“As a girl in a convent school they took me to the Prado. I was nine or ten, and I could not get over what I saw, I wanted to do something like that.” I envied her ambition even though I knew it would lead nowhere. After what I had seen that afternoon I wanted something definitive, but once back at her house I lost the restlessness and regained a semblance of my earlier calm. I must have been very drunk but I don’t remember it that way. “I remember staring at a Velazquez and felling a tickle rise from my stomach, lodging in my neck. I instantly understood how he used color.” It came off as pure bullshit after what I had seen that day.
*
When I’m in La Mancha I feel like I am at sea. The monotonous and foreboding landscape wickedly hot or unbearably cold, the villages calling you to safety inside their clean and well kept streets. The people are dry, hard, difficult to crack and always prepared for the worst; Iberians and Moors, some more of one, some more of the other.
The house was built over a large cave holding huge stone vats for making wine, above the cave a patio rose to a glass covered roof over the second floor. The wine cavern, ever reminding one of the vice of Hell, kept the bottom floor cool in the summer and the upper floor was heated for the winter. It was the end of summer, between hot and cold, wet and dry, the smells called out from the cold dark months ahead but there was no doubt we were still under the spell of the sun.
The fire crackled under the fat of the lamb chops from a recently slaughtered animal from a family owned herd of sheep. Handsomely inebriated I remembered why I liked her, but only from the darkness of drunkenness and the exultation of the bullfight. Every-one has their moments and these were hers. Within the confines of her family’s wealth she became more honest and direct, good bread dipped into the grease, washed back with a wine that had never known a bottle. I was getting a second wind and Irene was looking better, the years flying offer her with each new drink. “Chema is working all weekend to help build a camp for the city government, he doesn’t stop.”
“Do you still have his girlfriend living with you guys?” She put her disgusted look on.
“She says she is looking for a place, poor thing.”
“But he gets upset when Ivan calls.”
“He says that’s not the way things should be done, we shouldn’t have to talk to each other’s lovers.”
“But his lives in the house.”
“It’s only temporary, and he started out helping her. She’d had a difficult relationship with someone.”
“There are enough horns between you two to start a bull farm.”
“What are horns, what does it mean to “poner los cuernos”, it doesn’t mean anything to me. I like having more than one. In college, when I was living in Madrid, I would have one, and as soon as he left I would the other one would arrive ten minutes later.” From around the door strode Doña Irene, convinced of her social and moral superiority. I looked at Irene’s thighs, imagining her exploits.
“Where will he sleep?” Not looking at me. I felt like telling her.
“Mama, in a free bed.”
“Good evening.” I said with tone.
“Good evening.” I couldn’t have given a fuck if her father was the “cacique” of some shit-hole town at the end of the world. The bone of the lamb chop was almost on fire from the fat that was sending flames up from the wood chips. I flung it on a plate and filled my glass with Doña Irene’s wine and watched her daugh-ter’s thighs as one of her lamb chops continued to sizzle. From nowhere I felt vibrations of a screeching voice racing toward me.
“And what do you do?” Money, how illusive it was to incompetent inheritors, maintaining it was im-possible, but to make it bordered on the mystical.
“I’m a salesman for a spice company.” The not-too-adept provincial mind quickly tried to categorize that somewhere between small storeowner and wheat broker, coming to a murky conclusion regarding a world below her. She could only admire the titled and very wealthy in a peevish jealousy of their money and status. She approached the fire, above the chimney a Virgin and Child, the house felt like a monastery, a mausoleum to a distant lone shark gone legit.
*
The stars shone down on the open patio of rose-mary and basil bushes, the music of the Gypsy Kings playing loudly, the town was in fiestas and few were sober. Irene looked out among the crowd, her two gay admirers smirking and tilting their heads in disgust, an-guish and general nausea.
“Did I tell you about my “Guardia Civil”, he was so shy, he let me give him kisses on the neck for drinks.”
“Did he have a belly? I love those ‘Guardia Civi-les’ with bellies, the green pants hanging low. I think we’re scaring the American.”
“You are.”
“If you keep drinking like that your going to get drunk.” I handed Irene another drink. “What have you been doing lately?” He asked with studied disinterest.
“Primitive sculpture. I just get into the wood and work, bang away at it. I like the feel of it.” I was in the final stages of drunkenness, one last moment of calm before I fell into blackout zone. A dark, severely beautiful girl dancing Sevillanas with three boys slowly moved away from her companions, her eyes looking nowhere, her hands moving slowly. The night came down upon her as one of her hands lifted her long skirt, we were alone in a dry sea and a dark sky.
CHAPTER 8
From the flat, treeless plains of La Mancha we had moved off the high plain down to the Mediterranean and into the semi desert of northwest Murcia. Dry fields with withered olive and almond trees, a severe and barren landscape. Vicente’s small country house had no running water or electricity. In the chimney crackled the flame under a paella; the rice still invisible in the duck and vegetable broth and the large mountain snails showing their brown stripes as they bounced in the liquid.
Vicente’s goat eyes raced sharply as he kneeled above the fire jiggling the firewood to maintain the de-sired flame. He looked straight at me, sending a chill through me and reminding me of the look of the goats I had seen in his corral. A soft smile left a shaking head from behind a mass of curly hair, her healthy thighs filled faded jeans. I couldn’t help but smile with her. Her balding, fiftyish husband spoke like a machine gun with a cheerfulness that lifted the room and an authority that honed minds. “I can’t paint people screaming on bridges, not with this light, and this abundance. It wouldn’t be right, our nature is too generous to dread.”
“It’s our decadence, not only the physical but the intellectual, after 1898 we had lost it all, but from the loss rose our elegance, something blatantly lacking in your culture.” Goat man was trying to drag me into something I knew better than to get mixed up in. The rice was appearing from out of the water and I walked toward the painter’s wife, Caridad. The old house had small thick windows with wooden shades. She handed me the hash cigarette from the stool were she sat with her knees rising in a ‘V’. The goat eyes waited for a reaction than returned to the painter. “To have a culture one must first lose an empire, once the Americans lose theirs maybe something interesting will come out of there”
“Let’s hope all your decadence can make a good rice.” The wine flowed from several jugs, strong and rusty in color. Irene smiled at me. She had the prac-ticed look of an intellectual overseeing a conversation.
“But Pepe, I’m from here. I’m a Mediterranean. But those dark northern landscapes, heavy and deliber-ate, they seem more authentic. For me they are more artists than we are, they are more dedicated to what they do, maybe because they don’t have this easy back-drop.”
“Our best painters come from the Mediterranean, not Castile. How many good artists come from the north, most of them come from the Catalonia.” I could see Caridad wanting to say something, from within the strong and sensual body.
“But there is no mystery in what we do, it’s all very apparent, they have that dark, scary element, not always, but sometimes I like it, but when I lived in Brit-tany I
missed the light and the color, now I guess I sometimes miss those rainy weeks.” She was the most insightful of them all and I was already jealous of the Frenchman who had spent cold wet days in bed with her.
A lemon sprayed the rice while our collective, wet hunger climaxed from the hashish. A robust man, with a round face and small round glasses came through the curtain of the door, bottle of rum in hand and a smile on his face just in time to eat. There was an invisible grid over the paella, separating it in six equal parts, each spoon carefully maneuvering within its boundaries. The rice had absorbed the flavor of the duck and snails from the broth where they had previously been boiled, later the meat and snails were fried and then finished in the broth with the rice, some tomatoes and a few peppers. The smoky taste of the wood left a subtle backdrop to the exquisite dish.
Good rum filled empty coffee cups. I wanted to warm my ears between Caridad’s thigh’s but I settled for Irene’s hand. Goat man talked and talked, using a big vocabulary and a lot of imagination. “The transves-tite breaks through all the sexual taboo’s and stereotypes. He’s the god of two faces, one smiling and the other frowning. There is a transvestite show in Va-lencia that attracts people from all over the world.” I must have made a cynical face because I got a nasty goat stare. The rum was smooth. More hash, more rum. I was happy.
“Vicente, the rice was really great. I’ve never had anything quite like it.”
“Of course you haven’t, this food is our cultural inheritance, our past, which you Americans are trying to kill with your hamburger chains.” I stared hard in his eyes till I saw fear, which he turned into a silly smile.
“Don’t take it personally. He’s talking about McDonald’s, not you.”
“I’ll decide what a take personally, fat boy.” I wasn’t conscious of how uncomfortable I was making everyone, or how off I had gone, from almost bliss to near rage. I settled back into an uncomfortable silence, aware of the quick glances darting towards me, but con-fident I could turn things around. The day was young.
“La Paca”, a small town named for the lover of an important man, Don Gonzalo, whose name remained that of Irene’s family farm, and the nearby town, Doña Ines, named for his wife, a triangle in love and geogra-phy. The people in the big cities want the rustic look and the small town folk want the modern. Three post-ers of black and white nude women with red roses hung around the red Formica bar, red stools by its side and a black floor; electronic music beat through large speakers filling the ears of teenagers with heavy metal tee-shirts and earrings. The red light sparkled through the ice of seven whiskey glasses. We were hung over already and it wasn’t clear where the day was going, the conversation had decayed into redundant gossip and I was thinking about Kerry. She was very good for mid-day hangovers, but before I could separate my head twitched and I looked into the light brown eyes of Cari-dad, a blank expression, only the almond ovals hanging a beat on mine. I smelled Bourbon but I was really smelling her, the painter was looking away but Irene was not. She justified the stare with a question. “This must be very different than where you are from.”
“What I miss are the thunderstorms, the overpow-ering afternoon sun disappears into a wicked dark cloud, the windows begin...”
“We should call Marcos to see if he wants to meet for dinner.” I stared at goat man again but he didn’t look at me. Caridad glanced back and I felt her enter me, give herself to me in a glance. Irene watching smartly.
“They begin to shudder, the lightning strikes hold-ing a second on their targets before …”
“We need to ...”
“Go on,” said the painter, waving off goat man.
“Before disappearing back into the dark clouds, what ten minutes ago was a raging, tacky, consumer metropolis is suddenly nothing but a dim shadow below a terrifying cloud. It’s great, especially if you’ve had a bad day at work, it puts people into perspective.” I was back in favor, and feeling good, like I had fixed a toilet.
“Why don’t we go, I’m sure they would love your paintings.” She undid the mass of curly hair, stroking it, the head moving with the hand, then back into a knot, she saw me looking. The serious stare ripped into me.
“Miami has to be the tackiest place I’ve ever been, I can’t see them buying your paintings,” added fat boy, goat man smiling. The worst thing about it was that he was right. Under more normal circumstances I would have agreed, but goat man and fat boy managed to get me again me off again, so I decided to ignore them with a grimace; there was to be no peace that day. The har-poon was cocked and I was waiting for a false move to launch it.
The heat rose out of the treeless mountains, only rosemary, thyme and espartos, “Sweet home Chicago” on the radio and I felt like I was in a road movie. Irene held the steering wheel with two hands, her head lean-ing forward, a quick glance at the stick shift before changing gears.
The shepherd dogs urged the last of the sheep across the road that rose to the large country home, adorned with family shield and tower. The day falling, the mountain chill giving me a tremor. She put her hand on my leg as we rose up the hill to the house, which from a distance appeared as an oasis flowering in the first elevation of the mountain. Water it had, plenty of it, evidenced in the poplars and cypresses that sur-rounded the home. The smell of sheep and goats accompanied us as we separated the large iron gates, across the patio and through the heavy door to an osten-tatious central stair case with a wooden banister that greeted you with a mouth full of teeth. On the wall be-neath the stair was a good sketch of Manolete, the prominent nose high above the swirling cape and angry bull, below them a cot for summer siestas in the coolest spot in the house.
Blood sausages smelled of anise over the flames of the large kitchen fireplace, two rabbits, killed that after-noon at goat man’s, sat on a rack full of rosemary and thyme waiting to grilled. A three-room pantry led out of the kitchen, in the last room the smell of olive oil was overwhelming from a thirty gallon metal vat. Racks of wine from the Rioja, Ribera del Duero and La Mancha lined the walls, two large hams hung from the ceiling along with panceta and strings of sausage, the floor greasy with pig fat. “Take three bottles of ‘Yuntero’ and take down that ham.” The abundance was breathtaking and reassuring. The smell of the perfume from her neck, sharp and sweet, in the cloud of oil and meat excited me. She seemed beautiful again, I looked in her eyes as I thought and she smiled, my tongue felt her throat. She shined dark, her lips larger. Beauty had succumbed to the instincts and I felt her warmth on my palm. “Later, bring out the ham.”
A box with fifteen numbers sat silent above the re-frigerator, a reminder of a time when only the service used the kitchen and each the of the bells would bring someone to the room in need. The marble slab atop the kitchen table was arrayed in bottles, glasses, meat and tomatoes, reds, and the almost black of the blood sau-sages. My hunger over came me and I eyed each rack coming off the flames. I cut the ham, a piece for me, a piece for the plate. I remember trying to speak and be-ing stared at by blank faces.
*
An early shaft of light raced through the space be-tween the wooden doors to the balcony. A rooster with a cold let out a gargled crow and I could make out the arrow lodged in the breast of a women in a nun’s habit, her face smiling, the drops of blood staining her blue habit in a frame above the bed. I remembered Caridad, I looked at Irene by my side, but I couldn’t remember how I got to bed. A chill ran through me, a terrible fear that I had done something awful. I glanced again at Irene and this time her eyes were wide open. They looked straight ahead. She blinked for effect. I rolled over and put my arm on her stomach, the physical re-sponse would give me an idea of how bad it was.
“I can’t believe you did that to me.” The tears came steady, the first time I had seen her cry authenti-cally. The fear was clear in her voice. I was terrified. I had done something heavy. She looked at me again. “You’re crazy, you don’t even remember what
you did, go look at the kitchen, my mother’s furniture. We had to take Vicente to the emergency room, you’re lucky he didn’t call the police, go, go look at what you’ve done.”
I remembered the constant talk and music of the night before, now the cold long halls of the mansion were loud with silence, a gloomy witness to my crime. The seat of the chair was almost horizontal with the back of it. The blood was auspicious in its absence. There was no turning back, the bridges had been burned. I would have like to maintained a relationship them but I knew it was over, though I guessed she would forgive me. I was empty and lonely but at the same time free of them, ‘fuck them’ I thought, rich pompous assholes. They’ll think twice the next time. I was free again, the best feeling in the world, there were plenty of bridges to burn ahead of me. I had fought back the shame.
“Can you drive me to Lorca?” I dried myself with a towel as I stuffed my bag.
“It’s 6:30.”
“I’ll hitchhike then.” I knew I should have apolo-gized but I couldn’t, something wouldn’t let me, the ungrateful and violent guest. I drove and she looked ahead, not wanting to close her eyes waiting for the apology that wouldn’t come. I was fresh and relieved, ready to move on, she was the last string. I tried to hate her but I couldn’t.
“You should really apologize to Vicente, you were way out of line.”
“Sure, I will.” I accelerated out of the curve passed two cars, the car rising dangerously out of the curve.
“Caridad couldn’t stop crying. You’ve got to con-trol yourself.” A deep silence that encouraged her. I was without an excuse and she used Caridad artfully. “She’s not used to that kind of thing. I don’t know how you can ever apologize for that, such a good day, you had to ruin it.” She was now enjoying herself and I was about to take the lame look off my face. I squinted and she returned to the silence.
The train was mercifully about to leave. I stared at the poster “Armed and very dangerous, members of the terrorist group E.T.A.”. Large noses, dark eyes, two men and two women. I envied there double lives, their intensity and insanity; I wished I’d had some of that. “Adios” She gave me two kisses and turned away, a glance at her back then the poster, free again.