Only in Spain

by Nellie Bennett

  “Claro?” he repeated.

  “Sí,” I said.

  “Sí? Sí qué?”

  I laughed at the nonsensical exchange and said, “Toma que toma.”

  He laughed, hooked one arm around my waist, and swung me into a dip so low that my head was only inches from the floor. “Toma que toma,” he said, and he kissed me.

  And if a kiss was ever Hollywood, this was it. It was a kiss to build a dream on, suspended in the arms of a flamenco dancer with one red shoe pointing up toward the ceiling.

  Perhaps before that moment I’d had a chance at going home and leading a normal life, but the moment he took me in his arms my fate was sealed.

  “Vuelve,” he said. Come back.

  Yes… Why don’t I?

  THE FERIA

  Or

  Only in Seville

  On our last night in Seville, Zahra and I went out for a farewell dinner in El Rinconcillo, the tapas bar where I had first been seduced by Spanish food.

  It was the night of the opening of the Feria de Abril and there was a festive atmosphere in the bar. The Sevillians were all dressed up to dance. The women were in frills and ruffles and polka dots, and the men looked like bullfighters in high-waisted trousers and waistcoats. Even the children were dressed up in mini flamenco costumes. And all around the bar people were singing sevillanas and clapping compás with glasses of sherry balanced between their fingers.

  This time Zahra and I didn’t hesitate before ordering our favorite dishes, and I tried not to look sad as I ate my vegetarian fish and meat. “Only in Spain,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted but not getting close. The knowledge that my time in Spain had come to an end hung over me, and I couldn’t even enjoy our final dinner together. I felt like weeping into the bread basket.

  Over the six weeks that I’d been in Seville, I’d taken all the rules that had held my life in place in Sydney and replaced them with “only in Spain.” Only in Spain did I get to dance flamenco every day. Only in Spain did I drink milk and eat white bread and chocolate and fried squid. Only in Spain was sleeping for two hours in the middle of the day not only acceptable but encouraged. And only in Spain could I dance sevillanas until dawn.

  I’d gotten so used to living this way that I didn’t know how I was going to go back to the life I’d left behind. The swipe card and black suit and the 422 bus and First-Class Service Rules. The quiet streets, smoke-free bars, wine at ten dollars a glass, and I could forget about live music.

  And then there was that kiss.

  That damn wonderful kiss. I kept reliving it over and over in my head, the way that he had held me and gazed into my eyes. What frustrated me was knowing that it could have been that way from the beginning if I hadn’t been so shy! But how could I have known that the impossible was possible? How could I have guessed that the man I was dreaming of was also dreaming of me? Now there was no time left. I was counting down the hours like Cinderella watching the clock, knowing that soon her carriage would turn back into a pumpkin.

  We finished the last of our wine, and I told Zahra that she could go to the feria without me. I just didn’t have it in me to go out and celebrate. All I wanted was to go to bed and cry.

  The waiter came to collect our plates and asked if we were on our way to the feria. Zahra told him that she was but that I was going home to bed. He stared at me for a moment, dumbstruck.

  He carried our plates away and came back moments later with a bottle of liqueur and two shot glasses. He poured out two shots and waited expectantly. I took one and swallowed it down. Then he pushed the second shot toward me too. I lifted the shot glass and drank it.

  “Ahora quieres bailar?” he asked. Now do you feel like dancing?

  “No.” I shook my head.

  The waiter filled up the shot glasses again. I took one and gulped it down. “Ahora?” he asked. Again I shook my head. He pushed the fourth shot in front of me, and I obediently tipped it back.

  I closed my eyes and felt the world spin. It was my last night in Seville and I wanted an early night: What was I, crazy? Had this time in Spain taught me nothing? The night is for dancing, not for sleeping!

  “Okay,” I said, a little dizzy. “This is my last night in Seville and I’m going to the feria.”

  “Olé, mi niña!” the waiter cried, pouring me another shot for luck. Then he tapped his watch and told us it was already eleven thirty. The feria would open at midnight with the alumbrado, the lighting of the lights. If we didn’t move fast, we were going to miss it.

  Our plan had been to jump in a cab, not realizing that every taxi in a fifteen-mile radius of the center had been prebooked for the occasion. So instead we ran. We ran as fast as two girls in heels could run. We ran through the old streets of the Macarena, chasing each other around corners and in between orange trees. We raced down streets lined with flamenco boutiques. Zahra faltered in front of one window with a mannequin in a couture flamenco gown with cascading ruffles. “Vamos, chica!” I said, and she tore her eyes away and kept on running.

  We ran down Zahra’s favorite street, a little alleyway that always smelled of azahar and fried fish, and out across the plaza, past the cathedral, dodging women in flamenco costumes pushing baby carriages, and through crowds of men dressed up like bullfighters and drunk on sherry.

  We raced past the bullring and down to the river where hordes of people were making their way to the showgrounds, carrying open bottles of whiskey and wine, beat-up guitars, and boxes they used as drums. We ran and ran and ran until finally we reached the entrance to the showgrounds.

  There was a crowd of thousands of people waiting for the lights to come on and the gates to open. We stopped, panting for breath, just in time to hear the tolling of the bell. It was midnight.

  “We made it, chica,” Zahra whispered.

  On the twelfth stroke of the bell a giant fan unfurled in lights in the sky, followed by another, then another. The crowd erupted into cheers as the three gold-and-red fans twinkled in the dark night sky.

  The gates were thrown open and the crowd surged into the showgrounds. But Zahra and I just stood there staring up at the beautiful sight of the three fans created out of light in the sky. The fan is the perfect symbol for Seville. It’s just like the city itself—fun, flirtatious, outrageous.

  I couldn’t help but wonder again at the strange timing of my trip, how I had booked my flight back home for the next day. It seemed almost as though the lights had been turned on for me: I was meant to be here, I was meant to see this.

  Doesn’t everything happen for a reason? I need to believe that it does. I don’t do random; I see too much magnificent synchronicity in life to believe that it’s all just chance. I was on a journey that had started when I opened that copy of Harper’s Bazaar, and I knew that my adventure was only beginning. My return home was just a pit stop, I told myself. There were still thousands of flamenco nights ahead of me.

  Standing there, I made a promise to myself. “I’m coming back,” I said silently. “I’m coming back, I’m coming back, I’m coming back…”

  THE NEW SEASON

  Or

  Where’s your culo?

  My parents picked me up at Sydney Airport, and as I gazed out of the car window at the deserted streets, I was shocked by how quiet the city was. Okay, I knew I wasn’t in Spain anymore, but I was in the biggest city in Australia and it wasn’t even six o’clock, yet every café, bar, and restaurant that we passed was shut. Where were all the people?

  I had a few days off before I started work again, so Mum suggested I hang out at the beach while I got over my jet lag. My parents had a little beach shack on the Northern Beaches that they used for weekends and holidays, so I went up there and spent a couple of days gazing at the sea.

  In the mornings I’d take a book down to the beach and try to read, but I always found myself staring off into space. All I wa
nted was to be back in my little room among the streets of the Macarena. I missed the smell of the orange blossoms; I missed the drum of Semana Santa; I missed those nights dancing sevillanas with Zahra.

  I played the CDs I had brought back from Seville on a constant loop, even leaving the music on when I went to sleep. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking I could hear again the sounds of the streets of Seville, people passing by my window, singing and laughing, and a guitar playing off in the distance. What can I say? I was hopelessly, head over heels in love with Seville, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  • • •

  One morning I went down to a café opposite the beach for a takeaway coffee to prop up my lazy eyelids. As I stood in line, I became nostalgic all over again, remembering the day I asked Inés if there was a café near the dance school that sold takeaway coffee.

  “Coffee to take away?” she had echoed.

  “Yes, you know, for when you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to sit down and have a coffee, so you drink it while you’re walking.”

  “Drink coffee while you’re walking?” Inés had repeated back to me. “How can you drink coffee while you are walking? That is like smoking a cigarette while you are running. In Seville, when you want a coffee, sit down and take a coffee. The world will wait for you.”

  I sighed as I took my takeaway cappuccino, remembering that soon I’d be back on Level Two, where the world most certainly would not wait the five minutes it might take me to have a coffee in peace. Again I wished that I was back drinking Spanish coffee in the warm morning sun.

  It was as I wandered out of the café that I heard the sound of stamping feet. I stopped and looked around. Surely not?

  The sound was coming from an old Boy Scouts hall opposite the beach. I walked across the lawn, thinking that surely I must be going mad. There was no way that what I was hearing could possibly be flamenco. But as I peeked in the doorway, I knew that I had found my new teacher.

  She was magnificent, a toma que toma Spanish goddess in forest-green flamenco shoes. As soon as I saw her tearing up the sandy floor of that little wooden building in true Andalucian flamenco style, I knew that some greater power was orchestrating my life, because it was just too weird that I would find myself in the presence of this flamenco diva just as I was wishing myself back in Spain.

  I waited by the door until the class was over, then ventured into the old hall and asked the teacher about joining her class. She introduced herself as Marina. She was Australian, from a Spanish family, and had spent years studying flamenco in Spain. And she looked like a flamenco dancer. She had a beautiful Mediterranean complexion tanned even darker by the Australian sun and thick black hair that fell down to her waist. She asked me where I’d learned to dance; when I told her about my six weeks in Seville, she cried, “Ay! Sevilla!” and told me about her own time dancing there when she was younger. We reminisced together about the tablaos and bars and nights on the Alameda.

  I told her that I wanted to go back to Seville to live. I felt strange saying those words out loud for the first time. Of course it was what I wanted, but I hadn’t actually gotten as far as saying it. But if my eyes were too bright and my voice too wistful, Marina didn’t notice. She just waved away the idea and told me that if I wanted to “go pro,” I had to go to Madrid.

  Go pro? I looked at her wonderingly.

  “Claro!” she said, then raised a finger in warning. “You gotta work hard. You gotta work harder than everyone else. But if it’s what you want to do, the only place to go is Madrid, to the Amor de Dios.” The Amor de Dios was a famous flamenco academy, where Marina herself had studied.

  “Everybody teaches there.” Marina listed famous flamenco dancers whom I was ashamed to admit I’d never heard of: La Tati, La China, Antonio Reyes, Cristóbal Reyes, La Truco…

  “But…me? A professional flamenco dancer?”

  “Why not you? Most of the best dancers these days are foreigners. You’re starting late, but that’s okay with flamenco. This isn’t ballet; a flamenco dancer’s got a long life span. But you’ve gotta want it.”

  I didn’t even need to think. I just said, “I do.”

  “Then you’ve gotta go to Madrid.”

  She went on telling me stories about the famous teachers at the Amor de Dios. About Cristóbal Reyes, who wore sunglasses and chewed gum all through class then spat out the gum into the corner of the room whenever he stepped forward to demonstrate a step. She told me about La Tati, who grew up as a penniless gypsy girl in a small village and who hung out every day outside the neighborhood flamenco school, copying the sounds from the class with her bare feet on the street outside.

  She reminisced about Paco Ortega’s class, which was full of castanet-playing ballerinas. “That’ll be you!” she said, and I laughed, feeling thrilled by the very idea. She mapped out for me my entire training schedule and filled my mind with so many dreams, I felt as though my head was spinning.

  I thought about it on my way back to the city. Go to Madrid and become a flamenco dancer…it just sounded too crazy, too much like someone else’s life. A hobby is one thing, but a profession? I guess I just didn’t believe it was possible; I’d never imagined becoming a dancer.

  But how could I have imagined it? My high school career adviser never suggested that I consider flamenco dancing. There’s no bachelor of arts/flamenco dance at Sydney Uni, and there was no Mastering the Art of Flamenco Dance for me to stumble upon on my parents’ bookshelf.

  It was a dream, but did I really want to turn it into a reality? Did I really want to leave Sydney? Okay, maybe it didn’t have all-night sevillanas bars or flamenco guitarists around every corner, but it was the city I had grown up in.

  I thought about all the things I loved about my city. The beaches, the cafés, the shopping, and just wandering down by the harbor. But as I thought about these things, I had to ask the question: When was the last time I enjoyed Sydney? I was normally so exhausted after work that the only thing I had the energy to do was soak my feet in hot water and watch a DVD. Even the vegan restaurants I used to haunt had lost their appeal. I’d gotten used to tapas for lunch and tapas for dinner. Mock chicken made out of tofu just didn’t do it for me anymore.

  The reality was that Sydney had become the seven a.m. alarm, the morning commute, and days standing behind the counter, writing up the sales book and trying not to think about the varicose vein forming in my legs.

  I thought about leaving my family. Though I knew I would miss them, I wasn’t leaving forever. I’d come back every year for Christmas. And anyway, hadn’t my parents raised me to be a traveler? Ever since I was young they encouraged me to treat the whole world as my stage and not limit myself to one country or one way of life.

  More than worrying about what I was leaving behind, what I worried about was what was ahead of me. Madrid. I didn’t know anything about it, apart from what Marina had told me, but I figured it was a big city full of lots of people speaking Spanish. How was I going to survive? Was I going to survive? Would I end up sleeping rough in my red shoes? Would I run out of money and have to sell matches or bunches of violets to keep body and soul together until I got consumption and finished my days coughing up blood in some charmingly bohemian garret?

  Yes, I was afraid. On one hand I had the dream of moving to Spain and dancing flamenco, and on the other hand I had the paralyzing and debilitating fear of doing just that. A dream is such a beautiful thing, but when you try to turn it into a reality, it can go horribly wrong. Maybe I should just stick with the dream…

  I’ve never been good with fear. I’m afraid of everything: of spiders, of pollution, of hurting people’s feelings, of making a mistake on my tax return, of heights, of cancer, but most of all I was afraid of seeing my life go by without living it. That was the fear that trumped all the others. I didn’t know if I believed in God or in a life after this one. All I knew
was that I had been given a life to live, and that was a great gift, but also a great responsibility.

  And time passes so quickly. The years seemed to be speeding up, and I knew that I could face my fear of aging and of death if, on the day that I looked in the mirror and saw the first lines around my eyes, I could smile and remember all the times I’d laughed and cried and drank wine in the sun. I knew that if my face had stories to tell, I wouldn’t mind getting older.

  And if I lived my life, and I mean really lived it—if I ran away with the gypsies and danced flamenco in a red dress under the full moon of a summer night in Madrid—then I could face any challenges life threw at me, and even death itself, because I would know that I had really lived this one precious life that I had been given. But it isn’t easy being a girl who is afraid of everything. I had to create a kind of hierarchy for my fears. And in the end, the fear of letting go of this chance to live my dream was greater than my fear of what lay ahead of me.

  So I made a decision about fear: I couldn’t afford to let it control me or stop me from doing what I wanted to do with my life. I took a deep breath and felt the fear in my body. It was that cold, panicky feeling I knew so well. It flashed images of disaster across the screen of my mind, and I let it, for about ten seconds. Then I said to myself very clearly: Yes, I’m afraid. And that’s okay, because I’m going to do it anyway.

  • • •

  “Chica!”

  It was my first class with Marina, and I was already getting yelled at in Spanglish.

  “Where’s your culo?” she asked, tilting her head as if trying to see where I’d hidden my butt under my skirt. “What, did you leave it on the bus?” The rest of the class and even the guitarist were stifling their laughter.

  Okay, yes, I’d lost a lot of weight. But if I was going to be a dancer, wasn’t that a good thing? I was proud to be the thinnest student in the class. Aren’t dancers normally just muscle and ambition? Not flamenco dancers, Marina told me with a waggle of her finger. A flamenco dancer needs to have at least the fat content of a King Island Camembert. “’Cause when you’re onstage you need to make every movement look bigger,” she explained. “If you don’t have hips and you don’t have a culo, you have to work twice as hard, and you’re already going to have enough work to do! Go down to the market and buy yourself a culo and stick it on there!” She mimed attaching a big bottom to the void where mine should be.