Iberia (46 page)

The oldest figures on the hundred floats date back to the
seventeenth century. In the intervening years well-known
sculptors carved figures which gradually supplanted originals,
and in the nineteenth century there was a general refurbishing,
at which time the emphasis was on strict fidelity to the living
figure. It was then that the glass teardrops and the specks of ruby
blood became common. The twentieth century has been the age
of adornment and most of the ultra-luxurious costumes date
from this period.

The most extraordinary, and by far the best loved, are those
like the one we saw first which simply present the Virgin Mary
throned in glory, dressed in gorgeous robes and with a crown of
silver and gold encrusted with hundreds of precious stones. Of
the forty-five floats presenting Virgins alone, two are preeminent
and the subject of such veneration that even the most casual
observer must reflect on the fact that Holy Week, which
commemorates Christ’s passion and death, has become in Spain
a celebration in which he plays a secondary role, with his mother
becoming the central figure. The first is La Esperanza, the Virgin
of Hope, from the gypsy quarters of Triana across the river. She
became famous as the patron Virgin of the bull-fighter Juan
Belmonte and remains the focus of much popular affection. The
second is La Macarena, named after an Arabian princess, and she
was preferred by another great matador, Joselito, and to see her
leave her parish church of San Gil at one in the morning of Good
Friday or return later in the day is held by many Sevillanos to be
the most important thing that can happen during Holy Week.

Late at night one Holy Thursday I went to watch La Macarena
leave her small white church and an hour before the time of her
departure all streets were jammed. Not far from the church,
devotees of this Virgin have built a permanent arch of triumph,
a delightful little stucco affair with seven Moorish towers, the
only one of its kind in Sevilla. I was standing in a throng near this
arch when the float left the church, and it seemed miraculous that
the stevedores behind the curtain could maneuver this immense
structure so delicately through the doors.

The float was in some ways the most ornate I had seen, with a
baldacchino of gold and an edging of silver; but it was also the
simplest, for it contained only the Virgin clad in white dress, green
and gold cape and red sash, and wearing a corona featuring sixteen
silver stars and a diamond cross. She was a majestic figure, with
tears on her cheeks and a pearl necklace wrapped about her left
hand. In place of the subsidiary figures that accompanied most
floats stood several score of tall wax tapers, and she was preceded
by a confraternity dressed in white satin robes and emerald hoods.
Like the other great Virgins of Sevilla, she carried no child.

When she appeared the crowd reacted with joy, bestowing
upon her a love which has no counterpart in other countries. It
required about forty minutes for her to inch her way from the
church and through the arch, even though they stood only a few
yards apart. The crowd would not give way; everyone wanted to
stand as close to the wonderful Virgin as possible, and we were
behind schedule when we finally set out through the darkened
streets for the traditional passage of La Macarena.

After proceeding by herself for some hours, La Macarena, like
all the other floats that were out at this time, began heading for
the center of the city, and by the time the sun rose, they had
coalesced into a long a official procession that would pass before
the town hall and end at the cathedral. At no time during this
preliminary activity was any float unattended. Its approach was
heralded by two or three men carrying wooden staves from which
dangled iron rings. When the staves were pounded down against
the paving of the street, a harsh jangling sound warned beholders
to draw back. Some sort of band accompanied the float, beating
out a somber half-step which had the effect of a funeral march.
Then came the confraternity followed by the float, which during
the night was illuminated by flares. Finally there were the
penitents, marching barefoot over the stones with their burdens
of chain and cross. It is this whole unit that creates the noble
impression, forcing the observer to reconsider any prior
judgments of religion.

In reviewing mine I was confused by three extraneous elements
that helped make up the parade. First, each float was escorted by
a company of soldiers in full military regalia including loaded
rifles, and they marched with such solemn ferocity and proprietary
interest that no one could ignore the fact that in Spain the
principal job of the army was to defend the Church; this had been
its preoccupation from the time of its war against the Moors and
apparently it would always be. That is why on the left wall of the
shrine of La Macarena stands the tombstone of General Gonzalo
Queipo de Llano y Sierra (1875-1951) with the ominous date ‘18
July 1936,’ which was when he exercised the brutalities that earned
him the title among Republicans of ‘The Butcher of Andalucía,’
and among Franco men of ‘The Savior of Sevilla.’ I spoke to a
Spaniard about this and was told, ‘Why not? Queipo de Llano
saved the Church in Andalucía. In the old days we’d have made
him a saint. Now we have to be content with his tomb beside our
Virgin.’ If the parades of Holy Week were religious processions,
they were also military ones, and one day Don Francisco said to
me, ‘We Spaniards cannot understand that strange thing that
happened in the United States army. One of your artillery colonels
devised a banner and a slogan for his gunners, “For God, for
country and for Santa Bárbara.” But atheists protested and your
government made him stop. Everyone knows that Santa Bárbara
is the patron saint of bombardiers.’ I tried to explain that in the
United States we subscribed to a separation of Church and state
and to us it was offensive to confuse an artillery unit and a female
saint, to which he replied, ‘You must indeed be confused. If Santa
Bárbara watches over your gunners in battle, why not admit it?’

Second, at frequent intervals units of the Guardia Civil appeared
in full uniform and heavily armed. They stared with what I
thought at the time was a menacing gaze, but which I suppose
was only an impassivity, at the spectators, as if daring them to
make any move against the Church. If the Holy Week procession
was partly a military manifestation, it was also a police function,
for the two elements were never far separated.

Third, when the parade had formed and it was time to march
through the center of the city, political leaders of the community
slipped into position, some as penitents lugging crosses, some as
members of the confraternity but with their faces exposed, and
some as honored marchers in morning coats and top hats; it was
clear that no politician could hold office in Sevilla who did not
conform to the observances of the Church. The presence of these
officials was made conspicuous; they were preceded by bishops
and soldiers and bands and guardia; they were accompanied by
hushed and approving whispers from the crowd; they were clothed
in a kind of extraterrestrial glory and formed as significant a part
of the parade as any of the floats, the capstone, as it were, of the
religious-military-police-political edifice that was Spain.

Of course, some years later I witnessed exactly the same kind
of exhibitionism in New York City when I watched the St. Patrick’s
Day parade along Fifth Avenue and saw that any Jewish politician
who hoped for favor with the Irish electorate had better put in
an appearance on that day. A few years after that, when I was
myself running for Congress in a different part of America, my
advisors warned me, ‘There is one thing a politician must do.
March in the St. Patrick’s Day parade or else.’ I was as warmly
received in my community as were the Sevilla politicians during
their obligatory parade. In Sevilla it was only the appearances that
were different. As a matter of fact, one year when Adlai Stevenson
was in Sevilla for Holy Week he was invited to march with a
confraternity, and as a wise politician he did so.

When I had watched the floats, supervising their exits and
returns, I felt that I understood something of the spiritual quality
of Holy Week, but it was two unplanned experiences which
brought me close to the heart of the matter. The first had occurred
on Palm Sunday, when I had been following Don Francisco’s float
for more than ten hours. We stopped for some unknown reason
in a small plaza, and the stevedores came out from under their
boards and lounged about with beer bottles in their hands, for it
was now daylight and the sun was growing hot. The soldiers, the
guardia and the politicians had left us, for we were in the
backwaters of the city far from the formal parade route; we were
in a sense on our own and some members of the confraternity
removed their hoods, and it was then that I came face to face with
Don Francisco Mendoza Ruiz, so exhausted and beat down by
the weight of his self-assumed cargo that I thought him close to
fainting.

For a long, long moment we stood facing each other, and the
mark of pain was so visible in his face that I had to acknowledge
that here was a man who had truly assumed the burden of Jesus
Christ in the moments of the passion. This was neither the
play-acting of the men who carried the iron-ringed staves, beating
them about as if they were marshals, nor the parade heroics of
the armed soldiers looking as if they were about to enter battle,
nor the posturings of the politicians as they exhibited their public
spirituality. This was the face of an ordinary man who had
assumed a burden that was almost more than he could bear; he
was undergoing a religious experience that I had not ever come
close to, and when I gave him a drink from my bottle he thanked
me with an expression of ecstatic gratitude. I have never forgotten
his face; he was not of the procession; he was the procession,
standing at its very heart, and he was accepting as much of the
passion of Jesus as any man could comprehend.

The whistles blew. The captain shouted at the workmen. The
lines re-formed. And the staves thundered against the roadway.
‘One, two, three,’ came the signals, and slowly the Virgin rose
into the sunlight, wavered unsteadily for a moment, then resumed
her soft undulation as the huge structure moved forward once
more. And behind the Virgin, so richly dressed and so wooden
with her face staring straight ahead, struggled this weary
barefooted man bearing his cross.

My second insight occurred on a street far removed from the
little plaza. In the center of Sevilla, running from the commercial
headquarters to the government buildings, is a narrow pathway
which in ordinary circumstances would be an alley but which in
Sevilla has become a major pedestrian thoroughfare. Its shops
are the richest in the city. The big plate-glass windows behind
which lounge the principal men of Sevilla, like a coterie of lesser
gods on a lower Olympus, here seem more formidable than
elsewhere. The pretty girls who throng the street are more relaxed.
The corner restaurants are busier and the quiet bustle of the little
pathway is more exciting.

Because of the manner in which this slim, beautiful street lies
stretched out in the sunlight, it has for many centuries been known
simply as Sierpes and has been termed by many ‘the loveliest street
in Europe.’ To justify this, one must accept certain special
definitions, for Sierpes cannot compare with a boulevard in Paris
or with one of London’s wide streets. How little it is! I once
measured its width at the Restaurante Calvillo and it was exactly
fifteen shoe lengths across. To see Sierpes at its best is to
understand the saying: ‘The three finest pleasures a man can know
are to be young, to be in Sevilla, and to stand in Sierpes at dusk
when the girls are passing.’ I would add a fourth: ‘And to stand
in Sierpes during Holy Week when La Macarena is passing.’

The first evening I ever spent in Sierpes was when the floats of
Holy Week were going by and even then I sensed that this must
be the high point of the parade, for it was in their passage down
this brilliant street that all participants tried to do their best. The
rope-sandaled men stifling under the boards moved cautiously
so as not to scrape the walls. The cries of the captains became
whispers. The bands played in better rhythm and the professional
soldiers marched with increased precision. At the entrance to
Sierpes additional politicians slipped into line, so that they could
be observed during the march past the city hall, which stands
beyond the exit from Sierpes, and those penitents who were
uncovered straightened up so that their faces might be seen. In
those moments Sierpes became the focal point of Spain, for
although similar processions were under way in Madrid and other
cities, this was the famous one.

I now understood what had determined the width of the floats,
because there were several tight spots in Sierpes where the tableaux
of Jesus and Mary had to be borne just so in order for them to
slip between projecting walls. Not many spectators could crowd
into Sierpes; on the other hand, since it was the culminating point
of the procession, as many as possible jammed in, chairs being
sold at a premium. Directed by a group of young Spaniards, I had
slipped in and wedged myself against a wall, where the floats
passed me by at a distance of inches rather than feet. It was
exciting to be so close to the carved figures and to see the nuances
of their expressions; there was also a kind of animal pleasure in
seeing now and then beneath the protecting curtains the softly
moving feet of those who bore the floats and to hear their
whispers, as if the spirits of the statues were speaking.

But as an insight into religious experience it did not compare
with my earlier confrontation with the penitent; that had been a
true revelation and this spectacle in Sierpes could be no more
than a well-conceived parade. However, on Good Friday evening,
as I was watching in Sierpes, I heard from a balcony projecting
over the street the high, piercing scream of a woman. ‘!O Dios!’
she cried, and all movement along the pathway stopped. ‘!O Dios!’
she repeated, and when the throng was silent she launched into
the most strange and impassioned song I had ever heard. She had
a deep effect upon the emotions of those who listened, for her
voice alternated between throaty cries of pain and soaring
evocations of ecstasy. She continued thus for some four or five
minutes, pouring forth a personal song of devotion to Jesus Christ,
and her performance was so powerful that all in Sierpes, marchers
and witnesses alike, paid her the homage of silence, so that her
voice rang out like a bell, floating over the massive crowds. She
paused. No one moved. Then she entered the passionate coda of
her song, with her voice ascending in spirals and fury until at the
end she was possessed. Then silence, as if the crowd wanted to
consider her song, then the sounds of the soldiers and the police
and the clanking chains and the rustle of the float, as all resumed
their march toward the city hall.