Iberia (45 page)

‘Heretics condemned by the Inquisition used to wear costumes
like this,’ he says. After stripping down to shirt and trousers he
massages his feet prior to putting on a pair of heavy-soled black
shoes. ‘I shall be walking, walking,’ he says. Then he puts on a
tunic which covers everything from neck to shoe tip. Each parish
church will have for its members a distinctive color. Don
Francisco’s is purple, and over it he throws a white cape which
reaches to his knees. About his waist he ties a sash eight inches
wide made of an expensive damask and allows its ends to fall free.

‘Now comes the good part,’ he says as he takes from a long,
thin box a stiffened purple hood about three feet tall with a tip
at one end and a broad cape at the other. There are two very small
slits for his eyes, and when Don Francisco puts on the hood,
pulling the cape end far down over his shoulders, he transforms
himself into a mysterious figure with only his eyes showing.

‘To you norteamericanos,’ he says apologetically, ‘I must look
like a member of your Ku Klux Klan.’ He is right. During Holy
Week whenever members of the confraternity (in Spanish
cofradiía) assemble they will look like a bunch of Kluxers on the
rampage through some bayou village. ‘Thus do rascals appropriate
the robes of the just and contaminate them,’ Don Francisco says,
and again he is right, for the Ku Klux Klan did borrow its costume
from the religious procession of Sevilla. Señor Mendoza next takes
a six-foot candle, which he bought a few days ago, and stands
with it at an angle to his hip. ‘I am now a member of the
confraternity, ready to march.’ There are fifty-two confraternities
in Sevilla, each connected with a parish church. Like a lodge or
brotherhood they meet throughout the year to collect funds for
their church and particularly to arrange for the processions of
Holy Week.

As the sun sets, Don Francisco says, ‘It’s time for church,’ and
as we pick our way through the crowd we recognize other men
dressed in his colors: purple tunic, white cape, purple hood; but
we also see a few who wear different colors, and they are on their
way to join up with some other confraternity. At the church there
is much confusion. Outside, a huge crowd has gathered to watch
the beginning of this first procession, which will be followed by
others for each of the next seven days; inside, the two floats
sponsored by this church are being given their final inspection.
They are strange and wonderful things, each twenty feet long by
nine feet wide by fifteen feet tall, and the route they will follow
through the city streets was laid out more than a century ago and
will require twelve hours to complete. The float to the left shows
Christ at the Crucifixion surrounded by Roman guards, and it
will go out first. The float to the right, and much the more
important of the two, contains the Virgin Mary in glory. She is
life-size and every effort has been taken to make her seem alive.
Her eyebrows are made of real hair; her cheeks are delicately
rouged; six glass tears run down her cheek; her hands are
manicured; she wears a wealth of jewelry.

‘Oh, darling Virgin!’ people cry when she appears.
‘Sweetest Virgin, if you’re real, toss me some of those jewels.’
‘My Virgin! My Virgin! You make the other Virgins of Sevilla

look like a bunch of putas (whores).’

She is greeted as a living person, a blend of queen and popular
singer. ‘I throw you a kiss, lovely one,’ a man shouts.

 

Don Francisco, beneath his mask, does not participate in this
frivolity, for he takes religion gravely. It is, he said, the most
important aspect of his life. ‘I serve in the confraternity,’ he
explains, ‘because I am convinced that a good Spaniard must give
part of his life to the Church and all of his devotion to the Virgin.
For me the year comes to a head with Holy Week, and this year
is special.’ In a few moments we shall see why, but as the day ends
let us move to an old river-front warehouse to meet our second
man.

 

He is José (Pepe) Gómez, a tattooed stevedore, twenty-nine
years old, and he too is about to march in the procession, and he
says, ‘Because I get paid. And because my Virgin is the best
damned Virgin in Sevilla.’ His actual words are more profane
than that, but they reinforce a basic fact about the Holy Week
processions. To many of the marchers the carved Virgins and
Christs are real people: the Virgin of this parish who has looked
out for her people for the past century, the particular Christ who
loves the children of this parish.

 

Pepe Gómez dresses in the only suit he owns, a pair of white
trousers and a torn shirt. He wears no socks but does have a pair
of new rope sandals, supplied by Don Francisco’s confraternity.
He also has a canvas bag about the size of a pillowcase, and this
he partly fills with a mixture of sand and sawdust, placing it on
his head in such a way that the sand falls to the end of the bag
that is over his shoulders. A fellow stevedore hammers the bag to
see whether it is taking up the shock, and Pepe says, ‘Good. Let’s
go.’

 

We leave the waterfront and walk through the narrow streets
to the church where Don Francisco and his confraternity have
assembled about the float of the Virgin. When Gómez appears,
along with thirty-five other laborers similarly dressed and with
bags of sand and sawdust resting on their heads, the treasurer of
the confraternity pays each worker one dollar and ten cents,
whereupon the stevedores prepare to crawl under the float, which
has been built upon a large table with legs that keep it about four
feet off the ground when it is rested. The space between the float
and the ground is masked by a heavy brocade skirt which will
hide the feet of thirty-six stevedores below. Thus, when the
workmen march, the float will seem to move by itself and the
men inside will do their work in sweaty darkness, turning the
float only as a captain directs from outside.

 

A float may weigh as much as half a ton, so that the task of
bearing it through the streets for twelve hours is not a light one.
A few extra stevedores go along to provide occasional relief; also,
during the twelve-hour march the float may be stopped by a traffic
jam or by reaching an intersection when another float is passing
in a different direction. When such things happen the stevedores
lower the float and scramble out for air, and one of the amusing
sights of Holy Week is that of a beautiful Virgin Mary temporarily
deserted by her bearers, who have ducked into a bar where
someone is standing drinks.

 

When they do move, the floats sway gently from side to side,
giving the wooden figures a kind of poetic life. A float never seems
static. Along the course, which winds in and out through all parts
of the city, each float having its own route, which does not
necessarily follow that of any other, citizens note with approval
any new statues or repainting introduced during the past twelve
months. I once heard a man remark to his wife as the float of his
church went by, ‘I think our new head of Jesus is the best in
Sevilla.’

 

Pepe Gómez and his fellow stevedores now pull up the brocaded
skirt and crawl into position beneath the float. Adjusting their
bags over their heads and about their shoulders, they test the
weight and try to find positions which will be comfortable.
Outside, the captain waits for a signal from the priest, then slaps
the corner smartly.

 

‘One.’ The unseen stevedores brace their heads and shoulders
against the floor of the float.

 

‘Two.’ They rise to a standing position, and the Virgin seems
to ascend of her own accord.

 

‘Three.’ The stevedores move slowly forward and the first float
for the Holy Week parade is under way. From balconies people
cry ecstatically, ‘Oh, sweet Virgin. Come back to us, you little
beauty.’

 

It is incredible with what skill the stevedores move this huge
float. At the doorway there is a clearance of about four inches,
and as the Virgin moves through narrow streets there will be many
points where encroaching buildings seem to make progress
impossible, but through obedience to signals the men move their
burden an inch at a time and rarely scrape a doorjamb or a wall.

 

The hooded members of the confraternity, their long tapers
held at an angle from their hips, fall in line before the float as if
to give it protection, but Don Francisco is not among them. He
told us earlier that for him this year was to be special, and now
he sits on a chair in his church and takes off his shoes. From
beneath his hood he says, ‘In February I faced a crisis at the bank.
It could have been disastrous. But I prayed to the Virgin and she
rescued me. I told her, “Save me and I will do penance.” It was a
promise.’ When he is barefooted he lashes chains about his ankles
and the heavy links drag behind him for six or eight feet. He lays
aside his candle to take up a heavy, full-sized wooden cross. Then
he rises and steps into the street, where his chains jangle on the
cobblestones. He is prepared to drag his cross through the streets
of Sevilla as Jesus dragged his through the alleys of Jerusalem.
‘Blessed Virgin,’ he mutters with intense devotion, ‘accept my
penance.’ For twelve hours he will march barefoot with half a
dozen others who have made similar vows to this Virgin. The
confraternity does not appoint these men to their task; they are
volunteers who feel that some aspect of their lives requires
atonement, and the punishment to which they submit themselves
is not light.

 

I followed Don Francisco most of the twelve hours, and it was
morning before the Virgin returned to her church, where at least
two thousand people waited to watch her come home. As long as
the Virgin was in the plaza before the church their cries of
welcome were such as a man might give his betrothed on her
return home, but when she entered the portals, inch by inch, the
greetings were those of children to their mother. Thus the Spanish
Virgins fill a dual role.

 

“Jesucristo, that was a hard night,’ Pepe Gómez admits as he
crawls out from under. Tomorrow he will carry a float from
another church, and so on throughout the seven days.

 

Don Francisco’s words are quite different. As he lays aside his
cross and unbinds his chains, he says with his mask off, ‘I feel that
the Virgin was very close to Sevilla this day. I could sense her
nodding as she accepted my penance.’

 

Each day from Palm Sunday through the Saturday before Easter
this procession will be duplicated, but Don Francisco’s
confraternity will not march again, for Sevilla has many parish
churches and the days must be parceled out among them. In 1967
the processions were as follows:
Day
ConfraMary
Jesus
Mary and
ternities
Floats
Floats
Jesus Floats

Sunday
7
7
8
1

Total
52
45
45
10

 

Monday
8
6
6
1

 

Tuesday
7
6
8
0

 

Wednesday
7
6
4
3

 

Thursday
7
6
7
1

 

Friday morning
6
6
6
0

 

Friday evening
7
5
4
3

 

Saturday
3
3
2
1

Some of these hundred floats leave their little churches at one
in the morning to march all night and stagger home at noon.
Others go out at dawn and wander through the streets till sunset,
but on Good Friday two sets of confraternities go out, one early
and one late, and it was to one of these that Don Francisco took
us at four in the afternoon to watch the departure of a float
showing Jesus and the Roman soldiers whose parade would mark
those solemn evening hours when Christ died of his Crucifixion.

‘Marching barefoot with the Virgin is an honor that no man…’
Don Francisco says as he watches the Friday parade. He stops.
He is in his late forties and is an important businessman in the
city, hefty, dark-haired, amiable. He wants to explain what Holy
Week means to him but is afraid a Protestant would not
understand. ‘It’s an honor,’ he says quietly, ‘but to march with
one of the Jesus floats on Good Friday… You’ll understand when
you hear the tremendous silence. Señor Michener, when this float
comes through Sierpes, Jesus Christ himself is in that street.’

The Jesus float is much different from the one that Don
Francisco attended, for in the latter the Virgin sat in awe-inspiring
splendor. The Jesus float, on the other hand, is a tableau centering
upon a life-sized figure of Christ on the cross, each element of
his agony depicted in minute detail. Beads of sweat stand on his
forehead. Ruby drops of blood run down his side where the spear
has pierced him. His feet are turning blue from the nail, and his
crown of thorns brings blood. This particular statue was carved
some ninety years ago to replace one that came originally from
The Netherlands. It is accompanied at the four corners of the
float by life-sized imperial Roman guards in resplendent uniform.
Each carries one of the implements of the Crucifixion and they
form a terrifying and brutal group. Similar Roman soldiers will
appear on many of the floats and one of the greatest Virgins will
be preceded by a marching company of live men dressed as Roman
legionnaires. If the rest of the world has sometimes been perplexed
as to who was responsible for the death of Jesus, some blaming
Jews, other Romans, the confraternities of Sevilla are not confused.
Their statues show Romans in the act of villainy.

In addition to Jesus and the four soldiers, our float contains
about a dozen additional figures, some large, some small, and
over the years whenever a given statue has worn out or been
damaged, it has been replaced by a new one. Or if a tradesman
of the parish prospered he might one day announce, ‘I will give
a new Roman soldier to the confraternity.’ Thus, of the figures
on our float, all might be of different age, yet all combine to
present a harmonious picture of Christ in his last hours.