Poor Folk in Spain Part 18

We had noticed, though we have not before mentioned, a curious illness which seems prevalent in Spain. In Murcia were large numbers of monstrous children; boys and girls had reached enormous proportions before the age of ten years old. We came to the conclusion that it was a form of illness, because, though the children seemed healthy enough, we have never seen this development of monstrosity elsewhere, nor did large numbers of them appear to survive adolescence, though there were a certain number of excessively fat girls. The proprietor was such a monstrosity grown up. His wife, a dark-eyed beauty, was sitting in a rocking-chair near the kitchen door and her baby of about three years old, standing in its mother's lap, was having a great lark, pretending to catch lice in its mother's head. Thus do our ideas of innocent sports for children differ from those of other nations.

There was some coming and going amongst the fonda visitors. The guests seemed to be all peasants, the men in blouses, the women in pale skirts, black blouses and shawls of paisley pattern over the shoulders. Many had bundles of towels and of bathing dresses. One group we heard saying that they had come down to Alicante for a week's sea bathing.

As the afternoon drew on and the lorry delayed, we again interviewed the old man, who answered that probably it would not come that day.

Accordingly, we spoke to the proprietor, who rather roughly said that we could have a room for two pesetas a night. The room was small, and the bed only just big enough for two. There were two doors, one leading into the interior of the inn, one out on to a balcony. The latter was half of gla.s.s and had no lock, and as there was plenty of traffic along the balcony, which was used for drying linen, underclothes and bathing dresses, one only had a chance of privacy by closing the shutters, leaving oneself in the dark, and no chance of sleeping with the window open despite the heat. But Spain does not believe in open windows or doors at night; it has "a robber complex."

We put our small luggage into the bedroom, leaving the large trunk and the roll of mattress in the entrada. We then went out to explore the town and to find a young painter to whom we carried an introduction from Luis. Emilio, for such was his name, was one of the lucky ones of this world. His parents kept a wine-shop which relieved him of a pressing need of earning a living. He could thus study at his ease. Our investigations took us through a shop full of large barrels, up some narrow stairs and on to a landing where two girls were working at pillow lace. Emilio received us with a brusque cordiality, showed us some of his work, which had talent, came back to the inn with us, where he arranged for our transport by the lorry whenever it should arrive, and said that he would also find a carter to take our heavier luggage out on a road waggon. This readiness to help a stranger, often at considerable personal effort, we found characteristic of the parts of Spain which we have visited.

Emilio, having an engagement, left us, and we strolled through the town.

To the east lies the older part of the Port clambering up the rugged side of the steep rock, at the top of which lies the castle. The fis.h.i.+ng village, at the extreme end of Alicante, is beautiful with its small primitive cubic houses painted in garish patterns. Through steeply sloping streets we came to the beach. Here were Mediterranean fis.h.i.+ng boats drawn up in ranks; then, as we returned towards the harbour, more open beach covered with people in gay dresses and children playing on the sands. Then came the bathing establishments built out on piles over the tideless sea. The bathing establishments increased in luxury towards the town and were, for the most part, fantastic wooden erections of Moorish design. We came back to the broad double avenue of palm trees which faced the more luxurious hotels and cafes.

Night came softly on, and one by one amongst the palms the lights of the town threw beams over the chattering people who strolled in ever-thickening processions to and fro beneath the palm trees; mingled with the conversation was the incessant click, click of the fans of the girls and women. We went back to the fonda for supper and afterwards returned to the sea front. The cafes had spread tables beneath the palms, and we sat down enjoying our "Blanco y negro," an iced drink composed half of white cream ice flavoured with vanilla, and half of iced coffee.

Bands of musical beggars a.s.sailed us. Most of the mendicants were blind.

One group, a veritable orchestra, travelled from cafe to cafe clinging to the edges of a ba.s.s viol which the one seeing member, the money collector, dragged the way it should go, by the peg-head. There was an old guitarist who played and made queer noises through a small gazoo.

Another orchestra of three, guitar, laud and bandurria, the latter instrument a small cousin of the laud, and in this case played beautifully by a blind boy of about nineteen years. There were other beggars too, but the devil of cheap European music had entered into them all. Not one played their own native Spanish music. I suppose n.o.body would pay to hear it played.

At the end of the palm avenue an artist had set up an easel on a raised dais. His work was illuminated by a strong acetylene gas lamp. The canvas was painted bright sparrow's egg blue and surrounded by a frame of staring gilt.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On the blue canvas he was painting an imaginary landscape, the blue serving as sky and for the waters of a still lake. A drab woman was threading her way to and fro through the crowd which surrounded him, crying out: "The numbers, the numbers. Who would like to win a magnificent picture, framed complete for ten chances a penny?"

Another crowd surrounded a buck n.i.g.g.e.r who, displaying his magnificent and gleaming teeth, was crying out the virtues of his dentifrice.

A third crowd listened to a quack doctor who, backed by a large picture depicting the jungle, was selling a specific called "African Tonic." The tonic, he said, was derived from essences extracted at enormous expense from the tiger, the elephant, the monkey, and from I know not what else.

From time to time he rested his voice by turning on a squeaky gramophone.

Tired from our journey we went to bed betimes.

We got up early. In the waggons, which were lined up in the big courtyard, the families which had slept in them were making their toilet. In the entrada, the old man of the inn, aided by the stable boy, was packing away the hammock beds slung from trestles, on which slept those travellers who, having no waggon, did not wish to pay the expense of a bedroom.

We had noted small cafe stalls near to the market, so, in order to see some more of Alicante life, we took our breakfast there rather than in the fonda. The cafe stalls were wooden box-like kiosks, and they spread wicker chairs and tables over the open street, and soldiers and workmen were sitting sipping their morning refreshment. Beneath the shelter of the kiosk a lad was making the day's supply of ice cream. The cream is frozen by the amount of heat absorbed from it by the freezing mixture.

One might also say that the amount of refreshment to be derived from ice cream seems proportionate to the amount of energy absorbed from the lad who manufactures it: it appeared a fatiguing business. Crowds of people on the way to market pa.s.sed us, and to where we sat came the cries of the market salesmen. We were not stared at here as we had been in Murcia. Strangers were evidently more common.

A small boy stationed himself near our table gazing longingly at a breakfast roll. To all intents and purposes he hypnotized it from the table into his hand. He broke into unexpected French. His father, like so many Spaniards, had been working at Lyons during the war. He deplored the fact that he had no education, but said that he was trying to learn some English from the sailors who came to Alicante. He had begun with the swear words, of which already he had a fair collection. He said that his father was a bootmaker, out of work, and asked if we had any boots to mend. He wheedled also some cigarettes and a few coppers from us.

Emilio, who had sent off our heavy luggage on the previous night as he had promised, met us, and together we went to a cafe on the front, where we wrote a letter to Antonio saying that we had left our pa.s.sports behind by accident. In spite of this oversight we had decided to push on to Jijona and to trust to luck.

After lunch we again sat down in the fonda wondering if the motor-lorry would come. Many peasants also were there. Motor omnibuses drove in, but these were destined for other parts. Opposite the bus office was a gambling machine, into which one pushed a penny and if one were lucky received back twopence, fourpence, sixpence or even tenpence. But this machine had gone wrong, and the bulky proprietor spent the greater part of the afternoon over it with a screw-driver. A drunkard was staggering up and down, now shouting, now singing, now dancing a few unsteady steps. The stable boys were making a b.u.t.t of him. Presently he sat down on a sack and fell asleep, his head tilted back, his mouth open. The opportunity was too good to miss.

Pulling out his sketch book, Jan began to make a sketch. The old ticket-office man, perceiving what Jan was doing, leaned over his shoulder, and as the sketch developed began to chuckle. Soon there was a double queue of spectators, giggling with suppressed laughter, stretching on each side from Jan to the drunkard across the width of the entrada. When the drawing was finished, the old man exclaimed:

"But that is excellent; will you not give it to me, Senor?"

Jan made of the drawing a rapid tracing which pleased the old man as much as the original.

"I'll keep that," said the old man.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

To our horror he walked across the entrada, with a thump in the ribs awoke the drunkard, and showed him the sketch. Gradually, as he realized what had been done, an expression of wrath grew on the drunkard's face.

Luckily for us, he became possessed of the idea that the drawing had been done by one of the stable boys. No one undeceived him and, amidst roars of laughter, he addressed a long speech to the stable boy in question.

"The rights of man," said the drunkard, "are inalienable, and of all the rights of man, the greatest right is that of his person. The stable boy has, therefore, transgressed against the most sacred of men's rights. I could have excused most things," went on the drunkard, "but this is inexcusable; to inflict indignity on a man in his own person. Since neither the stable boy nor the spectators of this crime seem sensible of the enormity they have committed, the only act by which I can express the contempt which I feel for the meanness of your natures is that of removing myself from the company of such low mortals."

Having thus delivered himself with the air of a Demosthenes, he literally shook the dust from the soles of his alpagatas and staggered out into the street. Coincident with the departure of the drunkard was the arrival of the Jijona motor-lorry.

The lorry was heavy, with solid tyres. Michelin's motor guide had described the route as: "Cart road bad and very indisposed," and we wondered what the sixteen miles would value as experience. We all scrambled in, arranging our luggage as best we could on our laps or under the narrow wooden benches nailed to the lorry's sides. The centre of the lorry was occupied with cargo, in this case barrels, some full, some empty, standing on end. We thought that we had all fitted in so nicely, but a wail from the courtyard drew our attention to an old woman who, loaded with parcels and almost weeping with despair, had failed to find a seat. We said "Move up" to each other, but no moving up was possible. The old man came out in anger from the ticket-office.

"But this is ridiculous," he shouted; "there is room, there are so many seats on the lorry, I sell so many seats, therefore there must be room."

Slowly the elucidation of the mystery dawned on us. Three of our pa.s.sengers were of such girth that each ought in common fairness to have booked two seats for himself. So with much effort we squeezed and shoved into the fat men until we gained a narrow slit of seat into which the little old woman was dropped. But immediately the active pressure was released the resilience of fat rea.s.serted itself, and the little old woman spent the first part of the journey moaning out that she was being crushed to death. Most of the voyagers were peasants; one or two were travellers going to the fiesta; one was dressed in soldier's uniform, but he seemed to be neither officer nor private. We discovered later that he was a veterinary surgeon. Our musical instrument caused some attention and our fellow voyagers smiled at us with sympathy and kindness.

"Are you artists?" they asked.

"Yes," we replied.

"Then we will come to your concert," said they.

The road was indeed "indisposed." We rolled, rocked, and b.u.mped along miles of dusty road, by the side of which the trees were so drenched in dust that they were but ghosts of themselves; the herbage below seeming like the delicate clay work of a magic potter, having no hint of green for the eye. Nor can empty barrels be considered good travelling companions. If the lorry were toiling uphill the barrels sidled down the floor with a seeming leer. One s.n.a.t.c.hed one's toes out of the way without ceremony. On reaching the end of the lorry, the barrels spread themselves sideways, crus.h.i.+ng the knees of the sitters. When the lorry reached the top of the hill and began to thunder down the new slope the barrels bounced and b.u.mped to the other end of the lorry, bruising everybody in their pa.s.sage. Finally the young soldier sat on one of the centre barrels and tried to quell their antics, without much success.

The lorry climbed into the mountains, round roads which curved like a whiplash. At one spot the young soldier remarked: "The motor-bus fell over here once; six of the pa.s.sengers were killed."

The sun beat down on the canvas top of the lorry, and the large white porous water-jug hanging at the end was in constant demand. We halted at a small and lonely house where beer was for sale. The pa.s.sengers also bought beans pickled in salt and handed them to each other.

The dusty miles rolled off, at one moment through grey cliffs which shone in the evening light, and another over deep water courses, along the bottom of which ran serried terraces of vines. Presently a pretty girl, whom we took to be the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and who had spent the better part of the journey flirting with the young soldier, exclaimed: "Mira! s.h.i.+shona!"[20]

Through a cleft between two mountains we caught a glimpse of distant houses cl.u.s.tered up the side of a hill towards an old Saracen ruin which gleamed ochreous against the evening sky.

In spite of the presence of a couple of factories, the entrance of Jijona from the south is one of the most romantic sights we have seen in Spain. Ancient Spanish buildings sprang from the edge of a ravine covered with p.r.i.c.kly pear, and faced a steep cliff, along the precipitous face of which ran water courses. Old houses stood step above step, on a hill so steep that the roadways were all staircases and the houses had two entrances, the front into the lowest story and the back into the upper, and often the back-yard was higher than the roof. A white stone bridge carried the road with a n.o.ble curve across the ravine, and round this curve we swung, the pa.s.sengers waving hands and shouting greetings, into the town.

Our destination was a casa de huespedes (half inn, half boarding-house) called "La Vinaigre," and the name was not altogether unsuitable. But our first reception was as cordial as we could have wished. Owing to our friend's mattress, which the old hostess had recognized, we were welcomed with open arms.

CHAPTER XXI

JIJONA--THE FIESTA

The only fiesta we had hitherto experienced in Spain had been a small peasant feast during an afternoon at Verdolay. We had gone to it; but finding that we as foreigners const.i.tuted the chief centre of interest, we had run away to the seclusion of our house. At the big fiesta of Jijona were so many strangers that we were almost overlooked.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The family at the "Vinegar" consisted of an old bent-backed father peasant, sandalled; a mother, in black with black shawl; several sons, reaching towards mercantile gentility owing to the turron factory, which was in the cellars of the house; and several daughters, most of whom had married personages of importance in the little town. In fact the "Vinegar" family was upon the up-grade. They promised us a week of unparalleled amus.e.m.e.nt.

First, they said the town was crammed with people--a most necessary concomitant to Spanish enjoyment. In no other country in the world is the gregarious nature of man so plainly exhibited. The man who plays his lonely golf matched with an imaginary colonel would not be understood; your solitary pleasurer would find no sympathizers. Crowds, crowds, form the oil in the salad of Spanish amus.e.m.e.nt. Secondly: that very night the priests were giving a free public cinema entertainment. Thirdly: "They will loose a cow on the streets to-morrow night. Oh, it is precioso. It is a wonderful diversion. The cow gallops, the men try to catch her.