The Olive Tree (The Olive Series Book 2)

by Carol Drinkwater

  After my visit to the archaeological museum, with its pair of magnificent Phoenician sarcophagi, I returned to my hotel by way of the park, Parque Genovés, passing a colony of whistling, garrulous parrots in the treetops at the waterside. An army of keepers and attendants were sweeping up, clearing the previous night’s debris in preparation for the next onslaught of jovialities. There were smashed bottles, shards of glass everywhere and the air smelt of burned sugar. Feeling ill at ease, not quite sure how to respond to the roisterous enthusiasm beneath the coloured wigs, fancy dresses and drunken painted faces, I had decided to move on. Carnival is not for the lone voyager, I decided, or perhaps not for me at all. I paused to take a final photograph and spotted twin cats, black as glinting coal, hunkered beneath one of the tropical trees. Their green marmoreal eyes were fixed hard upon me; dark hearts of Spain.

  *

  Although it had rained in the night, dewy whorls flying round the lighthouse, the break of day had brought calm. The sea was a rich blue with madder-brown rocks breaking its surface, slick and shiny as pods of basking sea lions. Morning found me crossing back over the Bahía of Cádiz, glancing westwards towards the windswept shoreline and the town of Huelva, towards the Coto Doñana National Park. I had to pull over to fully appreciate a bleached watercolour of a rainbow, tantalising and nebulous. At the end of the rainbow lay a lost city, a city of fabled treasures, Tartessus. I was off to find it. One day I would return to Cádiz, I promised myself, but not during carnival. One pleasing tidbit I had picked up in a bar over a glass of wine the evening before was that the tradition of tapas had originated in Cádiz on the occasion of King Alfonso XIII’s visit to the city. It had been an inclement day with a brisk wind and the royal entourage had stopped at a taberna for refreshment. The king ordered a copa of wine. The waiter, nervous of sand flying into His Majesty’s drink, covered it with a slice of locally cured ham. When the king enquired as to the purpose of the ham, the waiter explained. His royal highness, tickled by such ingenuity, tucked into the meat and instantly commanded a second glass with the same tapa, cover.

  Sanlúcar de Barrameda is one-third of the sherry triangle. It is also a town perched on a scraggly river beach at what feels like the end of the Western world. A last outpost before the waters, the marshes, before the penetration into wild nature, to where the river delta has gradually been blocked off by a huge sandbar that stretches from the mouth of the Río Tinto, near Palos de la Frontera, to the riverbank opposite Sanlúcar de Barrameda. This entire area had been designated as national park, Parque Nacional de Doñana; it represents Europe’s largest wildlife sanctuary and was the inspiration for the foundation of the World Wildlife Fund.

  I parked the car at what, until recently, had been the hitching rails for horses, a setting-down post for the customers of the sherry bodegas. Two old geezers, both possessing the mottled, bruised complexions of lifelong sherry drinkers, were waving, indicating a designated space, which I obligingly pulled into. One growled into my window with fiery breath and squeezebox voice, ‘two euros fifty’. I handed it over and he hobbled away gratefully as the other approached, flapping a book of tickets.

  ‘Two euros fifty,’ he requested.

  ‘I have just paid your colleague.’

  The old timer shook his head. ‘I’m the attendant. He was just trying it on.’

  Off the Cádiz peninsula it was noticeably warmer. Small parties of Spanish tourists or inhabitants from neighbouring Jerez were sitting at one or other of the open beach cafés down along the Bajo de Guia, the riverfront, sipping sherry, smoking fat cigars, imbibing the heat of the sun and alcohol after a very decent lunch. The seafood in Sanlúcar de Barrameda is highly praised and hailed among Spain’s finest.

  I took a brief stroll to and fro in search of a booth for ferry tickets but saw none. The architecture was not of the solid, imposing central Spanish styles. It was delightfully Art Deco and mostly freshly painted in white or earthy colours, as though the place was waking up to the new century, and its Fabrica de Hielo, the Ice Factory, was particularly stylish. While photographing it, I discovered that it contained a visitor’s centre. Here was where I would find my boat ticket.

  The Parque Nacional de Doñana is the most extensive, roadless area in Western Europe. To reach it by car is impossible and forbidden unless escorted by a ranger in one of the park’s own jeeps. Another method is to track the route of the earliest colonisers and pioneers and penetrate the wetlands by boat. This was what I was hoping to do.

  ‘Sorry, there’s only one boat in service. It sails upriver once a day, departing at ten every morning.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, then?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s fully booked until next week.’

  I had not anticipated difficulties.

  ‘How about a seat on one of the ranger’s excursions?’

  A telephone call was made. ‘Sorry, they’re also full. In any case, the jeeps don’t leave from here.’

  To join a landroving trip, I would have been obliged to drive inland to Sevilla, two hours away, and skirt the exterior rim of the parkland, another two hours.

  ‘There’s no road through. We can fit you on the boat trip the week after next, if you want to make a reservation.’ The young woman at the desk shrugged her apologies.

  I thanked her kindly and disappeared to browse awhile at the displays, to read about the park’s ecosystems, its flora and fauna, biding my time, wondering what course of action I might take from here when, serendipitously the receptionist appeared at my side.

  ‘Two places have been cancelled on tomorrow’s water excursion.’

  Mañana!

  Down at the beach, along the riverfront where I was walking, were several upturned, poorly maintained tarafes, the small fishing boats, variations of which are to be found everywhere around the Med. These were in a sad state of repair. A man in high waders was calf-deep in the spume, fishing. Scruffy and unpretentious. I felt an instant rapport with this place, where the sea met the land. Vineyards and fish, an easy-going combination of farmers and fishermen. What was I hoping for here? One 3000-year-old tree dating from the arrival of the Phoenicians. One clue, forgotten, overlooked, that confirmed what I fancied of their exchanges with the local Iberians. Yes, I liked this place. A cohesion of essential Med elements. It only lacked the sierras. And a place to sleep. There were a couple of small choices but I did not fancy them so I was weighing up my options. After my riverside promenade, I returned to one of the waterfront restos where lunch was still drifting on, even though it was after four. I ordered a cup of coffee, pulled out my map, then scrutinised the crowd. A fair number were Spanish businessmen, tanned, paunched but not excessively so, thickish wedding rings though few were in the company of women, and slicked hair. I took them for sherry barons with their expensive leather shoes, corduroy trousers, leather jackets, small neck scarves and substantial cigars. From behind me a sustained wailing broke out. I turned to see a trim busker with shoulder-length grey hair and whiskers. Arms raised above his head, he began to clap and sing. The music and rhythms were extraordinary, atonal. The entertainer beat the palms of his hands together, tocando palmas, and pounded his feet, stamping, kicking up clouds of dust, shuffling between one table and the next. His variation on flamenco was unfamiliar to me and was certainly not appreciated by the present audience. Diners at several different tables were hissing. As the singer drew closer I saw that he had no teeth, the bags beneath his eyes were almost carmine, his long, wavy grey locks were in fact a wig, his neck was turkey flesh and beneath a three-quarter-length dress coat he was wearing an embroidered waistcoat with white rosary beads as a necklace. I gave him a few cents as did a large crowd of merrily drunken Brits from the north of England who were knocking back the sherry and having a whale of a time. Suddenly, I had a picture of what this scruffy, mouth-of-estuary resort must be like in summer invaded by coach parties. The Spaniards, disdainful Andaluzes, ignored the gypsy’s requests while the waiters imitated and mocked him, but he s
oldiered on, braving their unkindnesses until someone, I did not see who, went too far and he grew angry. He began to shout with the high-pitched squeals of a pubescent chorus boy. His delivery was strident, attenuated. He spat words at the pace of galloping horses, and then burst directly into song again, whipping his arms in the air and pointing in an accusatory fashion. Still his audience baited and jeered him. I threw coins on the table; time to be on my way. My destination for the night had been decided.

  Jerez, Xerxes to the Moors. Jerez, within the sherry triangle, heartland of sherry production, is possibly the last bastion of authentic, traditional flamenco. Even so, I had not programmed a stop. This was a detour from my olive route, but I needed a bed and, like many, I am romantically attracted to the gypsy myth and their heart-rending music. I can even lay claim, proudly, to a dram of gypsy blood in my veins. My father’s grandparents on his mother’s side were ‘travellers’, ‘tinkers’, itinerants in caravans, rounding the wild coasts of southern Ireland. Or so my Irish mother always claims.

  At the reception desk of my dull, travelling salesman’s hotel (everywhere else had been full) in Jerez’ town centre, set within a fabulous palm-fringed square, I requested directions to a club situated within the barrio gitano, the gypsy quarter. In Córdoba, I had been given the address of this particular peña, club, ‘where there is sure to be first-rate music’, should I ever fetch up in this corner of the sherry kingdom.

  ‘I don’t recommend it. There are better nightclubs in town,’ the desk clerk answered. His face had the grey lifelessness of a pumice stone. I explained that I was not looking for the touristy tablaos, the flamenco shows.

  Eyebrows pressed tightly together, he sighed, clearly bored by tourists in search of authenticity. ‘That barrio is dangerous. I refuse to give you directions. I wouldn’t give them to a man. We’re responsible for our guests. In any case, such events are spontaneous or known only to those involved in their circles. You might find yourself alone there and nothing happens, or you might end up in difficulties. A brawl, a knife fight. I strongly advise against it.’

  But I was here now, in Jerez, and I was determined to hear flamenco. I would not be fobbed off with a tourist show. In any case, I suspected that the danger level was, as is usually the case, pumped up.

  ‘Better to send you to the red-light district than the neighbourhood you’re seeking.’ He pulled from beneath the counter a fancy brochure with garishly printed photographs, a flyer for a flamenco cabaret show. ‘This has suited all our clients.’

  We were getting nowhere.

  To travel in Andalucía you need three francs a day and a gun.

  Words pronounced by an unidentified Frenchman who had toured southern Spain in the company of the writer Alexandre Dumas during the nineteenth century. It would seem that little had changed during two centuries, if I was to believe these dark warnings. I thanked the clerk and took the lift to my room. At 9 p.m. I returned downstairs and requested my car keys. I had expected that a night porter would be on duty. Unfortunately, it was the same fellow.

  The club I had been recommended lay at the heart of a medieval arrabale, a district that had once been marginal, pressed up against the city boundaries, but later had been granted the status of barrio, Barrio de Santiago. I was not convinced that the risk I was about to take was so extreme. However, to appease this earnest young gent who was all but refusing me access to my car, I removed my jewellery and, along with my camera, slid the pieces across the desktop to be locked in the safe. In exchange, my keys.

  The barrio gitano was poorly lit and surprisingly deserted. I cruised up and down shabby, echoing lanes that reeked of drains, trying to get my bearings, looking for a parking spot. Would the car be stolen? It was a hired vehicle, it was insured. I wasn’t going to fuss. I pulled over, checked there was nothing on the seats, locked it and walked back towards a church I had spotted in a plazuela, small square. A quartet of young gypsy men were standing outside it, in the street, talking, smoking. I dug in my pocket for the scribbled address and crossed paving stones. Their conversation died away as I approached.

  ‘Hola.’

  One acknowledged my greeting. The others glared mistrustfully. In their twenties, poorly attired, dark, tired eyes with black moons beneath, two wore kerchiefs round their necks, all were in jeans. Aside from these barrio youths there was no one about, but I was not worth the robbing. My mobile had been left on the dresser and I had secreted in my skirt pocket a handful of euros, sufficient cash only for a couple of drinks and an entry fee should it be demanded. One took my scrap of paper and they all leaned in, studying it sullenly. It was handed back without a word.

  The fellow who had nodded moved his head, indicating the peña. ‘Right across the street, behind you. Two hundred metres.’

  The club, with a small light above its door, halfway down a semi-concealed alley leading off the square, was nothing more than a plain old barn, a shabby space converted for the purpose of performance. Fewer than a dozen others were seated at tables, dining. These were the paying audience and they were predominantly payos, non-gypsies, foreigners, which was a little disappointing. I did not wish to eat and was shown to a table set to the side of a shallow, planked rostrum rigged up as a stage. Faded photographs in dark frames had been nailed to the whitewashed walls as decoration. The room smelled of hay, reminiscent of its original purpose, stables, I supposed. The tablecloth was an uninviting shade of mustard and rather stained, but the host was very welcoming, offering a choice of sherries but recommending the Manzanilla, ‘a briny tipple’. His fluent French was delivered with a strong Andalucían accent. As he poured the honey liquid into my copita, he nodded to a quartet of folk eating at a table by the stage.

  ‘They’re French,’ he smiled. ‘You can always spot them.’

  Two bespectacled men with sharply dressed, small-bosomed women. The men looked as though they might be scientists or archaeologists.

  Carlos, the waiter, was also a gypsy but, unlike his compatriots who were arriving in dribs and drabs, congregating together round one table near the bar, his hair was cropped short. The others, both sexes, wore theirs tied back in ponytails. Two of the men had woven cloth bags slung diagonally across their torsos like satchels.

  Carlos went off to chat with his gitano pals who I supposed were also here to enjoy flamenco. Hanging from the walls were wood and leather harnesses. On the stage, six green chairs, wood with rush-matted seats, had been set in an untidy line. Two held guitars. A naked bulb hung above them.

  The beamed ceiling was very high, which explained why the room was so chilly. Gusts of warmth were supplied by one overhead gas heater, the type used in street cafés in the boulevards of Paris. Because I had removed my watch, I had no idea what the time was or how long I had been there, but I was on my second glass of sherry. No other spectators had arrived but for those round the gypsy table, which was now crowded. Among the gathering there was one child, a plump, squat girl of about eleven, wearing a sleeveless icing pink-and-white dress. I wondered whether she was to be in the show: her outfit seemed so inappropriate for both the season and the time of day. Two women were among the group, both big-boned, Amazonian, with frizzy, unconditioned black manes. One, the larger, older, was wearing cowboy boots. She reminded me of an ancient fertility goddess and I suddenly wondered whether the roots of these people might be Hittite or Assyrian. What relationship does the gypsy have to the olive tree, I was asking myself. Originally nomads, they were not agriculturalists, but many had been forced to settle. If their children were to be educated, if they hoped to benefit from health care, then, to a certain degree, they were bound to the ways of the state, be it France or Spain, but the journeys their ancestors made across deep centuries touched upon the olive routes. In Syria and Lebanon I came across caravans of travelling, down-at-heel fruit pickers who followed the crops, the seasons, and were described with a spit of disgust as ‘gypsies’. Occasionally, in my ignorance, I had referred to them as ‘bedouins’, but was swi
ftly corrected. Rather like the olive, gypsy roots have disappeared, lost with time. Might they, in earlier centuries, as they migrated from the Middle East to Europe, have earned their bread harvesting olive crops? Might they have been marginally instrumental in the transmission of knowledge of olive farming along the way? It is possible that ‘flamenco’ comes from an Arabic word, felagmengu, meaning ‘wandering peasant’.

  During these musings I had failed to notice that the table of gypsies had emptied, save for the little girl and an old man with droopy moustache and cowboy hat, and a septet was trooping in single file across the vast room, up on to the stage. They had changed their clothes, predominantly into black, not the vibrant flamenco costumes I associated with this music. The group consisted of the two big-boned women and five men, one of whom was pale-skinned, wore sneakers and hair piled in a bun high on his head, Sikh-like. The other men were in Cuban-heeled boots and sported embroidered scarves. As they mounted the low stairs, they paid the audience no heed. Two of the males were guitarists; the lighter skinned youngster was a singer while the scarved pair were dancers.

  The younger of the two seated women opened the performance by lowering her head slowly between her knees, arching her back like a cat and then emitting a drawn-out ululation, beckoning the gods to bestow the muse. ‘Olé,’ ‘bravo!’ was repeated over and over by one or another, triggering encouragement, revelation, in what seemed spontaneous play, lacking theatre, as though I was a silent witness at an improvised gathering. This was possibly inaccurate, but there was a sense of invocation, of riding the waves of inspiration when they arose. When one took the stage, those who were not playing guitar clapped their cupped hands, tocando palmas. The heavy woman was pawing, stroking the floor with the sole of her boot like an agitated bull biding its time in the ring. During these moments of stillness, moments of anticipation, the gypsies were speaking aloud, calling olé, petitioning. Their language might have been Andalucían or caló, Spanish Romani, or the original, gradually disappearing, universal tongue of gypsies. It was not Spanish. They performed singly or in pairs. The songs were cante jondo, ‘deep song’, I think; hoarse, wailing, blues music. I regretted that I knew so little, that I was unable to identify the different forms, black and haunted. When the big woman stood up, stepped centre stage, bent her heavy body forward, beat her fist against her breast, stood up straight and held her arms outstretched as though pleading with an invisible force or even us, the onlookers, her naked voice was stripped back, full of pain, suffering, incomprehension. This was as far removed from the popular Gypsy Kings’ tunes of flamenqillo as to be another genre altogether. I had read of an old-style flamenco, tonas, that originated in prisons and with the gitano blacksmiths. Was it tonas I was listening to? I learned later that these evenings take place in several bars of this barrio and take many forms. The music is always different, sometimes giving preference to the guitar, which on this evening was merely background to the mesmerising singing and dancing. The description, duende, sprang to mind when two dancers, one in particular, seemed to commune with an altogether different universe. And then a surge of activity as the trio, including the large woman, galloped themselves into a frenzy, up and down the cramped stage, causing the onlookers to yell and shout. They leapt, they spun their scarves, matador cloaks in a bullring, sweat spilling off them like dancing beads, feet murdering the wooden boards in a fast, upbeat crescendo. At moments, I was reminded of Balinese dancers, at other times those curious high-pitched desert calls I had heard in the East, and then chords of Camarguais music. Yet it was a show like nothing else. Still, there were ghosts, split-second hauntings of other cultures, a melting pot. Byzantine chants, Gregorian plainsong, too.