Iberia (54 page)

The plaza is linked, in the minds of those who read Spanish
history, with Spain’s most unfortunate king, Carlos II
(1661-1700), known as El Hechizado (The Bewitched) because
of his twisted and incompetent body and mind to match. He was
the last of the Spanish Habsburgs and the inheritor of all their
weaknesses; a substantial case could be made that he was insane,
but he reigned from the age of three, and it was his childless death
that brought the Borbón rulers to the Spanish throne and the war
of the Spanish succession to Europe.

When Carlos was eighteen he caused much excitement at court
by finally expressing an interest in something. Overhearing that
the Inquisition’s jails in outlying districts were crowded with
heretics whom the judges had found guilty but had not yet burned,
he announced that it was his pleasure to hold in the Plaza Mayor
a sumptuous auto-da-fé at which a hundred and twenty
condemned would be brought forth for sentencing. With real
excitement the slack-jawed monarch organized a spectacle of
which the English historian John Langdon-Davies has said, ‘There
can be no denying that the show staged on June 30th, 1680, in
the Plaza Mayor of Madrid, must have been one of the most
dramatic, the most moving, conceived by the mind of man since
the days when Christians and wild beasts fought one another for
the amusement of decadent Rome.’ Carlos spent a month
formulating the complex ritual for the exhibition and running
through a series of dress rehearsals. On the day itself fourteen
uninterrupted hours were spent preaching at the heretics and
reading their sentences, after which one hundred and one were
dismissed with lesser sentences, like flogging or a term in the
galleys, while the remaining nineteen were prepared for the stake.

It is not my intention to recite the details of this grisly day;
anyone wishing to know what was entailed in an auto-da-fé—for
some curious reason this particularly Spanish institution has
always been known in English in its Portuguese spelling, instead
of the Spanish auto de fé (act of faith)—should consult
Langdon-Davies’

Carlos, The King Who Would Not Die
(1962). I
am more interested in that author’s researches as to how the king
who had organized this spectacle for his personal edification had
become the way he was, and what Langdon-Davies has to say on
this subject throws much light both on Spanish history and on
the decline of the Habsburgs.

Spain had had two crazy queens. The second we have already
met, lying in state in the mausoleum in Granada, Juana la Loca
(1479-1555). The first was her grandmother, Isabel of Portugal
(c. 1430-1496), whom we shall meet more fully in the next
chapter. It was through these two unfortunate women that the
madness of the Spanish Habsburgs was transmitted; had their
offspring married outside the family it is highly probable that the
faulty strain would have been submerged. Instead, look at what
happened to produce a near-idiot like Carlos II:

A man’s ancestors in the third, fourth and fifth generations
comprise eight, sixteen and thirty-two relationships respectively.
Thus Carlos’ parents, like everyone else, each had fifty-six such
relationships in their family trees, or one hundred and twelve
between them.

These one hundred and twelve relationships in their case were
shared between only thirty-eight individuals. Carlos’ mother’s
fifty-six ancestors, forty-eight were also ancestors of his father. Of
the thirty-two women in the fifth generation, that is the sixteen
of one parent and sixteen of the other, twelve were descendants
of mad Isabel of Portugal.

In the two family trees the name of Juana la Loca occurs eight
times, the names of her two sons nineteen times. Seven out of the
eight great-grandparents of Carlos II descended from Juana la
Loca. No wonder he was bewitched.

Today the Plaza Mayor is a vast empty area in which little
happens. The many balconies still lend the place an architectural
charm, but even when I first knew it the predominant echoes
were tragic, for history has passed it by and it is only in the lesser
streets surrounding it that the life of Madrid moves with its old
vigor. I first became aware of this one Sunday morning when I
saw large numbers of people leaving the Puerta del Sol and
heading for what I supposed was the Plaza Mayor, but I was
wrong, for they passed right by this empty square and sought
another set of streets leading to a narrow plaza watched over by
a heroic statue of Eloy Gonzalo, a bearded soldier who had
conducted himself with glory in the Spanish-American war in
Cuba. What stretched out at the foot of the statue was something
that was difficult to believe. Thousands upon thousands of people
had convened, as they did each Sunday, to see what bargains they
could pick up in the junk stalls of the Rastro (Slaughterhouse),
and I was later to discover that no traveler can feel like a real
Madrileño unless he can announce at dinner or when entertaining
friends, ‘You must see the wonderful purchase I made in the
Rastro last Sunday.’ Some of my friends have furnished their
whole apartments from handsome odds and ends acquired in this
way; one man bought in June six bronze candlesticks, each seven
feet high, for three hundred dollars and sold them in August to
a New York antique dealer for three thousand. Renaissance
pictures, empty Coca-Cola bottles, antique needlepoint, Chevrolet
carburetors, Roman coins, damaged Goya etchings and positively
anything a human being could want or which in normal
circumstances he would throw away can be found in this amazing
market. It operates in diminished size the rest of the week, of
course, but the Sunday outpouring is something to see.

And so in my early visits to Madrid I stayed at the Puerta del
Sol, wandered in the Plaza Mayor, absorbing history, and refreshed
myself with the mobs in the Rastro. When I had saved a few
pesetas I followed the advice of a gentleman I had met at the Hotel
París and took my meals in either of those two fine restaurants
that lie just off the Plaza Mayor, Botín’s dating back to 1725 and
The Caves of Luis Candelas, a rambling affair named in honor of
Spain’s Robin Hood, who was a great favorite in Madrid. When
I first encountered them these restaurants were well known; now
they are world-famous and worthy of the reputation.

In 1966, as I approached Madrid once again as a tourist,
intending a long stay during which I hoped to clarify my ideas
about Spanish politics, I began to reflect upon the changes whose
development I had observed during the last fifteen years, and I
think the city will be more meaningful if I describe it in terms of
those changes, which any tourist could have noticed.

In a sense no visitor can ever be adequately prepared to judge
a foreign city, let alone an entire nation; the best he can do is to
observe with sympathy. But certain recent experiences had
qualified me to look upon Spanish life with better than average
understanding. Spain was a theocracy, and I had lived in Israel
and Pakistan, which were also theocracies, and the problems of
such governments tend to be the same, whether the theocracy is
Jewish, Muslim or Catholic. Spain was also a dictatorship, and I
had recently come from the Soviet Union and could compare
what happened in Spain’s relatively relaxed tyranny with what
happened in a hard dictatorship like Russia’s. ‘We no longer have
a dictadura, a dictatorship,’ a Spaniard told me, ‘but rather a
dictablanda, a bland dictatorship.’ And what was most instructive,
I had known Japan, and it, like Spain, was feudal, ritualistic,
devoted to honor and committed to maintaining a closed society.
In fact, I found Spain to be the Japan of Europe, and at many
points I was able to fathom the incomprehensibility of Spain only
because I had first met the similar incomprehensibility of Japan.

In 1950 Madrid was one of the most delightful world capitals
to visit, for then I could debark at the airport, ride quietly along
beautiful streets to the center of town and choose at will from
some twenty good hotels, where I would be welcomed;

now
Madrid is grotesquely overcrowded so far as tourists are concerned
and I have learned to steer clear unless I have confirmed
reservations. In 1963 I could not find hotel space, but that was
understandable because I had come in May, when the fair of San
Isidro was under way. In October of 1964, when nothing was
under way, I was absolutely unable to find a room in any hotel
and had to scrounge around among my friends. In May of 1965
I invited an American to stay with me in Madrid, and all the
services of the air line, the police and my friends could not find
him accommodation. He had to sleep on a cot in a hallway. And
in September of 1966, in the real off-season, I could find not one
hotel room, and it was only when Don Ignacio Herguete, whom
we met in Trujillo, interceded that something was provided.
Then
Madrid had one of the most charming trolley-car systems
in Europe, and on it I wandered through the various sections of
the city, watching as people of various types clambered aboard
to argue with the conductor. Getting about the city was not only
easy but positively pleasant for Madrid had the characteristics of
an overgrown country town, with unexpected nooks at the end
of each trolley ride;
now
the trolleys have largely vanished and I
have to go by subway or cab, and no other city has so miserable
a taxi system. There are not enough cabs; they do not serve the
proper centers; and they will not respond to phone calls. After
the theater, or a bullfight, or a football game or dining out one
must wait forty or fifty minutes to catch a cab, and even then he
must walk eight or ten blocks to reach a point where cabs will
stop. At least five times on each trip to Madrid I swear, ‘I’ll never
come back to this city…the humiliation is too great.’ The
government is aware of the problem but can do nothing about
it, for reasons which have been explained to me but which I cannot
understand.
Then
Madrid was a compact city of one million, six hundred
thousand;
now
it is a sprawling metropolis of more than two and
a quarter million.
Then
its buildings looked as if they were at least two centuries
old;
now
the new growth startles me whenever I have been away
as long as six months.
Then
Madrid was a city of little traffic, for cars were few;
now
it is a perpetual traffic jam, not yet as bad as Florence or Nice but
bound to get worse because within ten years the number of cars
will double.
Then
Madrid was a puritan city, with police watching for any
display of modern life such as short dresses on women, or
hand-holding between lovers or flashy dress on men, and the
crackdown could be embarrassing. I saw English women thrown
out of churches because their bare elbows showed, and German
men visiting the Mediterranean beaches were arrested for not
wearing tops with their swimming trunks;
now
the city is like a
delightful garden in which young people in love kiss openly, girls
wear pretty much what they want, and the only women who
bother about covering their heads when visiting churches are
self-conscious American Protestants. It is difficult to believe the
transformation that has occurred in less than a decade.
Then
if an American woman traveling alone wished to eat in a
restaurant at night, even inside her own hotel, the head waiter
would place before her a small American flag to warn the Spanish
dandies that this one was not a prostitute, even though she was
eating alone in public;
now
women frequent cafés alone, a thing
quite impossible even five years ago. I was in one of the famous
bars when unattended women began to appear, and one would
have thought the roof had suddenly collapsed, but in late 1966 it
was not uncommon for business girls to meet in threes and fours
after work to drink beer.
Then
on church doors across Spain appeared notices, which
were taken seriously, warning females against wearing anything
but skirts, and these of a dignified length;
now
minifaldas
(miniskirts) and slacks are popular.
Then
young people had few places to go;
now
it is quite
different. On my last trip I stopped for dinner in what had once
been a fairly good Chinese restaurant and was shocked to find in
every booth a young couple locked in a public embrace. The
owner no longer ran the place as a restaurant because he could
earn more with less work running it as a cocktail bar for young
people who worked. When I asked about this, a friend told me,
‘But all those girls still have to be home by nine o’clock. A lot of
Spanish families are discovering to their amazement that girls can
become pregnant between seven and nine in the evening, as well
as between one and three in the morning.’
Then
Madrid was a dark city with few street lights;
now
it is a
lovely place in the early evening, brimming with light. The
Avenida José Antonio is one of the most pleasant I know and its
fountains are a joy. I have lived at one time or another in about
six different parts of the city and they were not only varied but
also charming. This is a city of much beauty.
Then
prices for things like men’s suits, women’s gloves, leather
goods and Spanish-style jewelry were low and represented the
best buys in Europe;
now
there are no bargains, but quality is
good and what you pay for you get.
Then
there were few elevators, and if you wanted to do business
with the average Spanish company, you had to climb, climb,
climb;
now
each new building has its elevator, and sometimes it
works.
Then
the newspapers of Madrid were the worst one could read
in any major capital, so fantastically bad that it would be painful
to describe them. I happened to be in Spain during three different
international crises and from the available newspapers I could
obtain no logical or sequential news. Imagine how impossible it
was to discover anything about Spain itself. Once I brought home
with me three sample Madrid dailies to prove to my unbelieving
friends how awful they were. The front page usually had a
bombastic picture of Generalísimo Franco dedicating a dam. The
second page carried a sentimental essay by some hack professor
about how Cervantes represented the soul of Spain. The third
contained an article on Bishop So-and-So and his belief that
Spanish women, when they attend church regularly, are the
noblest in the world. On the fourth page appeared a selection of
news items ingenious in their ability to say nothing. I remember
two complete items. ‘Today General Eisenhower made a startling
change in his cabinet.’‘General de Gaulle announced today that
from here on the French government will pursue a different policy
regarding Algeria. The general said that the old policy has not
succeeded.’ On the following days there was no development of
the story and no attempt was made to explain why Eisenhower
had shifted his cabinet or what France’s new policy was to be. The
last three pages provided as good sports coverage as I could have
found in London or New York.