Rose for Winter (10 page)

We left the caves and climbed to the hill-top and lay at last under a Moorish wall and drank our wine in the sunny wind. From far below came the crying ejaculations of the dancers, the sounds of singing and squabbling, the steady throb of guitars. Among the explosive blue swords of the cacti the men sat black as coal, and the prancing women, their bright skirts opening to the wind, fluttered like blown geraniums. They were a circus at winter quarters, twirling, twisting, inventing, scheming, unable to keep still for a moment, limbering up for the coming of spring.

Up here, under the fortress wall, we were alone, save for a boy who was catching birds. He had set two caged sparrows on the grass and surrounded them with traps of lime. The birds sang sweetly, luring the wild ones to their doom. The deep gorge of the Darro lay black in shadow, and sun-slashed terraces rose up to a crest of trees where the slender Alhambra rode on green waves like a ship of fantasy. The sun shone through its upper chambers, giving them the lightness of air; and behind, far off, but sharp as cut paper, the brilliant ranges of the Sierra hung naked in falls of new crisp snow. We finished our wine and stretched in the dreamy heat. From across the valley came the echoes of pedlars, donkeys and slumberous bells, and up from the city the continual sound, like drumming rain, of footsteps, voices, cockerels and horns.

To this, and to the whistle of the caged birds, we fell asleep; and awoke much later to a new pattern of shadows and an edge of cold. It was five o'clock, and we went down the hill to the lacemakers, who were expecting us. All was ready for the evening paseo. The girls had rolled up their laces, changed their dresses, and hung their ears with flowers. We formed up in procession, dogs barked, pigs squealed, and heads were poked out of windows to wish us good-bye.

Then we set off, about twenty strong, with a wine jar and skipping-rope to visit the waterfall. Up the road we went in convoy, with naked children diving and rolling under our feet like dolphins. There was Carmencita, Isabelita. Antonita, Teresa, Rosario, Consuelo, Asención, Caridad, María and Incamación. Some linked arms, some danced in the road, some skipped with the rope, all sand; and I, the only man among them, felt quite eleven feet tall.

It was a fine evening and everybody was out of doors. As we marched, so our numbers grew; we gathered girls like burrs and boys like fleas. We were soon a small army and the road was choked with us. The wine jar passed from hand to hand, and when it was empty a small boy darted off and filled it up again at a tavern. La Mora was in the highest spirits. In her foghorn voice she shouted to everyone she saw, ‘We are going to the waterfall!' and, when they said ‘What?' she said, ‘To the waterfall, look!' and drenched herself with wine.

Half-way up the hill, high above Granada, we paused on a bank to rest By now we were a minor multitude and were attended by a group of itinerant merchants – garbanzo sellers, peanut vendors, chestnut roasters and fortune-tellers – who followed us closely and kept us well supplied. As we sat on the bank above the road I sent for six more litres of wine and we drank it at one go. Its effect on the girls was lyrical and sad. In their haunting harmonies they sang of terrible deeds of love, of hearts' blood let by jealous knives and bleached bones in the snow. The excited boys, attempting to join us, fought and scrambled and rolled down the bank like pebbles. La Mora, flushed and sweating, led the singing in a high passionate wail. And sharp and sweet in the sweet-sharp air the songs of the girls led us on through ballads of blood and languor, while Carmencita wriggled close against me and stroked my arm, shameless and husky, praising my strength and asking for presents.

At this point an old gentleman in a frock-coat appeared from behind some bushes and took a photograph of us all and developed it in a bucket. On its curled black paper it looked like an ancient rock-drawing, all stricken postures and staring animal eyes. With this in our hands we went on up the hill and reached the crest of rock where the waterfall burst forth. In the green rush of roaring water the girls splashed themselves and floated leaves and sticks. Then the sun went down on the Sierra Almijarra and we turned at last for home.

A cloud of vermilion dust hung in the sky, while the earth grew blue and dark, a vivid shadow racing across the plains. Stamping and singing, the girls marched down the hill, while the young boys followed at a speechless distance. The snow-peaks changed from rose to ashen grey and the city pricked up its lights. Our progress was a triumph, a snowball of noise and clatter, gathering in strength to over a hundred strong, while the boys turned somersaults in the road before us, and fought and threw stones at each other, and everybody sang, and we entered the town in glory.

Back at last in the little square of the lacemakers, with darkness on us, we stood and collected ourselves. Fathers came out from the lighted doorways and rolled me cigarettes. Mothers gathered around Kati and praised her beauty and told her how long the Spanish nights were and how easy it was to beget children, so long they were. And the unmarried girls stood listening in the lamplight, their faces clear and knowing.

Finally there were games in the shadows, games in a ring, games of invitation, of pursuit and capture, dancing on the cobbles, chanted songs, and then good night. ‘Good night,' they cried, from their doors and windows, and down the hill we went, through the squatting gypsies, out of the suburb and into the city.

The 2nd of January was the anniversary of the liberation of Granada by the Catholic Kings. It was, of course, a holiday, and the crowds took early to the streets. We followed them first to the Cathedral, to gaze upon the marble tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella – extravaganzas of sugar-icing most cold and rhetorical. In the courtyard of the Cathedral a troupe of horsemen were sitting at ease, scratching and arguing and waiting for the procession to begin. They were dressed in the traditional sixteenth-century costume, ill-fitting and much worn, and their dusty periwigged heads were topped by slack-plumed three-cornered hats. The horses were much worn too, weak-kneed and drowsy, saved from the knackers for the day, pathetic creatures all. Inside the Cathedral a splendid parade of priests, bishops, choirs, soldiers and city fathers moved to the high altar to begin the Mass. The place was full; the singing poor. The Archbishop sat slumped on his throne, reading a gilded book and extending his hand to the lips of the priests. A starveling monk, with a voice of sonorous gloom, began a sermon: ‘My Lord Archbishop; Your Excellency the Governor of Seville; Your Excellency the Governor of Granada; Your Excellency the Military Governor of our fair Province; Holy Fathers and Brothers in God: now is the time, as never before, to be strong in Faith like the Catholic Kings …'

But it was deadly cold in the cathedral, cold with damp words and stone, so we abandoned the Mass and went out into the weak sun and made our way to the Town Hall where crowds were already gathered. At twelve o'clock a posse of mounted police came jogging down the street, dredging a pathway through the multitude. At last came the sound of music, and the seedy horsemen appeared, leading the procession from the Cathedral. There were brass bands, state police, Civil Guards and some regiments of stern soldiery in German-style tin hats. They deployed on the great square and formed up in ragged ranks. Then came the black limousines of the dignitaries, full of tubby generals, bishops and governors, who entered the Town Hall to a rattling presentation of arms. The crowds pressed close around the square, and we waited. Presently, to the sound of bells, a handsome young officer stepped on to the balcony and raised a standard above our heads. The city went as still as an armistice silence; then the officer lifted his face to the sky and roared ‘Granada!' in a voice of power. He called the name three times, and each time the crowd replied with the one word ‘Que?', each time growing in strength, till the third response seemed to cover the city with a many-tiered, drawn-out cry with the children's screams on top. There was a pause, then the young man took a deep breath, raised the standard high, and called in ringing tones:

‘In the name of Don Fernando the Fifth of Aragón, and of Doña Isabella the First of Castile: Viva España!'

‘Viva!' roared the crowd.

‘Viva Franco!'

‘Viva!'

‘Viva Granada!!!'

‘VIVA!!!'

At that the piece was said, the cry of liberation recounted; the brass bands played some fascist hymn, the great ones went to a banquet, and the crowds dispersed. But they did not go home; all day they packed the streets, threading up and down like shoals of fishes, nibbling at each other's company.

So that afternoon I climbed out of the crowded city and went up the Alhambra Hill to look again at the Sierras. For several hours, on a crest of stones above the cemetery, I lay inert, breathing the thin deceptive sunlight and gazing at the pure and spacious snows, unable to leave their sight. Over the plain lay a chill blue mist – a still air coated with cold – and the wood-smoke of the distant villages climbed out of it in sunlit tendrils white as wool. Inside the cemetery walls, among the cold chaste marble statues, forty dark graves lay freshly dug, waiting the winter crop of dead. They would not have long to wait either, so I was told, for Granada's winter air is a killer, moving so slow it will slay a man yet not seem strong enough to blow out a candle.

I lay looking down at the graves and felt cold in my bones; and yet I could not leave. The day was quiet and golden among the hills, and a kind of terrible acquiescence held me in thrall. A boy and a girl from the caves climbed up to beg. The boy came first, while the girl stood at a little distance, framed against the snow, watching his performance. He began briskly, confidently, then his voice tailed away into a series of mumbling entreaties, while I lay paralysed, unable to move or answer him. Suddenly he broke off altogether, a look of fear came into his face, and he turned and fled. Rejoining the girl, they both stood watching me in silence for a moment. Then the girl started to taunt and upbraid him, until, with a quick burst of anger, he seized her and pushed her towards me. She came uncertainly, pausing every so often to look back over her shoulder at the boy, until he began to throw stones at her, driving her on. At last she stood looking down at me, a round-eyed mask pinned against the sky.

‘We are hungry,' she moaned. ‘We have no money to buy bread. My mother weeps.'

With great effort I reached a peseta into her hand and she gave a short laugh and flew off down the hill, the boy at her heels.

Through the long afternoon I lay there, while the sun moved over half the sky and began to fall away. It was a cold, lost, brilliant world, inhabited by solitary shades. I saw a man standing on the edge of a cliff, his back to the light, making water in a shining arc of silver that fell away into the valley. Another, who had been gathering grass, returned to the caves singing a flamenco which fell frail and naked on the ear. Among the tombs the mourners stood like cypresses.

As the sun sank, the bright paper landscape crumpled and contorted with savage shadows. The bare furrowed foothills of the Sierras writhed and dimpled like brains. And the snows, from the vivid incandescence of daylight, turned pink, mauve, purple, cold as slate, like the face of a dying man slowly drained of his blood.

I walked back shivering through the dusky olive trees, where a pair of lovers clung together under the dark boughs, the man silent, the woman lamenting in a trance-like voice some coming separation.

The next day I was taken with a fever and I went to bed. We had now moved our quarters to the ‘House of Peace', at the invitation of Don Porfino.

‘Lorenzo,' he had said, ‘you spend your money like a torero. Thirty-five pesetas for that hotel room and not a lick of food. What d'you do it for? Come to us and for a miserable fifteen pesetas you can live like kings, with food, wine, good beds and a warm kitchen to sit in.'

So when my fever started I found myself in this clean whitewashed room overlooking the Calle Alhondhiga, and I was glad enough to be there. Slowly the fever took possession of me, and all day I lay shaking and cursing, my head full of sliding fancies, while Kati sat sewing in the window and the family came and went with various brands of comfort. First, Don Porfino, with a pint of coñac wrapped in newspaper; next, the brusque Trini, with a glass of hot goat's milk; next the dwarf Concha, who stood on tiptoe and gazed at me in silence, then shook her head and sighed and stole away. La Sorda, when she came, was hearty, and bid me rise like a man and not lie lazy there. But when the grandmother tottered in she gave me one look, and then settled down as though ready to make a day of it, folding her thin hands in an attitude of waiting, and mumbling to herself a long story about the death of her husband. When at last she took her departure, she spoke no word to me but touched Kati on the cheek and bid her be strong. Apart from the coñac and the goat's milk I got little comfort from any of this.

By the evening I was worse, and news of my condition had reached the restaurant downstairs. After dinner about twenty medical students came crowding into my room. First they saluted Kati with twitching moustaches and rolling eyes, then they gathered round my bed and looked me over with speculation. They began to suggest obscure medieval remedies, cupping and blood-letting, all of which I declined. There was much shaking of heads and windy sighing, but when they saw that I was abandoned to my fate their spirits brightened, they began to puff out their lips and steal sidelong glances at Kati, like goats on the brink of some luscious pasture, wondering which way to jump. ‘At least you must eat, señora, they said. And feeling that they had done their duty, they bore her away downstairs.

Then I grew delirious and lost all sense of time. I was dimly aware of nights and days, of the faces of Trini and the grandmother coming and going, of Kati sitting motionless in the window, and of crafty students peering stealthily in. But chiefly I Was aware of chill Granada, of the forty graves lying open on the hill, of the fatal air that would not blow out a candle, and of the gigantic, smothering visions which raked and consumed me. I remember waking in the dark of the night, my knotted limbs ice-cold, to hear the screech of a bird hovering with frost-white wings over the silent town. I remember hearing the tramp of feet one morning as they bore away a corpse from the house next door. I felt doomed, resigned and full of mortal infection. I felt I would never escape Granada's damp embrace. I would die and lie out on the beggars' hill, under the stones and the snow, but one more northern victim of this treacherous southern air. I mourned for the beech roots and willows of a Cotswold graveyard, for the casual cuckoos and climbing briars and the sounds of cricket over the wall. I began to talk to myself, wryly, monotonously. ‘Sperms – germs – worms,' I said, over and over again, yielding up my life to the three-word poem my fever had invented. There followed days of boiling blood, groans and demented images, when sleeping and waking merged into each other and became indistinguishable, furnished alike by faces, voices, melting bones, screeching birds and burning ice.