Rose for Winter (8 page)

The house was run by a large spreading family under the nominal head of one, Don Porfino, who was a melancholic and a drunk. He never did any work at all. But among the more active members of his staff were Trini, his beautiful tragic-faced wife, who did all the cooking; his old mother, who sat all day shivering among the potatoes; Elvira, a pretty quicktongued widowed sister who served the food; and another sister, the fat, no-good Caridad, whose only value to the establishment lay in the fact that she had a butcher-lover who sold them bull-meat cheap. There were also two worn-down servant girls: Concha, a good-natured, sentimental dwarf; and La Sorda, a red-cheeked, short-sighted, half-deaf girl from the hills. These last two slept in cupboards behind the kitchen and spent their days in scrubbing the house, washing the dishes, peeling potatoes, running for wine, and fleeing from the embraces of the students.

On that afternoon of Christmas Eve, as we sat down for lunch in ‘The House of Peace', the students and carters were in holiday mood and calling for second helpings. Elvira stood in the kitchen doorway, surveying them.

‘You'll get no more,' she said. ‘One plateful's enough, and one is all you'll have.'

‘Go on,' they shouted. ‘Even the cockroaches here eat better than we do.'

‘You eat like kings,' she said.

‘Ay,' muttered a carter, ‘one meal here, and by five o'clock we're as empty as street-thieves.'

Elvira, keeping up a running battle with her tongue, wiped the grease from her hands and descended upon them. Weaving gracefully among the tables, she swept up their plates and drove them beaten into the street. When she brought us our steaks, she said: ‘When you've finished, go and sleep, for you won't sleep much tonight.'

We asked her why.

‘Tonight is Noche Buena,' she said. ‘In Granada no one sleeps on such a night. All the world goes to the streets. There will be walking and singing all through the town, with pom-poms and bombas and radidas and bonfires – stupendous noise all night. You wait. You will be much diverted.'

She asked us if we had made any special arrangements, and we said no.

‘Then you must eat with us,' she said. ‘At nine o'clock we have a big feast here, with all the family at a long table. There will be wine and butter-cakes and all you can eat. The grandmother invites you, and so does Don Porfino.'

So we accepted gladly, and went out into the streets and found the shops making their last festive fling, with dolls of cut paper and rings of sugared cake for the children. Peasants were coming in from the country, driving flocks of turkeys before them, or carrying bunches of squawking fowls slung over their shoulders. In the market we bargained for a fat live cockerel and sent him back to the ‘House of Peace' as a contribution to the feast.

But we did not sleep: there was too much going on. Broody-Granada seemed to be shaking out its feathers and gathering strength for a night of riot People were hurrying from the market with wine in their pockets and carrying hens by the neck like umbrellas. By the cold coming of evening bright strings of braziers began to appear along the pavements, surrounded by squatting gypsies. With fiendish faces flickering over their fires, they were selling bombas and rattles to add to the noise of the night. The bombas were different to any others we had seen – earthenware pots, slashed bright with savage paint and sealed at the top with a drum-skin. The skin was pierced with an upright cane which gave forth hollow growls when you stroked it. The rattles were loose tins nailed to sticks, all richly coloured in reds and greens and purples. Such instruments, in the right hands, could fill the air with fine barbaric sounds, dark and devilish as any jungle. As night fell, we bought one of each, and walked through the rapidly crowding streets adding our lot to the din.

Granada, sealed among its mountains, began to stir and glow with a special enchantment, as though it were the only city in the world to rejoice at this time. It seemed to be caught in the throes of some local miracle, some imminent wonder to be revealed only here. It was Christmas Eve, but not like any other we had seen. The wintry air, both fresh and dry, was spiced with the wood-smoke of the fires in the streets. One smelt, too, a mixture of snow and desert, far off and strange. Fugitive fowls ran screeching under foot. All traffic stopped, and the Arab stars shone bright. And the marching crowds, with their bombas and rattles, moved through the roaring lanes in an atmosphere of primitive buffoonery and joy.

By seven o'clock one could scarcely move; one threaded one's way from bar to bar. Comic hats and false noses began to appear. We found a rich young man with two blonde girls, all wearing beards and black moustaches, and went with them on a spree. By this time I was merry, and playing a Moorish pipe. Our whiskered friends, clashing cymbals, led us to a curious house full of hairdressers, dandies and dancing whores. Wine and dishes of sickly sweets were passed among us while a fat girl danced and stamped her feet till the combs fell out of her hair. The bearded dandies sat round her in a circle, clapping smartly and barking hoarse cries. The girl flared out her scarlet skirts and writhed her mouth and shook her shoulders, weaving among them roused and burning, her raw face hot from their eyes. She reached at last a sensual frenzy, a snarling smile on her face, throbbing, posturing and combing her body with her fingers, till her stamping feet filled the air with dust and she collapsed on the floor to the screeches of the hairdressers. One of these, a beautiful young man, then leapt on to an ironing-board and began to execute a fine-toed zapateado, flaring his nostrils and tossing his curls the while. Clearly the night's entertainment promised to be long and varied. But we had to go …

We arrived at the ‘House of Peace' to find the feast already spread. Don Porfino's family, together with a picking of students and carters, had taken their places around the table and were drinking hard and snapping biscuits at each other.

‘Behold!' cried the grandmother, her chin on the table, ‘the sun and the moon have arrived.'

We were ushered, with pretty ceremony, to the head of the table, and immediately Concha and La Sorda began to bear in great platters of pork and rice. When, to the accompaniment of speeches, this had been satisfactorily dispatched, our cockerel, well roasted, was placed before us, and in spite of every protest, nobody else was allowed to touch it. There were thirty of us at the feast, and each of us, from the grandmother to the children, had his own bottle of wine, which was the colour of rain. Don Porfino sat on my right, and was already far gone with his drink. His face, like wet clay, was yellow and dead-looking and oozed with peculiar oils. His pale-green eyes crawled slowly over me, as though groping for support. His lips wore a sad and permanent grin, and his tongue fought stumblingly for words.

‘Lorenzo,' he said. ‘I am hot and sick. My head burns and my heart is dirty. Let us leave this shameful place. Let us go to the mountains and throw snow at each other.'

Trini, the wife, sat near, listening and watching with her tragic eyes. When she caught my glance she tapped her head and flicked an imaginary fly off her shoulder.

The hungry students, now bold with food, began to raise their voices. They threw mangled jokes at me, mangled compliments at Kati, which, having mangled further, we then threw back. The children screamed and covered each other with rice. The widowed Elvira looked young and shining and longing for love. And the little grandmother sank lower and lower in her chair, tearing her food with her fingers and squeaking like a mouse.

The feast grew noisy. We gorged and grew heavy, and La Sorda brought each of us a fresh bottle of wine. We began to sing; and during the intervals there were exercises in wit in which even the silent Trini joined, revealing a sharp and flashing tongue, salty and edged with irony. But intoxicated as we all were, she stood apart, her black eyes ringed with pain, inhabiting a haunted territory of her own. I could not see what she was doing here. Her head on its long neck was proudly negroid, her brooding features ravaged and beautiful; she was straight and dark and savage, and she lived among that scheming, squabbling family like a hostage of royal blood.

We had pushed back our chairs now and were drinking coñac, and Don Porfino had wandered off into the cellars. The plump Caridad, her tongue well loosened, leaned across and began to tell me tales.

‘My brother's a simple man,' she said, ‘but kind, too kind. Look what he's done for her.' She jerked her head at Trini. ‘Of course, she's not one of us. He found her in Morocco. And she is bad for him. Bad and proud. Though no one knows why, for she brought not a penny with her.'

I asked why she looked so ill.

‘Oh, she has had a misfortune,' said Caridad, pulling a conventional face. ‘Four days ago she was put to bed with a boy. He died, and she went out and threw him in the river. She is not strong yet.'

Don Porfino came back, singing a sad song, and dropped into his chair.

‘Lorenzo,' he said, ‘look at my face. Touch it. Feel my tears. I make myself weep. I have too much feeling.'

‘Feeling!' spat Elvira, coming close. ‘He has no more feeling than a sack. He is like all the others. Pigskins we women carry to the grave.' Her pretty face grew flushed and fierce. ‘No, Lorenzo. The men of this country – pouff! – they are nothing. I pollute them all. Give me the foreign man, ay, there is the true gentleman.' And swift and hot she kissed me on the neck.

Meanwhile the students had advanced their chairs inch by inch across the room and were now sitting in front of Kati gazing upon her with glum desire. The first exhilaration of wine had left them, their eyes were glazed and their mouths hung open. They, too, had too much feeling.

At midnight we left the ‘House of Peace' and went to the church to watch the Christmas Mass. The place was warm and scented and it seethed with a lively multitude. Walls and ceiling were starred with tiny lights, and the host of candles round the Virgin whirled, to my wine-struck eyes, like a cloud of fireflies.

Back in the streets, with midnight past, it was bright and brassy bedlam. The drums and cymbals crashed and thundered, and the wide pavements surged with young men, singing and fighting. It was the height of the night when anything might happen. Cries, salutations and groans of stifled desire greeted Kati as she passed. A tide of gallants began to follow her, lamenting her beauty and singing sad praises. One of their number, driven harder than the rest, detached himself from the group and approached her close, calling to-heaven that he was helpless before such perfection. ‘If I die for it!' he cried, and tried to embrace her. With drowsy dignity I took her from him and pushed him lightly away. But the crime was done. Outraged by his boldness, and shocked to silence, his friends leapt upon him, twisted his arms, and sat him on the pavement. Then they began to chatter and scold him, scandal in all their voices.

So we left them, and entered our hotel, which was near. We had not been in our room for more than a few minutes, when there came a loud banging on the door. It was Kati's victim, covered with shame.

‘Go home,'I said.

‘I cannot,' he answered.

He stood in the doorway, white, drawn and trembling.

‘I have made a bad thing, sir,' he said, averting his eyes from Kati. ‘I cannot go until you forgive me.'

‘ I forgive you,' I said. ‘So go.'

He remained unmoving, his head downcast.

‘My friends outside,' he said, ‘they do not know you forgive me.'

Tell them,' I said.

‘No. You must show it, or they will never speak to me more. Go with me on your balcony, and shake my hand before them. Then they will know that my shame is forgotten.'

‘ Hell,' I said, and we went on to the balcony.

A solemn crowd of young men was gathered below us. In a frantic voice the boy began a speech of contrition, addressed to me and to all assembled.

‘Behold,' he cried, ‘the Frenchman has forgiven me! See, he is shaking my hand.' Here he pumped mine up and down. ‘He is embracing me.' Here he threw his arms around me. ‘We are friends.' Here he kissed me. ‘He has forgiven my offence. Viva el senor!'

‘Viva!' roared the crowd.

I bowed; we both bowed. Then I dragged him off the balcony and pushed him out through the door.

‘Good night' I said, ‘and don't come back.'

‘Good night,'he said.

‘Merry Christmas,' said Kati, ignored till then in these proceedings.

So we went to bed, but we got very little sleep. For the boy had grouped his friends beneath our window and organized a serenade in our honour, which continued, with songs, guitars and drums, till six o'clock in the morning.

Christmas morning; the streets empty, chastened and full of crumpled cymbals. So we went up into the Palace of the Alhambra, into the fresh gold air under the crimson roofs, to walk among the courts and fountains, to stroke the plump lemons and watch the fish. This was the first time we had been into the Palace, and one's immediate impression was surprise at its smallness. Here was none of the official bombast of Versailles and Blenheim, designed to impress by sheer weight of masonry. Instead a series of perfect little rooms, like tiny pavilions, draped themselves on slender pillars round courts of orange trees and water. Everything was open to the air, with fretted windows and pierced, arcaded walls framing green gardens and the distant hills. All was tender, feminine and intimately sensual. For the men who built the Alhambra were supreme miniaturists, scaling their work to set off a handsome, small-boned people, and preferring the epigram and the lyric poem to all forms of rhetoric and inflation.

It was a new dimension in architecture – or rather an old forgotten one. It grew like a flower on its many-levelled hill. The delicate pillars, reflected in the pools, shivered like the stalks of lilies; the cloistered fountains trickled on leaves and lions; and the small gold rooms gathered across their walls a quivering light of snow and water, asking only for a group of cloaked ambassadors or trousered girls to furnish them completely. This was the home of pastoral kings, of poet shepherds raised to glory, and looking upon its ornate surfaces one found no fault in it – only a profusion of exotic fancy controlled by absolute self-confidence and taste.