“I don’t like flamenco,” was her sleepy reply.“How many more times do I have to tell you?” But she didn’t sound very convincing.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BLOOD ON THE DANCE FLOOR
We quickly discovered two things about Seville: that the streets were narrow and the men were jealous.
The fact that the streets in the old quarter, known as the Barrio de Santa Cruz, were extremely narrow was brought home to us forcefully when we first arrived there at dawn on our first day. Carlos, who was himself a Sevillano, had recommended a cheap pensión which he knew of in that area and had insisted in driving us to the very door.We nosed our way through a maze of tortuous little lanes which all the time seemed to be getting narrower until, at last, the crunch came. Literally! The Cadillac, our beautiful, impressive Cadillac, designed to sail through the wide and spacious avenues of North American cities, had jammed fast between the walls of a street which could just about accommodate a man leading a mule.
Carlos swore lustily and put it into reverse gear. The wheels spun impotently but the bonnet was firmly wedged and refused to budge. Carlos swore even louder and Anita, who was not used to such language, put her hands to her ears.
We got out, climbed over the bonnet and started pushing with Carlos still at the wheel and the engine screaming its disapproval. But, strain as we might, it was all to no avail.
Carlos, careless of the fact that he was waking half the neighbourhood, shouted for help and, after a few moments, a little man appeared from nowhere and came running to our assistance. He wore a heavy coat and carried an enormous bunch of keys from which I deduced he was the local sereno or night watchman whose job it was to tour the streets throughout the hours of darkness, unlocking doors for nocturnal residents. I had come across these serenos in Madrid and was always astonished by their constant availability.You could be in a completely deserted street, locked out at any hour of the night, and all you had to do was clap your hands a few times for a sereno to appear out of thin air like a genie from Aladdin’s lamp.
This one came trotting up to us, keys jangling, smiling and helpful as only a sereno could be at such an hour. All three of us now pushed and heaved to dislodge the Cadillac but our combined strength plus the reverse gear were still insufficient.The sereno said not to worry; he would go and find some friends who would certainly be able to get us out of our fix.
He returned shortly with three burly chaps in blue workman’s dungarees. Their muscular arms, bulging beneath their rolled-up shirtsleeves, looked strong enough to shift a tank.
Predictably, the added brute force of the sereno’s stalwart friends did the trick and, with the sickening sound of scraping metal, the car was finally freed from its imprisonment. Carlos surveyed the damaged wings with deepening gloom. “How am I going to explain this to the boss?” he muttered.
“That you were in a traffic jam?” suggested Anita,“And a lorry tried to squeeze by and rammed you into a wall? No, that won’t do.They’d want to know the number of the lorry.”
“Don’t worry,” he said philosophically, “I’ll think of something. Now you girls had better find your pensión. It’s down this street, to the right.”
Regretfully we took our leave of Carlos, for he had been a good friend, but that same day he had to drive for another client and we knew we wouldn’t see him again. The Cadillac backed away round the corner and was soon gone as were the sereno and his friends, who had disappeared as swiftly as they had come.
Anita and I were left standing alone with our cases on the cobblestones of the Barrio de Santa Cruz as the first streaks of dawn crossed the dark sky.We walked along the quiet street with its picturesque lanterns and flower-decked balconies. In the half-light we could just make out pretty, tiled patios behind traceries of wrought iron reminding us of Granada.
At the end we turned right, as instructed, and found ourselves in an even narrower street: so narrow, in fact, that by stretching out our arms we could touch both the opposite walls.The street curved away round a corner and as we approached the bend we heard, breaking the early morning silence, a bleating sound and the rattle of buckets.
A woman was sitting milking a black goat by one of the entrances and behind her was a young boy holding the tethers of two more. The woman was humming softly under her breath in time to the rhythmic splash of milk in the bucket. Standing just inside the entrance, watching her, was a girl holding a large pitcher.
The woman looked up at us and smiled and Anita asked her where we could find the pensión. In reply she jerked her head towards the entrance and the girl nodded in confirmation. It seemed we had come to the right place at the right time, our arrival having coincided with the milk for our breakfast coffee.
I had harboured the faint hope that, with all the many diversions of the last few days: Mr. Schwartz, the U.S. Marines, our party at Jerez and now our arrival in this most exciting of Spanish cities, perhaps Anita might have forgotten about Desmond Brocklebank. In fact, for a time, this really did seem to be the case for she had hardly mentioned him recently; but now, as we sat under some tall palm trees in the María Luisa Park, I noticed, to my dismay, the return of all those familiar and ominous signs. There were the sighs, the dreamy far away look and the reflective, flickering smile – all worrying portents of the revival of her crazy infatuation. Something had to be done about it.
“What are you thinking about?” I ventured to ask her, suspecting that her answer would confirm my worst fears. She gave another deep, contented sigh and leaning back on the bench, gazed starry-eyed, up into the trees.
“I am thinking,” she mused,“about all those interesting things Desmond told me in Granada: about the progress of the Human Soul, Buddhism and the Noble Eight-fold Path and… the philosophy of Hegel, his ideas of Mind and Nature being one. I didn’t know about any of these things but… when he explains them they become so clear.”
“Hmm, yes,” I said doubtfully, “but you were thinking about something else too, weren’t you? What are all those smiles in aid of?”
She laughed happily. “Ah, I was thinking what a wonderful, romantic man Desmond is and about all the lovely things he called me: like Aphrodite, Goddess of Love! No one has ever called me that before.And do you know? I think he is a little in love with me. Isn’t that marvellous?Yes, I really think he is in love with me!”
“But you can’t be serious about him,” I protested, “he’s well over forty and mad as a hatter.”
She stared at me in astonishment. “How can you say that? Of course I’m serious. You don’t understand. Oh, how I long to be back in Madrid so that I can see him again!” Things were even worse than I had feared.
“Anyway,” she continued, “you’re a fine one to preach! How about your crazy boyfriends? That Julio is a madman if ever I saw one and as for Luis – well, you know what I think of him.”
“Julio is not my boyfriend,” I retorted, smarting from her counter attack, “not really. He just thinks he is. And you can leave Luis out of this because you know very well I’m through with him.”
“Alright, alright!” she said soothingly. “No need to be so irritable. Let’s not quarrel. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like the Sevillanos?” I suggested. “Don’t you think they’re a good-looking lot?”
“Are they? I hadn’t noticed.”
Now Anita was such an exceptionally attractive girl that she was never short of male attention.This was certainly true in Seville where the young men seemed particularly susceptible to feminine beauty. Wherever we went, those roving, Andalusian eyes followed her, and numerous imaginative compliments tumbled from their lips as she passed by. But Anita, despite being a connoisseur of piropos (compliments), still had her head in the clouds. It was full of thoughts about Desmond and I believed her when she said she hadn’t even noticed them. I decided that, in the circumstances, it might be a good idea to distract her by drawing her attention to the local talent.
“Look!” I muttered.
“Look at those two over there! They’re really good-looking and they’ve been watching us for ages, and now they’re coming over this way!”
Anita stood up abruptly and brushed down her skirt. “Let’s go!” she said.“We’ve still got lots to see here.”
“But have you seen the Giralda Tower?” asked one of the boys who had overheard her.“It’s the pride of Seville, the most beautiful thing in the whole of Spain – yet it is as nothing compared with your beauty!” His eyes swept over her as he spoke.
Anita smiled with delight but pretended not to hear. “Come on!” She linked arms with me urging me to quicken my pace.
“Let us show you Seville,” suggested her admirers hurrying alongside us. “Let us be your guides! But first, we could have a drink together.”
“No thanks,” said Anita but she was still smiling which I took as a hopeful sign.
“Coffee perhaps?” they persisted. “We know a good café just round the corner; and then we’ll show you the Giralda and the Torre de Oro and Triana – that’s the gypsy quarter – if you like.”
Seeing that Anita was weakening I said I thought that sounded a good idea and I was dying for a cup of coffee.
Delighted, they introduced themselves as Ricardo and Luciano, medical students. It was amazing to me how many medical students there seemed to be around. The whole country was swarming with them and I guessed there would never be a shortage of doctors.
Ricardo, who was tall, dark and handsome, attached himself to Anita and, since she had a passionate interest in all things medical, they were soon deep in conversation. This looked hopeful and I was optimistic that my plan might work.
So engrossed was I in observing the progress of my project that I almost forgot about Luciano who was now saddled with my company, a definite second best I imagined, since his friend had grabbed Anita.
“I wonder what it is about Ricardo,” I heard him say wistfully. “What makes him so popular with all the girls?”
I realised I had been watching the other couple intently and Luciano had interpreted this as jealousy on my part. I looked at him for the first time. He was shorter than me but not unattractive with soft, brown eyes and a pleasant smile.
“You mean your friend over there?” I feigned surprise.“I don’t think there’s anything special about him. Don’t imagine I was thinking about him. It’s just I had my mind on something else.”
“Well, that’s a relief!” laughed Luciano. “How about another coffee?”
We spent the rest of the day with our new friends and we couldn’t have found better guides. We were taken to the Giralda Tower, a beautiful Moorish minaret crowned with a piece of Gothic nonsense, presumably to make it look less heretical when it became a Christian church. Beside it was a broad square, the Plaza de Naranjos, appropriately named after the orange trees that adorned it. We wandered along the banks of the River Guadalquivir and were shown another landmark, the Torre de Oro. Nearby was a bridge which opened to allow the passage of vessels, not unlike our own Tower Bridge but smaller, and across the river was mysterious Triana, famous for its gypsies.They offered to take us there but Anita said she would rather not explore it at the moment.
They wined and dined us and eventually, as the afternoon turned to evening, invited us to a dance later that night. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves,Anita was in good spirits and, when we returned to the pensión to change, there was no mention of Desmond. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
Despite the fact that the hall where the dance was being held was large, there was little room to move around as it was packed solid with people. After a bit, Luciano and I gave up any attempt at dancing properly and just stayed on the spot, swaying to the music.
It was very hot and stuffy, the air thick with cigarette smoke and reeking of human sweat mixed with assorted perfumes.There were beads of perspiration on Luciano’s forehead, trickling down from his damp, brown curls. His hand, clasping the small of my back, felt hot and sticky.
The band was playing a lively pasodoble and the great sea of couples heaved and throbbed all around us, shoving us this way and that, treading on our feet and sometimes nearly knocking us over.
Unperturbed by these discomforts, Luciano was trying to tell me about his studies. He was, he explained, intending to become a pathologist one day. “We’re starting a very interesting part of the course, actually dissecting human bodies. It’s quite fascinating!”
“Oh no, I don’t believe it! The last person I went dancing with was a future undertaker. Is there no getting away from you ghouls?”
Luciano laughed. “You mustn’t think of it that way. After all, the body is only a machine like any other, with bits and pieces that keep it going. So when it goes wrong or stops working altogether, it’s intriguing to find out why; to look for the cause of the trouble – just like you would a car engine.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” I said, unconvinced.
“You’d be amazed if you could see what there is inside you and what’s going on in there right now.Your heart pumping away, your lungs expanding and contracting, your brain buzzing with signals and impulses, your digestive system breaking down that meal we had earlier, your kidneys busy purifying your blood – it’s incredible! And the strangest thing is that we take it all for granted. We think a person is what we see on the outside but what about the hidden bits we can’t see?”
“I think I would prefer not to see those bits,” I confessed.
“Aha!You women are all alike. Squeamish.”
“Not all of us. Anita’s a nurse and she’s not at all squeamish. She’s a bit like you. By the way, where is she? I haven’t seen her for ages.”
“Enjoying herself, I think,” he replied.“The last time I saw her she was being chatted up by at least half a dozen boys. You see, there are loads of our friends here and, well, she’s a very pretty girl.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling triumphant, “she is, and I’m so glad she’s having fun.”
“She’d better be careful though, Ricardo can be very jealous.”
“Why don’t we go and find them?” I suggested, feeling slightly anxious.
We pushed our way, through the mass of pulsating humanity, to the side of the dance floor where we had last seen the couple. They were still there but no longer alone. A group of admiring men had gathered around Anita who was engaged in flirtatious conversation with a black-eyed individual in a red shirt. Ricardo was not looking at all pleased. The small moustache above his lips twitched in disapproval as he stood glaring at them. This, Luciano whispered in my ear, was a bad sign. “Could be fireworks if this goes on!” he commented with relish.
In an effort to remove Anita from the unwelcome company of his friends, Ricardo kept suggesting to her that they should dance again. She, on the other hand, was enjoying all the attention and found various excuses not to do so.“But I’m tired, Ricardo, and my shoes are pinching. Later.We’ll dance later.”
The young man in the red shirt handed her a drink. “Perhaps this will refresh you, niña,” he grinned, “and give us a few more minutes to enjoy your beauty before he snatches you away again.”
Anita glanced at her admirer coquettishly and switched on her dazzling smile, raising her glass seductively to her lips. Encouraged, he took a step closer. His eyes, narrowed to slits, smouldering with desire. Ricardo grabbed Anita by the wrist and jerked her away from him.
“Just watch it, Miguel!” he hissed between clenched teeth.
“He’s furious!” Luciano whispered in my ear. “He can’t stand competition. It’s a matter of pride.”
“Don’t you think we ought to create some sort of diversion? You talk to Ricardo and I’ll have a word with Anita.”
Luciano nodded and approached his friend, clamping an amiable hand on his shoulder. “So there you are, Ricardo. How about a drink?”
I went over to Anita and drew her to one side. Strangely, our usual roles were now reversed and I had become the restraining influence.
“Look,” I said,“can’t you see Ricardo’s getting really jealous?”
She laughed.“Yes. Isn’t he silly?”
“But remember what you told me about Andalusian men? All that about them becoming like wild animals after a few drinks?”
“That was different.Those men in Jerez were all strangers: just a band of drunken rough-necks. We know Luciano and Ricardo and these are all their friends.”
“You shouldn’t flirt with that fellow in the red shirt. Ricardo doesn’t like it.”
“Who cares? He’s not my novio. Anyway, the one in the red shirt is very nice. He said my lips are like carnations.”
At that moment, the subject of our conversation came over to join us, taking advantage of Ricardo’s temporary absence. He seemed not in the least deterred by the warning. His piercing eyes examined me momentarily. “Buenas noches, señorita,” he murmered briefly before turning his attention once more to Anita. He seized her hand, pressed it passionately to his lips and then drew her towards him. “Dance with me!” I heard him mutter in a low breathless voice.“All evening I have been longing for this moment. Since I first set eyes on you I have been tormented by your beauty.”
My heart sank as I saw her readily agree. He clasped her to him in a fierce embrace and drew her into the swaying masses on the dance floor. I hoped fervently that Ricardo would not notice what had happened and that Luciano would keep him occupied for a little longer. But it was not to be. His sharp ever-watchful eyes immediately spotted them and for a moment he froze, his face registering blind rage as the colour drained from his cheeks.
Shoving Luciano aside, he charged onto the dance floor like an enraged fighting bull, pushing his way roughly through the dancing bodies until he reached Anita and her partner. Seizing his rival by his red shirt, he tore him away from her and dealt him a thunderous blow to the face which sent him flying between the startled couples to land heavily on the floor, some feet away.Anita screamed and rushed to my side where she clung to me in consternation.The dancing couples, interrupted by the disturbance, drew back to allow space for this unexpected cabaret. Luciano and his friends lit cigarettes and settled down to watch.
Mad Dogs and an English Girl Page 22
