VERDOLAY--HOUSEKEEPING
The house in Verdolay had five large rooms, stone-floored, and was
unfurnished. We decided to borrow all our friend's kitchen furniture, to
wit, a table, three chairs, water-vessels, etc., and we bought for
ourselves a large frying-pan. But the bed was a problem. Our friend's
bed looked too good to knock about, so at last we determined on the
planks which we had already, and four packing-cases on which to lay the
planks. Antonio, always eager to help us, promised to find the
packing-cases and to make all the arrangements about a cart. At this
moment Antonio's wife Rosa was ill. He had invited us to a noble lunch,
and upon the day following he had told us that the lunch had disagreed
seriously with Rosa. She did not get better. "There is much fever with
it," said Antonio. Marciana, our charwoman, of whom we will tell more
later, was also working for Antonio, and would bring us news of Rosa's
illness, which appeared quite serious for so slight a cause.
"We must look out for tummy-troubles," said I.
It is amazing what a lot a small amount of furniture appears when one is
preparing to move. We had thought the cart much too big, but we had some
difficulty in stacking into it all our material, including the guitar,
of which the driver was told to take especial care.
We drove out to Verdolay in a tartana, passing on the road our cart of
furniture. We noted that the driver had added above our load two huge
bundles of straw colour. We wondered what they might be. We were to
discover later.
The little Señor took us to the owner of our prospective abode. His
house was full of children, and the study, where we signed a Spanish
agreement, was festooned with swords, pistols and guns, while a large
photograph of him in officer's uniform explained the meaning of this
warlike equipment. The proprietor, Don Ferdinand--a most unmilitary
looking man--received our money with aloof dignity; but said, after the
transaction was over, that if we ever needed a friend we now knew where
to look for him. Subsequently Don Ferdinand placed in the yard next to
ours a large dog, which howled all night and prevented us from sleeping,
but the friendliness which he had professed did not induce him to move
it.
The cart of furniture had not arrived by the time we were in full
possession of our new home. The front door led into a large entrada,
from which one passed into an equally spacious kitchen, and then by a
wide double door into the back yard. To the right and left of the
entrada were rooms with windows, covered with a grille, looking on to
the road. To the right of the kitchen the last room had a window looking
into the yard.
Evening had come and still the cart delayed. Antonio had given us an
introduction to a friend called "La Merchora." We found her in the
village shop which she owned. Her shop was smaller than that in Alverca,
but similar, save that she sold her beer in bottles and dispensed with
the beer machine. The same bilious-looking sausage hung in festoons from
the ceiling. She was like a fat, happy aunt to us, talked very fast, but
was very proud of being able to understand what I said. She assured us
that she would arrange things for us.
In the dusk we sat on the step of our empty house, and, illuminated by
the light of a couple of candles lent by the little Señor, we ate
provisions which we providentially had brought with us in the tartana.
The cart arrived at about eight o'clock. The two large bundles had
disappeared, but a certain amount of chopped straw scattered about
amongst the furniture showed us what they had contained. The driver
hesitated before accepting the tip which Jan offered him.
We set up the bed as best we could. We had intended to put the
packing-cases upright, but the structure seemed rather unsafe; so we
laid them flat, put two of the planks lengthways and the rest crossing.
Unfortunately two of the packing-cases were much narrower than the
others. This made the structure slope down about a foot at one end. We
did not have time or surplus energy to alter this arrangement during our
stay, with the result that in the morning we had as a rule slipped
gently down so that our feet projected some distance beyond the end of
the bed. Mosquitoes had threatened us during our meal, so that we rigged
the net at once.
We had been warned by many travellers of the verminous condition of
Spain. We had taken the chances of this house, which in truth had
appeared reasonably clean. Nevertheless we went to bed with some
anxiety. No sooner had we lain down and the candle was out, than the
trouble began. It was as though we had been invaded by a hundred
thousand bugs. We both tossed about and cursed our luck. Suddenly a
piercing and prolonged sting made me clap my hand suddenly to the spot
attacked. I had imprisoned something. I had experienced bugs in Serbia:
this did not seem like a bug, but much larger.
"Jan," I exclaimed, "I've caught something. Strike a light." The match
revealed _a short piece of chopped straw_. The carter, with his bundles
of chaff, had provided us with as uncomfortable a specimen of an
"apple-pie" bed as it has been my lot to experience. The chaff had
sifted down through everything, and had impregnated both the cover of
the mattress and the sheets with the fine spikes of straw. We spent the
better part of the night picking the tiny irritants out of our bedding.
Even the thought that the house had proved bugless was at that moment
but a poor solace. In addition to our discomforts of that night, the
house was almost unbearable from the heat. We had chosen our first
residence with some lack of experience. The house, we discovered on the
morrow, faced east and west, and not, as did the majority of the houses
in the village, north and south. In consequence of this fact we suffered
from the sun, which poured through the front door all the morning, and
through the back door all the afternoon. It was almost impossible to
open the windows on both sides, to allow a draught to pass through the
house. And for the worst house in the village we were being charged
forty pesetas a month by our _friend_, Don Ferdinand.
The discomforts of the night were added to by the cats, which chose our
back wall for the most awesome serenades we have ever heard; and also by
the plaintive baaing of a sheep tethered in an adjoining yard. We fell
into an uneasy sleep about dawn, but were soon awakened by strange
sounds which came from the kitchen. We listened, but could make nothing
of them; they were strange hollow vocal sounds as though a small carpet
was being beaten at irregular intervals. The front door was locked, the
front windows barred; what had come in must have done so by the back,
over the wall. What was it? Jan peeped through a crack of the door. On
the kitchen floor was a flock of pigeons, which had come in to search
the chaff, scattered by the previous night's unpacking, for grains of
corn.
It was now about 5.30. We decided to rest for a while, in view of the
failure of our sleep. A rousing thump, thump on the front door drew Jan
once more from bed.
At the door was a brown-faced peasant, clad in black cotton, with bare
sandalled feet. Spotted about the street were goats, their distended
udders almost trailing on the ground.
"Milk," said the peasant. "Do you want milk? La Merchora sent me."
[Illustration]
He took our milk-jug, selected a goat the udder of which seemed
stretched almost to bursting, and milked the animal directly into the
jug. He handed the jug of milk, hot and frothy, with a flourish.
"Three fat dogs and a little bitch," said he.
In such a hot country the milk keeps better inside the animal than
outside. Milk shops in Spain therefore are usually quadruped, and there
is never a question of inspector or of adulteration.
We made up our minds to get up. We did not know what other venders La
Merchora had prepared for us.
We had scarcely finished our breakfast of tea, bread and chocolate, when
another thump, thump on the door announced the arrival of another
ascetically faced peasant, tall, clad in blue. With him was a pretty
girl of about fifteen and a dusty, tilted donkey-cart.
"Vegetables and fruit," said the girl.
The man, having firmly fixed in his head that we knew no Spanish,
grunted and made noises, strange though cheery, in his throat. The
inside of the cart was piled with all manner of excellent
things--tomatoes, green and yellow melons, berenginas, peaches, plums,
pears, red peppers, cucumbers, potatoes, huge purple onions, and lemons.
We bought many things. The system of weights and measures is supposed to
be that of the kilogramme, as it is in France, but the methods by which
these weights are translated into practice in Spain is delightful.
Evidently there is no inspection of weights and measures. One of the
weights used by the tall man was a small axe-head, another was a lump of
rock.
After the donkey-cart, a man stumpy enough to be almost a dwarf rode up
to our steps. He was grim-visaged and paunchy; and said in a sour voice
that he would fetch us water if we so wished. The price was one peseta a
donkey-load, a donkey-load of water being four full Grecian vases
(called cantaros) which were carried in panniers, on the top of which
the old man sat and looked grumpily at the world, while the water
gurgled and clucked cheerfully beneath him.
Then came a witch-faced woman with a disagreeable voice. She carried a
huge basket and said she was the shopping woman of Verdolay. Verdolay
had no market, nor could one buy there anything other than the few
immediate necessities which La Merchora sold. This woman was equivalent
to our country carriers. She walked to Murcia every day and returned
with laden basket through the heated dust. For this work she demanded a
small percentage upon the value of her purchases; probably she also
extracted a small commission from the shops in which she dealt. We did
not employ her much, as her temperament was not agreeable to us.
[Illustration]
Last of all came a little old woman--with a face seamed like a kindly
walnut--dragging an old grey donkey. On the donkey's back was a pair of
time-worn panniers from which bulged a medley of fruit and vegetables.
She was the donkey-cart's rival. I had forgotten to buy onions.
During our trip we had been bothered by the fact that at moments our
uncertain Spanish would be displaced by the language we had last
learned, Serbian. Instead of the Spanish sentence, quite against our
wills Serbian would speak itself. This phenomenon is quite common, I
believe, to those who learn several languages more or less imperfectly.
I now asked the old woman in unwished-for Serbian for onions. She struck
an attitude of theatrical dismay.
"Señora," she exclaimed, "que es eso?"[12]
I repeated my desire, and again Serbian came out. The old lady shook her
head, and seemed frightened. I got a strong hold over my tongue, and
said slowly in Spanish:
"Tiene cebollas?"[13]
The old lady's face broke into a hundred wrinkles of delight.
"Ahe, Señora," she cried, "if you say 'cebollas,' I can understand that
you want cebollas. But if you say something different from 'cebollas,'
how can I know that you need cebollas?"
We walked round the corner to La Merchora's to discover what could, and
what could not, be bought at first hand. La Merchora could supply us
with olive oil, but not with vinegar. She sold beer, wine, lemonade and
soda-water in siphons; dried sardines, very smelly; orange-coloured
sausages; bread at a peseta the kilo; Dutch cheese, red pepper,
chocolate and eggs. The last-named item on the list she said was scarce
and variable in quality. I then asked her if it would be possible to
find a maid in the village. The little Señor had said that servants were
as plentiful as flies in June, but La Merchora said that they were as
scarce as were the eggs. All the girls went off to Murcia, she said.
There were several women in the little shop and a discussion began; they
reviewed a list of the likely girls. A young woman came in, and said at
once that her sister was out of a job. She would send her along. La
Merchora was reluctant to tell us the correct price to pay. I suppose
she thought that she might be spoiling a beautiful piece of bargaining.
Upon pressure, however, she admitted that the local price was about ten
pesetas a month, this to include all the washing of linen, both house
and personal.
We bought some of La Merchora's chocolate. She asked us if we would have
Spanish or French flavouring. We naturally chose the Spanish variety. It
was very cheap. It had a dusty consistency in the mouth, and tasted of
chocolate not at all, but strongly of cinnamon. It was eatable, but not
exciting; we consoled ourselves with the reflection that it was
nourishing without temptations towards greediness and ate no other
chocolate during our stay in Verdolay. Behind her shop La Merchora had a
large yard, with outside stove for cooking. In the yard was a flock of
turkeys and several pigs. A black and white terrier pup was having a
game with the pigs, running about and pulling their tails with his sharp
teeth.
Our house had inconveniences. There was, as far as we could see, no
place to put household refuse, nor any means in the village of
collecting it. The windows on the road commanded a view almost of the
whole house, and if we left them open at once the curious were at the
grilles, staring through at us. As we could not open the back door or
windows during the afternoon, this meant that if we wished for privacy
we had to live in semi-gloom. Nobody in Spain, however, tries to live
other than in public; the people walked in and watched us as we were
having our meals; walked round the house examining with interest the
pictures which we hung on the walls to dry; and in time we became
case-hardened to this semi-public life.
We had a siesta during the afternoon to make up for the sleep we had
lost. At first we lay down without the mosquito-net, but the flies soon
drove us to its protection. In the evening we called on the little
Señor. He was a delicate and very likeable man, but his pretty wife
showed a strong dislike for us, for which we could find no explanation
save that perhaps she had been a pro-German during the war. We sat
uncomfortably in a mixed atmosphere of liking and hate for some while,
then, making our adieux, and followed by the setter-St. Bernard, we went
home.
I think that we first discovered the lack of privacy while we were
undressing. We had left the front windows open for air, and soon a crowd
was watching our preliminaries to sleep. Luckily we discovered it early.
Jan closed the shutters, upon which a number of boys sat down on our
doorstep and sang serenades to us for several hours.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: "What is that?"]
[Footnote 13: "Have you onions?"]