Mundaca: A Tale of Intrigue, Romance and Surfing in Franco's Spain

by Owen Hargreaves

  ‘Painting?’

  ‘Drawing, sketching, painting. You have to learn to draw and sketch before you can paint properly.’

  ‘True. My brother is talented and did a number of good abstract paintings. He began with drawing.’

  ‘You don’t paint?’

  ‘No. I don’t have the talent.’

  ‘How do you know? Have you tried?’

  ‘A little at school … I was better at science than art.’

  ‘Maybe you should try one day.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Her eyes fixed on mine … soft, warm, intense. Two deep green pools that you could swim in forever. I caught my breath and began to tingle all over. She blushed and reached to smooth her hair again.

  ‘How long are you staying in Mundaca?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I came to find my brother, but he’s gone.’ I sighed. ‘I miss him.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Three years ago. He left home when he was seventeen.’

  ‘Seventeen, that’s pretty young! Where did he go?’ Maite’s brow furrowed.

  ‘He and a mate dropped out of school and went surfing in the South Pacific. He was bursting to leave home,’ I said, recalling the arguments with my parents. ‘He didn’t even finish his last year at school. Mum and Dad were upset about that.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ A worried look crossed her face. ‘Then what?’

  ‘He was in the Pacific islands for a while, worked for a year in New Zealand, then California, before heading south on a surfing trip to Mexico and Central America. After that, he came to Europe, worked in Italy and then headed to Biarritz to go surfing. He came here with friends, stayed for a while, before heading off. South, towards Morocco, I think.’

  ‘And now that you’ve missed him?’

  ‘I’ll probably go travelling, see the sights like my parents wanted. Although my friends are trying to persuade me to go with them back to Biarritz. I’m tempted.’

  ‘A dilemma.’

  ‘Yes … my head says go travelling. My heart says go surfing.’

  She laughed. ‘I think I know what you’ll decide.’

  ‘Do you?’

  We smiled at each other. Hers, a warm, mysterious, elusive smile that first encircled and then enveloped me. I felt a shiver deep within.

  ‘And after travelling or surfing? Then what?’

  ‘I’m going to university next year to study medicine,’ I said. ‘Well, that’s the plan.’

  ‘Oh!’ Her eyes filled with light. She studied me afresh, more seriously, seemingly surprised by my revelation. ‘That’s an honour.’

  ‘An honour? I hadn’t thought of it like that … Do you live in Mundaca?’ I asked.

  ‘Guernica.’

  ‘Guernica!’ The mere mention of the name conjured up contradictory images of the sleepy rural town I’d encountered, the menacing Guardia Civil in the bar, the infamous bombing during the Civil War that I could only imagine, and Picasso’s painting, full of rage.

  ‘Yes, Guernica.’ She stared at me curiously. ‘Have you been there?’

  ‘I passed through on the way here. It made an impression. Jean-Louis is French Basque, he knows a lot about Basque history and politics.’

  Her eyes narrowed when I said the word politics. She tensed and briefly scanned the room. ‘Politics are complicated in this part of the world, and dangerous.’

  ‘I’m beginning to appreciate that,’ I said quietly.

  She softened again and leant back. ‘You have a lot to learn.’ ‘I’m a good student,’ I said. ‘With the right teacher.’

  She studied me again. ‘If you are really interested in the Basques, I have a book, in English, you could read.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘I’ll bring it tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ My heart began to sprint. ‘Wonderful!’

  The others had drifted away from us. ‘Oye chicas!’ she called out. ‘Bego y Ines,’ she said, introducing them. We shook hands. ‘Otro bar?’ Maite asked the girls.

  ‘Por supuesto,’ Ines replied. ‘I’ll round up the others.’

  They ferried us to the next crowded noisy bar and plied us with drinks. And so it went on. We passed Adolfo in the street amid a group of hardy blue-garbed fishermen, flush with tinto. ‘Adiós, muchachos! Agur!’ he cried.

  ‘Los extranjeros,’ his comrades called out. ‘Adiós!’

  We returned the salute, ‘Adiós, Adolfo! Adiós, señores!’

  The girls led us from bar to bar around the village. Each bar seemed a little crazier than the one before, warming up for the fiesta beginning the following day. Could it get any better?

  Only when we returned (yet again) to Bar El Puerto, under the watchful eye of Carmen, was there a hint of reproach. She had raised an eyebrow affectionately on my first pass through, but by the third, when the drink took hold, she was scowling. But it was too late. We were off to the next bar.

  By the end, Ines was finding it difficult to fend off Michel and signalled to Maite, pointing to her watch. It was well after midnight.

  Maite shrugged her shoulders. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ A sigh escaped, betraying me.

  A light flickered in her eyes, her lips parted. ‘Hasta mañana, Doctor.’

  I touched her arm. ‘Don’t forget the book.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Michel urged the girls to stay, but to no avail. We followed them while they negotiated their way to the door through several groups of men.

  ‘Guernica girls,’ said one man derisively.

  ‘Out-of-towners,’ said another.

  ‘Shameful hanging out with foreigners,’ muttered a third.

  But I didn’t take in their words or their tone. I was drifting on a different current. Only later, back at the apartment, did Michel translate what they’d said.

  Why ‘shameful’? I wondered, as I lay in bed. Nothing shameful about Maite. On the contrary.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Greg. ‘Man! So she’s from Guernica.’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘What happened the next day?’

  ‘We went looking for them.’

  ‘On y va,’ said Luc.

  We were about to leave Maria’s when suddenly a noise, a drum roll and a loud voice in the street below drew me to the window.

  ‘Check this out,’ I said, motioning to the others. A thin elderly man with a kettle drum stood at a nearby corner giving a speech. When he’d finished, he walked to the next corner, stopped, performed another short drum roll and repeated the speech.

  ‘What’s he selling?’ I asked Jean-Louis.

  ‘Nothing. He tells the news.’

  ‘A town crier!’ I said. ‘Who would have thought?’ My eyes followed the man as he turned the corner. ‘Such a wonderful old custom.’

  ‘Old is right. How about something new?’ said Michel impatiently. ‘Let’s go.’

  I stood listening until the drum roll and speech was lost in the alleyways. The old man’s voice echoed the fading of a bygone era.

  ‘Owen!’ Jean-Louis called from the open door. ‘On y va!’ Michel and Luc were already halfway down the stairs.

  The main paseo in front of the church was heaving to new life, transformed into a fun fair with colourful stalls and noisy rides. A rusting Ferris wheel rotated wearily to the strains of a worn soundtrack. A dodgem-car arena, its cars silent, sat waiting for the evening’s thrill-seekers. The machinery was sturdy but old and in need of a coat of paint. The operators, gypsies from the south, were much the same. Each stood at his post, plying his trade with practised congeniality. I thought the friendly veneer belied a chronic fatigue wrought by perpetual struggle. The local children rushed around in bands, feasting on churros.

  Michel spied the girls on the far side of the pelota court and we headed to them, but the village’s best young men, dressed all in white, save for a red scarf at the waist, were warming up for a match of pelota a
mano and a crowd was quickly gathering to watch this handball contest. ‘Allons-y!’ Michel hurried us impatiently, but the girls were surrounded before we could reach them, disappearing from view, and we were forced to stay put.

  The players took turns to swipe the grapefruit-sized metal ball with a cupped hand into the front wall. ‘See there.’ Jean-Louis pointed with a bony finger. ‘If the ball hits below that metre-high line on the front wall, or bounces outside the marked perimeter of the court, or bounces twice, the point is lost.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘Watch. They play in teams of two, taking turns to hit the ball, either hand. The ball is allowed to bounce off the left-hand side wall, but not that rear wall.’

  The players, calloused palms readied, took up their positions. It was an intense affair, no player giving an inch. The onlookers applauded, cheered or groaned at the combinations of brute strength, technique and ball placement.

  ‘Pégalo fuerte!’ the man beside me kept yelling and motioning. ‘Hit it hard!’

  He almost hit me.

  The spectators, urging their team on, worked themselves into a frenzy. ‘Anda! Corre! Go! Run!’ Finally the winning blow was struck. The man beside me groaned, ‘La hostia!’ He took his beret from his head and mopped his brow with a bright red handkerchief. ‘Juegan, pero no como en nuestro día,’ he muttered.

  Jean-Louis grunted softly.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked.

  ‘They can play, but not like in our day.’

  ‘I guess every generation says that.’

  By the time the court cleared, the girls were drifting with the crowd to an alfresco bar that had been set up near the port.

  The early evening sun drifted lazily down to the horizon. It too was in fiesta mood, the sunset a feast of iridescent pinks and purples. With the diminishing light, we became less conspicuous and I began to lower my guard. Perpetual scrutiny by the locals didn’t seem to bother the Frenchmen, but I found it tiring.

  Bego saw us and beckoned us to join them. ‘Hola, muchachos! Did you watch the game? Ines’s cousin was playing,’ she said. Maite didn’t seem to be with them. My heart sank like an anchor.

  Ines patted my arm. ‘Maite had to go somewhere with her brother.’ She reached in to her handbag. ‘But she asked me to give you this.’ She handed me a brown paper parcel.

  ‘Thank you.’ The book was inside. The Tree of Gernika, by a war correspondent called George Steer.

  I thumbed through. It appeared interesting enough, about the Basques and the Spanish Civil War. Several photos showed Guernica in ruins. Gee … the place I’d driven through the other day, bombed to smithereens! Well, it was a war, I supposed, and places got bombed in wars, but the Guernica in the photos was totally destroyed. No wonder the town was such a strange mix of old and new. It appeared peaceful enough the other day, at least until those Guardia Civil came into the bar. You could feel a kind of instant hatred. What was that about? The Spanish Civil War finished a long time ago.

  The girls bought a jug of sangría. Ines, their ringleader, poured us each a tall glass. ‘Owen,’ she said, laughing, ‘you can read the book later. Put it away … your sad face too! Have a drink.’

  The sangria was tasty, but deceptively potent. After the first sip, I hesitated. It was too strong.

  ‘Come on, you must try,’ implored Ines. ‘This is the tradition. It’s fiesta time — time to have fun! Bébelo! Drink up!’

  Michel was again holding court. I watched from the sidelines, my spirits dampened, unable to communicate. I wished I spoke Spanish, or even half-decent French for that matter.

  I sipped my sangría. The Frenchmen drank with gusto and grew increasingly confident. Jean-Louis struck up a conversation with Miren. Things were loosening up.

  We progressed to another bar, and another, and another. And so began the long vuelta, a night filled with swirling colour, raucous music, delicious aromas, exuberant song and unrestrained laughter — all in the company of our beautiful hostesses.

  I wished to God that Maite was there. When we passed through Bar El Puerto, Carmen gazed at me across the crowd. I attempted a smile. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t smile back as if aware of my feelings. Just like Mum.

  Michel and Luc battled it out for Ines’s affections. Michel seemed to hold the upper hand, but Luc would find a way to muscle in. For his part, Michel appeared to be enjoying the contest as much as the potential prize. He kept up a sideline of running commentary on the status of their battle and Luc’s impossible task.

  Meanwhile, Jean-Louis, through sheer willpower, gradually won over Miren and by the end of the night they were locked arm in arm. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Bravo!’ said Michel. ‘Bravo, Jean-Louis!’

  I had to laugh. Jean-Louis had upstaged the other two and couldn’t let the moment pass without a victory lap. Basque heritage perhaps, but he was still French.

  Things were getting blurry and the toll of crowds, dance, sweat, drink and sustained exhilaration began to take its toll. I steered a wayward course for Maria’s apartment.

  ‘So, she didn’t show,’ said Greg.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see her again?’

  ‘I kept looking.’

  The fiesta lasted for three days. I kept my eyes peeled at the boat races in the river mouth, the pelota matches and, of course, the endless rounds of the bars, willing Maite to appear.

  We came across folk dancing at the paseo outside the town hall, a variety of intricate dances to the haunting tunes of the Basque flute. Boys wore white trousers; girls, bright skirts. All wore a white shirt, a coloured vest, a beret, and soft leather slippers with leather laces that criss-crossed over long white socks to the knee. Hands above their heads, they clicked their fingers to the music, while they danced a series of unique Basque steps.

  ‘Have a try!’ said one of the villagers. So we joined the shy local girls our age and clumsily tried to learn the steps of a dance. The older women, dressed in black, watched warily from the fringes, intent on overseeing their blossoming maidens. The girls, all too aware, were at pains to keep apart from us, to avoid physical contact, but their eyes sparkled. We gave up in the end and stood back amongst the onlookers to watch the younger dancers in the next performance.

  A jeep full of Guardia Civil, all heavily armed, cruised down the street on the far side of the paseo and disappeared from view.

  ‘Cabrones!’ spat out an old man. ‘Mira. Todavía buscan los de ETA que mataron a ése teniente en Guernica el mes pasado.’ He eyed us narrowly and turned away with a grunt.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked Jean-Louis.

  ‘He said those Guardia Civil bastards are still looking for the ETA men who killed one of their lieutenants in Guernica last month.’

  Now I understood the tense atmosphere in the bar in Guernica. I felt my throat tightening.

  ‘We read about it in Paris,’ said Jean-Louis, grimly. ‘Those things happen from time to time.’

  ‘A Guardia killed, assassinated … not far from Mundaca!’ said Greg.

  ‘Yeah. Things were happening that I didn’t understand.’

  ‘Is the situation so desperate?’

  ‘It doesn’t look that way on the surface — not at all.’

  ‘Jeez, man, it’s deceptive.’ Greg stretched his neck. ‘So, did you find Maite?’

  ‘I thought she’d show on the last night.’

  The final night was the climax of the festivities; the young men carried an effigy of a witch on a platform above their heads around the village, stopping at all the bars along the way, followed by a drunken brass band and a large excited crowd. They finally bore the witch to a bonfire on the headland overlooking the river mouth. The effigy was hoisted to the top, and the bonfire set alight.

  The young folk danced around the bonfire to the strains of the band, flames leaping skyward, while the rest of the crowd watched on with glee. When the flames reached the witch at the apex, I thought I heard a muffled screa
m. It was probably someone in the crowd, but it made me wonder. ‘Poor wretch,’ I said under my breath.

  Jean-Louis leaned towards me. ‘Those poor witches were mostly innocent herbalists and traditional healers,’ he said in my ear. ‘The ritual stretches back centuries to the time of the religious persecutions throughout Europe and the infamous Spanish inquisition.’

  I winced when she was engulfed by fire. Healing was a risky business in those days.

  Jean-Louis gestured to the bonfire. ‘There were serious witch-hunts in this region in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Thousands confessed under inquisitor torture, but later recanted. A few maintained their confessions and were put to the torch. It became known as The Basque Witch-Hunt.’

  Death by fire. What a terrible way to go. I presumed that in modern times the pyre had lost its significance and was simply a fiery entertainment. You couldn’t really tell for sure. But every summer solstice the ritual was repeated, reproducing the same powerful image of black night, raging bonfire, burning witch and dancing youths. When I think of it, I can still hear that muffled cry.

  Greg chuckled. ‘No girl, just Guardia Civil and witches, hey?’

  ‘That’s right. Bullets and bonfires, but no Maite.’

  ‘You could have stayed, waited, or gone looking for her.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I sighed. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do. I was still thinking about John and what my folks had in mind.’

  The following morning, our bags packed, we bid our farewells to Maria and the children. Adolfo had woken much earlier and gone out fishing. The boys were returning to Biarritz and I was heading south by train into the heart of Spain.

  ‘So,’ Luc said, raising his dark eyebrows, ‘why don’t you come back to Biarritz with us?’

  Michel folded his arms, his chin set high. ‘Luc is right. It’s a good idea.’

  ‘No, no,’ I resisted. ‘I have to see the rest of Europe while I’m here. Who knows if I’ll ever be back again?’