a confusion of musical sounds - the rhythmical beat of castanets clicking in the accomplished hands of little girls as they danced their way to school, the clattering of the donkeys' dainty feet, and the call of the milkman as he drove his herd of goats from door to door, their heavy udders swinging low to the cobbles, to squirt milk expertly into each waiting dish. For the housewives of this hot land have a sensible passion for the freshness in food. They buy their milk on the hoof, their rabbits and hens still nibbling and pecking, and their fish on the beach as the boats come in, still gleaming and wriggling and smelling of the sea.
But now in winter the sea was often too rough for fishing, and there were no crops to be picked. There were always men idling at the street corners, proud, ragged hungry men, standing or squatting, talking or dreaming, turning their heads in unison to watch each passing donkey, or the occasional bumply progress of a bicycle
And there were always women watching from their doorways, dressed in sombre black. For hours each day they stood there, looking up and down the street - like the men in winter, they had nothing else to do. Their home are bare and tiny, and almost keep themselves clean, and there is little cooking, for the stable diet is bread. Their chief function is child-bearing, which occupies their full attention only once a year. For the rest of the time they stand and watch. They play no active pert in the life of the street - that is left to the men, the children and the chattering girls. The women are the onlookers, the chorus who comment on the action, and all day long the street buzzes with their comment. They see everything, they hear everything, and the gossip swirls and hisses from one doorway to the next.
So life followed its leisurely, endless repetitive pattern, but it was never dull. On the contrary, it was a perpetually stimulating mixture of indolence and frenzy. A new village drama boiled up every day, and there was always something to celebrate - a procession, or a wedding, a feast-day or a funeral
The very night of our arrival was the festival of San Antón, and bonfires were lit in every village street. All day the boys of Pueblo had been bringing branches in - no easy task in the barren, rocky countryside - and when darkness came, there were impressive fires all through the village. Calle Cristo excelled itself with three. The children danced round them, wild with excitement, the young girls shrieked and giggled, and the women watched, silent and black, keeping their self-inflicted purdah at their own front doors. The boys had painted their faces for San Antón in streaks of white and black with chalk and charcoal, and they chalked white stripes on each other's clothes and ours. They tied paper tails on the unsuspecting, and followed them down the street, chanting joyous little songs of derision. Malcolm spouted a tail, and drew the biggest crowd, for he was a newcomer, and dangerously unpredictable. There were shrieks of fear and delight when he turned to chase his attackers
'Pile your bread on our fire,' yelled one niño, bolder than the rest. 'It would make a magnificent, a truly stupendous blaze'
Malcolm's beard was a source of much wonder and comment,
'Are you doing a penance?' asked a man that night
Malcolm looked puzzled, as he is not by nature given to penitence
'Your beard' pursued the man, 'You must have grown it for a penance'
Malcolm has the only beard in Pueblo, so apparently Andalucíans are not much given to penitence, either. But after the Civil War, the man told us, many of the village men grew beards to atone for the killing they had been forced to do
There was a killing in the village the same evening - a sacrificial killing for San Antón - for the saint rates an annual pig as well as a bonfire. Every summer a generous, or an ostentatious farmer donates a little piglet to Pueblo. He has to be fed. Up one street he goes, and down another, all good Christians plying him with food, till now on a chilly January night he meets his end, the fattest, sleekest pig for miles around. His meat is sold at considerable profit, and the money goes - where?
'To the poor' say the churchgoers
'To the church' say the sceptics
It is not, in spite of Christ's example, the same thing
But such sordid speculations did not worry us tonight. We were out to enjoy ourselves to the sacred memory of San Antón
The wine flowed, the flames spat and crackled, and in the evening when the first burnt out, in laughter and in song
SONG IN PUEBLO
There is always song in Pueblo. The whole village is full of music - the people have it in their hearts, in their blood, and in their finger-tips. Wherever you walk, through the streets, along the beach, or back towards the mountains, someone is always singing - the haunting wailing flamenco songs of the south, with their echoes of the Moorish occupation. Even the smallest children have an inborn sense of rhythm. Little girls of six or seven wear castanets as naturally as fingers, and as they play or walk along the street, the complicated rhythms click out
The Hot Water Man beats a rhythmical tattoo on his barrow as he sings his wares for men who want to shave
'Agua caliente!' Excellent hot water !' he calls
Hermosa, as she fans the fire in the kitchen, accompanies the powerful, soaring rhythm of her song by beating the fan against the charcoal stove. And when I work on the roof overlooking the teeming life of neighbouring backyards, where hens, rabbits, donkeys and goats and children pack and graze and scuffle companionably together, the sound of flamenco rises up to me along with a rich assortment of smells. Sometimes there are four of five housewives singing like angels as they spread their washing on the walls to dry. On Sundays somewhere below me a man and his wife sing flamenco together, so marvellously that I must stop to listen. Often one of them breaks off for a moment to shriek an order at the children, then strikes the soaring, impossible note again dead-true in the centre, and sings on
Flamenco songs are the songs of the people, songs of love and life and suffering. But the Church benefits, too, from the village gift of song. Every Saint's day, every little procession gains beauty and sincerity from the singing ot the people. Their voices are pure and true, even when the painted plaster saints are chipped and shabby
A week or so after we arrived at Pueblo, the Mission began - eleven long days of religious observance, with services from dawn till midnight, and a cluster of visiting priests. The Mission is an annual event to renew the people's fervour, to coax the wandering flock back to the fold. Every morning during the Mission we were woken while it was still dark, but our sleepy rage was blown away by the incredibly sweet sound of chanting as the procession passed our window - the girls in white, the women in black, lanterns and incense swinging, and candles flickering in the old, dawn breeze. There were a few men's voices mingling with the clear, sweet voices of the women, for the men preferred the comfort of their beds. The women of Pueblo, having less to occupy their minds, are more devout.
Other processions passed at intervals throughout the day, and sometimes noisy groups of children with a priest, boys in one group, girls in another - for the whole social system is rigid and suspicious, and the sexes do not mingle, except by accident or skilful and surreptitious design, till they meet at the altar.
Now came a disorderly procession of little girls, fluttering past in their clean white frocks. Two harassed priests walked backwards at the head of the procession, glaring helplessly at their charges. As they walked, they catechised the little girls, who chanted the responses sweetly in unison
'How many gods are there?'
'There is one God.'
'Where do goof little girls go?'
'They go to Heaven'
'Where to bad little girls go?'
They go to Hell.'
At the mention of Hell, all the little girls doubled up with laughter. They seemed to have no awful fear of hell-fire. Either they didn't believe a word of it, or they were young enough to be convinced of their own life-long virtue. The priests glanced at each other, cleared their throats, and quickly started again.
'How many gods are there?'
'There is one God'
Precariously the priests negotiated a corner, and the responses drifted away along the next street
The climax of the Mission was timed to coincide with the feast-day of Santa Rosario. Hermosa told us that there would be a grand procession through the village at nine o'clock sharp, and she organised us carefully for the occasion. She made me change my dress - everyone would be there, she said, and every woman in the village would examine me for flaws. She did nothing about Malcolm - already she despaired of parting him from his disreputable series of paint-bespattered pants - but she bustled off a shy village boy we had asked in for a drink, and served dinner an hour early. There was no time for coffee, she explained - we could have it, if we liked, when we returned
Then, all done up in her best black, she pushed us into the street, and linking arms with me in the inevitable Pueblo fashion, she swept us straight up to the market place, and into a bar. She collapsed on the nearest chair, panting with her exertions.
'There's plenty of time' she gasped blandly. 'We might as will have some coffee while we wait'
AT THE BAR OF THE RICH
In a flash coffee appeared on the table, the proprietor's wife beamed and nodded behind the counter, and Hermosa beamed back triumphantly. It would have been clear to a baby that our visit was no surprise to either of them. The backroom girls, it appeared, had been at work to improve our drinking habits.
The other bar in the market place was a Bar of the Poor - the fishermen drank there, and peasants from the mountains. We had wandered in the first week we arrived, found it clean and cheap and friendly, and saw no reason to change. But this bar of Hermosa's was the Bar of the Rich - the élite drank here, the mayor and the notary, and the chemist and the Capitain of the Guardia Civil. It was, explained Hermosa when we accused her of plotting, more suitable to our eminence as the only foreigners in Pueblo. It was, she said, more upper class, more gentlemanly - mas señorito
