Land of the Moor

Women Trav­ellers in Cata­lan Lands

After the red and brown and ochre of Tor­tosa and Am­posta, San Car­los de la Rapita, lying close by the sea road, came as a sharp, white sur­prise. White, low walls sup­port­ing flat roofs, azoteas, white sail­cloth cur­tains flap­ping in the open door­ways where the women sat tor­pidly on their squat black chairs, and the ba­bies and chick­ens and lean dogs played con­tent­edly in the warm dust. The hand of the Moor was over all. We had run away from the mist and the threat of storm when we left the moun­tains the other side of the Ebro, here the sun shone blind­ingly on the white walls. The lanes be­tween the houses were grate­ful wells of blue shadow. Nowhere was there a spear of green. The men, loung­ing be­fore the vil­lage café wore black ker­chiefs bound tightly about their dark brows, two ends brought for­ward and twisted in a knot as old as Islam, the third hang­ing down be­hind to shield the back of the neck from the sun. The faces under those head ker­chiefs were the color of old Span­ish leather, seamed and weath­ered by the wind and the sun and the va­garies of the sea. They were like the pi­rates of Pen­zance, their hands thrust swag­ger­ingly into the tops of their fajas, wine red, and ma­genta and pea­cock blue.

Over the house roofs on the sea side rose the tan­gled masts and spars of the fish­ing fleet moored under the wall. All that one had ever heard or thought or read of […] was in that one short street, be­fore the sign TRAV­ESIA with its de­ci­sive arrow pointed us out and on to Vinaroz.

Vinaroz, what a har­vest is com­pact in those three syl­la­bles! Vin—aroz, wine and rice. Not the pal­lid ce­real grains that we know, but the suc­cu­lent paella of Va­len­cia, heavy with oil, and golden with saf­fron, and crim­son with strips of pep­per and whole shrimps and tiny crabs, and salt with all man­ner of weird sea crea­tures in fluted shells; served smok­ing hot, and eaten with the strong, hard, white bread that Span­ish bak­ers know so well how to make. And this washed down with the rich dark wine of the re­gion that is al­most as black as ink. It was from over-in­dul­gence in this dish, here at Vinaroz, that the Duke of Ven­dome, grand­son of the Grand Monarch, died. Philip V, who owed him his throne, had the body in­terred among the princes of Spain in the Es­co­r­ial, whether in grat­i­tude or warn­ing, is left to the vis­i­tor's imag­i­na­tion. […]

The streets of Vinaroz were strewn with olive branches. Our tires crushed them as we passed. The bishop of Tor­tosa had gone by in tri­umphal pro­ces­sion that morn­ing.

Vinaroz was our en­trance to the province of Va­len­cia, the province sec­ond only to Granada in the heart of the Moor. Twice they took it, and twice they lost it; once to the Cid, and the sec­ond and last time to Jaime the Con­quis­ta­dor. Be­hind us lay the es­sen­tial hard­ness that is Cataluña. Be­fore us stretched the lan­guorous, fe­cund land of Va­lence.

We ended our day's jour­ney at Beni­carló, an­other white town with streets lead­ing down to the sea, past open doors in which hung cur­tains of knot­ted cord, like fish nets, and or­na­mented with heavy, cro­cheted lace. Though the meshes were as wide as those of the seines dry­ing on the rocks by the shore, the dark rooms be­hind them were com­pletely con­cealed from the eyes of the passers-by, while those within could look out on the street, un­seen. There were furtive move­ments and rustlings and low­ered voices be­hind those de­cep­tive hang­ings when we walked about the vil­lage in the late af­ter­noon sun. The word was cried up and down the lanes that two for­eign women… alone… in a coche Ford, had ar­rived at Fonda La Rosa and in­tended to spend the night. [....]

The rus­tle and the whis­per­ing were not con­fined be­hind the house cur­tains. Span­ish cu­rios­ity broke through these and swept up the streets and filled the room where we were wait­ing for the eight o'clock din­ner hour. We held a sort of re­cep­tion, sit­ting in the rush bot­tom chairs that stood in op­pos­ing rows around the walls of the fonda's en­trance room. [....]

“Where were we going?”

Could I give them the truth—that we were knight er­rants of the road, seek­ing ro­mance in mar­ket places and pa­tios, at cross­roads and in en­coun­ters such as this, hop­ing if our luck held, to find a mis­placed sense of humor at the jour­ney's end, like the pot of gold at the foot of the rain­bow?