by Laurie Lee
Weekends in this village would not be so strange; they could be lifted from my village in Gloucestershire – take off twenty years, add ten degrees heat, and serve with oil instead of boiled water. What happened was this, here’s a typical one; no wonder I felt at home.
At Saturday noon, from ancient habit, I stopped work and put it away. Then left the house and went down to the river, to the pool they called the ‘sweet water’. Here were two cool bridges and a ledge of blue rock down which the river trickled like milk. The pool was deep and the colour of moonlight, with sleepy blue trout down under. I lay with my head half under the water, listening to the nightingales, who sang all day in the riverside bushes as they rested on their journey from Africa.
Presently girls from the village, in crisply ironed dresses, began creeping among the reeds. For an indolent hour they would play whispering games, eat nuts, or doze, and wait – waiting for the boys to come and dive off the bridges, to swim round the pool and excite them. The boys kept to the water, the girls kept to the bushes, calling ritual obscenities to each other, croaking away through the long afternoon their slogans of difference.
At five o’clock was the futbol match, played on a pitch of bare earth near the sea. Tough and bounding, in sexy white shorts, each player played a game on his own. Whoever got the ball shot immediately at goal, be it never so far and wide. Explosions of dust billowed up from the field, the football was fetched from the sea, blows were exchanged, men were carried off insensible to cries of ‘Conair!’ ‘Offsigh!’ and ‘Goll!’ The first side to score could be relied on to win, for the other despaired very readily. It was the local side, this time, who went under first, and were soon playing blinded with tears. The last goal was scored in a deathly silence … The villagers walked white-faced away.
After the game, exhausted by emotion, I went off to seek some rest. I found a rocky wilderness above the village and lay down on a large flat stone. I closed my eyes, smelt sharp herbs and dung, and heard all the sounds of the valley – cuckoos, nightingales, crickets, flies, donkeys, goats, and cockerels, the creak of a cart, a gossip’s voice, the fish-seller’s trumpet below. As I lay on my peaceful sunset stone a flock of sheep drove over me, followed by a man on a horse, a crone with a goat, then several gaunt figures in black. I was faintly surprised at being so disturbed in such a secluded place, less so when I got to my feet at last, to find I’d been lying in the middle of a road.
Going back to the village I called in at the graveyard which was walled like a Moorish fort. Wreaths of coloured tin marked a new-filled grave, together with a black-edged card on a post. Round the graveyard walls stood more permanent sepulchres, and several pits full of bones. The names on the tombs, some of which I remember, showed the local in-bred variations – Vicente Juan Tur, Vicente Juan Guasch, Catalina Guasch Tur, Vicente Tur Guasch, Catalina Tur Tur, Juanita Guasch Guasch, Tur Vicente Guasch Tur, Guasch Tur Guasch Guasch …
One might have expected this island, or at least this village, to have escaped Franco’s Civil War, that it must have proved too distant and intractable to bother with. But this was not so indeed. The War festered here as violently as anywhere – perhaps more so in its isolation – and though twenty-odd years had passed since that time, the village still smarted with it, and people still told you about it, though with lowered voices, as though of a relation who had had ‘the Disease’. It was the luckiest ones whose voices were lowest, those who had backed the right side and won.
Doña Rosa, for instance, who now owned great properties but would still cook a meal for a tourist – first her brother had been shot, and then her son, who were both Civil Guards, and hated. After Franco’s men came, the island was starved. But not Rosa … She spoke in a whisper. ‘Food was rationed to nothing, but we did well. There was no oil, but we had abundance. My husband cooked banquets for the captains and colonels; of course we had what we wished – tins of butter, ham, and milk, German sausages, wine, and brandy. You’d see starving girls fall down in the street – sometimes I’d give them a slither of bread. The poor children were as white and thin as bones, having nothing at all they needed. There was murder, yes; prisoners were shot; there were many thrown over the cliffs. A few escaped with crippled limbs – you’ll still see them about today …’
In fact the conquerors didn’t really want Ibiza; it was punished and then ignored. Even now, should a general be disgraced in Madrid, he will be posted here to cool off. It is an island for exiles, not for permanent life, and refugees abound – conducted tourists, international crooks, assassins, film-stars, lovers, they come here for sun-tan, to get lost, to repent, or to drink themselves cheaply mad.
So now to Ibiza (as to the poor Spanish mainland – like fish-picking Malaga and the once-starved Costa Brava, where earth, Church, and State were but the peremptory buriers of a wasting and hopeless people) something resembling a miracle has happened. Without labour or seed, floating harvests of wealth now fall on the sterile island. The visitors come, asking only for charm, sunlight, and nostalgia confirmed. The island cushions them readily, like a sun-warmed lilo, quickly regaining its shape when they’ve gone. It provides the hideout, charges a modest fee, but is neither amused nor corrupted. Since the day of the Phoenicians it has been regularly visited by such waves of foreign restlessness. All the same, it considers these times unique, they are boom times by its reckoning. Only a few years ago its people were dying in the street, now everyone is plump and busy. How this could have happened, how long it may last, are things too uneasy to ask … For the first time in a history of countless invasions Ibiza is being occupied, not by arms, but by money.
A Festive Occasion
I came down to Cannes in a four-berth couchette with a Parisian clerk, an Algerian widow, a club-footed grandma, and a dog. At some point during the night the clerk bit the widow, the dog bit the clerk, and the ancient club-booted me in the shins for trying to turn the light on. We entered the dawn in a state of watchfulness, while the clerk licked his wounds and muttered low, ‘What a pretty pet. What agreeable companions.’
Two hours from Marseilles rose the Mediterranean Sea, as smoothly lecherous as ever, silkily tonguing its tiny red-rock coves. And again I was struck by the power of this water – oily with rainbows of morning sun – to shrive as always my nordic nerves and to say, ‘Forget: indulge!’
It was the opening day of the Festival of Film, and the gate at Cannes station was crowded. Crew-cut newsmen, with cameras charged, had gathered to meet the train. They were pale-drawn and petulant; they stamped up and down, and gazed glumly through all the barriers. ‘Who’s coming, for goodness sake?’ they asked. A Festival Officer fussed around them. ‘Well. For instance. Eddie is coming. Eddie Constantine is. For instance …’ There were howls and groans and a spit on the floor. But not even he came. Nobody came. Save me, and the club-footed woman.
The Hall of Festival was facing the sea, shining, splendid and rich. Its façade was dressed in the flags of all nations that stirred to a north-east wind. Inside were pressmen of all the nations, dressed in American coloured shirts, stirring each other for stories. But we were all too early. No names had come. All was chaos and nothing was ready. The publicity booths were only half built; and even our press cards were lost. A wet-faced woman, with white-cropped hair, met us with soothing moans. ‘Patience, messieurs. Your cards will soon come. Meanwhile Eddie Constantine is here …’ More gloom and groans while we kicked our heels. Then we were shown to the press room; and sure enough Eddie Constantine was there, in a yachting cap, lonely and worried. We ignored him, and smoked, and looked out at the sea – which was slicing up now into mint-green blocks well-sugared by whipping winds. Eddie C. was too early. We were all too early. There was nothing to do but wait.
Then I heard that someone was handing out tickets for the Gala Premiere that night: Around the World in Eighty Days, by bounty of Michael Todd. I went to the press desk and stood in line very ready for anything free. But admission it seemed was by invitation onl
y. ‘You are not on the list, Monsieur.’ ‘Scandal!’ I cried, without emotion, and wandered back to the press room.
A flashing of cameras greeted me there. Eddie C. had been launched, on a flood of ennui. They had found him a girl – white-shorted, cream-haired – and posed her at one of the typewriters. He leaned on the desk and leered hysterically. The girl fluttered, typed, and looked into his face. Eddie looked into the cameras. The cameras looked into her blouse. There were professional cries of joy and encouragement. Someone undid some more buttons. The girl re-settled her corn-brown legs, the star re-settled his yachting cap, a few extra bulbs were sacrificed, and the party broke up well pleased.
But I was entranced by the ritual; and as the tiny starlet sidled away I watched her bare heels with interest. Plant-like, crisp, and exquisitely portable, she was the first of the crop I had seen. Who was she, I wondered? From what fresh field had she sprung? Her typewriter, deserted now, still held a piece of paper in it; inscribed no doubt with her secrets. Stealthily, then, I whipped it out; on the crumpled sheaf I read:
‘Mi chiamo Grazia uf e sono a Cannes per fare un prov di v nostro f f a ho remi f chiamo Grazia e sof a Cann edmo koi s dmmila anos fr sino non …’
A cry of near-wordless ecstasy. Alas, I never saw her again.
In the afternoon I collected my press card, together with publicity material weighing one and a half kilos. It was to be, it seemed, a very Olympiad of Films, with entries from thirty countries. The major powers had booths in the Festival Hall; the minor ones worked from the bars. Most of the iron-screened countries were represented, as were the obvious free States, and such unknown starters as Tunisia, Ceylon, and the Lebanon. There would be four films a day for the next two weeks. Meanwhile the curtain had not yet risen, and there was little to be witnessed save the pasting of posters that were going up all over the town.
These posters, bright as heraldic shields, seemed part of a private battle. Those of Britain, it’s true, were remote and exclusive. They showed white waves breaking on rocky cliffs, or over the bows of destroyers, or against the stern British chin of Mr Richard Todd. They properly told our rough island story and seemed to claim to have invented the sea. But the other big countries mixed the battle more closely. Hollywood led with a girl in black tights. Italy countered with a girl in brown tights; even younger, and with a doll. Japan from Italy reclaimed her rice-fields with a young girl knee-deep in a bog. And Russia, astonishingly, moved right in on Hollywood with two lovers embracing in water.
With a book of free tickets stuffed into my pocket, and no films to be seen till the morrow, I walked up the sunlit, windy front, thinking how lucky I was. A mile of white poles were set out like standards, each bearing its propaganda. And my country was not at all backward here, for every fourth pole bore a well-known likeness, each done in that malted-milk tradition so suggestive of homely night-caps. The cosy pantheon of Pinewood stars – brother, sister, scout-leader, and nurse – they gazed reassuringly down upon me alone in that sinful crowd.
Further up was the Carlton, sugar-white and beflagged, holding the Festival’s flesh and blood. In the street outside a crowd of witnesses had gathered. Butter-faced schoolgirls with autograph books were waving at a porter in an attic window. The porter waved back – it was Eddie Constantine. I continued my walk and came back an hour later. The girls had all gone, but Eddie C. was still there, drumming his fingers on the window sill. The crowd had moved to stare at the beach, where a large gas-balloon was swelling. As the balloon inflated, so Eddie wilted, but bravely he stuck to his post. The air-bag was one of Mike Todd’s devices and a squad of police were on guard. I approached one of these and showed him my card. ‘A quelle heure partir le ballon?’ I asked. The official turned crimson and could not speak. But an older, more sober comrade answered, ‘It departs, Monsieur, at eight o’clock – but only to fifteen metres.’
I sat down at a beach-bar and ordered a drink. It was that lambent half-hour, before the setting of the sun, when the light of this coast works miracles with one’s self-esteem. The wind had dropped and the world seemed transfigured. Never had mankind looked so well. A coral glow embossed the crowds with a rich and magnificent carnality. Old women passing by looked flushed as flowers, old men as noble as Aztec gods; lovers went wrapped in immortal hues; and little pink girls ran over the sands with bare feet trailing pink powdery clouds. There were smells in the air of wine and pine, scorched leaves and sun-festering lilies. For a long, slow instant this minor Babylon hung up gardens of seven wonders. Then the sun sank at last, the cold wind rose, our cheeks turned grey; and the neon lights took over …
That opening night was America-Night, thanks to Todd and his Jules Verne Colossus. With a series of exclamation marks, nicely chosen, he dominated the town. First came the balloon, a corking stunt: precisely at eight, as the policeman said, it rose floodlit over the sea. And there it swung, at fifteen metres, like a tethered planet or lantern. Two gum-chewing boys, in Victorian dress, hung precarious in its basket. From time to time they doffed their toppers, released more sand, snatched wildly at ropes, looked sick, and cried out through their megaphones. An attempt by ruffians to cut them adrift was beaten off by the police.
Next came the showing of the film – a mink and tiara job. A magnificent squadron of mobile police – the Household Cavalry of Dough – in rampant uniform, with motor-bikes couchant, had been hired to line the approaches. A hundred more, armed with sticks and revolvers, hid in side-streets behind the Hall. Fish-finned cars slid up to the entrance dispensing blonde girls like eggs. Mr Todd and his wife arrived at last – he biting his lip like a worried schoolboy, she moist as a bunch of violets. Up the carpeted steps he shielded her, scowling most stern and proud. Then the Hall of Festival shut firmly down for the three and a half hours of the film.
Later, at midnight, came the Casino Party, with champagne and caged lions and lobsters. The invitation list of course was limited; but such was Mike Todd’s popularity that we all wished to do him honour. Two hundred cards, stolen beforehand, were sold in the streets and bars. Then as the guests arrived, their cards were collared and whipped back to the streets again. The whole of Cannes was at the party; it was the greatest party of all. Mr Todd, with his missile in the sky; and Todd A-O, the ultimate detergent, had together captured the Festival.
I didn’t see Todd’s film that night; instead I went to a cinema in the town where an unofficial film was showing – L’Empire du Soleil, a blazing trail of the Andes, made by the makers of The Lost Continent. How contrived it is I cannot say, but I watched it with drunken pleasure. It is a visual bombardment by a world unknown: a vast cinescope of thunderous mountains; there are Peruvian Indians dressed like straw dolls of harvest; dances, festivals, work, and love. There is a woman in labour hanging from a tree; a vulture riding a fighting bull; clouds of black cormorants bombing the sea; surprise, amazement, and poetry …
Dazed by, and dreaming of, this film, I went next morning to see Mike Todd’s – which was being shown again for the peasantry. Vigorously conceived, superbly made, and acted with immaculate polish, it sets a girdle round the earth in eighty clichés. (I know where I’m going, and I know what they’ll show me …) France? – there was Paris and a postcard chateau. Spain had its bullfight and gypsy dance. (‘For the bulls get the best, what’s-his-name? Dominguin; for the gypsy dancer that guy José Greco.’) Then India, yes, a pretty big place. We’ll have rope-tricks and elephants and sacred cows, suttee, a Princess, and Colonel Blimp. Siam is easy; it’s King and I. For the old USA, the old-time works: democratic elections, saloon-bar molls, a free-lunch counter, a Kentucky crook, the railroad spanning the Middle West, a Red Indian raid, and some buffaloes. England, of course, is club-life and cabs, a hint of Royalty, and incipient decline … It was jolly, bounding fun all round; but as globe-circling Fogg neared the shores of Britain (sailing mysteriously into a westering sun) I felt the merriment pale a little. It was like being dragged, at once, through a Baedeker dream-book and
an international casting-directory (starred pages only). Nothing was spared to us except surprise.
From Around the World I came out to the sun, blinded as by a sea of milk. When my sight returned I looked about me. A noonday party was in full swing on the beach, watched by a solemn crowd. I flashed my card and joined the revellers and a drink was thrust into my hand. It was one of those gilded anonymous gatherings which seemed to spring up instantly whenever there was a patch of sun. Fat, busy film-men, their backs to the wind, sold projectors one to another. Long-haired girls languored here and there in stately Borzoi silences. Cameramen clicked and crawled and hunted, selecting and rejecting the girls. They posed a red-head with a rubber horse; she flashed frantic smiles, they flashed their bulbs, and the glaring old sun was ignored. A tasty morsel in a raffia skirt watched glumly for a while. Presently the cameras turned upon her. She dilated, and stripped in the gritty wind, and took up a hundred postures. She writhed on the sands, nubile and shiny, knotting and unknotting her limbs. The cameras sought her, circling slowly. Their long phallic lenses pried and prodded; and she opened generously to them all, fondling with every gesture her idea of the knowledge they had of her.