Iberia (122 page)

One of the pleasures of traveling as I do is that when it is known
that I am interested in any esoteric aspect of society, people
introduce me to the cronistas and other experts, and now, at lunch
in León, I found myself sitting opposite a man who could well
serve as an epitome of the scholar in Latin lands, where men of
learning find it difficult to make a living when young but find
themselves honored sages when old. In America it is the other
way around.

The cronista, Don Angel Suárez Ema, was in his late sixties, a
big man with a fine expressive face that lit up when he talked,
which was most of the time. His sole topic, at least on this day,
was the glory of León, for he was also the poet laureate of the city
and its cronista. When he spoke he had the capacity to project
himself into whatever past age he was dealing with, so that in turn
he was a Roman commanding a legion, an impoverished king
trying to bind up the remnants of the kingdom, or a princess
unjustly treated. To listen to Don Angel for some hours was an
exhilarating experience, something like a whiz-bang ride on a
historical loop-the-loop. Spain is filled with such cronistas, learned
old men who have studied all their lives and who love to share
what they have learned.

I already knew a good deal of what Don Angel told me, but
one of his stories was new and reflected the spirit that animated
the pilgrims’ road. The narrative began with an innocuous
question, thrown off by Don Angel in confidence that I would
answer it affirmatively. ‘Of course you’ve stopped at Río Orbigo
to pay homage to Suero de Quiñones?’

For some unfortunate reason I thought that Quiñones were
something to eat and replied that I hadn’t tasted them yet,
whereupon Don Angel slapped the table with his big right hand,
stared at me in disbelief and cried, ‘My God, man! You don’t
know Quiñones?’

‘No.’

 

‘The knight-errant sans reproche, except that he was crazy?’
‘I haven’t heard of him.’

 

‘And yet you make a pilgrimage along his road!’

 

I asked the cronista to tell me of Suero, the knight-ideal who

was a little cracked, and he looked at me with a sort of scholarly
love, thanking me for an opportunity to speak about a character
who obviously attracted him. ‘You understand that in the old
days many evil men, especially from Germany and France, infested
this road, so that bands of knights were required to patrol it,
protecting the innocent. It was for this reason that the Order of
Santiago was established, composed of Spaniards. But fine knights
from foreign countries formed their own order to protect pilgrims,
too, so that along the way there grew up a congenial fraternity. It
had, however, one weakness. A garrulous knight, say at Estella,
could sit in the tavern, knowing that any competition might be
miles away in León, and shout, “I am the strongest and bravest
knight on the Way of St. James,” and get away with it, while
another knight here in León could bellow, “I am well known as
the strongest and bravest knight on the Way.” In the early 1400s
this kind of thing had become common, so one day Suero de
Quiñones from a village not far from here decided single-handedly
to put an end to the nonsense. He announced, with the king’s
approval, that he was going to stand for thirty days at a bridge
over the Río Orbigo and fight every knight who approached from
either direction, which could mean thirty or forty fights a day,
until it was made clear who was the champion of the Way of St.
James. This was in the year 1434.

‘Now, I’m not claiming that Suero de Quiñones was a normal
man of the period. For some years he had spent each Thursday
wearing about his neck an iron collar which must have caused
him much discomfort but which he offered as proof that he would
undergo any hardship to prove his love for a lady who did not
return it. In fact, the nature of the challenge which he threw down
at the bridge was that no knight could pass until he acknowledged
that Suero’s lady was more beautiful than the knight’s lady. He
expounded other ideas that were equally heroic.

‘As I said, he made the challenge alone, but after he had done
so he was joined by nine fellow Spaniards who wished to test the
foreigners, and for thirty days these men stood at the bridge and
fought all comers. Some chroniclers say that seven hundred jousts
were held, which seems a large number, but we do know that
Claramont of Aragón died in his fight with Quiñones, but not
because our knight was vengeful. Claramont’s horse shied and
his own lance snapped and passed through his eye. Where to bury
the dead knight? The Dominicans of León wouldn’t accept the
body, because it had been slain in a jousting unapproved by the
Church. And the Bishop of Astorga refused burial for the same
reason. So Quiñones himself bought a piece of land next to a
chapel burial ground, and we believe that when no one was
looking he may have slipped the body underground into the holy
burial place.

‘At any rate, it was a splendid thirty days, with music and
dancing and banquets every night after the fighting was over.
Quiñones seemed to have won every joust he entered, and it was
some years along this road before any loud-mouthed knight dared
to announce that he was the most powerful, for all knew Quiñones
was.’

Next day, after we had paid our respects to the ancient Roman
bridge at which Quiñones had defied Europe, we came to a hill
from which we could see the modest but very old city of Astorga,
and if Don Luis had at that moment told me that down there I
was to have the best meal I was to encounter in Spain, I would
have derided the suggestion, because Astorga did not look like a
place that would have good restaurants. Nor did it. Don Luis said,
‘There is, however, this little place owned by a woman whose
husband helps her, and it will have something acceptable.’ He led
us to the Restaurante La Peseta in one of Astorga’s little streets,
and as I entered and saw one small room and a crowded
old-fashioned kitchen, I had only modest expectations. But before
we sat down to eat we happened to look into the kitchen and
there we found some six or seven elderly women tending a
collection of pots which bubbled in a very businesslike way.

‘You looking for some real Spanish food?’ one of the old women
asked me.

‘Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried…’

 

‘Yes,’ I said tentatively, and she took me to her part of the
kitchen where she worked at a table positively cluttered with slabs
of raw meat, herbs, vegetables and shell-fish.

 

‘What would you like?’ she asked. It was a hot day and I
doubted that I wanted heavy food, but she whispered in
confidence, ‘Take the lomo de cerdo adobado.’ I signified my
ignorance and she pointed to a long square chunk of dark meat
and to myself I translated the name she repeated: ‘Loin of pork
adobado.’ But what was adobado?

 

‘Is it good?’ I asked, for it certainly did not look so, and loin of
pork was scarcely something that I would normally order from
a menu, especially in midsummer.

 

‘When I finish cooking it,’ she began, abruptly stopping and
sort of shouting at me, ‘Garbanzos, too.’

 

‘Garbanzos?’ These are the heavy, tasteless chickpeas which
spoil so much Spanish cooking. Garbanzos I did not want, but
she took me firmly by the arm and led me to the pot for which
she seemed to be specially responsible.

 

‘You have never tasted garbanzos,’ she said sternly. ‘Now sit
down and order some Rioja wine.’

 

Don Luis asked what I had ordered, and when I said, ‘Lomo
de cerdo adobado’ his face brightened, and while we waited,
tasting the Rioja, he said, ‘In the old days when I was a boy, many
families butchered one or two hogs, and when the loins were cut
out, long slabs of meat squared on the sides, they were marinated
five or six months in a mixture of parsley, garlic, onion, oregano,
salt, pepper, oil and vinegar. Then they were smoked until they
became one of the best-tasting meats on earth. Michener, you’ve
stumbled into a gastronomical gold mine.’

 

‘But it’s being served with garbanzos,’ I said, and his face fell.
‘With garbanzos you can’t do much,’ he said.

 

Finally the dishes arrived. The regular waiter brought the
ordinary ones for Don Luis and the rest of the party, but the old
woman brought mine, a huge country plate with five slices of
pork neatly arranged on one side, plus a heap of garbanzos on
the other. As I took my fork, the woman grabbed my wrist and
whispered benevolently, ‘What you’re about to do you won’t
forget.’

 

It was not hyperbole. The meat was something unique into
which all of rural life had somehow been compressed, for it was
both savory and smoky; it was firm to the knife but succulent to
the tooth; it had no trace of fat, but the forests of northern Spain
seemed to have crept into it, and I have never tasted a better
smoked meat. It was, however, the garbanzos that astonished me,
and the others too, for when I said how good they were, everyone
nibbled from my plate and we called the old cook to bring us
additional dishes. She put them on the table and smiled
approvingly as we dug in. Softly she said, ‘My garbanzos are
soaked for two days in cold salt water. They are cooked slowly,
and when they are sure of themselves I throw in some salty ham,
three different kinds of hot sausages, some potatoes and cabbage,
and they stew for eight hours. If you’re a workman with little
money, you eat garbanzos as your only dish, with meat and
vegetables thrown in. If you’re wealthy like a norteamericano,
you can afford the garbanzos plain. Because I charge you as much
as if you’d taken the meat too.’

 

As the excellent meal was about to end we were visited by the
alcalde of Astorga, who said, thinking that I was British, ‘We are
pleased to have you among us…in spite of what happened.’ When
he had gone I asked Don Luis what had happened, and he replied,
‘He was referring to those unhappy days at the beginning of the
last century when Napoleon besieged the city and knocked down
many of the walls, the time when Sir John Moore allowed his
troops to sack the place.’

 

‘Sir John Moore?’ I asked, surprised by such an accusation
against my old friend.

 

‘Yes. He may be a hero to the British…’

 

‘He is to me. To everyone,’ and I recited the opening lines:

‘Actually, he was a miserably poor general who made a botch
of the whole matter. He came to protect Spain from the French
but ended by destroying more than the French ever did.’

‘Are you talking about the great hero who died at La Coruña?’
‘I would advise you not to speak of him that way in a public
restaurant in Astorga. Here we remember him as the general who
abandoned his Spanish allies, the people of Astorga and the wives
and children of his own British troops. Unlike other armies of
the time, the English army still encouraged its men to bring their
families along, and Moore sacrificed the lot.’ He then referred to
a book he had recently read, the memoirs of General Baron de
Marbot, aide-de-camp of Marshals Murat and Masséna and
personal courier of Napoleon. ‘Marbot claims that Napoleon lost
his world campaign in Spain, and his Spanish campaign in
Astorga.’

‘But I thought you said Moore was defeated here.’
‘The point Marbot was making was sardonic. In the days
following the victory at Astorga, Napoleon made three fatal
mistakes that ensured his ultimate defeat. He took prisoner the
Spanish royal family, which gave us something to rally around.
He sorely underestimated the patriotism of the Spanish people,
who were not going to be supine like the Italian and German
collaborators he had met elsewhere. And worst mistake of all, at
La Coruña he killed Sir John Moore, who was the most ineffectual
general he faced, thus making way for Wellington, who was the
best.’

 

The purpose of the alcalde’s visit had been to extend an
invitation to see Astorga’s cathedral, but this I did not see, for as
we were approaching it my eye was taken by a black-and-white
structure so far removed from normal experience that I cried,
‘The Brothers Grimm must have built it,’ for what I saw was a
delightful fairy-tale castle, the epitome of all the towers and moats
one has imagined as a child. Yet it was very real and four stories
tall. I was about to ask what it was when some detail of its
construction caught my eye, an inspired portal that reminded me
of Barcelona, and I cried, ‘Don’t tell me. It’s Gaudí!’ Don Luis
nodded. Only the elfin architect of the unfinished church in
Barcelona could have built such a fantasy. ‘How did he get to
Astorga?’ I asked.

 

And Don Luis explained, ‘In 1887 Astorga’s bishop was a
Catalan, the inspired Juan Bautista Grau Vallespinos, and as you
already know, Catalans are cliquish, so when the tempter Gaudí
came whispering to the bishop, the latter was inclined to listen.
It was from this conspiracy that the grandiose plan developed for
building near the cathedral of, Astorga a supermagnificent
bishop’s palace.’ The two Catalans dreamed up a building which
was not an ordinary religious edifice but the grandest episcopal
palace built since the days of the Piccolomini in Siena.

 

It would be Gothic in basic design, but a grander Gothic than
men had seen before. It would have spires and turrets to tease the
eye, donjons and mighty winged angels and drawbridges and
battlements galore. There would be no flat walls, for each would
be broken by arbitrary round towers; only pure white stones
would be used, so that the building could be seen from afar, but
between them a black cement would be laid so as to emphasize
horizontal lines.

 

Inside, the palace would be as luxurious as the nineteenth
century could produce, with ornate halls, complete chapels,
audience rooms that would have delighted a Medici, dining salons
that would seat scores of prelates, and lesser rooms by the dozen,
each its own work of art. The finest contemporary painters,
sculptors and tapestry weavers would provide ornament for the
palace, and every window would be a masterpiece in stained glass.