Following the Sun (7 page)

By now it was late, the hour of the
paseo
, and the town square was filled with families and courting couples, all strolling around the small square in the same direction or standing in the middle discussing important matters, such as the upcoming
Feria
at Seville or the football scores. I began looking for a place to stay, but it appeared that there was no hotel or pension in the town. A man I spoke to, with typical Spanish courtesy, took up my cause and spread the word and down at the plaza my homeless plight soon became the talk of the town. A great crowd of sympathetic black eyes surrounded me in the dusk; there was much discussion and the older men began talking among one another about what they could possibly do for this poor bicycle man who had appeared in their town. Then the crowd parted slightly and the
alcalde
himself came forward and took my elbow solicitously. Soon he summoned forth one Diego Valdería, a former bicycle racer, who happily assumed the role of personal escort. By now it was pitch dark, but the congress had decided my fate.

Calls were made ahead and a room was secured for me in the town of Pilas, about five miles down the road. But how to get me to this room in the bull-haunted black nights of rural Andalusia, when the
duendes
emerge from the hollows and the foxes bark from the dry hills?

Once again the
alcalde
arranged a conference, and a cavalcade of automobiles was organized to light the way. After much assembling, we set out, several cars in front of me, very many astern, and in this manner, riding along at my twelve-mile-an-hour pace, my escorts led me into the center of Pilas. Here I was bountifully received in the town plaza by another crowd, given dinner at a local restaurant, lubricated with much
tinto
and sherry, and then escorted to the only pension in town, a tiny room off an enclosed courtyard.

Near dawn I heard a hideous coughing and braying and thought the Devil himself, accompanied by a herd of red-eyed Romero bulls, had burst into the room. But it was only the family burro, enclosed in the courtyard outside my window, greeting the day.

The next morning, having bid farewell to my saviors, I rode on to Roccio and then headed for the coast and the town of Torre de la Higuera. The only place I could find near enough to the entrance to the Coto was a corrugated Quonset hut where workers constructing a new hotel (a sign of things to come) were staying.

The Coto DoÑana is made up of vegetated dunes, known as the
cotos
, interspersed with wide grassy marshland, and to the south a line of so-called “walking dunes” that move slowly northward each year. Wild boar, red deer, a few fallow deer, foxes, an odd weasel-like predator called the pharaoh's rat, and the dreaded Pardelle lynx inhabit the
cotos
. Vast collections of graylag geese, widgeon, stilts, spoonbills, coots, and gallinules feed in the
marismas
, or marshes, along with flocks of thousands of flamingos who settle here as they move between their nesting grounds and the Camargue in France. And above the whole region, almost any time you glance skyward, you can see kites, and vultures, marsh harriers, and even the rare Iberian eagle.

As it turned out, the road into the research center in the park was sandy and almost impossible to ride on, so I decided to hide my bicycle in the brush and hike in. After an hour of walking, this too grew tedious, so I headed into the brush to look for a high spot to take my lunch. The land was dry and characterized by sharp hilly dunes covered with juniper, Besom heath, and gorse, interspersed with bracken hollows and a few cork oaks and umbrella pines. It would have been very easy to get lost in the tangled thicket, and indeed within twenty minutes I wasn't sure where I was. I could see a particularly high dune south of my position, so I worked my way through the bracken hollows and the thickets. Halfway to the hill there was a sudden scrambling at my feet, coupled with hideous squealings and snortings, and a family of baby boar burst from the brush around my ankles and scurried into the thickets. This was followed by a deeper, more ominous squeal as the great mother trotted off behind them. I considered myself lucky. Far more dangerous than the resident Pardelle lynx, more to be dreaded even than the purported lions is the boar sow with young. I had heard terrible stories of slashings and gashes from the tusks of these things.

Safe at last, I climbed to the top of the hill, found a good outlook, and sat down for an alfresco repast.

Even here, well away from the marshes, I could see rising and falling flights of ducks in the distance, and above in the sky the slow drift of a marsh harrier or kite. There were warblers and unidentifiable sparrows in the thickets, and I could hear chips and chirps of other species sounding out all around the hill.

Migration in these parts begins in late February, and now, in late March, it had passed its peak, but there were still a lot of birds around. Actually, migration for many of these species probably began back in late January in Africa, where they had wintered. Their northward flights in fact have nothing to do with warming weather in Europe; birds are no better predictors of weather patterns than any other species, and considerably worse than weather forecasters. The thing that starts them moving is not weather, but the angle of the sun as it rides along the great road in the sky that astronomers call the ecliptic.

As the light begins to increase in late winter, the changing length of day induces changes in the internal hormonal rhythms in a variety of migratory species. This in turn causes a phenomenon the Germans call
Zugunruhe
, a sort of premigratory restlessness that affects birds during seasons of migration. Ornithologists know of this because of experimental work that was carried out on a sparrowlike species known as the brambling. Researchers captured bramblings and kept them in aviaries and then artificially shortened the length of day throughout the normal spring migration period. Without their normal seasonal cycles of light and dark, the bramblings must have believed it was a very long winter indeed and failed to exhibit the migratory restlessness that they would normally have been feeling at that time of year. Furthermore, they did not experience the gonad enlargement that takes place in the spring mating season. Once they were put back into natural light, however, they began to get restless and accumulate fat, as they normally would do just before undertaking the hardships of migration. All this, as the researchers proved, had to do with the angle of the sun and the amount of light that occurs in the different seasons.

Back on the road to the research station, after extricating myself from the thickets, I heard a loud popping and sputtering from behind and turned to see a much beaten truck rocking toward me, carrying in its bed the hives of bees. The kind driver offered me a ride and dropped me off at the station, the palatial hunting club of a former local grandee. Here I met with Torg, the Danish bird bander, a quiet man in his thirties with blond hair and steel-rimmed glasses. He and I talked about the migration of that year, of the various threats to European bird populations, and he broke out a bottle of
tinto
, uncorked it and set it out on a wooden table. There were no glasses, so he took the first drink in the Spanish style, that is, he held the neck of the bottle above his mouth and chug-a-lugged the wine without putting the bottle to his lips, an art of drinking I had never mastered in spite of the fact that I had lived in southern Spain. I said as much, and sucked from the bottle like any normal lush. Torg did not seem to mind.

Torg had a pet egret that had been pacing around the tiled floor as we talked. In between drinking bouts, Torg spotted a gecko on the wall and swatted it to the floor. His sharp-eyed pet was on it in a flash, its spearlike beak darting and its wings propelling it forward. The egret held the gecko squirming broadwise in its bill for a second and then deftly flipped it around and swallowed it headfirst.

“I do not like to kill,” said Torg. “But is this not life? You eat, you are eaten.”

Torg offered to take me around the reserve in his Land Rover to look at some of the blinds he used. As we were leaving, he mumbled something about bringing someone along and pulled up to a little stucco house. A svelte Spanish woman opened the door and leaned against the jam with her arms folded. She wore the wide-brimmed Cordovan sombrero and high boots and tan riding pants and had the large, hooped golden earrings of the local women. In jest she threw her hip to the side and lifted a shoulder when she saw Torg. “What is it that you want, big boy?” she said in Spanish. (Torg and I had been conversing in English.) He politely introduced her to me as a fellow researcher named Mercedes and the three of us crowded into the Land Rover, with Mercedes in the middle squashed over onto Torg, thigh to thigh.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around on the rutted roads, stopping at blinds, counting egrets, watching the flights and flocks of gadaney ducks, whimbrels, spoonbills, storks, herons, eagles, and kites, and admiring the great cumbersome nests of the increasingly rare Iberian eagles that bred there. At one point while we were walking, another little pack of devilish boars broke out from the brush and crossed the road.

“Run,” said Mercedes. “Danger. Save me Torg.”

Torg nodded seriously and looked away.

Toward late afternoon they gave me a ride out to my hidden bicycle, and I walked out to the road and headed south for Torre de la Higuera. On my way to the road, there were some mean-looking dark clouds in the south, and by the time I got back to my place, heavy rains began to fall. They continued to fall throughout the next day so I rode down to a bar on the coast that had the luxury of central heat and spent the afternoon drinking hot chocolate, trying to warm up. The weather station on the television in the bar pointed out that there was a cold wave throughout Europe, and heavy rains in the south.

For another two days the rains continued and I stayed on in my little cubicle in the Quonset hut surrounded by blue-clad workers, trying to warm myself at the charcoal
brazzeros
, which provided the only source of heat. Finally, rather than endure this stillness and cold any longer, I set out for Seville to return to the warm bosom of my old pension near the post office and the motherly care of Anna.

Three

The Virgin and the Minotaur

Holy Week had begun in Seville and the streets were jammed with dark processions.

Beginning on Palm Sunday an atmosphere of gloomy sanctity pervades this normally ecstatic, hand-clapping city and a religious sensibility settles over the towers of the Giralda and seeps downward into the squares and narrow streets. Even in the Triana district, where the gypsies live, especially here in fact, there is an aura of spirituality. Everywhere, lining the sidewalks and crowding into the streets, families dressed in their finest dark clothes push toward the squares and plazas in front of the local churches, waiting for the arrival of the processions of penitents who emerge from the open doors of parish churches throughout the various districts of the city and proceed through the streets, carrying towering floats depicting scenes from the last days of Christ. Here, in bright, realistic costumes, are Roman soldiers, hideous bleeding scenes of the crucifixion, complete with ruby blood drops, and the most popular of all: the bejeweled, silken-gowned statues of the suffering Virgin, some adorned with pearl tears. The floats are preceded and followed by lines of robed, medieval figures dressed in peaked witch hats and hooded masks pierced with eye slits, and led through the labyrinth of narrow streets by marching bands of coronets blaring out Moorish tunes in minor key. Here, in our time, is past time. There is an ominous, dark air to the event, a remembrance of the Grand Inquisitors and the rigors of the Inquisition.

The floats are not drawn by motorized vehicles but are carried on the shoulders of men obscured behind heavy purple drapes surrounding the platform. The great challenge of these processions is to navigate the high, wide floats around the sharp curves and corners of the narrow streets, especially the Serpiente, the main street, where crowds push and gather and cheer the float onward. Occasionally the carriers of these weighty platforms rest, and at these times from underneath the dark drapes sweating men emerge, their shoulders and white undershirts stained with blood from the weight of the floats, their heads wrapped in white protective towels. Exhausted, half-shaven, these are the mules of this ancient ritual, the true
penitentes
.

These processions lumber through the streets from Palm Sunday to Easter, and during this time the whole city comes to a halt. The event is organized by parishes or confraternities of men from different districts who meet throughout the year to plan and collect the funds to maintain the floats. All of the floats are elaborate, and whenever they are brought out from a church for their procession, crowds gather in front of the doors to watch. At these times, or just before, a woman will sing a
saeta
, a haunting aria to the Virgin. This song is also performed in a sad, minor key and, by tradition, is sung without electronic amplification and the crowd remains silent in order to catch every phrase. Of all the fifty-two confraternities, of all the processions and of all the many Virgins in the city of Seville, the most famous is the Virgin of the Macarena, who spends most of her life in the parish church of San Gil. The
saca
, or bringing out of the Macarena Virgin, is to most Sevillanos the pinnacle of the Holy Week, but in typically Spanish fashion, it is an event that occurs, not at some convenient daytime hour, but late at night, usually around one or two in the morning.

I had been to a number of Holy Weeks in the past, but since I was back in Seville on the day they were to bring out the Virgin of the Macarena, I decided to go again. Unfortunately, this year the event was scheduled for four in the morning. It had rained much of the day and I had caught up on sleep after dinner at my usual hangout, a place called the Alcazares, and I wandered over toward the square, stopping for a sherry now and then, and taking several coffees to keep myself up. In front of the small white church there were thousands of people. Soon a hush fell over the crowd; the front doors swung open and there she was, dressed all in white, her jewels and crown glittering in the spotlights. She stood unmoving, while from the left side of the plaza, the figure of a small woman appeared on a balcony and all eyes turned. A deep silence fell on the crowd. Never, in my experience, had so many people remained so still. The small woman extended her arms toward the statue. The air was frozen. And then the
saeta
—the arrowsong—pierced the damp air and flew toward the heart of the Virgin. It began in mid range, soared to a high note, and then dropped back to contralto, and wound through the crowds. Then the Virgin began rocking and twisting; she angled through the double doors and moved into the square. The crowd parted as she flowed through the plaza and disappeared down one of the narrow streets.