Poor Folk in Spain Part 21

It was a toss-up which would arrive first: the sun shooting its long level rays over the mountain-top through our windows, or Tia Roger's daughter hammering on the door with the milk, warm and frothy, in a jug.

Either the one or the other aroused us from our mattress on the floor--for we had dispensed quite comfortably with the complications of a bed. Possibly our night had been restless, for inadvertently I had imported a host of fleas into the house. They had come from the garden, from a small spot near an outhouse door, where there was a fascinating view, and I had stood there one morning with bare legs and feet admiring the scene. When I had returned to the house, I had noticed a strange blackish discoloration on my ankles, and stooping had discovered to my horror that hordes of hungry fleas were crawling up my legs. I had jumped into a basin of water, but many had escaped. From that moment the house was never clear of them, and our nights were sometimes disturbed.

We suspect that Pere Chicot kept his rabbit skins in the outhouse.

We got out of bed either at the call of the sun or of the milk; and as we were dressing we watched the purple and green mists of night clearing off the valley and from the town below us. Breakfast was a simple affair--tea and dry bread and grapes. Spanish coffee is expensive and bad, cocoa we did not find, and b.u.t.ter and jam were unprocurable. For the boiling water we could not go to the trouble of building a bonfire, so in spite of the expense of spirit we used a methylated spirit stove.

This Jan had bought in Murcia. The shopman had ill understood Jan's attempts to make his needs known. "Lampara para alcool"[22] had elicited no response, but at last, driven by repeated requests with variations, explanations, hand wavings, and so on, intelligence had brightened the shopman's face.

"Ah, Senor," he had cried, "I understand you now. What you require is a 'little h.e.l.l.'"

So the kettle sang daily over "little h.e.l.l," but this morning, Tia Roger having forgotten to purchase alcohol overnight, it looked as if we were to breakfast on goat's milk alone. But an idea occurred to me. El Senor, when he had transferred his major residence to Murcia, had left some furniture and much litter in El Torre de Blay. Amongst the litter were odd bottles which had contained toilet lotions, one was half full. Was there not a chance then that it was alcoholic? I routed out the bottle.

The smell told me nothing. Practical experiment was the only thing.

Imagination was rewarded. "Little h.e.l.l" worked as well on hair-wash as with any other fuel.

We ate our simple breakfast at an ancient refectory table, the top hewn from the width of a large tree, the legs curved and carved like those in Viking pictures. Then we set to packing up paint and brushes, and the preparing of sketch boxes. Leaving the things untidy for Tia Roger to clear, we set off on our respective ways, I down into the old town, Jan out across the mountains. Jijona was a maze of zigzag streets. In the morning it was almost manless, but women went to and fro on their household errands, and the children followed me in swarms. Standing about in the streets were small coops, enclosing either a chicken or a turkey, while the queer lean Egyptian cats, with rat-like tails, slunk along the walls, vanishing like ghosts at any attempt to stroke them.

Even the kittens of a few days old spat at a proffered pat as though at a dog. I was bound for the street near the monastery which, with its blue-tiled roof, brought the eastern end of Jijona to a full stop.

As soon as I had settled down the questions began. They were the usual Spanish questions such as one had heard in Verdolay, and many of the answers I knew now by heart. But one woman behind me said something new.

"It is an English Senora. She is painting. All the English people paint, for there have been other English here--El Senor, and his friends--and they, too, painted. It is strange, indeed, that a whole nation should be thus gifted. Also all the English are very rich, for they come here from a long distance, and they paint pictures, and all that is very expensive. Another thing that I can tell you about the English is that they are all very tall. Every Englishman that I have seen (she had seen four) is much taller than we Spanish are. It does not matter that I am saying this out loud because La Dona does not understand Valenciano."

While I was working this morning there was a continual sound of squealing pigs. Men's voices mingled with those of the pigs, urging them to be quiet. The sound came from a high-walled enclosure to which the entrance was an archway closed by a ma.s.sive wooden door. Then along came a goat herd leading his flock. But as soon as the herd came opposite to this door it refused to pa.s.s it. With shouts, curses, and stones the man urged the goats along. In little quick rushes, thus urged on, one by one the goats dashed past the door and on down the road. But two refused the pa.s.sage perilous. They made sneezing noises of protestation, but nothing would induce them to move. In despair the man at last had to bring all his goats back and take them to the hills by some other route. Later I realized that the door which these intelligent animals would not pa.s.s was the slaughter-house.

Old men, dressed in the ancient Jijona costume of black blouse and black velvet hat with turned-up brim and pointed crown--kept on to the head by an elastic at the back--would address me in a patois impossible to understand. As the sketch neared completion my audience became excited.

"Ha Pintado tod'! tod'! tod'!"[23] they exclaimed. They searched the picture for the smaller details, the strings of red peppers hanging from the balconies especially delighted them. Indeed, they gave my pictures t.i.tles because of some minute detail.

"What is she doing?" a new-comer exclaimed. The answer was "The fig tree." I was astonished, because I could see no fig tree in the whole sketch. At last one of my audience pointed to one tiny branch of green projecting over a wall.

Jan had four directions to choose from. North and south led him across a flattish plain seamed with deep watercourses, east and west took him into the mountains. To the east the mountains were grey bare stone, almost uncultivated; to the west the mountains went steeper and steeper, ending in a high ridge, at the foot of which was a queer leprous country, the earth spotted all over with lichens and looking as though mouldy. Wherever he went were the terraces and almond trees; and lonely little farms were perched high up on the slopes. Terrible little places those farms were for the doctor, for, if any one were ill in them, there was often no means of approach other than miles of climbing on foot. But all across the mountains, incongruous enough in that landscape of primitive agriculture where the plough was but a stake with an iron spike, and where no roads were, went standards carrying wires of electricity. On the standards, deaths'-heads were painted to scare off the inquisitive child.

Jan had not only to contend with sun and flies. Shadow was even more difficult to find at Jijona than at Verdolay; the almond as a shade tree is negligible. It was hot setting out, but it was hotter coming back.

One did not delay much after half-past ten, but, whether the sketch were finished or no, one packed up one's things and set off homeward. As one walked one could feel the heat of the ground through the soles of the alpagatas. There were reputed to be scorpions in the mountains, and it was as well to be careful when taking a seat or when picking up some painting implement dropped to the ground. But Jan never saw one. The peasants said that if he were stung the best thing to do was to plunge the stung part--usually a finger--into a raw egg; when the yolk had turned black, a fresh egg was to be subst.i.tuted.

We were both back in good time on this day, because we were to lunch with the doctor and his wife. They had promised us a truly Spanish meal.

Here is the menu:

1. Smoked uncooked ham.

2. Hors d'oeuvre, olives (cured in anis and mint), pink tomatoes (a Jijona speciality), cuc.u.mber, and orange-coloured sausage.

3. Soup.

4. A stew of chicken, potatoes and garbanzos. (Garbanzos, or chick-peas, look something like dried nasturtium seeds. They are cooked like haricot beans, and taste like a blend of haricot bean and lentil. They are a very favourite Spanish vegetable.)

5. Cold fish and mayonnaise. (The mayonnaise was made from almond oil, lemon juice and hard-boiled egg, and was extremely delicate in flavour.)

6. Fried ham and grilled tomatoes.

7. Turron and almond paste sweets.

8. Yellow melon and muscatel grapes. Brandy.

9. Iced coffee (brought in by a boy from the Casino).

The doctor's wife asked me if it were true that English people did not like questions. I said personally we did not mind questions, but that in England direct intimate questions were generally avoided.

"But," said the doctor's wife in amazement, "if you wish to find out something about anybody, how do you do so? And how do you carry on conversations?"

The meal over, we toiled slowly up again to El Torre, taking the hill in as leisurely a manner as we could. Tia Roger's daughter was sitting on our doorstep eating grapes. As we pa.s.sed she held the bunch out to us.

"Les Gusta?"[24] she said.

"Buen aproveche," we replied.

Before their gateway, the two aged men and the one old woman sat, as they did from morning till night, plaiting an everlasting rope of esparto gra.s.s.

We had acquired the siesta habit, so lay down until four o'clock. Then, as the dinner had rather disorganized our desire to paint, Jan and I went for a walk. We clambered down through the town, pa.s.sed out by the southern entrance, across the bridge, and clambered up the hill opposite. At a long open washing-place, women were on their knees beating and scrubbing clothes with the Spanish soap which will not lather; amongst them, working as hard as the rest, was a child of five years old.

We skirted the line between the mountains, and the flat and plain for about two miles, then Jan took a path leading away from the mountains.

We came out into the most fantastic scenery of its kind I have ever seen. In the winter the torrential rains burst on the mountains and the water rushing down had scooped deep clefts in the earth of the plain.

The ground itself appeared to be in layers of various colours, and these layers falling in one above the other had striped the sides of the deep canyon purple, blue, white, orange and red. The water had cut out of the clayey earth a hundred fantastic shapes--I have seen photographs of the Grand Canyon of Colorado, this was like them on a small scale; at one place the clay was harder and the water dripping down had carved the cliff-side like great organ pipes or like the columns of an Egyptian temple. In the deep bottoms of the canyon were vine terraces; and further down flat, irrigated fields of tomatoes, of herbage or of vegetables. Little farm-houses sheltered under the mud cliffs, and on the circular threshing floors almonds and red peppers were spread out to dry in the sun. In one place a man had scooped his dwelling out of the cliff-side. These cave dwellings are common enough. At Verdolay was a whole colony of them, and the cavemen were reputed to be thieves and vagabonds, and the members were despised by the peasants proper. At the end of the ravine or barranca we came to a many-arched bridge which towered high above our heads, and clambering up by a zigzag track found ourselves on the Alicante road.

In appearance this country is very deceptive. It appears arid, almost desolate, but the mountains are covered with almond trees, which for all their scanty foliage bear valuable crops, while the plain hides its richness in ravines a hundred feet or more below the level of its surface.

We arrived home to find a stranger dressed in black clothes, but with an official cap on his head, sitting on a stone seat before our door. He was reading a book, and as we came up he bowed and said that he hoped his presence was not distasteful to us. We, of course, in the fashion of Spanish courtesy, put our whole home at his disposal, and invited him indoors. He demurred in the correct fashion, but on a second invitation came in with us. In the long entrada Pere Chicot was looking out through the back door and shaking his head at the garden.

"There's another tree dying," he said. "All the trees are dying, and the vines won't bear. You can't do anything without water."

"But is there no water at all?" we asked.

"Ay," replied Pere Chicot, "there used to be the right to two hours of water once a fortnight. But the owners sold it. They wanted money and it was worth many hundreds of pesetas."

Our visitor was very interested in the house, for he confided in us that there was a housing shortage in Jijona, like that in the rest of the world. He was chief of the munic.i.p.al officers, dust-cart, water-supply, electric light and so on. He had just come from Toledo, and the only place he could find in Jijona was not nearly large enough for his family.

"This would just suit me," he said, peering into room after room, "seven rooms; and they say that St. Sebastian used to live here. Did you know that?"

His eye was attracted by the guitar of El Senor, which we had brought with us.

"And you an afficionado of the guitar," he exclaimed. "I, too, have played in my time."

We pressed him to play.

"No, no; indeed I would like to, but I may not. You see, my wife's father died a week ago, and it would seem very wicked if I were to play, or to sing."

Jan played him a farouka which he had learned from Blas.

"It seems a good guitar," said the man.