Sacred Sierra

by Jason Webster

  ‘Very unripe,’ he said with a look of resignation. He’d probably taken a measure of us as soon as we’d walked in – despite wearing dirty, country clothes, we were obviously city types at heart, as green as the olives we’d just brought in.

  ‘How much?’ I asked eagerly. After two full days threshing trees, our hands scratched and sore, I wanted to hear a big round number, something that would make me proud of this, our first harvest.

  He looked up at the screen. It said 49 kilos. He gave another resigned smile. Then it flashed 50 and stopped.

  ‘That’s all right then,’ he said. ‘You might at least get a litre or two out of that.’ He ripped off a piece of paper from the printer and handed it to us. ‘Come back in a week or so to collect.’ Then he turned to the waiting crowd behind us.

  ‘Next!’

  A litre or two. All that work for a litre or two of oil. Despite my disappointment, though, I smiled: it would be our oil, from our olive trees, doubtless it would be the best olive oil I had ever tasted. That was worth all the effort.

  Salud poured us both a glass of wine when we got back. ‘To our first olive crop,’ she said. We clinked glasses and settled down in front of the fire. Outside an owl was hooting away, while cold draughts did their best to push through the cracks in the doors and windows. A gale was blowing in again from the north-west, blustering bursts of air hurtling over the house. Starting, making mistakes, learning, amending, carrying on. There was a mountain to climb.

  *

  The thirteenth of December – Sta Llúcia – St Lucy’s Day. Like thousands of women across the country, Salud takes down last year’s mistletoe from where it was hanging over the back door, burns it in a pan outside by squirting lighter fuel on to it and striking a match, then places a new sprig up above the window in its place. I’ve found some pine trees further up the valley with mistletoe growing on them and cut a bunch down for her. She says it’s traditional to do it on this day – it absorbs ‘negativity’, which is then dissipated at the end of the year when you burn it. Marina would be proud. I am about to ask whether it will work for keeping away the ghost girl, but think better of it.

  *

  A week or so after dropping off our olives at the co-operative, I went round to see if our oil was ready. Where previously the place had been packed with people delivering their crop, now there was no one and the place seemed deserted. I poked my head round the door and was met by the familiar smell of slightly acidic, fermenting olives.

  A girl was sitting at the desk, smoking and listening to the radio. I handed her my receipt.

  ‘Filtered or unfiltered?’ she asked.

  ‘What’s the difference?’ I said.

  ‘Unfiltered’s cloudy and you get more of it,’ she said.

  Half an hour later I was back at the farm clutching two five-litre plastic bottles of thick, green, opaque liquid, a loaf of fresh bread under my arm. Salud was waiting for me.

  ‘Time for an almuerzo – a mid-morning snack,’ she said.

  She decanted some of the oil into a little bottle, broke the bread and placed two plates on the table. We poured drops of oil on to the plates and then simultaneously reached down to dip bread into it before bringing it up to our mouths.

  ‘To our first crop,’ she said.

  ‘Cheers.’

  Perhaps only once or twice in my life had I tried such a richly flavoured oil. The smell alone was worth every effort we had put into harvesting, a strong, deep, earthy scent that connected directly with some pleasure centre in the brain. It tasted magnificent, too, with just a hint of a spicy kick at the back of the throat.

  ‘How come you can never buy this kind of stuff in the shops?’ I asked. Even the best ‘named’ olive oils I’d tried – usually from Jaén province in northern Andalusia – weren’t up to this standard. There was something raw, pure and genuine about this oil.

  ‘Would you sell this?’ Salud said.

  She laughed as we both bent down to dip our bread for a second helping.

  *

  Out on the mountainside planting the oak saplings, I heard a loud cracking sound coming from the top of the cliff-face above. I thought for a moment that the hunters had returned, but there was something different about the noise – less of an explosion and more as if something had been struck. I turned to look up and caught sight of two male ibexes on the very edge of the precipice, great ribbed horns rising proudly from their heads. They were facing each other at close quarters, their bodies seemingly relaxed, but with a tension that was perceptible even from where I was standing. I dropped my tools and fished out my binoculars: before I’d managed to find them and focus there came another crack, echoing across the gorge from hillface to hillface. I scanned the clifftop and found them a few metres on, one standing strong and in his place, the other circling, pacing around him, perhaps the younger of the two. The rutting season must be about to begin: this was a fight over who controlled the harem.

  We often saw the ibex trotting around the mountainside. I had caught sight of them about a month before, a whole group of about thirty animals – mostly females. The males, of which there were about three, perhaps four, seemed to be cohabiting peacefully back then – before the females went on heat.

  There was a pause in the fight as the two drew breath. I wondered how much of this was show, or if they were really serious. Could they do actual harm to each other?

  My question was soon answered as they came together again, raised themselves simultaneously on to their hind legs, then in unison fell crashing down, horns against horns, forehead against forehead. Involuntarily, I took a breath: it was shocking to see the ferocity of the combat. But this time they carried on, and within seconds were back on their hind legs, heads smashing down against one another, the whole weight of each animal bearing down on the other. The pain and pressure where their two skulls met would be immense. How on earth did they not dash each other’s brains out?

  They lifted again, ready for another clash. This was no mere locking of horns; in fact the horns didn’t seem to play too big a role in it: the cranium took the brunt of the blow.

  Again they smashed into each other, neither seeming to gain the upper hand. The one I assumed to be older had moved away, but the younger one had yet to defeat him. In fact he, too, looked worn out. There was another brief hiatus as they trotted around each other, sometimes appearing not to care what was going on, with a kind of nonchalant arrogance. I kept my eyes fixed firmly on them.

  After a minute or so they were back in the fray. There was a curious moment each time just before they banged their heads together: both on hind legs, both slightly uneasy not to have four legs on the ground, both watching each other intensely, with the hint that either one might back down at any moment. But each time they threw themselves at each other with all their might. It seemed neither would accept defeat. The older one had to be removed, otherwise he would remain as head of the group: he was the man to beat.

  They cracked against each other, then cracked again, the sound barrelling across the valley. Neither moved from the edge of the cliff, as though this momentous battle had to take place in the most dramatic and dangerous venue possible.

  It seemed they couldn’t go on, pounding and pounding each other over and over again. Then they stopped. For a second I thought another pause had come, a mutually agreed suspension of hostilities while each one recuperated for the next round. But something caught my eye. The older of the ibexes staggered a little. The younger one stood still, half turning his head as though only wanting to watch with one eye. Then his opponent stumbled away from him, inches from the edge of the cliff. He kicked in vain at the loosening rocks beneath his feet, but it was as if he could no longer carry his own weight. And in a flash he was falling – falling down the face of the mountain, hitting an outcrop of stone as he dropped before landing heavily on the slope below, his head flopping from side to side lifelessly as he slid another ten, twenty metres, and then disappeared into the bushes a
nd trees near the top of the gorge. There was a brief rustle, then silence.

  It all occurred so quickly that it took me several moments to realise what had happened. I had only been able to catch his fall by taking the binoculars away from my eyes. Meanwhile, at the top of the mountain, the younger, victorious ibex looked down for a few seconds at where his enemy had fallen, and then turned and trotted calmly away out of sight. His dead foe might even have been his own father, I thought. How long before the same thing happened to him?

  It crossed my mind for a moment to go and look for the ibex’s body, but it was some distance away, on a section of the mountainside that was difficult to get to. The sun was falling and it would soon be dark.

  Within minutes I noticed great shadows moving overhead. Glancing up I saw the long-fingered, rectangular wings of a couple of vultures, circling gracefully over the cliff-face. Seconds later they were joined by another two. Doubtless the glorious, powerful ibex that had been fighting as head of the herd only minutes before now lay dead where he had fallen. All trace of him would soon be erased from the earth.

  *

  Strong winds came. We battened ourselves down inside the house as best we could, while the land outside was left battered and bruised. The next morning I went out to inspect and see if any damage had been done. Most of the mature trees had survived, but a few smaller branches lay scattered over the road and in the fields. I remembered a comment of Arcadio’s. ‘Up here where you are,’ he said, ‘you’re actually in the weather.’ I loved watching the clouds settling in the valley below us on calmer, rainier days: it gave me a bird’s sense of space and freedom. But when the winds came I longed to be several hundred metres lower down, less exposed. There were ruins of masos even higher up than we were: these small, squat buildings must have been made to withstand almost anything the weather could throw at them.

  The situation was less rosy when I checked the truffle plantation. By now I’d managed to plant about a hundred oak trees, each one carefully placed with its own plastic protecting tube. The tubes weren’t exactly attractive, but they were supposed to help the young saplings survive the first few years safe from predators: the ibex, I thought, might well be tempted by their fresh shoots, although the holm oak leaves had little thorns, much like holly. But now I realised that using the protectors had been a mistake. Although staked firmly into the ground with a bamboo stick, they had been shuffled about in the winds: half had been uprooted altogether, while the remainder were just hanging on. The worst of it, though, was that in jiggling about they had exposed and damaged the root balls of many saplings, which were now exposed to the cold.

  It was clear what I had to do: I rounded up the stray protecting tubes, pulled out the ones that were still in place, before getting down on my hands and knees and carefully trying to replant the saplings. Many would be all right, I thought: with handfuls of fresh soil packed around the base they would probably pull through. Others, though, were in trouble, and some were even lying flat, having been all but ripped out of the ground. These I planted again, but with little hope for their survival. With a bit of luck I might be able to limit my losses to less than twenty trees. Still, it was a blow: I knew how much effort had gone into planting each one of them.

  Later that morning I caught sight of El Clossa’s blue pickup making its way towards us from further down the valley.

  ‘Grab your coats,’ he said, tapping a crutch impatiently on the ground when he finally reached the mas. ‘We’re going out for lunch.’

  We followed him in our car as he took off at speed down the hill. Minutes later we had passed the village and were back on dirt tracks leading towards Penyagolosa.

  ‘Where did he say we were heading?’ Salud asked.

  ‘He didn’t.’

  It was hard to keep up with him as he sped along treacherous lanes covered in loose rocks or pitted with great axle-destroying holes. Yet he drove much as he walked.

  As we gained altitude, we hit a snow line where a sprinkling of white had been shaken on to the landscape. Just a few metres further down, back at the farm, it was still T-shirt weather in the intense winter sun, yet here we seemed to have entered another world, one that lay almost on our doorstep, where winter was in full flow.

  El Clossa sped along, seeming to care little about details such as corners, precipitous drops at the edge of the track, steep inclines. I rammed the car into four-wheel drive as we started skidding around on the ice. If I lost sight of him we would be in trouble: the track divided at regular intervals with no indication of which way to go. Besides, he hadn’t given us time to find out where we were heading.

  After almost an hour of rally driving, we passed near the peak of Penyagolosa and started to descend. In the near distance we caught sight of a tiny village perched on a curious outcrop of rock in the middle of a wide valley.

  ‘Xodos!’ Salud exclaimed. ‘It’s a lovely little place. I did some gigs up here a few years back.’

  ‘There?’ I said. ‘There can’t be more than fifty people living there.’

  ‘There aren’t, you’re right,’ she said. ‘But they know how to throw a fiesta.’

  I was intrigued that this picturesque, hidden village, barely a hamlet by the looks of it, should be the party capital of the province. It certainly didn’t appear to be rocking on this midweek afternoon in mid-December.

  We drove up into the village, circling past oak woods and barren brown fields, passing underneath the rock on which it was perched before doubling back on ourselves and creeping through a tiny entrance between two old stone houses. We parked next to an old iron spring, a drinking water fountain, in a main square the size of a handkerchief. El Clossa was already out of his car and cooling the back of his head in the stream of spring water before we’d taken stock of where we were.

  ‘Come on,’ he called to us. ‘We’re going to be late.’ And he vanished through a doorway covered with a curtain of heavy wooden beads.

  We shuffled in behind him as quickly as we could, trying to keep up with his relentless pace.

  It was a large, dark bar and restaurant, heavy brown beams stretching across the low roof, small windows on the far side casting a minimum of light into the room. Three elderly men were sitting on wooden chairs around a cast-iron stove in the centre of the main area.

  ‘Victor!’ El Clossa called boisterously as we stepped inside. ‘I’ve brought a student for you.’

  He turned to me.

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘is el Rey de las Trufas – the Truffle King.’

  Small and squat, like so many elderly men in the area, the Truffle King, the owner of the restaurant, held out a rough, suspicious hand for me to shake, then nodded towards Salud.

  ‘It’s all right,’ El Clossa said, ‘son del terreno – they’re part of the land; they’re locals.’

  The Truffle King’s weather-worn face looked to be carved of stone – eyes far apart, a small upturned nose – but there was a noticeable change in his expression, if still wary.

  ‘Well,’ he said, his tiny, thin mouth barely opening when he spoke, ‘if you’re friends of El Clossa, you’re welcome.’

  We sat at a table next to a window set deep into the stone walls. Everything in the room seemed to speak of cold, hard winters, of long evenings spent huddled in here against the dark and the freezing winds outside. The ceiling was low, the walls were a yard thick, the windows were small and protected inside and out by heavy wooden shutters. The black iron stove stood at the centre of the room, while the chimney pipe stretched diagonally halfway across before rising up through the roof, to take advantage of as much heat as possible. To one side, tucked into a small alcove, was the bar, and behind it another fireplace set high in the wall. From the grills and pans hanging to either side it seemed this was used for cooking. I had picked up the scent of meats and smoking fat as we walked in. We were going to eat well here.

  The Truffle King brought us small glasses of beer – cañas – to whet our appetites, while a s
hort woman about the same age with grey hair, glasses and a pout came to take our order. She was, I thought, probably his wife, which made her – what? The Truffle Queen? Where exactly had El Clossa brought us? It felt like something out of a fairy tale. Was there a Truffle Princess running about the place somewhere as well?

  El Clossa ordered so fast we couldn’t catch what he was saying.

  ‘He seems to be speaking in some kind of code language,’ Salud whispered to me while his attention was momentarily elsewhere.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the Truffle King said turning back to us. ‘You’ll love it.’

  For the first few dishes the food was good, if unexceptional – the usual plates of salad, some esgarraet – dried cod and roasted red peppers, fresh bread, a bowl of consommé. All this came out of the kitchen, to the far side of the dining room. But in the meantime, out of the corner of my eye I could see the Truffle King was up to something behind the bar at the little fireplace. Eventually he emerged with the main course: the biggest steaks I had ever seen. Salud went almost white at the size of them, while El Clossa rubbed his hands in glee.

  ‘Bet you’ve never had anything like this before,’ he said. ‘Not even in the best restaurants in Paris or London could you eat as well as here.’

  Blood drenched my plate as I cut into the thick, soft meat, then raised a morsel to my mouth. As the smell reached my nostrils, a shudder of joy coursed through my body. Then the flavour burst into life on my tongue: tender and sensual. It was an experience not unlike one I had had before. The wood smoke alone would have made them the most delicious steaks we had ever tried, but there was something else there, a richer, darker, enhancing flavour. As my mouth watered, I noticed a paste-like substance coating each piece of meat.

  ‘Truffle pâté,’ the Truffle King said as he pulled out a chair and sat down beside us, revelling in our enjoyment of his food. ‘You spread it on a minute before you take the steaks out from the fire.’ And he smiled at us, a rare, genuine smile.