—The Telegraph, October 27, 2010
It was time. The Joaldunak had not stamped the ground to awaken it for spring, the wind still raced from the steep scrubby cliffs down the sheer drop to the valley and ripped through the village of a few dozen stone houses that was Ituren. There were two bars, both on corners of the narrow stone-paved streets, and Zubi Nabaroa sat on a wooden stool in one of them under a row of hams hung by their ankles. He tried to warm himself on his second glass of hot coffee, sherry, and anise liqueur. This time of year it took two glasses to warm up, but it always worked.
Once he was warm enough, Zubi would pack up his chorizos, for which the wealthy Basques of San Sebastián paid high prices on San Sebastián Day, January 20, when all the rich people were drunk and full of Basque spirit. The price of 500 grams of his chorizo in San Sebastián on January 20 would feed a large family for a week in Ituren. But of course, you didn’t eat in Ituren the way you did in San Sebastián—all that baby eel, and bixugo fish with garlic, and stuffed spider crab, while in Ituren there was lamb and ham and chorizo.
Zubi made the best chorizo, which was why they paid those prices in San Sebastián. He raised his own pigs, black-and-white Basque pigs, which were the sweetest and easiest pigs in the world. This was not because they were Basque but because, like the Basque people, they had very large ears. Unlike the Basque people, their ears flopped over their eyes so they could not see where they were going. When your ears cover your eyes you take life as it comes. That was why they put blinders on horses. These pigs had good but short lives, eating copious amounts of local acorns and dying young to make chorizo. The chorizo hung from the trees all winter and was very hard—some said too hard, but that was how it was made.
When Zubi finally was warm enough—it took a third coffee, sherry, and anise—he wrapped his gray wool scarf tight around his neck, zipped up his fleece-lined leather coat, secured his big beret on his head to keep dry if it rained, tapped his walking stick against the stone corner piece of the building, hefted his bundle of chorizos to his back, and walked to the bank of the Ezcurra. The mountains weren’t melting yet and the Ezcurra was only a rocky stream and it was easy to walk over her curving weedy bank. It would be more of a river when it turned into the Bidasoa. By following the rivers he avoided climbing mountains. Once he got to the mouth of the Bidasoa he would not be far from San Sebastián.
A raven shrieked in the sky and Zubi raised his fist and cursed. That son of a bitch wasn’t going to steal his chorizo. But as he looked on a nearby crest he saw the rounded bulk and humped shoulders of a large brown bear. He studied the furry hulk. Was it really a bear? He had not seen one since he was a small boy. He remembered how the sheep men hated them and shot them anytime they got a chance. He did not blame them. The bears killed their sheep. How would he feel if the bears ate his pigs? But they didn’t. He had heard that there were no Basque bears left. Everyone knew that. In the Basque-language press the passing of bears was second only to bicycle racing. He had seen a show about it on Basque-language television in one of the bars in Ituren.
He periodically looked behind him up in the mountains and usually he saw nothing, but sometimes he would see the bear. It was following him. No doubt after his chorizo. Zubi was not going to let him take the chorizo, his valuable annual supply for the fiesta.
But suppose the bear came down to take them. How would he stop it? Just the black claws on his paws were longer than his fingers. Unlike the sheep men of his childhood, he had no gun. What would he do?
When he got to bigger towns the bear would probably leave him. Soon he saw the red tile roofs of Vera de Bidasoa, a town with maybe three thousand people, some paved road, and some cars. The bear would not follow him anymore.
He rented a room over a bar for the night—a small, clean room with a red tile floor and dark oak furniture. There was a simple wooden crucifix on the wall in which Christ looked strangely comfortable hanging there. A lot of pilgrims came through and stayed in the room.
Down at the bar, everyone was talking about Begoña. Begoña was the most famous Basque terrorist still living. She was said to be a leader of the most violent Basque national group. It was also said that she had bombed several locations in Madrid and assassinated a Policía Nacional colonel in Zaragoza. She was credited with three train station attacks and numerous bank robberies. She was rumored to have killed five Guardia Civil. She lured them into a hotel room one by one and strangled each of them either before, after, or during lovemaking, depending on who was telling the story. She was said to be very beautiful, but that was not certain, because no one knew what she looked like.
Begoña is a Vizcayan name from near Bilbao, and so it was supposed that she spoke Basque like the people in that far province. But she was sly enough to have changed her dialect. Maybe Begoña was not even her real name. In fact, it is not certain that she was present at any of the crimes she was said to commit. According to one rumor she was really a man. She may have been in her early twenties, but some said she was in her nineties, a veteran of the Basque Army during the civil war.
A man drinking brandy early the next morning at the bar where Zubi was warming up with coffee, sherry, and anise told this last rumor. Here they made the coffee with too much sherry and not enough anise.
The reason everyone was talking about Begoña was that she was said to be going to the San Sebastián festival, no doubt to blow something up or assassinate someone. How could they find her when most of the town would be wearing disguises, either Napoleonic soldiers or chefs, or even a few oil sheiks, pirates, and frozen belly dancers.
When Zubi left town he looked up on the ridge and there was the bear waiting for him. He thought of going back to town and finding someone with a gun to shoot it. But he couldn’t do that. This was probably the last Basque bear.
Zubi continued to see the bear from time to time, even as he got into more crowded areas. Walking along the highway between Irún and Errenteria, he looked up on the thick green carpet of the hillside and saw the brown rounded top of the bear. Just past the seaport at Pasaia, the bear was behind a rock. Zubi did not see it again and he safely finished the last downhill hike into San Sebastián, where he removed his large blue damp beret. There were a lot of Spaniards in San Sebastián, and it was a good idea not to look too Basque.
Though a hard, cold wind blew from the mountains with that clean, bitter scent of snow, the streets were filling up. The seventy-five txokos, gastronomic societies for men and a few women who liked to cook together, had all organized their march. A group was finely dressed in Napoleonic uniforms. They wore high leather boots over tight white breeches, a little too revealing for the figures of gastronomes. Then there were smartly tailored blue tunics with red-and-white piping and tall cylindrical Napoleonic hats. These soldiers marched in formation, beating drums in unison, first pounding the skins then beating the sticks together in a tinny noise then back to the drumheads with their deep-bellied thuds. They did this with great seriousness, not a smile showing on their faces, which were reddened by the grating wind and by the flush of alcohol to keep them warm. The shops they passed offered them drinks.
Each group of soldiers was followed by red-faced musicians and then a chef in white with a puffed-out toque on his head, conducting the group behind him with a giant knife or fork used as a baton. Then came women in kerchiefs and traditional working dresses and then chefs in white.
The women and the chefs answered the soldiers’ drums with a battery of their own on upside-down buckets and pots. A loud battery of drums and then a response from a loud battery of buckets. Each flourish got a slightly more elaborate response. The Basques, who forget nothing, remember that when Napoleon’s troops occupied San Sebastián the troops were constantly harassed by jeering unarmed women to their rear.
Drums echoing through the streets and off the mountains that stayed green even in the winter, they stopped for extravagant debates from drum to
bucket in front of each police station and even the headquarters of the Ertzaintza, the Basque police. Captain Jenaro Anitua, from nearby Zarautz, stood on the balcony, a gallant figure in his black uniform and red beret, and waved to the drummers while several of the men from his antiterrorism unit, helmeted and masked, examined ruddy faces one by one, looking for Begoña, though they did not know what she looked like.
At Casa Pampi, the large elegant restaurant with two Michelin stars—some years he had three—owner Pampi Urabayen had just received word that the crabber had arrived. The tall, silver-haired man with a reassuring smile and a calm demeanor seemed uncharacteristically nervous. This was the night for txangurro. There was still afternoon light, blinding white sunlight exploding from behind dark afternoon clouds, but by ten-thirty tonight revelers would burst into his restaurant demanding txangurro, stuffed spider crab. It took some time and skill to locate and extract the meager white flesh of a spider crab without damaging the shells so they could be refilled and served.
He needed about sixty and had hired an extra cook, a local specialist, to do the crab. The crab were waiting, but where was the crabber? Finally he was told that the crabber had arrived—why so late?—and turned to leave his carpeted room and head for the room off of the main kitchen, where the crabs were waiting, to make sure the crabber had everything he needed. But Lore from the reservation desk ran up to him with a smile almost the width of her face and said, “Pampi! They’re here.”
Pampi thought for a second about checking on his crabber first, but he bounced up and down on his toes to change direction, grabbed a case of champagne, and ran to his balcony. This was his favorite moment of the day, and he jumped up and down with childish excitement as he heard the drummers approach.
“Ba-pa ba-pa ba-pa,” pounded the soldiers. “Ba de dad a bade dat dat dat,” answered the women and the chefs. Gently, one by one, Pampi tossed down champagne bottles. Chefs caught them against their soft bellies, which seemed designed for catching champagne bottles. They opened the bottles with loud pops that made the black-and-red Ertzaintza and the green Policía Nacional very nervous. But Pampi, who prided himself on the right drink for every moment, decided that it was too cold for champagne and ordered his staff to serve coffee with brandy.
They marched below—the French soldiers, the women, the chefs, the soldiers, the women . . . the bear. Yes, a large Basque brown bear. One of the spectators, a heavyset man with a thick black beard, shouted in a wet-throated voice, “Look, it’s Begoña!” He let out a loud laugh, but no one else was laughing. The crowd released a collective shriek and turned to the rear. The bear panicked and lumbered out of sight down Trueba Street.
“This is strange,” Pampi said to himself, but he did not have time to think about it any longer than that. He had to go check on the crabber.
Lore came up to him again, this time without the smile, and said, “Pampi, Colonel Gallego Gomez wants to talk to you.”
It seemed to Pampi that this was the perfect time for a small glass of dry sherry, and he poured two glasses of amontillado, dry but golden and complex, shipped to him directly from a vintner in El Puerto de Santa María. He directed the colonel to a table in the corner of his still-empty restaurant. There was something stiff and squeaky about the colonel that resembled new leather. He even made that leather squeak when he moved, perhaps from his thick belt.
“What can I do for you, Colonel?”
The colonel, holding his glass to his perfectly trimmed black mustache and taking one sip, said, “Pampi can I take you into my confidence?”
Colonel Rafael Gallego Gomez was known as a torturer of extreme cruelty, a man who knew how to make people talk or how to kill them in slow, terrible ways, sometimes both. No one really wanted to be in his confidence. But what could Pampi do? Here he was. “Certainly,” Pampi said with his charming smile.
The colonel squeaked his leather as he leaned closer and whispered, “Begoña is here.”
Pampi looked alarmed. “Here in my restaurant!”
“No. Of course not. But here somewhere in San Sebastián. And it is my job to see that she doesn’t leave.”
“Listen, Colonel. I am all for that. All these stupid little acts of violence are ruining the city and ruining my business. Every time they do something there are a few tourists who will not come back. Tonight I can feed locals, but the rest of the year I depend on tourists. You have to get rid of these terrorists.”
“I know that a lot of people come here with a lot of different kinds of politics and you hear things.”
“If I hear something, I will tell you.”
“Not the Guardia Civil. Not the Ertzaintza, me.”
“You. Absolutely, Colonel.” Then Pampi stood up. “Excuse me, but I have the stuffing of sixty crab to oversee for tonight. Why don’t you come back later and I will serve you a txangurro.”
“I hate crab.”
“No matter,” said Pampi. “What do you like?”
“Lobster.”
“Come back about eleven. I will serve you lobster and champagne.”
“Thank you very much.”
And as the colonel squeaked toward the door, Pampi added, “Oh, and Colonel, please be careful. Begoña may have come here to get you.”
The colonel’s black mustache curled on one end. “I am here to get her.” And then he walked out and down the stairs and out onto the busy streets, one hand on a squeaky leather holster, observing everything on the streets . . . listening to every word.
He turned on narrow Legazpi Street near the market. He could hear the drumming a few blocks away. He walked right by Zubi Nabaroa, who was displaying his chorizo—a quiet street ill-suited for commerce but where the city had told him to go. He had already sold quite a few. Colonel Gallego looked at him as though counting the pores in his skin. Zubi was glad he had taken off his beret.
Suddenly there was a deep asthmatic gurgling sound. It was the bear, closer than Zubi had ever seen him and looking very large, with a strong sour smell like the smell of nature disturbed. The bear, which, to judge from its size, must have been a male, spied the chorizo he had come into town for and stared at it with small, hard eyes. He moved toward the chorizo.
The colonel unsnapped his holster and pulled out his handgun and shouted something at the bear. Zubi could tell that it was supposed to be Basque, but he could make out only the word “Begoña.” Then he repeated it in Spanish, a language Zubi did not speak well, but he knew the colonel had said, “Begoña. Stop or I shoot!”
Zubi did not find it odd that the Spaniard would mistake the bear for Begoña. Begoña was famous for her disguises, and Spaniards always imagined Basques to be more skilled than they were. Besides, the colonel knew that there were no more bears. But Zubi realized that the Spaniard was going to shoot the last remaining Basque bear. He grabbed one of his thick meter-long chorizos and swung it as hard as he could.
Zubi Nabaroa was a strong man. The chorizo struck the colonel in the head and he was motionless for a moment. Then he turned around and stared at Zubi with his small, dark eyes—very similar, it occurred to Zubi, to the bear’s eyes. A small rivulet of blood trickled down from his hairline. Then he snarled and said, “Begoña!” and he staggered and reached for Zubi like . . . like a bear reaching for chorizo. What could he do? The colonel knew his face. Zubi smashed him again with the chorizo as hard as he could, and this time the head made a heavy thud different from the time before. The colonel crumbled onto the cold stone-paved street. The bear, much as he wanted the chorizo, had retreated as soon as he saw the gun.
* * *
Pampi!” shouted Lore from the dining room to Pampi, who was headed toward the kitchen. “Pampi, Captain Jenaro Anitua is here. He wants to speak to you.”
With resignation Pampi made his way to the bar and poured two small straight glasses of dark reddish-amber patxaran made by a farmer he knew in Navarra who made
it from tiny wild plums.
“Kaixo, Jenaro,” he greeted the captain, who was wearing his red beret jauntily to the side more like a soldier than a Basque.
“Aizu, Pampi.”
They sat and sipped patxaran, and the captain, as he always did when he sipped alcohol, started talking about Zarautz, where he came from. “You know,” said the captain, “Zarautz has the most beautiful harbor in the world.”
Pampi smiled.
“All right, it’s not Donostia,” he said, using the Basque name for San Sebastián to be polite.
“It’s a nice town.”
“I know a man in Zarautz who paints a painting every day of the same view past the beach of that big rock in the harbor. Every day and every painting is completely different. I’d like to live in Zarautz and do a painting every day.”
“Do you paint?”
“I’d like to learn.”
“So why not quit the Ertzaintza?”
“And then what do I do for money? My wife likes it here in Donostia. She shops and shops and shops.” He took a deep sip of his patxaran. “So Pampi, we are friends, are we not?”
“Bai,” Pampi agreed in Basque.
The captain leaned forward and pulled his red beret down and whispered, “You can’t tell anyone I told you this . . . Begoña is here.”
“In Donostia!”
“Bai! You can imagine how the Spanish want her. We can’t let the Policía Nacional or the Guardia Civil take her. The Ertzaintza has to take her. That’s why we were created. To show that the Basque could police themselves. We have to be the one to take her.”
“What can I do?” Pampi whispered.
“I know you hear a lot here. If you hear something I should know, call this number. It is my direct cellphone.” He handed him a handsomely engraved card. “Don’t turn her over to the Spanish. We are here.”
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