Iberia (131 page)

 

In the spring of 1967 I returned to Madrid to work with
Vanderford on the translations from Spanish used in this book
and happened to be in the city when Curro Romero was scheduled
to appear on two successive afternoons. On May 25 his first bull
looked at him askance; he grew visibly gray with fear; the fight
was a disaster. Vanderford, sitting next to me, growled, ‘Curro
has just enough bravery to dress in the matador’s suit. Anything
that happens thereafter is immaterial.’ His second bull was by any
standards a vicious animal, but the president refused to have it
returned to the corrals, whereupon Curro did something never
before seen in Madrid. He simply refused to fight. The president
would not budge. Curro would not budge. So the bull was allowed
to chase wildly about the empty ring for the allotted number of
minutes, after which the three warnings were sounded on the
trumpet and the bull was led off to slaughter and Curro to jail.
He was fined twenty-five thousand pesetas, and Madrid was
caught up in a frenzy of rumor. Would he be allowed out of jail
to fight the second day? Even if he did get out, would the
management let him fight? As he left jail next morning Curro
made an announcement which seems sure of a place in bullfight
history: ‘This day I shall be carried from the ring, either on
shoulders through the great gate or into the infirmary.’

 

He was released in time to participate in what has become
known as one of the great days in recent Madrid history. Critics
were uniformly ecstatic and termed it ‘de apoteosis y de antología’
(one for the books). It began with a fine performance by Diego
Puerta, crisp and magisterial, and continued with a dazzling
exhibition by Paco Camino, who fought as if inspired. The plaza
was in delirium, and what was most unusual, for the second time
in my life I saw a string of six well-matched bulls, each of which
gave serious fight, and by curious chance they were from the ranch
of Benítez Cubero, who had provided the earlier string of which
I have spoken.

 

And what of Curro Romero? Did he leave the arena through
the great gate or through the infirmary? For a moment it looked
as if it would be the latter, for the black bull Bastardo, aptly named
and twelve hundred pounds of energy, hooked his right horn into
Curro’s left leg, tore away his uniform and tossed him high in the
air. Normally a serious accident like this would have finished
Curro for the day, and he would have been forgiven, but on this
afternoon something strange happened. He lay flat on the ground
while the bull lunged at him several times, just missing his head
and chest. Then he leaped up, tied his torn costume about his
damaged leg, grabbed his sword and cloth and proceeded to work
wonders. He was brave; he was artistic; he was gallant; and in a
way which tore at the emotions of the crowd, he was heroic. When
the afternoon ended, the three matadors left the arena as Curro
had predicted he would, on shoulders through the great gate.
Vanderford and my other friends in the stands gathered about
me to gloat. ‘We told you that one day you’d see him great. Have
you ever seen better?’ I surrendered. I had seen Curro good, and
he was all that Orson Welles and the others had promised. In fact,
the experience has given me courage to keep on trying with
flamenco and paella.

 

Throughout this chapter I have spoken of being on a
pilgrimage, and now, as I return from Finisterre to Compostela,
I think it not inappropriate to speak of this pilgrimage, which was
a most real thing. Walter Starkie in his fine book
The Road to
Santiago
when speaking of the four pilgrimages he made between
the years 1924 and 1954, offers this cryptic sentence: ‘My 1954
pilgrimage bore for me a deep significance, for it marked the time
of my retirement from official life, and I wished to perform
religiously all the rituals, in order to prepare myself for making
my examination of conscience.’ This statement perplexed me and
I asked various people what it signified; Don Luis Morenés told
me, ‘After the Spanish Civil War, countries like America and
England were studious to send us Catholics as their
representatives, and in this spirit England in 1940 sent us as their
first director of the new British Institute, the fiddle-playing
Irish-Catholic Starkie. He stayed in Spain during World War II,
helping to organize and operate an escape route for British airmen
shot down over France. That was his contribution to the grand
alliance against Hitler.’ An English informant told me, ‘After the
war Starkie was looked upon with diminished favor by the British
but with real love by the Spanish. In 1954 he was retired from his
official position, somewhat prematurely, I felt, and Spain lost one
of the truest friends it ever had.’ It was at this impasse, when he
knew nothing of his future—ultimately he landed a good
university position in America—that the gypsy-loving Irishman
had set out upon his final walk to Compostela.

 

In one sense my reason for pilgrimage was less dramatic; in
another, more so. In early September, 1965, I was stricken with
a sizable heart attack, and as I lay in that fitful slumber which is
not sleep I thought of the good days I had known in northern
Spain with Don Luis, and of the approaches to Santiago de
Compostela and of how we had strained to see who would be first
to spot those splendid towers rising in the moonlight, and of the
portico which I had studied with affection but not carefully. And
I thought then that if I ever were to leave that restricted room,
which I sometimes doubted, for it seemed unlikely that I would
regain sufficient strength to travel, I should like to see Compostela
again.

 

I was lucky in that my doctor was a student of Paul Dudley
White, the notable specialist of Boston, whom I had known in
Russia. As a courtesy Dr. White flew down from Boston and
recited his now-famous theory: ‘If a man with a heart attack tries
to do anything at all before the passage of three months, he’s an
idiot; but if at the end of three months he doesn’t at least try to
do all he did before, he’s an even greater one.’

 

When I returned to Spain my capacity to travel and work was
unknown. If I have spoken in this book with a certain regard for
the trivial hill city of Teruel it is partly because it was to Teruel
that I first went on my return journey, and each step I took in
that pregnant place was a test to see whether I could stand the
sun, whether I could climb hills, and whether my mind could
focus on a specific problem for some hours. Teruel, where I had
first seen the true Spain more than three decades ago…Teruel,
where I had lived and died with the Spanish Republic…Teruel,
which had been a magnet for years, now became important in
another way, and when I discovered that I could negotiate those
hilly streets I decided that I was ready for the feria at Pamplona
and the long trip across northern Spain.

 

When I entered the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela for
the last time the national celebration of which I spoke earlier was
in progress. The great botafumeiro was in full swing, its massive
cargo of silver and incense descending perilously toward my head
as I slipped through the crowded nave to a point behind the main
altar, where the organ seemed to be exploding. There I found the
small and narrow flight of stairs which took me upward to a hiding
point behind the great stone statue of Santiago Matamoros which
occupies the center of the altar. Only the rear of his head and
shoulders was visible to me, the latter encased in a metal robe
encrusted with jewels, but beyond the saint I could look through
the peephole in the altar and out into the vast cathedral where
the censer was coming to a halt, where Father Precedo Lafuente
was sitting in his red robes, where Admiral Núñez Rodríguez in
white uniform was preparing to make his rededication of Spain
to the apostle, and where Cardinal Quiroga Palacios waited to
make his speech of acknowledgment. It was a dazzling moment,
as rich in pageantry and as filled with the spirit of Spain as any
that I had witnessed, and there I hid in the darkness as if an
interloper with no proper role in the ceremonial except that I had
completed my vow of pilgrimage and stood at last with my arms
about the stone-cold shoulder of Santiago, my patron saint and
Spain’s.
INDEX

In this index, phrases and titles beginning with

The
and
A
and
their Spanish equivalents are alphabetized under the next word.
Abelard, Pierre

 

Abraham Lincoln Brigade

 

Acre

 

Acropolis, the

 

Across the River and into the Trees

 

Acts, Book of

 

Adrian of Utrecht

 

Aero Club

 

Aeschylus

 

Afghanistan

 

Africa

 

Afternoon of Bulls

 

agriculture: speculations on; Extre-madura; and Cisneros; and

expulsion of Moors; Las Marismas; Mesta; contempt for;
Andalusian harvest; and Mediterranean littoral; primitive
methods

Akbar

 

Alanbrooke, Lord

 

Alans

 

Alarcon, Pedro Antonio de

 

Alavedra, Joan

 

Alba, Duquesa de

 

Albarracin

 

Albeniz, Isaac

 

Albertus Magnus, Saint
Alburquerque

 

Alcala de Henares

 

Alcazar; siege of

 

alchemy

 

Alexander VI

 

Alfonso II

 

Alfonso III

 

Alfonso VII

 

Alfonso XII

 

Alfonso XIII

 

Algeciras

 

Algeria

 

Alhambra

 

Alicante

 

Allen, Jay

 

al-Mansur al Allah
Almendralejo

 

Almeria

 

Almodovar del Rio
Almohads

 

almond

 

Almonte

 

Almoravids

 

Altamira, Caves of

 

ambiente

 

amor brujo, El

 

Ana de Austria

 

anchovies

 

Andalucia

 

Angkor Wat

 

Antwerp

 

Aquinas, Saint Thomas

 

Arab, word defined

 

Aragon

 

architecture: plateresque churches; Roman bridge, Merida; Toledo,

Gothic cathedral; Alcazar; Great Mosque; Alhambra; Castle of
Carlos I and V; Almodovar del Rio; Pamplona, cathedral;
Basilica of Loyola; Santillana del Mar; Guadix, village of;
apartment houses; San Juan de Alicante; Church of Virgin of
El Puy; door of San Miguel; Church of San Martin; museum
of San Isidoro; palace of Astorga; Cebrero; Hostal de los Reyes
Catolicos; Santa Maria la Real de Sar; Monasterio de San Payo

Arevalo

Bach, Johann Sebastian

 

Arianism

 

Aristotle

 

Arius

 

Arizona

 

Arles

 

Armada, the

 

Armillita Chico;
see
Espinosa, Fermin

 

army, Spanish

 

Arnold, Matthew

 

‘Arresting of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, The,’

 

Arruza, Carlos

 

Arthur, Prince of Wales

 

articulated statue

 

Ashcraft, Patter (Mrs. Edwin)

 

‘Assumption of the Virgin,’

 

Astorga

 

Asturias

 

Athanasius, Saint

 

Atlantic Ocean

 

atrocities

 

Augusta Emerita

 

Augustine, Saint

 

Augustus, Emperor
Australia

 

Austria

 

auto-da-fe

 

Ave Maria

 

Averroes

 

Avila

 

Azbacheria, Plaza de la
Azpeitia

 

Aztecs

Badajoz; approach; hotel; restaurant; cathedral; plaza; youth;
living costs; men’s club; Fatima celebration; bullring

 

Badian heresy

 

Balboa;
see
Nunez de Balboa, Vasco

 

Baleares, Las Islas

 

Bali

 

Baltasar Carlos

 

Balzac, Honore de

 

banking, at Medina del Campo; Azbacheria

 

Barber of Seville, The

 

Barcarrota

 

Barcelona; migration; Las Ramblas; Palau de la Musica;
Christopher Columbus; books and publishing; Marisol; theater
and opera; museums; Restaurante El Rectoret; sardana;
Montserrat; El Templo de la Sagrada Familia; flamenco party;
student life

 

Baroja, Pio

 

baroque

 

Basque lands

 

Basque sheep

 

Basque woodchoppers

 

Bassecourt, Marques de;
see
Morones y Areces, Don Luis
Baudouin, King

 

Bauza Roca, Dr. Antonio

 

Bayona

 

bee-eater

 

Beethoven, Ludwig van

 

Belmonte, Juan

 

Beltraneja, La;
see
Juana, daughter of Enrique IV
Bembezar, Rio