JIJONA--THE FIESTA
The only fiesta we had hitherto experienced in Spain had been a small
peasant feast during an afternoon at Verdolay. We had gone to it; but
finding that we as foreigners constituted the chief centre of interest,
we had run away to the seclusion of our house. At the big fiesta of
Jijona were so many strangers that we were almost overlooked.
[Illustration]
The family at the "Vinegar" consisted of an old bent-backed father
peasant, sandalled; a mother, in black with black shawl; several sons,
reaching towards mercantile gentility owing to the turron factory, which
was in the cellars of the house; and several daughters, most of whom had
married personages of importance in the little town. In fact the
"Vinegar" family was upon the up-grade. They promised us a week of
unparalleled amusement.
First, they said the town was crammed with people--a most necessary
concomitant to Spanish enjoyment. In no other country in the world is
the gregarious nature of man so plainly exhibited. The man who plays his
lonely golf matched with an imaginary colonel would not be understood;
your solitary pleasurer would find no sympathizers. Crowds, crowds, form
the oil in the salad of Spanish amusement. Secondly: that very night the
priests were giving a free public cinema entertainment. Thirdly: "They
will loose a cow on the streets to-morrow night. Oh, it is precioso. It
is a wonderful diversion. The cow gallops, the men try to catch her.
They are tossed right and left, others come to the rescue. Magnificent!
Eh?" Fourthly: the old drama of the Moors and Christians was to be
performed.
Jijona lies in territory once captured by the Moors. They say that the
original name was Saracena, and to-day locally it is pronounced
"Shishona." It owes its considerable wealth to the extensive terrace
cultivation of almonds, by means of which the hard-working Moors
converted the mountains from barrenness to fertility.
"There is a castle of boards erected in the plaza," said the Vinegars;
"this will be stormed first by the Moors, then by the Christians. It is
very luxurious. Not so luxurious as last year, perhaps, because the
captains of the fiesta are not so wealthy as those of last year, and
owing to the tobacco famine, the Contrabandistas will omit their drama
of tobacco smuggling. Yet it will exhibit much lujo."[21]
At supper we tasted for the first time the famous turron of Jijona.
This was manufactured by our hosts. It is a crisp, dry, almond
sweetmeat, probably Moorish in origin, for it is not unlike Halva de
Smyrne and carries behind its almond flavour a queer but not unpleasant
taste resembling the smell of an over-heated chair. Supper over, we went
out to the plaza. The first need of Spanish amusement had been
fulfilled. The streets were crowded. A few of the more sophisticated
visitors were even wearing hats.
At the far end of the plaza, dimly, could be seen the wooden castle, in
shape not unlike one of those quaint wood cuts from an old edition of
Froissart; some distance in front of it, high in the air, was the sheet
on which the free "pictures" were to be thrown from the topmost pinnacle
of the castle. As the time of the performance drew near, the people came
bringing chairs with them until both before and behind the screen the
plaza was crammed. The performance was not a success. The illumination
was dim; the sheet stretched high above the people's heads. In addition,
a young moon in its first quarter intruded from above the mountain-tops.
This intrusive crescent, shining almost through the centre of the sheet,
sometimes took the place of the heroine's head, sometimes of the hero's
waistcoat. After straining our eyes for a while, having reflected on
gift-horses and teeth we went back to the Vinegars' and to bed. As we
went we wondered what those spectators who were on the wrong side of the
sheet and who in consequence could not read the legends--if they were
able to read--would construe out of those dim dramas.
We awoke on the morrow eager to see what the "Studio" of our friend was
like. Father Vinegar had gone before us, but Mother Vinegar took the
road and showed us up through tortuous and romantic staircases of
streets, up--up--until we reached the highest level of the town. But our
friend's house was yet higher. We clambered up a zigzag path over a
widening hill-side to the crest of the ridge. There on the top, fronting
the ruins of the old Saracen fortress, was our friend's house "El Torre
de Blay." It was a long house of one story, backed by a round tower of
three stories. The tower was claimed to be Saracen in origin: it
overlooked a walled yard, which was filled with chickens, rabbits and
turkeys, for the Vinegars were using the house during the absence of our
friend. A pile of almond shells was in the entrada and a back door led
out into a terraced garden full of pomegranate, pear, fig, almond and
olive trees and grape vines. Old Vinegar, called locally "Père Chicot,"
led us round, discoursing on the beauty of the house, which was indeed
cool, large and airy. But the _clou_ of the house Père Chicot kept till
the last. With a gesture of profound pride he swung open a small door.
"Señor and Señora," he exclaimed, "I will warrant that there is not a
W.C. to compare with this in the whole province of Alicante."
Mother Vinegar, talking in a high-pitched, querulous voice, was
complaining of the rise in prices, of the hardness of the season. The
garden of the Torre, she said, was not worth looking after, there were
no grapes, and as for the almonds, she went on, pointing to a small
heap, that was the whole crop for the year. She added that only a little
while ago somebody had broken into the yard and had stolen two hundred
and fifty pesetas' worth of poultry and rabbits.
It occurred to us that some of her cordiality to us came from the fact
that she looked on us to make up some of that lost money. So I gently
led her on to the question of ways and means. She said:
"Oh, El Señor used this place as a working place only. He lived and
slept at our house, and for that he paid ten pesetas a day."
Now El Señor (our English friend) had told us that he paid seven
pesetas. Our suspicions were correct. I am afraid that in the end Mrs.
Vinegar, like the undertaker in Tcheckov's story, counted us amongst her
losses. Her manner changed gradually from cordial to chilly: she had
promised to help me to shop, but she put obstacles in my way and also, I
believe, tried to prevent us from finding a servant. Finally we made an
arrangement that Mrs. Vinegar should supply us with meals at two pesetas
fifty each. Remembering that Elias had fed us in Murcia for one peseta
fifty I struggled to reduce the price to two pesetas for less food, but
Mrs. Vinegar said that Jijona was far more expensive than Murcia (as a
matter of fact it was, if anything, cheaper), and that the reputation of
her house would not stand a lower price. Finally, to her disgust, I
announced that we could not afford more than three meals a week at that
rate, and we were accordingly scrawled down, heavily underlined, with
red ink, amongst the stolen chickens and rabbits.
But the idea of the cow chase through the streets excited us. As in the
well-known story, the cow turned out to be a bull; nor was the chase to
be in the narrow winding streets, but in the plaza, the entrances of
which had been blocked up with extempore barricades of wooden beams. The
women and the less courageous of the men were to fill the balconies, and
places in a balcony had been found for us by the Vinegar girls, who were
quite different in manners from their parents. The bulls were stabled at
the back of the town; and, like a wasp in a spider's web, plunging at
the ends of long ropes tied to its horns, the bull was dragged to the
plaza, when it was insinuated into a rough bull-pen erected near the
castle. There were three bulls, and a second was thus dragged up and
penned in. The third, however, was tied to a tree, and pads, like
boxing-gloves, were fixed solidly to its murderous horns. Then with some
precautions the bull was loosened. The game was a sort of
ticky-touchwood. Home in this case was anywhere out of reach of the
bull's tossing capacity: open doors, the ironwork of windows, water
pipes, trees, the barricades of the streets, lamp posts, a
fountain--around which one could dodge--and a wall topped by a rickety
pailing, and the woodwork of some swing-boats near the castle.
Jan had gone down into the plaza to get some photos. From the balcony
the game was exciting, though not furious. Some of the boys showed
considerable pluck; and it was amusing to watch the strange concavities
shown in the back of one running away who thought that the bull was
close behind and who could feel in imagination those horns prodding his
spine.
[Illustration]
But the fun was not furious enough to bear long watching from the
balcony. So I went down into the square and joined Jan. I had several
reasons for this action. I was bored, and thought it would be more
exciting below. But the chief idea I had was that by this manoeuvre I
would be able to introduce myself to Jijona _en bloc_. I should be
universally known, and would thus escape the continual shrieks and
giggles with which strangers greeted my appearance. So I went down into
the plaza.
A loud gasp went up from the crowds.
Some youths ran up to me.
"Señora, Señora," they cried, "you mustn't stay here. It is dangerous!"
"Why?" asked I.
"But don't you understand? The bull! He might get you."
"But," I answered, "he might get you too."
"Oh, but we can run."
[Illustration]
"Well, I can run also."
At this moment theory turned hurriedly into practice. The bull came
charging down upon us. Jan and I with a number of youths made a run for
the wall, clambered on to it, and clung there, hanging on its rickety
pailings, while the bull smelt our toes.
"Curse you! Curse you!" screamed out an old man who was dancing with
rage on the other side of the pailings. "Get down. Can't you see that in
a minute you'll bring the whole place down? Get off at once."
But the boys merely gave him retort for curse. The bull turned on to
another baiter and dashed away. This boy sprang into the branches of a
young tree. The bull, going full speed, hit the stern of the sapling
with his forehead, and the youth was shot off, describing a graceful
parabola, and landing with a thump on to the ground. Gradually the game
drifted to the other end of the plaza and we came down from the fence.
[Illustration]
"Señora," said an anxious voice, "I have here a balcony. It is quite
respectable, for my wife is there. Pray do not risk your life any
longer."
The speaker was the husband of one of the Vinegar girls, one of the
nicest men we met in Jijona. He was short and plump, and even as he
spoke to me he gazed anxiously towards the end of the plaza. While he
was still urging me, the bull made a movement in our direction, and he
bolted. This time we sought shelter in an open doorway, accompanied by
two priests. One lad tripped and the bull rolled him over with its
padded horns, but other lads ran up, one flapped a handkerchief before
the animal's nose, another hung on to its tail. Somehow we could not
help wondering what would have happened to the bull had twenty public
schoolboys been loosed in that plaza!
At last the light faded. First the bull, then the boys grew tired. The
animal, captured with ropes, was led away to become meat for future
Jijona dinners--eating a playmate, it seemed to me.
Further north in Spain they have a variant of this game. A young bull is
put into a wide circle formed of carts. The bull's horns are not padded,
and this game is quite dangerous. A Polish painter, a friend of ours,
once entered such a ring. He was chased by the bull and to escape sprang
for a cart. He was not quite quick enough. With the upward toss the bull
thrust a horn through the seat of his trousers, as the painter was in
mid-air. Luckily the trousers were an old pair, the seat came out
wholesale and the painter tumbled head first into the cart. He says that
for the rest of the day he went about with his hat clapped behind him.
The bull-baiting over, we called upon the doctor to whom we carried an
introduction from Luis. Then we scrambled up to our Torre, taking with
us provisions and candles. We made up our mattress on the floor and
slept the more soundly for our hard bed.
[Illustration]
We had one joy at Jijona--there were no mosquitoes, and the nights were
deliciously cool. Our windows were far enough from the ground to allow
the most timid of Spanish women to sleep secure from robbers. The sun
streaming in at our windows awoke us before six--we dressed and
breakfasted, looking down on the town, which still lay in the shadow.
Immediately beneath our windows were two hundred yards of stony
hillside; then began the houses, small and closely crowded as though
they feared the rough arid expanse of the towering hills of rock. We
looked down upon an almost Moorish succession of flat roofs, plunging
downhill into the valley. The surrounding country was like a rough sea
suddenly frozen, in front of us the mountains seemed almost to curl
over. A violet smoke was rising from Jijona chimneys, a smoke which
drifted a sweet scent to our nostrils, a scent of sage and of fir. From
the middle of the village the church tower covered with blue and white
tiles suddenly chimed the hour with discordant bells.
Mrs. Vinegar was to take me the round of the shops. She had previously
tried to impress me with the dreadful price of provisions in Jijona, and
this time she prevented me from buying eggs. The greengrocer's shop,
kept by a gay woman named Concha, was only an entrada filled with
baskets. Mrs. Vinegar had refused to change a note of 100 pesetas for
me, and we discovered later that notes of any magnitude greater than
twenty-five pesetas are difficult to change in villages. But Concha
changed the money cheerfully and earned my gratitude. Opposite Concha's
shop, frowning on the main street with grated windows, was the prison,
of which somebody said:
"Heavens! The Jijona men are so good that there hasn't been a soul in
the prison for the last five years. It is full of chickens and rabbits."
We bought a frying-pan, having to choose between one very small and one
very large. The latter was thick in rust, and must have been I don't
know how many years on the shelves of the shop. We chose it on condition
that the shop man could get it clean, and he at once put the whole of
his family to work on it, including a prospective daughter-in-law, a
French-African girl just arrived from Morocco. The customers were
whispering one to another, and at last one more bold than the others
addressed me:
"I saw you yesterday go down amongst the bulls. Were you not terribly
frightened? I thought that my heart was going to stop."
We went to buy drinking glasses. The china shop was deserted and we had
to shout loudly before we could get anybody to serve us. The woman did
not know the price of the glasses.
"But no matter," she said, "you can pay any time you like. And weren't
you terribly frightened yesterday, going down into the bulls? I couldn't
draw my breath when I saw you jump on to the wall."
There were children crowded at the shop door. As we came out I heard
murmurs, which gradually we made out as:
"La Valiente, La Valiente, La Valiente!"
I was known by this name during the whole of my stay in Jijona.
On Sunday we dined at the Vinegars' and in the afternoon the doctor took
us to the Casino. I believe there is gambling at these Casinos, but this
takes place upstairs, and on the ground floor they perform the function
of the local club. On Sunday afternoons and in the evenings the
aristocracy of the place collect here to sip ices while the local
pianist rattles off the latest music which has reached the town.
After supper we walked through the streets, feeling our way up and down
hill, for lights were few and the streets full of rocks and unexpected
steps. We heard the sound of guitars and at once climbed towards it. At
the top of a staircase we came to a shop in front of which a family was
sitting. A woman with a rough voice began to chaff us.
"Ah, yes," she exclaimed, "you are the English of the Torre de Blay. And
the lady is the valiant one who is not afraid of bulls. Ha ha! What? You
are going to see the dancing--well, let's all go."
The family heaved itself to its feet, surrounded and escorted us down a
narrow lane which ended at a platform which hung on the cliff's edge.
Three men were sitting on the doorstep of a house, two playing guitars,
one playing the bandurria. A crowd, young men in blouses and girls, with
light skirts and shawls, were standing about or dancing. Three couples
were dancing a Valencian jota. Some of the movements of the dance seemed
intricate, but they danced with a fine natural grace, and there was a
beautiful balance of body which echoed the movement of the music. A
woman standing behind me said:
"Now, Señora, I will teach you the jota one of these evenings. And you
will take my baby, because I have lots and they say you have none."
[Illustration]
Both on Saturday and on Sunday bull-baiting exhibitions had taken place,
but we had not gone to see them. One day had been quite sufficient. On
Monday morning we were awakened by the sounds of music. The local band
was parading the streets playing a queer semi-Oriental music. As the
morning advanced other bands came in until seven or eight bands were in
full blast, each playing a different tune and each trying to drown its
rivals with sound. Gradually Moors and Christians gathered. The Moors
came from the Near East and from the Far. The Chief and his immediate
suite were Bedouin Arabs, and there were Turks, Saracens, Hindus,
Chinamen, negroes and some of uncertain lineage. Girls accompanied each
group dressed in appropriate Houri costume, carrying bottles filled with
a liquor which would have pleased Omar rather than Mahomet. The
Christians included Roman soldiers, crusaders, cavaliers and smugglers
of 1800. The latter were the chief Christian and his retinue.
Vivandières attended the Christians with drink no less stimulating than
that supplied to their Moorish enemies. Moors and Christians carried
large blunderbusses of ancient mode, and all day long to the sounds of
indefatigable melody they paraded the town. It appeared to be the duty
of the Moors to be comic; they wore big goggles and many had huge
imitation beards with which, when the heat grew greater, they fanned
themselves. They pranced and postured through the streets while the
Christians marched along in solemn ranks. Nor did the fiesta end with
the going down of the sun. With discreet intervals for refreshment,
marching and music continued till 2 a.m., at which time sleep and a
blessed silence fell on Jijona.
Undeterred by but four hours' rest, punctually at six the cacophony of
brass began again. By midday crusaders and bandsmen, having exchanged
helmets and caps, were dancing jotas down the principal streets. But a
short siesta revived them for the principal work of the day: the entry
of the Moors. At about four in the afternoon the performers gathered at
the picturesque southern entrance of the village, thus symbolizing the
direction from which the Moors had come. Then group by group, with
blunderbusses banging off into the air, the Christians retreated slowly
up the street, going backwards. Last of all the Christians went the
Contrabandistas, and last of the Contrabandistas the Captain, dressed in
a wonderful ancient costume of velvet, embroidered with gold, silver
and silk, and a blanket striped in many colours. Facing him, advanced
with equal solemnity and noise the chief Moor. After some two hours of
deafening reports the whole troupe was in movement, some forwards,
others backwards, and had arrived at the wooden castle in the plaza. By
seven o'clock, at this funereal pace, the Moors were at last massed
before the castle.
"Now for the charge and for some fun," we thought. But mounting a
profusely decorated horse, the chief Moor began a speech. The
Contrabandista, evidently a man of deeds only, had hired a real actor,
dressed in the costume of a cavalier, to represent him. For almost an
hour exchange of dramatic verse continued, after which the Christians
quietly walked out of the castle, and the Moors walked in.
"Good heavens," thought we, "is that all?"
With ears deafened from the guns we went home; passing on the way a
booth of green branches in which Moors and Christians, overcome either
by the heat or by the assiduous ministrations of Houri or Vivandière,
were laid out on sacks.
Though officially the day was ended, practically it was not. Those who
had private stocks of powder continued the gunfire till midnight. The
bands, their music becoming more and more incoherent, played on till two
o'clock.
We decided that we had seen enough fiesta. We stayed in our castle and
went out sketching in the country to avoid the appalling din which rose
from the town to our windows. At night there was a modest display of
fireworks in the plaza, which we were quite content to enjoy from where
we were.
After all was over they said to us:
"Wasn't it a beautiful fiesta?"
Outwardly we were forced to agree with them, but inwardly we
recognized--perhaps with a sense of regret--that to enjoy these fiestas
as they ought to be enjoyed, that is, as a Spaniard enjoys them,
requires a sense of values and perhaps a nervous organism which we do
not possess.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: "Look! Jijona!"]
[Footnote 21: Luxury.]