Cruz. We could sell all, buy a house on the leafy, angular plaza of Santo Domingo. But tomorrow we press on to Baeza, then on to Córdoba, and then our time in Andalucía will end.
An appealing small town surrounded by olive groves, Baeza is full of cadets from the Guardia Civil academy. They fill the streets in their veridian uniforms, all trim and groomed and young. Many sit in cafés with their girlfriends, enjoying the mild January sun. We meander through the covered market, plazas, and churches. We see the door ajar in a ruined patrician house and slip inside, fantasizing about restoring it to perfection. Across from the
ayuntamiento
(city hall), Ed spots a rose-bordered tile marker on a run-down house with a blue door:
AQUI VIVIO EL POETA ANTONIO MACHADO
. The poet’s house, where his wife of only three years died at twenty, is closed, but we see what he saw as he closed his door every morning and walked to his job teaching languages in the village school. He lived a life of simplicity until he passionately reviled the fascists and had to leave Spain. He died on his arrival in France in 1939. We drive out into the land of the olives. I read aloud to Ed a few lines of Machado:
Over the olive grove
The owl could be seen
Flying and flying
In its beak it carried
A sprig of green
for holy Mary.
Country around Baeza,
I’ll dream of you
When I cannot see you.
A few miles outside town we see a
cortijo
for sale, white walled and serene, with nine thousand olive trees. The price is half what a studio apartment costs in San Francisco. The world cracks open for those willing to take a risk.
A glance at the map of Córdoba makes it clear why we keep getting lost. The Arabs must have had a firm rule—nothing parallel can exist. Streets radiate in star-shaped clusters, following the old labyrinthine
medina
lanes, converging at a church or plaza. Many are too narrow for cars, but we see an intrepid driver, cigarette hanging from his lip, negotiating them anyway. He’s pulled his mirrors in and doubtlessly holds his breath as he creeps along with two inches to spare on either side.
We give up trying to figure out where we are and just turn into any old cobbled alley festooned with geraniums. We skirt the Mezquita, the famous mosque, and avoid the river road dense with traffic. Granada, with a major tourist attraction, was surprisingly untouristy. Córdoba has caught on. Shops selling kitschy souvenirs proliferate throughout the whitewashed maze of the old Jewish section. But the area exudes the enchantment of secret courtyards and curly iron gates. I see hardly a street that I don’t want to turn down. We keep coming upon very simple and small Gothic churches—an unexpected treat. Some have Arabic touches—a dome, an arch, a window design—showing the continuing Mudéjar influence after the Christian conquest.
Our hotel is across from the Museo Taurino, museum of the bullfight. Oh! Hides and heads, sculptures of gored matadors lying in state. Lorca wondered if
olé
is not related to that moment in Arabic music when the
duende
begins and the crowd cries,
Allah, Allah
. We don’t linger. I’m fascinated that the origins of the bullfight root in ritual sacrifice among the Tartessos people, who lived near the delta of the Guadalquivir around 1,000 B.C. This glory eludes me. Perhaps because I come from a culture where death is regarded as something like selling short. Where death is somewhat embarrassing. Again, I turn to Lorca: “Everywhere else . . . death comes, and they draw the curtains. Not in Spain. In Spain they open them. Many Spaniards live indoors until the day they die and are taken out into the sunlight. A dead man in Spain is more alive as a dead man than anyplace else in the world.” Yes, with the exception of Mexico. In Guanajuato I passed a coffin-maker’s shop. A little girl in pink ruffles played with her dolls inside an open coffin, while her parents attached the lid on another. Life and
An appealing small town surrounded by olive groves, Baeza is full of cadets from the Guardia Civil academy. They fill the streets in their veridian uniforms, all trim and groomed and young. Many sit in cafés with their girlfriends, enjoying the mild January sun. We meander through the covered market, plazas, and churches. We see the door ajar in a ruined patrician house and slip inside, fantasizing about restoring it to perfection. Across from the
ayuntamiento
(city hall), Ed spots a rose-bordered tile marker on a run-down house with a blue door:
AQUI VIVIO EL POETA ANTONIO MACHADO
. The poet’s house, where his wife of only three years died at twenty, is closed, but we see what he saw as he closed his door every morning and walked to his job teaching languages in the village school. He lived a life of simplicity until he passionately reviled the fascists and had to leave Spain. He died on his arrival in France in 1939. We drive out into the land of the olives. I read aloud to Ed a few lines of Machado:
Over the olive grove
The owl could be seen
Flying and flying
In its beak it carried
A sprig of green
for holy Mary.
Country around Baeza,
I’ll dream of you
When I cannot see you.
A few miles outside town we see a
cortijo
for sale, white walled and serene, with nine thousand olive trees. The price is half what a studio apartment costs in San Francisco. The world cracks open for those willing to take a risk.
A glance at the map of Córdoba makes it clear why we keep getting lost. The Arabs must have had a firm rule—nothing parallel can exist. Streets radiate in star-shaped clusters, following the old labyrinthine
medina
lanes, converging at a church or plaza. Many are too narrow for cars, but we see an intrepid driver, cigarette hanging from his lip, negotiating them anyway. He’s pulled his mirrors in and doubtlessly holds his breath as he creeps along with two inches to spare on either side.
We give up trying to figure out where we are and just turn into any old cobbled alley festooned with geraniums. We skirt the Mezquita, the famous mosque, and avoid the river road dense with traffic. Granada, with a major tourist attraction, was surprisingly untouristy. Córdoba has caught on. Shops selling kitschy souvenirs proliferate throughout the whitewashed maze of the old Jewish section. But the area exudes the enchantment of secret courtyards and curly iron gates. I see hardly a street that I don’t want to turn down. We keep coming upon very simple and small Gothic churches—an unexpected treat. Some have Arabic touches—a dome, an arch, a window design—showing the continuing Mudéjar influence after the Christian conquest.
Our hotel is across from the Museo Taurino, museum of the bullfight. Oh! Hides and heads, sculptures of gored matadors lying in state. Lorca wondered if
olé
is not related to that moment in Arabic music when the
duende
begins and the crowd cries,
Allah, Allah
. We don’t linger. I’m fascinated that the origins of the bullfight root in ritual sacrifice among the Tartessos people, who lived near the delta of the Guadalquivir around 1,000 B.C. This glory eludes me. Perhaps because I come from a culture where death is regarded as something like selling short. Where death is somewhat embarrassing. Again, I turn to Lorca: “Everywhere else . . . death comes, and they draw the curtains. Not in Spain. In Spain they open them. Many Spaniards live indoors until the day they die and are taken out into the sunlight. A dead man in Spain is more alive as a dead man than anyplace else in the world.” Yes, with the exception of Mexico. In Guanajuato I passed a coffin-maker’s shop. A little girl in pink ruffles played with her dolls inside an open coffin, while her parents attached the lid on another. Life and
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