THE ROAD HOME
We set out on our journey home next morning. The bootmaker, who arrived
at the house almost before we were dressed, came with us to the station,
where he presented us with a large packet of angels-hair cakes as
sustenance for the journey. This favourite Murcian delicacy, made from
the inside of a gourd, has a stringy consistency and a sickly flavour.
The zapatero had secured them "on tick" from the confectioner's where he
was lodging. As we take leave of him, we may summarize his subsequent
history as we drew it by hints and half-made revelations from Antonio
and his companions. I am afraid that the zapatero's account of his
departure from his village may have been invention. In Murcia he
revealed himself as a man who was work-shy. He borrowed money to get his
tools, he got advances on his wages, he arrived late to work, he ran up
a large bill at the confectioner's; and then, one fine morning,
decamped. This much we gathered. Antonio would never tell us, but I
believe that he himself paid the confectioner's bill after the
zapatero's disappearance; but to what extent our friends had suffered we
could never learn.
As we had just finished breakfast we put the angels-hair cakes into our
haversack. But under the strain of travel the flimsy paper bag in which
they were packed went to pieces, the angels-hair spread itself in
fibrous stickiness all over the contents of the haversack. We felt no
gratitude to the zapatero for his parting gift.
Our resources, despite an extra hundred pesetas borrowed from Antonio,
were at a low ebb, and, after some tedious searching of a Spanish
railway guide, we had decided to make our way home up the east coast of
Spain to Barcelona and thence to Paris. This route was cheaper than that
through Madrid. In addition, we could travel by night, spending our days
in the towns, and thus dodge the expenses of hotels. We travelled, of
course, third class because of cheapness, and because of the interest
which was always to be found amongst one's fellow passengers. The
journey was cold on account of our thin clothes, and in spite of our
hopes the carriages were so full and the interchanges of passengers so
frequent that we could get no sleep. After two days and nights we
reached Barcelona worn out, having passed through Alicante, Valencia and
Tarragona, but too weary to get interest or amusement from any of these
towns.
We arrived at Barcelona on a chill morning and set out from the station
to look for the British Consul, whom we wished to consult about our lost
luggage. Barcelona is large, and we waited for a tram. A passer-by told
us that our waiting was vain. There was a traffic strike in progress and
neither tram, omnibus nor cab was to be had. We would have to walk. Bad
luck seemed to have reserved her efforts for the last few days.
We do not think that England realized the great interest excited all
over the world by the sufferings of the late Mayor of Cork. While his
fate hung in the balance people would stop us in the streets of Murcia,
or even in the outlying villages, to ask us if we believed that there
was a chance of his recovery. He had died shortly before our homeward
journey began. The Northern parts of Spain see a parallel between their
position and that of Ireland. Indeed, the parallel is not exact; rather
one might compare them to the position to which Ulster fears to be
relegated. The fact remains that Catalonia and the Basque countries, the
hard-working, commercial parts of Spain, object to the domination,
laxity and misrule of the Government of Madrid. I believe that the party
which wishes independence, the Spanish Sinn Fein, is very small; but it
has become mixed with socialistic propaganda, communism, and so forth.
At any rate, Barcelona, combining as it does the excitable nature of the
Spaniard with the organization of a working community, provides the
field for a series of extremely unpleasant strikes, riots and
demonstrations. The transport strike was an illustration of this. During
the two days we were in Barcelona, three employers were shot in the
streets by employés.
To return to the Mayor of Cork. His death was the signal for a typical
demonstration in Barcelona, in favour of the Sinn Fein and of the Irish
Republic. England was far enough away to remain undisturbed. The English
Consul was at hand. When we reached his house we found that all his
window-glass had been smashed in sympathy for Irish freedom.
At a first glance Barcelona does not seem to be a Spanish town. There is
something Germanic about it. Sitting in the main square and watching the
people pass by, one could well imagine oneself in some town on the
German border of Alsace.
We remained in Barcelona two days, recovering from the fatigues of the
journey. On our last afternoon, as we were strolling through a narrow
back street, our attention was caught by a window full of small figures,
baked in clay, highly coloured and gilt. The figures were all those of
saints and biblical characters, not depicted in the formal manner of
religious moments, but in a familiar and homelike way. We went into the
small shop and asked their purpose, and were told that these figures
were for Christmas decorations. We bought two--one of the Blessed Virgin
hanging on a line a chemise which she had just washed, the other an
incognita lady saint with a distaff and a cat.
We had taken up our quarters at a small, disreputable lodging-house
opposite the station, where they charged us the exorbitant fee of two
pesetas a night each. (We suspect that the real price was one peseta).
The night-watchman got us out of bed at three o'clock, as our train left
at half-past four in the morning, and the preliminaries to Spanish
travelling are complicated.
To our surprise we found but a small queue of people waiting at the
ticket-office. Our immediate neighbour was a shabby man in a bowler hat
from beneath which showed the curly black hair of an Italian. He was
accompanied by a middle-aged bustling bourgeois. The bourgeois took a
ticket, which he handed to the Italian. We then demanded tickets to the
French frontier at Cerbere.
"We cannot book you to Cerbere," said the clerk; "the railway bridge
between Figueras and Port Bou has been damaged. It will not be passable
for three days."
We thought drearily of having to return to the lodging-house, of three
days more in this large, transportless town of Barcelona, of again
getting up at three a.m.
At this moment the Italian came to our aid.
"From Figueras," he said, "there are motor-cars which will carry the
passengers over the frontier. You can get along that way easily."
So we booked to Figueras.
The Italian accompanied us and revealed his history. He was wandering
about, looking for work. He had crossed the frontier on foot from
France. His papers were in a queer condition, and some of them he had
had to leave in the custody of the frontier officials as a guarantee.
But there was no work in Barcelona, so he was going back once more. The
bourgeois was an employé of the Italian Consulate, who had come to the
station to pay his fare and to see that he really left the town.
The train rolled along through that rich Catalan scenery depicted in the
landscapes of José Pujo, and at about ten o'clock we reached Figueras.
With some difficulty we found a boy and a hand-cart, by means of which
we could transport our luggage to the diligence office. The road was
uphill and deep in a clayey mud. The poor boy tugged and pushed, and Jan
had to go into the slime to help him. Through a long, narrow,
old-fashioned street, Figueras opened out into a plaza planted with tall
lime trees, the fallen leaves of which made a sodden carpet on the
ground. The dead leaves seemed to give the dominant note of Figueras, a
note of exhausted melancholy.
Misfortune, as has so often been said, is sometimes good luck in
disguise. More "get on or get out" passengers had forestalled us with
the car, notably a fussy man who, dragging with him two or three musical
instrument cases, was loudly informing everybody that he had a concert
engagement somewhere in France and that his career would be blasted if
he did not fulfil it. There was no seat left for us. We turned to the
boy and asked him to find us some sleeping place for the night.
"There is the Grand Hotel," he said.
"Do not talk to us of grand hotels," we answered. "Grand hotels are
institutions which level humanity to a dead datum of boredom and mulct
it of expensive fees in the process."
"Claro," responded the boy.
"Take us to some local pub," we continued, "where the stranger rarely
intrudes."
The boy, forcing his cart uphill, led us down a side street to a small
wine-shop, the woodwork of whose windows had recently been painted a gay
violet hue. We pushed our way inside. A man with beady eyes, who might
well be called "black-complexioned," curtly demanded our business. On
our request for a bed he scanned us from head to foot. We were indeed
somewhat respectable, having travelled in our best clothes for fear of
another accident to our luggage, wishing, if such occurred, to save the
best we had. The dark man turned to a woman who had a kind of hard,
crystalline beauty, and consulted with her. At last the woman said in a
coarse voice:
"They can have a room if they will take their meals here."
To which we consented.
The Italian had been following us, vainly begging us to walk over the
frontier with him, but as we had still a trunk, two rucksacks, and the
large Sevillian dish in its basket, his suggestion did not seem
feasible. So we finally said good-bye to one another, he setting off
again on foot for France.
We were sitting over our coffee after lunch, when the black-eyed host
came near, drew a chair close up to us, stared at us with perplexed
brows for a moment, then said, suddenly:
"I know why you have come here."
"We have come because the bridge is broken," we said.
He waved this aside.
"You need not mince matters with me," he answered. "I can see, I have
two eyes. I have plenty of opium upstairs."
"Opium?"
"Yes, you can smuggle it over to France quite easily from here."
"But we are not smugglers."
"I'll let you have it cheap," answered the host, closing one eye.
We again protested the entire innocence of our trafficking, but
obviously did not convince him. He knew that people in our condition did
not come to his shanty for nothing. He renewed his attack after supper.
"Why have you come to my dram shop?" he asked.
"Because big hotels are dull," we answered.
He shook his head.
"You have some reason for wanting to get to France secretly," he
persisted. "Your papers, for instance, are not in order."
We protested that they were.
"You need not be afraid of me," went on our host. "I am quite
trustworthy."
We replied that in spite of the high opinion he had of us we had done
nothing to deserve it.
"Let me see your passports," said the landlord.
"I knew it," he went on, as soon as he had examined them. "You have not
been viséd at Barcelona. You will not be able to get over the frontier.
They will turn you back."
We had understood that no visé was necessary to get back into France. He
said that we were mistaken.
"This is where I can aid you," said the host. "I can get you over the
frontier, so that you need not pass the customs or the passport office
at all. I have a special route by which I pass French deserters to and
fro. Of course, as you are not really dangerous, I would only charge you
a small sum--say forty or fifty pesetas apiece. For the deserters the
charge is considerably higher, as the risk if caught is considerable;
while if you were caught you would only be sent back again into Spain.
One of my men would drive you up at night, and then at about four
o'clock in the morning you would dash over the frontier. I have sent
hundreds to and fro."
We must confess that the adventure attracted us. We had just enough
money left to pay for the passage, but one thing deterred us. We had
with us all the pictures which we had painted in Spain. If we were
captured these would possibly be confiscated, and this was a risk we
could not cheerfully face. We told our host that we would take a day to
think it over. The next day we decided that if the bridge were repaired
within two days we would go to Cerbere and try the normal course, but
that if the delay were longer we would take the deserters' route. That
day at Figueras was so tedious that we mutually shortened our probation
by a day. On the morrow, however, we heard by chance that the bridge had
been reopened and that a special train would pass through Figueras at
eleven o'clock. It was then half-past ten. Jan rushed to pack, while I
hurried to our host to find some means of transport. I found him giving
his small child a ride-a-cock-horse on his foot. To my news he answered
that it was impossible, that we could not reach the train, that it was a
train-de-luxe and terribly expensive, and so on.
After a long and aggravating demur he suddenly turned to me.
"All right," he exclaimed. "If you _will_ do it, it shall be done."
He hurried me round a series of back streets, routed out an old man and
a donkey-cart, and in a few minutes the luggage was packed and we were
off to the station. It was a close race. Jan ran on to get the tickets.
I remained with the old man and the donkey. We had been told to pay the
man a peseta; but he expostulated at the wage, demanding three. We held
firm, however, and at last, with sighs and groans of despair, the old
fellow was going off, apparently as heartbroken as though a near and
dear friend had died. We called him back and added twopence-halfpenny to
his shilling. He immediately broke into wreathed smiles and patted us
cheerfully on the back, wishing us a good journey.
At Cerbere our passports were refused. We had to go back to Port Bou,
where the French Vice-Consul stamped them and, with the loss of another
day, we were once more on our way to Paris. The night journey from
Cerbere to Paris was terrible. Owing to the loss at Lorca we were in
thin summer clothes, the temperature was three degrees below freezing
point, owing to some defect in the apparatus the carriages were not
heated, and a bulky market woman thrust her hand through the glass of
the window; so that for twenty-three hours a freezing draught searched
every cranny of the carriage.
Amongst our lost luggage had been our winter hats, and we landed in
Paris, much to the amusement of the Parisians, wearing Panama hats in
the middle of November.
THE END
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End of Project Gutenberg's Poor Folk in Spain, by Jan Gordon and Cora Gordon