by Laurie Lee
So we went to bed, but we got very little sleep. For the boy had grouped his friends beneath our window and organized a serenade in our honour, which continued, with songs, guitars and drums, till six o’clock in the morning.
Christmas morning; the streets empty, chastened and full of crumpled cymbals. So we went up into the Palace of the Alhambra, into the fresh gold air under the crimson roofs, to walk among the courts and fountains, to stroke the plump lemons and watch the fish. This was the first time we had been into the Palace, and one’s immediate impression was surprise at its smallness. Here was none of the official bombast of Versailles and Blenheim, designed to impress by sheer weight of masonry. Instead a series of perfect little rooms, like tiny pavilions, draped themselves on slender pillars round courts of orange trees and water. Everything was open to the air, with fretted windows and pierced, arcaded walls framing green gardens and the distant hills. All was tender, feminine and intimately sensual. For the men who built the Alhambra were supreme miniaturists, scaling their work to set off a handsome, small-boned people, and preferring the epigram and the lyric poem to all forms of rhetoric and inflation.
It was a new dimension in architecture – or rather an old forgotten one. It grew like a flower on its many-levelled hill. The delicate pillars, reflected in the pools, shivered like the stalks of lilies; the cloistered fountains trickled on leaves and lions; and the small gold rooms gathered across their walls a quivering light of snow and water, asking only for a group of cloaked ambassadors or trousered girls to furnish them completely. This was the home of pastoral kings, of poet shepherds raised to glory, and looking upon its ornate surfaces one found no fault in it – only a profusion of exotic fancy controlled by absolute self-confidence and taste.
In the Palace gardens we ate a Christmas lunch of bread and raisins, and then, in the afternoon, followed a great crowd under a threatening sky to see another bull-fight. This was a special show designed to celebrate the first day of the Pascua. Six young Granadinos, nominated by their various supporters, had been voted into the ring to fight six young bulls as green in years and mixed in courage as they were.
We climbed to the wide concrete seats high above the arena and shared a cask of wine with a family from the Alpujarra. The bull-ring was crowded to the sky, the black clouds rolled down from the mountains, the air darkened, and the young toreros, in their tight suits, looked waxen and frightened.
The spectacle that now began was in many ways a repetition of the one we had seen in Seville. There was the same drawn intensity on the faces of the boys, the same brash courage alternating with bouts of hysterical panic, the same uneven, confused and often vicious bulls. It was their very youth that made them so dangerous. They came trotting in, their tasselled tails held high, cast puzzled eyes around the crowd, caught sight of some wavering challenge in the ring and charged or retreated according to their mettle. Then, with as much grace and style as the boy could muster, he would step forward and run the bull close to his body. Often, at this early stage, the bull’s innocence made him charge the cape every time, and if the boy was lucky the passes were straight and clean, the bull’s rushes shorter and tighter. This, like a successful dribble at football, was what the crowd had come to see, and its effect on them was like a shared orgasm, so that they shouted together ‘Olé!’ in one great voice, a loud excited noise to be heard all over the city.
It was in the later stages of the combat that the boys showed their inexperience, when the bull grew more difficult to handle, when the barbs of the bandilleros had torn his shoulders and he had grown angry and dismayed. Then he would stand alone in the middle of the ring, bellowing and dripping blood, or would wander miserably into a corner trying to escape. Only the best of bull-fighters could make anything of that situation, could lead the bull back into the fight and finish him cleanly. A less assured torero – like most of those we saw that afternoon – would run after the retreating bull with a kind of bitter sickness on his face, hating the whole thing; would wave his arms, and shout and caper, and sooner or later, in his frantic misery, get well tossed for his pains.
Everybody got tossed that afternoon, and some several times. There was one poor fellow named Angelito, a blond boy with large ears, who soon lost all control of his bull and was thrown round the ring like a shuttlecock. The crowd was much amused by this, especially our neighbour from the Alpujarra, who rolled in the aisles with delight.
‘He is true to his name,’ he said, when all was over. ‘For he spends more time in the air than on the ground.’
This remark, I’m afraid, went well with the crowd, and was rewarded with wine from all sides.
But in spite of the occasional fiasco and the general hit, miss and run technique displayed by most of the boys, there was one young man who fought memorably. His name was Montenegro and he was sixteen years old, very thin, and had a face like a choirboy. He began badly, taking an early toss that split his trousers to the thigh. He rose from the dust green in the face and trembling, and one thought his nerve had gone. But after tying a scarf around his leg, and stilling his quivering lips, he thrust out his chin and went on to fight like a little master. He took every risk, and yet he got away with them all. He ran the bull so close to his body that his shirt was stained with blood. When the bull grew sullen, and refused to charge, the boy turned his back on him and knelt down to show his contempt. He was brash, and showed off, and indulged in tricks which might have been thought vulgar, had he not, with each of them, invited his death. And in the end he killed his bull with such classical certainty that the crowd buried him in an avalanche of hats.
The afternoon ended with a diversion. The last bull had but freshly entered the ring, when an eleven-year-old boy leapt over the barrier brandishing a red-painted shirt. Attendants sprang upon him, but he dodged round their legs, fighting to get at the bull. A big man caught him and cuffed him and lifted him kicking from the ground.
‘Bully!’ roared the crowd. ‘Put him down! Let him fight !’
With a twist of his body the boy broke loose, fell on his face, picked himself up, and ran straight at the bull. The bull charged him, and the boy, standing fetlock high, made two or three perfect passes, had his shirt torn to ribbons and was then trampled underfoot. But he was not hurt. The bull was drawn away and the boy was captured by a policeman. Then weeping with triumph, and to the cheers of the crowd, he was carried off to jail.
But the boy had made his name. In those brief stolen moments, alone with the bull, he had put up as good a show as anyone that afternoon, and better than most. And he had used the traditional method of calling attention to his courage – one which many a famous matador, in his young and starving days, had used before him. Moreover, he had fought in the bull-ring of Granada.
One glittering morning soon after Christmas we looked across the roofs of the city and saw the shining heights of the Albaicin and Sacromonte and decided to spend the day there. So we bought a flask of wine, some cheese and a bag of almonds, and set off up a cobbled lane which led in that direction.
The way was stony and steep, and climbed through an area of desolation we had never before visited. It was the cracked rim of the town, a crumbling cliff of decayed terraces smothered with mutilated cacti and stifled vines. Here were once the well-ordered gardens of the Caliphs, but the walls, now, were broken, and the sour earth spilled out among a scattering of tins and bottles. Shacks of beggars stood here and there and tents of black tarpaulin. Groups of young men sat silent in the mud, and the leaves of the cacti were slashed by their idle knives.
As we climbed the path that wound among these hovels, we saw a procession of black-dressed women toiling up behind us, carrying what seemed to be a doll in a long, flowered basket. They carried it lightly, and chattered among themselves as though returning from a day’s marketing. But as they drew near and passed us, we looked into the basket and saw, peeping from among the flowers, the green dead face of a child. Four carried the basket, and a gossiping group of wome
n followed. Then came some little girls with posies in their hands. And trailing behind, a whistling boy, with a coffin-lid under his arm.
We watched them thread their way among the cacti and disappear on to the open hill. No pomp, no priest, no men-folk at all. A child had been born, had died, and it was a matter for the women to take care of. So they would bury it on the hill, simply, like burying a bird.
But one does not brood on such things here. The climate is as ready with death as with birth. And in Granada, in the burnished, bright, but evil air, one is never surprised to find dead in the morning the friend with whom one walked and drank the previous night. It is this, perhaps, that makes friendship so intense here, conversation so rushed and hysterical, the company of the living so avidly sought. One can only be bored to death when there is a comfortable expectation of life. So we looked about us in the cruel sunlight, and ate some almonds, and went up the lane to the Albaicin.
In the time of the Moors this high place was set aside for the breeders of falcons, who kept their hooded birds in iron cages and trained them among the rocks of the hillside. From these steep slopes one can still peer down into the city with a falcon’s eye or float one’s gaze across the great spaces to the mountains. The houses of the falconers still stand, white and squat, their barred windows facing the Darro gorge.
It was here, in a cobbled square tilted steeply towards the sun, that we found a company of lace-makers, stitching and singing in the open air. A dozen girls sat round a table, their heads bent low over their needles, singing together in sharp high voices, and watched by a dark-faced woman. As we entered the square they called to us. ‘We need some conversation,’ they said. So chairs were brought, and wine and biscuits, and we were invited to rest.
The overseer, sharp-eyed but indulgent, warned us to take no notice of them. But no sooner had we sat down than we were assailed by a barrage of questions, jokes and speculations. The pretty creatures abandoned their work for a while and swarmed around us. They told us their names and exclaimed at Kati’s beauty. They said I looked kind and strong and wore a handsome coat. Everyone talked at once, like birds biting cherries. They heaped us with lace and explained it proudly, showing us the needles, the stitches, the shapes and forms and speeds of their various skills. They made shawls, and wedding gowns, and veils for widows and the church. ‘It is very difficult,’ they said, ‘but behold’ – and everyone began to demonstrate, with swift brown fingers, how quickly a rose or leaf could grow from their agile needles.
There was one, however, who sat aside, crouching intently above her task, unable to do more than raise her head for a moment to smile at us. She was making a bridal veil for a countess, they said; she had been working on it for a month, and it must be ready in the morning. The. gauze of lace was spread before her on a frame, and in the brightness of the sun her needle threaded through the foam like a flashing fish in a glittering sea. The long white veil, light as dust, was a mass of flowers and angels, most beautifully wrought. It would cost, they said, ten pounds.
We spent the morning among those girls, warm in their sheltered square. They took it in turns to work and entertain us. We drank our wine and struggled with their wit. In the background, children with bare bottoms rolled voluptuously on the sunny cobbles. A white pig was tied to the doorpost behind us. A knife-grinder, blowing his pipes, passed through the square, and a bearded tinker followed, wheeling a smoky stove. And the girls taught me proverbs, and Kati learned to embroider leaves.
The overseer stopped barking, and decided to call it a day. She fetched more wine and biscuits, and rolled me a cigarette. Soon there was clapping and dancing, and everyone stopped work. ‘Watch La Mora,’ they said. ‘She is very flamenca and most diverting.’ La Mora, a tall dark girl with Moorish looks and the cheek of a gypsy, came swaying across the cobbles, sweat on her lips and devilry in her eye. Posturing before us, and stamping her feet, she sang a song in a thick choked dialect, racy and ribald, with many verses.
Then came Carmencita, a beautiful vicious child of fifteen, and dragged me to my feet. ‘Stand, man!’ she cried, and danced around me with intuitive calculation in her eyes. She arched her body and brushed me with it, she twirled and snapped her fingers, her small face contorting with precocious sexual spasms. As she danced she whispered charms and sultry evocations. Afterwards she sat beside me, running her hands through my pockets and examining everything she found there with sly speculation.
The girls loved Kati as though she were a doll, stroking her hair and exclaiming with pleasurable amazement if she said anything at all. And the overseer, having produced a rich black veil and gazed at it for a long time, suddenly made up her mind and pressed it upon her as a gift.
‘Come back,’ they said, when we were ready to leave. ‘Come back at five o’clock, and we will make a paseo, and go up the hill to see the waterfall.’
So we said we would, and left them, and went up among the cactus groves to the caves of Sacromonte. This was gypsy country, where tourists are fair game, and although it was the close season we had not long to wait. There was a panting and giggling behind us on the path, and two bright-coloured, grease-haired girls appeared, plucking our coat-sleeves and pleading famine. One of them carried a fat brown child across her hip, and she held him up for us to see.
‘Have pity on this poor one,’ she said, dropping her rich voice to a whine. ‘Look, he is crying with hunger.’
He was not crying at all, in fact; he was grinning up at the sky like a plump young pasha. So the girl pinched him slyly, and he threw back his head and bawled:
‘Hark now,’ she said. ‘He is dying of hunger. How can you see such suffering?’
Fair was fair, so I gave her a coin. Immediately she smothered the child with kisses, and with a swirl of scarlet skirts ran screeching down the hill.
The caves among the cacti were throbbing with guitars. Dark men, dressed like modern American Indians in tall hats, black suits and blankets, sat smoking and gazing at the Sierras. Huge black pigs ran squealing out of the caves, and bangled women walked stiffly by. Through their long sharp eyes the men watched us as we passed. If they had thought it worth while they would have whistled up their women and made them dance forthwith. But no. We had no cameras and were obviously without money, so they let us go by. Yet farther down the hillside, bright as butterflies against the tawny soil, a group of girls were dancing for its own sake, twirling among the cacti with a kind of intent and secret pleasure while their men sat round them on the rocks clapping and crying softly.
Gypsies are one of the aristocracies of Spain: indolent, insolent, rapacious and admired. They have annexed for themselves the folklore of the country, which they exploit with a brilliant and swashbuckling technique. Also, vulgar as their approach may be, they are able to maintain it with a vitality which the exhausted working peasant is not always able to provide. It is therefore through the gypsy that the Spanish tradition – suffering little competition from foreign film or radio – has been preserved at a high pitch of excitement in forms that only the gypsy himself can corrupt. The gypsy remains both traditionalist and innovator, bringing the fire of a professional vocation to his art and using music and the dance as charms to ensnare the gringos. Thus he has become a special caste in Spain, and the centre of that caste lies here among the caves of Granada. It is from these gaudy, whitewashed holes in the hillside of Sacromonte that many of the greatest singers, dancers and guitarists have sprung. Indeed such an aura still hangs about the place that almost every Spanish artist, at one time or another, will claim to have been born here.
We left the caves and climbed to the hill-top and lay at last under a Moorish wall and drank our wine in the sunny wind. From far below came the crying ejaculations of the dancers, the sounds of singing and squabbling, the steady throb of guitars. Among the explosive blue swords of the cacti the men sat black as coal, and the prancing women, their bright skirts opening to the wind, fluttered like blown geraniums. They were a circus at winter quart
ers, twirling, twisting, inventing, scheming, unable to keep still for a moment, limbering up for the coming of spring.
Up here, under the fortress wall, we were alone, save for a boy who was catching birds. He had set two caged sparrows on the grass and surrounded them with traps of lime. The birds sang sweetly, luring the wild ones to their doom. The deep gorge of the Darro lay black in shadow, and sun-slashed terraces rose up to a crest of trees where the slender Alhambra rode on green waves like a ship of fantasy. The sun shone through its upper chambers, giving them the lightness of air; and behind, far off, but sharp as cut paper, the brilliant ranges of the Sierra hung naked in falls of new crisp snow. We finished our wine and stretched in the dreamy heat. From across the valley came the echoes of pedlars, donkeys and slumberous bells, and up from the city the continual sound, like drumming rain, of footsteps, voices, cockerels and horns.
To this, and to the whistle of the caged birds, we fell asleep; and awoke much later to a new pattern of shadows and an edge of cold. It was five o’clock, and we went down the hill to the lacemakers, who were expecting us. All was ready for the evening paseo. The girls had rolled up their laces, changed their dresses, and hung their ears with flowers. We formed up in procession, dogs barked, pigs squealed, and heads were poked out of windows to wish us good-bye.
Then we set off, about twenty strong, with a wine jar and skipping-rope to visit the waterfall. Up the road we went in convoy, with naked children diving and rolling under our feet like dolphins. There was Carmencita, Isabelita. Antonita, Teresa, Rosario, Consuelo, Asención, Caridad, María and Incamación. Some linked arms, some danced in the road, some skipped with the rope, all sand; and I, the only man among them, felt quite eleven feet tall.
It was a fine evening and everybody was out of doors. As we marched, so our numbers grew; we gathered girls like burrs and boys like fleas. We were soon a small army and the road was choked with us. The wine jar passed from hand to hand, and when it was empty a small boy darted off and filled it up again at a tavern. La Mora was in the highest spirits. In her foghorn voice she shouted to everyone she saw, ‘We are going to the waterfall!’ and, when they said ‘What?’ she said, ‘To the waterfall, look!’ and drenched herself with wine.