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Gypsy Serenade continue… August 26, 2008

Posted by dodo in : Africa, Paris, Tour, Trails, Trip , trackback

There in a tiled room in the basement the pleasure began: Gonzalo’s daughter danced for us. She was fifteen, lithe, conscious of her own body and beautiful in her art, and all the while as the spectators’ enthusiasm grew her father watched her, drinking Jerez, nodding his head and smiling.

Presently he drew me aside to suggest that if I would like to give him a certain sum his wife and daughter would go immediately and prepare a gypsy supper. He explained that their house down under the railway by the Bridge of Three Eyes had only one room, but his own eyes shone as he described the delights of a gypsy supper. When I said I did not have the sum he drew me even further into a corner. From somewhere upstairs came the sound of a group of people singing songs from their own province. He cleared his throat and laid his finger along his nose. It seemed as if the world had stopped to listen.

Travel Guidebook`You, ‘ he said, `. . . that is, you . . . are my friend. I I. . . that is I, my wife and my children . . . we, I, do not like to invite a friend to a party and not give him the best. Do you understand? Like this I can’t treat you as I wish to.’

But I said it was impossible. I could not afford more of his hospitality.

We returned to the centre of the room. Gonzalo poured more Jerez, coughed and examined his throat in the mirror. Then he turned to his son and told him to sing fandangos in the way he had been shown. The guitarist began the familiar descending cascades and the boy entered. But after a while his father stopped him to say he was not singing what he had been taught. The boy looked at the ceiling. He had big eyes. His father told him to listen now to the way he himself was going to sing them. We all listened. Afterwards the boy tried again but was stopped once more. Suddenly a fat gypsy stood up. A few years ago he had been one of the best-paid dancers in Flamenco. There were several rings on his fingers and his shoes were still beautifully polished.

`Listen,’ he said to the boy. ‘I am only a dancer, and I’m too old now even for that. But I know more about singing than your father will ever know. You go on as you yourself are and one day you’ll be good.’

`And you,’ he said, turning to the father, ’should talk less. The kid isn’t singing badly. He’s just singing a style you don’t know.’

The guitar was playing again, this time in slow rhythm, and after a while a voice broke in. It was an elderly gypsy who had been sitting silently all evening, and the voice was as rough as the open road but when it sang the room became quiet. The singer loosened the collar of his shirt and let his voice flow out as turbulently and tranquilly as he desired. That night he had reached a moment of feeling no-one else had, and his cigarette burned unnoticed in the fingers of his hands which stretched out parallel like mute ghosts. He did not sing for long because he was old, but it was enough.

After that we went up. As we passed out of the bar it was raining again and all Madrid’s lights were swimming before my eyes, reflected on the street. Stepping carefully over the gutter, Gonzalo remarked that I ought to wear a coat likehe did. When I explained what had happened on the train he shook his head and said one should never trust the Moors.

It was midnight. As we were giving our hands he looked up at me intently and told me that in two days there would be a gypsy wedding.

When I told him I could not come he turned up the collar of his coat and walked away, looking at the pavement beside the unlit shop windows, hands deep in his pockets, and passed into the night going towards the Bridge of Three Eyes.

By now the Arab with my coat would be in Malaga waiting for the boat across to Africa. Twenty-four hours earlier, we had both been in Paris.

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