GARRY
McDOUGALL
Chains of Enchantment
Three of us at a Spanish bar: the broken-hearted Italian, me and sensuous Susan; all celebrating our Pyrenees crossing, vino tinto in hand, overlooking a small table, metres from an ancient granary.
“Stay with me tonight Susan”, says the broken-hearted Italian.
It is not the grappa he wants, nor the somnambulant Cola Coa (Spanish hot chocolate). It’s one man’s nightcap to hope, two men bewitched, and three people in sweet Hell.
Eyes to the distant, Susan recalls her travels in explosive Bolivia, recalling her friend Wayne’s fascination for liquor and dynamite, him, three times a patient in Bolivian hospitals.
On the third visit the nurse’s hand is poised, mouth agape, asking Susan, asking Wayne,
“Aren´t you-? Wasn’t it you-?”
“No, no”, they say in hasty unison.
It was cuddly toys and Santa Claus that led to Wayne’s third hospital visit. They were reminders of his family’s shambolic Christmases. Wayne wanted to blow up Santa and cuddly toys. For that, he needed dynamite.
Boom!
“Hey!”
Ka- boom!
“Ouch! Shit. Blood.”
The blasts were stronger than expected.
“Wayne’s so funny”, Susan reminds us.
Even when he retreated to his hotel room with another woman-
“He’s so-o-o funny.”
Enchanting Susan, hazel eyes, clear-skinned, squarish face, dark wavy hair, all enthusiasm, sensuality and intensity, Swiss, teaches street-children in Zurich, she knows a few games, and leans on time.
“He never grew up”. she says, recalling Wayne´s world. “In his fifties, rich, has his own company”.
I raise my eyebrow, keeping her gaze.
“A mad Australian, always drunk” she taunts, me shaking my head ever so slightly.
“One night”, she says, catching her breathe, “one night, we drank with an Irishman. And drink! And drink! I was floored.”
And next morning, still drunk, Wayne knocks on the door.
‘Can I come in?’
’OK,’ says fearless Susan.
’I need a shower’, he says, not saying why he’s can’t have one in his own room.
Later, there is a crash.
“Oh shit. Far-kin hell.”
‘Wayne? Are you all right?’ says Susan.
There is only a low, implausible moaning.
‘Are you naked? Are you dressed?’
‘Yeh.’
‘I come in and help’, says Susan.
What do you expect now: some Wayne-like manoeuvre, some pathetic, drunken appeal?
But no. Wayne has blood streaming down his face and arms. Wayne is a mess. And so is the room. He has slipped in the shower, grabbed the curtain, collapsed the railing and the cistern- and everything has fallen on him. The cistern crashed onto the toilet, breaking it in two, the free-flowing water all over the room. Broken bath, shower, shattered toilet and water everywhere, mixing with blood, and somehow, enchanting Susan applies bandages.
The broke-hearted Italian and I don’t ask about Wayne’s other hospital visits, or Susan’s first-aid skills, or Bolivian food. We sit up straight, eyes half closed, consuming Susan’s ardour.
Falling back into my rickety chair, over her shoulder I spy the internet machine that isn’t working, an unavailable phone in the corner, and the absence of fellow trekkers who, having whipped up and over the snowy blanket, have indecently repaired to their rooms for the night. I grip my glass, take a fleeting look at Susan, and remind myself of the dark of the bar, the other side, and the crossing over.
On the Chemin de St Jacque, Roncesvalles, Spain.l
Garry McDougall ©
Beating Time
On the Rioja’s dry plain, Belorado forever inhales the hot breath of summer, and exhales the sombre, grey mists in sinking autumn. In the splish-splash of a Spanish winter, it reflects on its dark millennia, when once its duke challenged the mighty House of Burgos. The duke lost, and for centuries after, the village was stripped of its fine clothing. Without protective walls and a fine castle, its enemies seemed everywhere. It knew no spring.
The village still coughs and splutters in irregular health. It rubs its wrinkled skin in leather and onions. Both churches have crumbling walls. The town’s narrow streets cling to tattered charm. It begs for new life, but hears only rumbling trucks, and tastes only diesel fumes.
For consolation, Belorado has an annual festival with burning meat, beating drums, insistent trumpets and ritual sacrifice of the onion. The village heart beats faster. Wild men and women pump through the narrow streets by night, beating, blowing, blasting their instruments, pounding the crumbling walls. What’s television? The irrepressible rhythms insist- Ghosts out! Ghosts. Ghost out! Ring those bells. Bells! Bells! Ring the bells.
Without peace, riotous exclamation must suffice. We all fear silence. Silencio. And the wounded Duke calls ‘Don’t bow to the silence. Never!
In the town square next morning, the festival over, council’s men and women sweep away cigarette butts, coke cans, wine bottles, cardboard, cracker wrappings and cast-off clothing; the streets in mighty disarray, anathema to the Western mind.
As mid-day approaches, youngsters abandon their brief slumbers to inhabit the streets again, though spent, bare-buttocked and bewildered. Hours earlier they had blasted out a mighty tune, waking men and mice, mothers and masons. What a racket! You sit erect in your bed, clasping the clock.
-It’s 4am.
Yes, everyone hears the code: ‘Hear us! Hear us’- it is official. For we announce to you… the day’s festivities are over. Our ghosts are vanquished. It’s time to sleep.’
This Belorado is a hard place: hard pillows, hard earth, sharp corners, surrounded by treeless farmland, decorations at a minimum. Crops fail. Tools turn against you. The smart one betrays you. Some will block your path. History has a bitter heart in Spain. Stirred by the agony winds, ghostly semblances still roam the village by night. Dusty kings, dictators, bishops and republicans wrestle in its laneways and apartment blocks.
The stranger best linger in a bar, bent before the vino-tinto shrine, settling into a darkened corner, watching life and football, nursing bocadillos and sharing exclamations. Thirty clocks surround you, collected over fifty years, all beating time.
The owner grunts. Let the stray dogs and big ideas fight over the bones behind the Calle Mayor. Let the four-legged mongrels, thin, weak and weary, look into windows with uncomprehending eyes, before merging into the diablo walls.
You, Belorado. Never-subdued Belorado.
History extracts a price. © 2012
Tapas Travel
A Book Proposal
Beating Time, Highly Commended, Peter Cowan Short Story Competition.
Judges comment: An epic evocation of place. Yes, this story proves that you can produce an epic in a mere 488 words! Like all good fiction, perhaps, this piece is ultimately an investigation into how time passes and works. Energetic, almost punch-drunk writing (I mean that as a complement!): "Let the dogs and big ideas fight over the bones behind the Calle mayor". Fabulous!
The fascinating people and places that make travel magnetic, written in a unique award-winning style, many of the stories about traveling the French and Spanish camino to Santiago de Compostella.
