by Norman Lewis
This being a somewhat special occasion, the Alcalde brought out the coffee himself, then threw himself into a chair, groaned and covered his face with his hands. We sipped the infusion from Muga’s used coffee grounds, raised our eyes in ecstasy and then the Alcalde told us his troubles. Someone had chalked ‘lambs’ wool sucked here’ across the bar in the night. The allusion was unjust. ‘Suckers of lambs’ wool’ was the derisive title imposed by all those who suffered from the Fascist bureaucracy on the officials who sucked their blood, but the Alcalde, although an official, had become one with reluctance, and was well known for pulling whatever strings he could in official circles to make life easier for the people of his village.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ he said. ‘All I get is ingratitude.’
The weekly messenger just in from Gerona spotted us and came over to offer Don Alberto a month’s collection of obituaries from Vanguardia.
‘How much?’
‘Forty pesetas.’
‘But that’s all the papers cost.’
‘I know, but nobody reads the papers. This is all they buy them for.’
Don Alberto bought the collection, and read the first of them. Pray to God in Charity for the soul of Dra. Concepción Barber Nogués who passed away on April 14th after receiving the holy sacrament and the apostolic blessing. Mourned by her afflicted family. Don Alberto shook his head. ‘Afflicted is overdone. Disconsolate is better. We suffer from a constant erosion of good taste.’
Don Ignacio, drawn out of his house towards the bar as if some instinct had warned him that real coffee was to be had, joined our little group. The fishermen raised no objection to his sitting outside the bar, where any unfavourable influences he generated would be rapidly dispersed in the atmosphere, but out of respect for their prejudices he took care never to go inside. He was eager to tell someone about the remarkable latrine of a Roman villa recently unearthed in Ampurias, but nobody was interested in this subject and Don Alberto made it an opportunity to tackle him on the matter of a woman who had just committed suicide in Sort. Despite his personal intervention the priest there had refused to bury her in consecrated ground.
‘Send her over here,’ Don Ignacio said. ‘I’ll find room for her in our cemetery.’
‘Won’t the locals kick up a fuss?’
‘They won’t know what’s going on,’ Don Ignacio said. ‘We’ll present them with a fait accompli.’
‘Thank God there are a few Christians left alive,’ Don Alberto said.
The story was that the woman, having been deserted by her husband, had put on her white wedding dress, walked up the hill to an abandoned chapel behind the village, bandaged the eyes of the Virgin who still presided there, swallowed an ergot pill of the kind given to cows, and then died.
‘She was a mere object for her husband,’ Don Alberto said. ‘A political necessity. He acquired her along with property. No more than that.’
‘It’s all you expect of peasants,’ Don Ignacio said.
‘They’ve suffered from generations of bad government,’ the Alcalde put in. He was on the lookout for an excuse to grumble about the deficiencies of the regime he served. ‘I don’t see much difference now.’
‘They suffer from property,’ Don Alberto said. ‘Having spent most of my life there I can tell you love doesn’t exist in Sort, or if it exists at all it comes second to the love of material things. What does a peasant want to do – cherish his wife and children? No, he wants to add another field to the land he’s already got. In the end perhaps he’ll get rich, and then he’s a peasant multiplied by ten. What is a hereditary landowner? A peasant multiplied by a hundred. That duke you hear so much about who can travel from one end of Spain to the other without leaving his estates – what’s he but a peasant multiplied by a thousand?’
‘This country’s swung too far in the other direction,’ the Alcalde said. ‘I fought against the Reds, and would again, but when you hear about this duke of yours you begin to think.’
‘He’s a victim of tradition like all the rest of them,’ Don Alberto said. ‘In reality what does all this power and prestige of his amount to? He’s just adding field to field. I could tell you of tenants of mine who got married to a girl with a bit of land, took the first boat to America and didn’t show up in the village again for ten to fifteen years. They come back rich, a pocketful of fields you might say. But what sort of wealth is that?’
‘We have a proverb,’ Don Ignacio said, ready with his quotation from Barras. ‘God never strangles, but property does.’
A party of fishermen passed, laden down with nets that had been dipped in preserving liquid and would now be spread out on the beach to dry. Each man, seeing Don Ignacio, fumbled quickly to touch iron or, failing that, his testicles. ‘Nobody can own the sea,’ Don Alberto said, ‘therefore no court cases, no political marriages, no fuss over inheritances, and plenty of love to go round. They don’t know how lucky they are.’
‘Going back to this poor woman,’ Don Ignacio said. ‘Was there any indication as to the state of her mind? I’m putting her in the cemetery whatever anybody likes to say, but I’d like to be able to produce an argument if necessary.’
‘She wrote something on the wall of the chapel that didn’t make much sense,’ Don Alberto said. ‘“I shall never come back again to this place.” That’s all.’
‘And what did you make of that?’
‘What can you make of it?’
‘If you ask me she was crazy,’ the Alcalde said. ‘That’s not a rational thing to write.’
‘I agree with you,’ Don Ignacio said. ‘She’d clearly taken leave of her senses. I suppose she didn’t have a father? Were there any brothers?’
‘Only one. Collecting a few fields in Argentina. There are a couple of sisters.’
‘To give this some sort of an appearance,’ Don Ignacio said, ‘we really need a male chief mourner. I suppose there wouldn’t be any chance—?’
‘Certainly I’ll be chief mourner,’ Don Alberto said. ‘I barely knew the girl by sight, but I can at least mourn for humanity.’
Chapter Seven
I HAD BEEN INVITED with Don Alberto to lunch that day at the house of a rich tenant of his, Pablo Fons, a reactionary, as Don Alberto described him, of the old school, and here I was hoping for the opportunity to listen to the peasant viewpoint. In Farol most of the real power seemed to lie in the hands of the women. Sort, according to Don Alberto, followed a patriarchal system, although this was rapidly breaking up, and the Fons family was one of the remaining few where the father was the centre of all authority, and no decision or action could be taken, even by his grown-up sons, without consultation with him and his assent.
Don Alberto took me to the Fons fortified farmhouse on the back of his Levis. The whole area surrounding this grim-looking building smelt intensely of cattle and their dung, and bluebottles by the thousand buzzed over the puddles of cows’ urine and round women as black as witches washing clothes at a domed-over well. The farm itself was a miniature fortress with small barred windows rimmed with white paint, like sleepless eyes, and it would have taken a battering ram to knock down the door behind which Fons awaited us dressed in a new, blue shirt fastened very tightly at the neck, and grey trousers with black cummerbund. My immediate impression after many months spent in the company of fishermen who had expressions of extreme innocence, even gullibility, was of a highly complicated face and a sceptical smile. At Fons’ back stood one of his grown-up sons holding a bowl of water, soap and a towel. We were invited to wash our feet, but declined. A long table had been set in the entrance hall, or porch as it was locally known, and we were asked to take our seats. ‘Cover yourselves, gentlemen,’ Fons said. Don Alberto had provided a scratchy straw hat in preparation for this ceremony, and I clamped it on my head and sat down. ‘Pick up your eating utensils, gentlemen,’ was the next order and Don Alberto and I raised the knives and spoons provided. Fons followed suit, and only then was it in order for the
rest of those at table – Fons’ two sons, and a pair of overseers – to prepare to eat. The food – goat’s flesh with saffron-flavoured rice – was served by two cowed-looking females in black, one of whom I supposed to be Fons’ wife, who then made themselves scarce.
Don Alberto drew Fons out, explaining that I was a foreigner interested in local customs, that I was staying in Farol and had been surprised to hear of the antipathy displayed towards each other by the people of the two villages.
Fons then asked me what I personally thought of the fishermen, and I told him I got on very well with them.
‘Do you really want to know what I think of them?’ Fons asked.
‘That’s why he’s here,’ Don Alberto said. ‘You’re supposed to be a man who doesn’t pull his punches. Let’s hear you speak your own mind.’
‘Very well, then, objection number one. We here at Sort have a close and devoted family life.’
‘At this point perhaps I ought to point out that two of Pablo’s sons haven’t spoken to him for a couple of years,’ Don Alberto said.
‘You’re talking of tiffs. These things pass,’ Fons said. ‘I repeat that we have indissoluble family bonds, and we respect our ancestors. My great-grandfather, or maybe my great-great-grandfather, fought against Napoleon. We have a history. Nothing of what I’ve said to you applies in Farol. They don’t worship Almighty God, most husbands don’t sleep with their wives but practise self-abuse, which is proved by the fact that half of them don’t have children. Moreover, they monopolise the sea.’
‘Nobody can do that,’ Don Alberto said. ‘The sea’s yours for the taking.’
‘The Bible tells us we should earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. What do our friends at Farol do? They carry a net to the water, put it down, and wait for it to fill with fish. Half the time they’re asleep.’
‘Forgive me,’ Don Alberto said. ‘I know of no men who work harder. Try not to talk nonsense in front of my friend, who will get a bad impression of us.’
Fons took a spoonful of rice, and his sons and farm-hands, who had ceased out of respect to eat while he was talking, hastily pitched into their food. A dog came through the door dragging a log inch by inch on its chain. Fons threw it a gobbet of gristle, and began again, waving his spoon reproachfully.
‘My respect for you is enormous, Don Alberto. After all you’re one of us, but for the life of me I can’t see how you can take these people’s part. Excuse me, but I feel it as a kind of betrayal. Doesn’t an obsession with cats offend you, for instance? It’s something that makes my flesh creep.’
‘You’re just as bad with dogs. The fact is I’m in a position to see both sides, and there’s a lot to criticise in Sort, where I happen to have been born. Take the case of that poor unfortunate girl. Something must be wrong with any kind of community where a thing like that can happen.’
A small splutter of protest decorated the front of Fons’ blue shirt with golden grains of rice.
‘A tragedy can happen anywhere. How you can blame us for what took place at the chapel I can’t imagine. We’re Christians, respecters of the passion of Our Lord. What are you going to say about people who tolerate prostitutes in their midst? I’m referring to the woman who used to herd goats in this village. I’m told she’s been seen in the Sunday promenade walking at the side of the Alcalde’s wife.’
‘I wouldn’t describe the young lady in question as a prostitute,’ Don Alberto said.
‘And how would you describe her, your honour?’
‘An attractive and popular young woman with a number of suitors.’
Fons appealed to his sons. ‘What do you think of that, boys? We’re referring to Maria Cabritas?’
The sons put down their spoons to laugh scornfully.
‘With due respect, Don Alberto,’ Fons said, ‘let me remind you of our customs. A girl is entitled to entertain any number of suitors providing the intentions of all parties are serious.’
‘Quite right,’ Don Alberto said. ‘I remember a girl in my young days who had fifteen, of whom I was one. Naturally I was rejected.’
‘Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were and still are the days on which courting takes place. Suitors are received starting at 8 p.m., and each may remain for a period of fifteen minutes. Normally the mother of the girl or her aunt is present.’
‘I know all these things so well,’ Don Alberto said. ‘Usually it was the aunt, and sometimes it was possible to bribe her. As a nation we are disposed to corruption.’
‘But everything must be kept within reason,’ Fons said. ‘This is Spain, not the Congo. Nobody’s going to object to a young person getting a bit more than their due once in a while if they can, but every girl that has young men round to the house is expected to take one of them to church within a reasonable time. If this doesn’t happen people cease to take her seriously, and in the end she’s likely to be stoned.’
‘Symbolically,’ Don Alberto said.
‘As in the case of the girl under discussion. A couple of responsible women went to the house and threw a few pebbles at the door. She and her mother had the good sense to get out. If they hadn’t they’d have run into something more than a symbol. It was made clear that they wanted her to go and she went.’
‘Why do you leave this kind of job to old women?’ Don Alberto asked. ‘It’s the only time you ever take any notice of them. In any case Sort’s loss is Farol’s gain.’
‘I wish it were our loss,’ Fons said. ‘The point is it’s not. She cleared out of the village itself, but she’s still living within the limits of our community.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Look at the map and you’ll see the house is at least twenty metres over our boundary.’
‘All she has to do is to put up a shack at the bottom of the garden, and she’d be in Farol.’
‘It would please me to see her do that,’ Fons said. ‘We’d be clear of the responsibility.’
‘Don’t be childish, Pablo,’ Don Alberto told him.
We left, puttering back across the fields on the asthmatic Levis for a coffee outside the bar in Farol. This time it was a straightforward substitute made from acorns and locust beans with a strong flavour of tar. ‘That man,’ said Don Alberto, ‘is dangerous, not just stupid as you would assume. Notice the craving for status? Now he’s got himself an ancestor who fought against Napoleon. His great-great-grandfather was a peon on the finca. A slave if you like. They used to tether them like horses at night.’
‘Why’s he dangerous?’ I asked.
‘Because something is building up between these two villages. A lío. What you call a vendetta. And this man is a moving spirit. I think these people are plotting something. There’s no way of saying what it is, but we’ll soon know.’
Chapter Eight
THAT EVENING I was surprised to see a new face in the normally unchanging human vista of the evening promenade. An extremely fat, though pretty girl was walking arm in arm with the Grandmother, and she was clearly well known and respected, as any man who happened to be wearing a hat made a beeline for them to raise it as he passed. There was something familiar about this girl, but seconds passed before I realised that it was Sa Cordovesa, who was almost unrecognisable.
Sebastian was full of excitement about what had happened when we met in the bar a little later, and the story passed on by his wife was a remarkable one. The admiral who had fallen in love with her, proposed marriage, been accepted, and had whisked her away supposedly to Madrid, turned out to be an assistant purser in a ship of a minor coastal line operating between Barcelona and Vigo. Sa Cordovesa had found herself shut away in a three-room walk-up apartment in the dreary little industrial town of Prat del Llobregat awaiting a wedding which, as the admiral said, had had to be postponed to await the formal assent of the ministry of the Marine. She had been placed in the care of an old woman who took away her shoes, never let her out of her sight and constantly served her enormous meals. This was explained by the admiral�
��s concern for her health after a doctor he had called in to give her a check-up told her she was suffering from tuberculosis. The doctor had prescribed medicines and also a régime designed to build up her resistance to the disease. She was obliged to eat several pounds of potatoes a day, plus an immense amount of oily stews, fatty meats, cream cakes and pastries of all kinds. The doctor also instructed her to spend twelve hours out of the twenty-four in bed, to walk slowly, and avoid taking undue exercise.
The lover, never out of his admiral’s uniform, with a chestful of decorations, came to see her and announce a new date for the wedding at fortnightly intervals when his ship got in from Vigo. The true facts came out when he was taking an afternoon nap and she went through his pockets and found not only his identity papers but an affectionate letter from another sufferer from tuberculosis who was undergoing the same treatment as she, and who proudly announced in it that she now topped the scale at 196 pounds. This convinced Sa Cordovesa that the admiral was just a man who collected fat girls and, having cleaned out his wallet, which contained barely enough to pay her fare back to Farol and buy a pair of shoes, she left him and the old woman to their siestas and departed.
The problem that arose now was – what to do with her? Sa Cordovesa had enjoyed life in Farol, where she had been admired by all and loved by quite a few. The discreet service she had performed for the community had been taken over by Maria Cabritas and carried out by her with equal efficiency and discretion. Sebastian said that the feeling among the fishermen was that whatever the sacrifices involved a place would have to be found for her in the life of Farol, the difficulty being that few if any fishermen shared the admiral’s passion for obesity.
