Iberia

by James A. Michener

  ‘Now comes the good part,’ he says as he takes from a long, thin box a stiffened purple hood about three feet tall with a tip at one end and a broad cape at the other. There are two very small slits for his eyes, and when Don Francisco puts on the hood, pulling the cape end far down over his shoulders, he transforms himself into a mysterious figure with only his eyes showing.

  ‘To you norteamericanos,’ he says apologetically, ‘I must look like a member of your Ku Klux Klan.’ He is right. During Holy Week whenever members of the confraternity (in Spanish cofradía) assemble they will look like a bunch of Kluxers on the rampage through some bayou village. ‘Thus do rascals appropriate the robes of the just and contaminate them,’ Don Francisco says, and again he is right, for the Ku Klux Klan did borrow its costume from the religious procession of Sevilla. Señor Mendoza next takes a six-foot candle, which he bought a few days ago, and stands with it at an angle to his hip. ‘I am now a member of the confraternity, ready to march.’ There are fifty-two confraternities in Sevilla, each connected with a parish church. Like a lodge or brotherhood they meet throughout the year to collect funds for their church and particularly to arrange for the processions of Holy Week.

  As the sun sets, Don Francisco says, ‘It’s time for church,’ and as we pick our way through the crowd we recognize other men dressed in his colors: purple tunic, white cape, purple hood; but we also see a few who wear different colors, and they are on their way to join up with some other confraternity. At the church there is much confusion. Outside, a huge crowd has gathered to watch the beginning of this first procession, which will be followed by others for each of the next seven days; inside, the two floats sponsored by this church are being given their final inspection. They are strange and wonderful things, each twenty feet long by nine feet wide by fifteen feet tall, and the route they will follow through the city streets was laid out more than a century ago and will require twelve hours to complete. The float to the left shows Christ at the Crucifixion surrounded by Roman guards, and it will go out first. The float to the right, and much the more important of the two, contains the Virgin Mary in glory. She is life-size and every effort has been taken to make her seem alive. Her eyebrows are made of real hair; her cheeks are delicately rouged; six glass tears run down her cheek; her hands are manicured; she wears a wealth of jewelry.

  ‘Oh, darling Virgin!’ people cry when she appears.

  ‘Sweetest Virgin, if you’re real, toss me some of those jewels.’

  ‘My Virgin! My Virgin! You make the other Virgins of Sevilla look like a bunch of putas (whores).’

  She is greeted as a living person, a blend of queen and popular singer. ‘I throw you a kiss, lovely one,’ a man shouts.

  Don Francisco, beneath his mask, does not participate in this frivolity, for he takes religion gravely. It is, he said, the most important aspect of his life. ‘I serve in the confraternity,’ he explains, ‘because I am convinced that a good Spaniard must give part of his life to the Church and all of his devotion to the Virgin. For me the year comes to a head with Holy Week, and this year is special.’ In a few moments we shall see why, but as the day ends let us move to an old river-front warehouse to meet our second man.

  He is José (Pepe) Gómez, a tattooed stevedore, twentynine years old, and he too is about to march in the procession, and he says, ‘Because I get paid. And because my Virgin is the best damned Virgin in Sevilla.’ His actual words are more profane than that, but they reinforce a basic fact about the Holy Week processions. To many of the marchers the carved Virgins and Christs are real people: the Virgin of this parish who has looked out for her people for the past century, the particular Christ who loves the children of this parish.

  Pepe Gómez dresses in the only suit he owns, a pair of white trousers and a torn shirt. He wears no, socks but does have a pair of new rope sandals, supplied by Don Francisco’s confraternity. He also has a canvas bag about the size of a pillowcase, and this he partly fills with a mixture of sand and sawdust, placing it on his head in such a way that the sand falls to the end of the bag that is over his shoulders. A fellow stevedore hammers the bag to see whether it is taking up the shock, and Pepe says, ‘Good. Let’s go.’

  We leave the waterfront and walk through the narrow streets to the church where Don Francisco and his confraternity have assembled about the float of the Virgin. When Gómez appears, along with thirty-five other laborers similarly dressed and with bags of sand and sawdust resting on their heads, the treasurer of the confraternity pays each worker one dollar and ten cents, whereupon the stevedores prepare to crawl under the float, which has been built upon a large table with legs that keep it about four feet off the ground when it is rested. The space between the float and the ground is masked by a heavy brocade skirt which will hide the feet of thirty-six stevedores below. Thus, when the workmen march, the float will seem to move by itself and the men inside will do their work in sweaty darkness, turning the float only as a captain directs from outside.

  A float may weigh as much as half a ton, so that the task of bearing it through the streets for twelve hours is not a light one. A few extra stevedores go along to provide occasional relief; also, during the twelve-hour march the float may be stopped by a traffic jam or by reaching an intersection when another float is passing in a different direction. When such things happen the stevedores lower the float and scramble out for air, and one of the amusing sights of Holy Week is that of a beautiful Virgin Mary temporarily deserted by her bearers, who have ducked into a bar where someone is standing drinks.

  When they do move, the floats sway gently from side to side, giving the wooden figures a kind of “poetic life. A float never seems static. Along the course, which winds in and out through all parts of the city, each float having its own route, which does not necessarily follow that of any other, citizens note with approval any new statues or repainting introduced during the past twelve months. I once heard a man remark to his wife as the float of his church went by, ‘I think our new head of Jesus is the best in Sevilla.’

  Pepe Gómez and his fellow stevedores now pull up the brocaded skirt and crawl into position beneath the float. Adjusting their bags over their heads and about their shoulders, they test the weight and try to find positions which will be comfortable. Outside, the captain waits for a signal from the priest, then slaps the corner smartly.

  ‘One.’ The unseen stevedores brace their heads and shoulders against the floor of the float.

  ‘Two.’ They rise to a standing position, and the Virgin seems to ascend of her own accord.

  ‘Three.’ The stevedores move slowly forward and the first float for the Holy Week parade is under way. From balconies people cry ecstatically, ‘Oh, sweet Virgin. Come back to us, you little beauty.’

  It is incredible with what skill the stevedores move this huge float. At the doorway there is a clearance of about four inches, and as the Virgin moves through narrow streets there will be many points where encroaching buildings seem to make progress impossible, but through obedience to signals the men move their burden an inch at a time and rarely scrape a doorjamb or a wall.

  The hooded members of the confraternity, their long tapers held at an angle from their hips, fall in line before the float as if to give it protection, but Don Francisco is not among them. He told us earlier that for him this year was to be special, and now he sits on a chair in his church and takes off his shoes. From beneath his hood he says, ‘In February I faced a crisis at the bank. It could have been disastrous. But I prayed to the Virgin and she rescued me. I told her, “Save me and I will do penance.” It was a promise.’ When hè is barefooted he lashes chains about his ankles and the heavy links drag behind him for six or eight feet. He lays aside his candle to take up a heavy, full-sized wooden cross. Then he rises and steps into the street, where his chains jangle on the cobblestones. He is prepared to drag his cross through the streets of Sevilla as Jesus dragged his through the alleys of Jerusalem. ‘Blessed Virgin,’ he mutters with intense
devotion, ‘accept my penance.’ For twelve hours he will march barefoot with half a dozen others who have made similar vows to this Virgin. The confraternity does riot appoint these men to their task; they are volunteers who feel that some aspect of their lives requires atonement, and the punishment to which they submit themselves is not light.

  I followed Don Francisco most of the twelve hours, and it was morning before the Virgin returned to her church, where at least two thousand people waited to watch her come home. As long as the Virgin was in the plaza before the church their cries of welcome were such as a man might give his betrothed on her return home, but when she entered the portals, inch by inch, the greetings were those of children to their mother. Thus the Spanish Virgins fill a dual role.

  “Jesucristo, that was a hard night,’ Pepe Gómez admits as he crawls out from under. Tomorrow he will carry a float from another church, and so on throughout the seven days.

  Don Francisco’s words are quite different. As he lays aside his cross and unbinds his chains, he says with his mask off, ‘I feel that the Virgin was very close to Sevilla this day. I could sense her nodding as she accepted my penance.’

  Each day from Palm Sunday through the Saturday before Easter this procession will be duplicated, but Don Francisco’s confraternity will not march again, for Sevilla has many parish churches and the days must be parceled out among them. In 1967 the processions were as follows:

  Holy Week.

  Some of these hundred floats leave their little churches at one in the morning to march all night and stagger home at noon. Others go out at dawn and wander through the streets till sunset, but on Good Friday two sets of confraternities go out, one early and one late, and it was to one of these that Don Francisco took us at four in the afternoon to watch the departure of a float showing Jesus and the Roman soldiers whose parade would mark those solemn evening hours when Christ died of his Crucifixion.

  ‘Marching barefoot with the Virgin is an honor that no man …’ Don Francisco says as he watches the Friday paradé. He stops. He is in his late forties and is an important businessman in the city, hefty, dark-haired, amiable. He wants to explain what Holy Week means to him but is afraid a Protestant would not understand. ‘It’s an honor,’ he says quietly, ‘but to march with one of the Jesus floats on Good Friday … You’ll understand when you hear the tremendous silence. Señor Michener, when this float comes through Sierpes, Jesus Christ himself is in that street.’

  The Jesus float is much different from the one that Don Francisco attended, for in the latter the Virgin sat in awe-inspiring splendor. The Jesus float, on the other hand, is a tableau centering upon a life-sized figure of Christ on the cross, each element of his agony depicted in minute detail. Beads of sweat stand on his forehead. Ruby drops of blood run down his side where the spear has pierced him. His feet are turning blue from the nail, and his crown of thorns brings blood. This particular statue was carved some ninety years ago to replace one that came originally from The Netherlands. It is accompanied at the four corners of the float by life-sized imperial Roman guards in resplendent uniform. Each carries one of the implements of the Crucifixion and they form a terrifying and brutal group. Similar Roman soldiers will appear on many of the floats and one of the greatest Virgins will be preceded by a marching company of live men dressed as Roman legionnaires. If the rest of the world has sometimes been perplexed as to who was responsible for the death of Jesus, some blaming Jews, other Romans, the confraternities of Sevilla are not confused. Their statues show Romans in the act of villainy.

  In addition to Jesus and the four soldiers, our float contains about a dozen additional figures, some large, some small, and over the years whenever a given statue has worn out or been damaged, it has been replaced by a new one. Or if a tradesman of the parish prospered he might one day announce, ‘I will give a new Roman soldier to the confraternity.’ Thus, of the figures on our float, all might be of different age, yet all combine to present a harmonious picture of Christ in his last hours.

  The oldest figures on the hundred floats date back to the seventeenth century. In the intervening years well-known sculptors carved figures which gradually supplanted originals, and in the nineteenth century there was a general refurbishing, at which time the emphasis was on strict fidelity to the living figure. It was then that the glass teardrops and the specks of ruby blood became common. The twentieth century has been the age of adornment and most of the ultra-luxurious costumes date from this period.

  The most extraordinary, and by far the best loved, are those like the one we saw first which simply present the Virgin Mary throned in glory, dressed in gorgeous robes and with a crown of silver and gold encrusted with hundreds of precious stones. Of the forty-five floats presenting Virgins alone, two are preeminent and the subject of such veneration that even the most casual observer must reflect on the fact that Holy Week, which commemorates Christ’s passion and death, has become in Spain a celebration in which he plays a secondary role, with his mother becoming the central figure. The first is La Esperanza, the Virgin of Hope, from the gypsy quarters of Triana across the river. She became famous as the patron Virgin of the bullfighter Juan Belmonte and remains the focus of much popular affection. The second is La Macarena, named after an Arabian princess, and she was preferred by another great matador, Joselito, and to see her leave her parish church of San Gil at one in the morning of Good Friday or return later in the day is held by many Sevillanos to be the most important thing that can happen during Holy Week.

  Late at night one Holy Thursday I went to watch La Macarena leave her small white church and an hour before the time of her departure all streets were jammed. Not far from the church, devotees of this Virgin have built a permanent arch of triumph, a delightful little stucco affair with seven Moorish towers, the only one of its kind in Sevilla. I was standing in a throng near this arch when the float left the church, and it seemed miraculous that the stevedores behind the curtain could maneuver this immense structure so delicately through the doors.

  The float was in some ways the most ornate I had seen, with a baldacchino of gold and an edging of silver; but it was also the simplest, for it contained only the Virgin clad in white dress, green and gold cape and red sash, and wearing a corona featuring sixteen silver stars and a diamond cross. She was a majestic figure, with tears on her cheeks and a pearl necklace wrapped about her left hand. In place of the subsidiary figures that accompanied most floats stood several score of tall wax tapers, and she was preceded by a confraternity dressed in white satin robes and emerald hoods. Like the other great Virgins of Sevilla, she carried no child.

  When she appeared the crowd reacted with joy, bestowing upon her a love which has no counterpart in other countries. It required about forty minutes for her to inch her way from the church and through the arch, even though they stood only a few yards apart. The crowd would not give way; everyone wanted to stand as close to the wonderful Virgin as possible, and we were behind schedule when we finally set out through the darkened streets for the traditional passage of La Macarena.

  After proceeding by herself for some hours, La Macarena, like all the other floats that were out at this time, began heading for the center of the city, and by the time the sun rose, they had coalesced into a long official procession that would pass before the town hall and end at the cathedral. At no time during this preliminary activity was any float unattended. Its approach was heralded by two or three men carrying wooden staves from which dangled iron rings. When the staves were pounded down against the paving of the street, a harsh jangling sound warned beholders to draw back. Some sort of band accompanied the float, beating out a somber half-step which had the effect of a funeral march. Then came the confraternity followed by the float, which during the night was illuminated by flares. Finally there were the penitents, marching barefoot over the stones with their burdens of chain and cross. It is this whole unit that creates the noble impression, forcing the observer to reconsider any prior judgments of religio
n.

  In reviewing mine I was confused by three extraneous elements that helped make up the parade. First, each float was escorted by a company of soldiers in full military regalia including loaded rifles, and they marched with such solemn ferocity and proprietary interest that no one could ignore the fact that in Spain the principal job of the army was to defend the Church; this had been its preoccupation from the time of its war against the Moors and apparently it would always be. That is why on the left wall of the shrine of La Macarena stands the tombstone of General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierra (1875–1951) with the ominous date ‘18 July 1936,’ which was when he exercised the brutalities that earned him the title among Republicans of ‘The Butcher of Andalucía,’ and among Franco men of ‘The Savior of Sevilla.’ I spoke to a Spaniard about this and was told, ‘Why not? Queipo de Llano saved the Church in Andalucía. In the old days we’d have made him a saint. Now we have to be content with his tomb beside our Virgin.’ If the parades of Holy Week were religious processions, they were also military ones, and one day Don Francisco said to me, ‘We Spaniards cannot understand that strange thing that happened in the United States army. One of your artillery colonels devised a banner and a slogan for his gunners, “For God, for country and for Santa Bárbara.” But atheists protested and your government made him stop. Everyone knows that Santa Bárbara is the patron saint of bombardiers.’ I tried to explain that in the United States we subscribed to a separation of Church and state and to us it was offensive to confuse an artillery unit and a female saint, to which he replied, ‘You must indeed be confused. If Santa Bárbara watches over your gunners in battle, why not admit it?’