He moved into broken fall sunlight past Neoclassical Spanish stone cathedrals holding gigantic silent iron bells and walked to the Torre Tavira Tower and the Camera Obscura at the intersection of Marques del Real Tesoro and Sacramento.
Cadiz, Spain was famous for its dominating watchtowers during the prosperous period of trade in the 18th century. The tower was built in the baroque style as part of the palace of the Marquis of Recano. It was named for it’s first watchman, Antonio Tavira and appointed the official watchtower of the town in 1778.
The Camera Obscura projected a live 360 degree moving image of Cadiz. A native pointed out the imported rubber trees from Brazil, Mercado central market, political and religious buildings.
Display maps showed red lined geographical expansion since 1600. They depict ocean explorations to Central and South America, Africa and Northern Europe.
The Phoenicians founded Cadiz in 1100 BC. making it the oldest city in Europe. Romans called it Gadir, established a navel base and traded amber and tin.
Twilight was in a hurry toward night as a million birds sang in huge banyan trees with roots spreading the gospel in Plaza de Mina, outside the Museum of Cadiz. He walked up the stairs and through huge brass doors. A marble sculpture of David glowered down.
The receptionist asked where he was from. There was a male guard with her. Their visitor was silent.
“Where are you from,” spitting his angry Spanish and the visitor didn’t answer, knowing it was free for Europeans and 1.5 Euros for foreigners.
In fractured Spanish he said, “I'm from heaven,” pointing up at a finely wrought ceiling covered in tapestries, “down to have a look around.” This threw them off because they’d never met an angel before.
The guard, busy hustling the receptionist, wanted to get rid of the shape shifter.
“Are you from Germany? English?”
No, really, I'm from heaven,” he replied, extracting money when the receptionist offered a ticket. “Go ahead, it’s free.” A little stupidity went a long way when it came to saving a Euro just to see Iberian history.
“Gracias,” he said and climbed marble stairs.
Greeks and Phoenicians introduced the potter’s wheel, writing, olive tree, donkey and hen to Spain. They replaced iron with bronze. Metals became currencies. People developed agriculture and expanding populations constructed walls, towers and castles for security.
Romans contributed aqueducts, temples, theaters, circuses, and baths. They gave the Iberian peninsula Castilian language based on 2,000 year old Latin. Their desire, wanderlust and greed built roads, establishing communities to satisfy their impulse for cuisine, sex, music and trade expanding their nation state.
The Museo de Cadiz was filled with Roman artifacts. He wandered through archeological epoch discoveries from settlements in Gades along the coast extending inland to Seville and Cordoba.
He found estuaries, towns, villages, isolated tight white pueblos, rooms full of coins, maps, heads, pottery, faces, vases and dynasties. He absorbed ruins, Roman legion armor, burial sites, aqueduct maps, temples, theaters, masks, busts, sculptures, marble, glass, utensils, sewing bones. Human remains inside stoned chambers. Bones resting in dust.
“Yes, they are in love with the street. The beauty of the street. It is an old love.”
Survivors met a tribal chief deep in the Amazon. “The problem is,” the chief said, “is that we have the time and you have the machines and watches to control the time.”
“I know what you mean,” said a European banker. “They give you a watch when you retire but not enough time to wind it.”
A long red scarf lay draped over a single rattan chair. Invisible wires held black fans decorated with peacock feathers and rainbow colors suspended in silence.
Across the street outside the Spanish cathedral a bride threw her wedding bouquet into the sky as friends pelted her with white rice containing 50,000 genes.
Humans with 30,000 genes looked up as it rained flowers. Her friends, neighbors and strangers were overcome by the scent of wild forbidden fragrances drifting from the sky. They scrambled, pushed and shoved in a desperate struggle for a petal. They started laughing and singing in perfect harmony as an orchestra played Four Seasons.
“What’s happening?” an old woman in black said to her son.
“They are celebrating the passing of an era,” he said.
She was a survivor of the Civil War in 1936 when 350,000 Spaniards died. The war divided families, communities and friends. Another 100,000 were killed or died in prison after the war. Some 500,000 fled Spain.
For decades her brothers lay in a mass grave but it was not until more than 60 years after they were shot during the war that she could reclaim what she thought were their remains.
“What better flowers to take to my mother’s grave than the bones of her son?” said 87-year-old Alvarez, waiting for DNA tests to identify her two brothers.
The rebellion started in Morocco in 1936 when Spanish Foreign Legion generals led by Franco revolted against the leftist government. German and Italian soldiers, weapons and planes shifted the balance of power to the Nationalists.
A U.N. sponsored trade boycott of Spain in the late 1940’s gave Andalusia ‘the years of hunger.’ Peasants ate wild herbs and soup made from grass. 1.5 million Andalusians left to find work elsewhere.
Now 150,000 Spaniards of all ages formed long lines, waiting for hours rain or shine, to see Exile, an exhibition about those who disappeared during or after the war.
Exile recalled history with a ragtag collection of artifacts belonging to individuals, including pictures of men clutching children as they traipsed through snow into exile dragging a suitcase which would serve as a cradle in a French refugee camp.
In many cases people in villages knew where their relatives were buried. Isabel Gonzalez, 85, said she was told in the 1940’s where her brother’s grave was - by the man fascist troops had forced to dig it. For years she made clandestine visits to leave flowers, but never dared stay long in case she was caught.
A well dressed man bald man with gypsy blood wearing highly polished black wing tips carrying a paperback novel by Cervantes with creased pages used the financial section of a daily rag to collect his dog’s shit off the street. He dumped it in a metal trash basket nailed to a wall.
Five minutes later an obsessive compulsive Spanish woman cleaning her ground floor flat cried, “what is that smell?”
“History,” he said walking toward the sea.
One if by land and two if by sea easy rider.
“Oh say can you see? Star light star bright first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might dream the impossible dream and throw out the first ball,” sang history’s child.
“We’re headed to extra innings and the bullpens are empty,” a radio announcer crooned from a nearby navel base on armed forces radio waves, “and now this,” cutting to a commercial message from a used car salesman offering interest free, no down payment selections of the finest vehicles money could buy.
“Drive it away today,” he pleaded.
Every car on the road is a used car.
This alert was followed by a commercial for cheap fuel and a political proposal to open the Alaskan wilderness for drilling. Unemployed dentists signed up. The more you drill and fill, the more you bill.
“The large print giveth and the small print taketh away,” said a paedophile priest brushing wild rice out of his hair. His big hand was on the little hand. Tick-tock.
A stranger passed a door named History. Arabian hands gestured the Baraka spirit. The palms formed arches. The Baraka spirit was about power and spirit energies. They were heavy duty brass knockers.
A woman polished their long fingers after sweeping and mopping the residue of dust from carefully inlaid diamond stone triangles set deep into the history of her Calle. She dumped dirty water into the street where it followed gravity as quick sparrows descended into stone canyons for nourishment.
She wore black. She wore black every day as a sign of respect for her late husband. It was the custom in Andalusia. He was engulfed by women in black.
She remembered everything about him. He was a good listener, nodding thoughtfully by the fire of their love as they admired their rooster figurines and cracked cups on the dusted mantle.
As contrite parishioners they bowed through tight wooden recesses into Sunday services at Plaza Tio de la Tiza. He nodded softly toward the street as they strolled and she talked about the weather. He studied his shiny black shoes.
“The price of meat is rising,” she said.
“It’s the fat on the bone,” he answered.
They passed a bull’s head hanging in a shattered window.
“Maybe we should consider buying a lottery ticket,” she suggested. “Help out the unemployed. All my friends say it is a chance. A once in a lifetime opportunity. We could jump through a window into a new reality with the winnings.”
“Yes,” he said, remembering her lament about the butcher. “Maybe we should cut down our consumption.”
Her husband’s hands were soft and she loved them. His favorite word was “yes,” and she couldn’t hear it enough.
They alternated walking between Plaza de Mira with its tall palms in the original city vegetable gardens; intimate Plaza del Mentidero with its huge fountain; the grand San Antonio Cathedral renovated in 1658, Teatro Plaza del Falla with its red Moorish facade and Plaza de Candeleria.
In the Plaza de la Cathedral they knelt to pray as white robed priests with a mandate from Rome guided their spirits into faith, hope and charity while administering final sacraments after hearing their confession.
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