PART ONE: EL ARENAL
The heat from the Summer Solstice burns everything with white heat. Streets radiate with the midday sun – the midsummer’s sun – the Andalucían sun. Everything about being in Seville today feels that bit closer to the sun. The heat. The light. The glare. Palm trees rise to Heaven open armed with their long, rolled brevas cigar tree trunks toasted to black cinder. Sunshine bright and burning, glaring and dazzling; overhead, shadows shift beneath your feet. The day had started early, walking, wandering, looking, trying to explore what could be found before the bite of the day became too great. The Catedral and Real Alcázar were both within walking distance of the hotel; I managed the first and thought to see the latter after lunch. The morning had been crystalline with sunshine, even scented with the perfume from orange groves and bushes of rosemary. Doves sung within the protection of box hedge trees, near the play of water falling from fountains, which spouted out into octangular bases. Backstreets leant hard against the shadows, crisscrossing different times and ages; routes wandered past the small, orange house of Diego Velázquez, gave glimpses of the Torre del Oro (where once it shone with gold across the waters of the Rio Guadalquivir), and echoed the songs of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ as she stands still outside the Real Fabrica de Tabacos. And in savouring the shadows, you learn to love Seville so deeply, enriching your own dreams and wishes in this waking life. In the words of Wallace Stevens, “…the day is like wide water, without sound, stilled for the passing of dreaming feet.”
Inside a bodega, a few moments before midday, a camarero chimes white china plates and saucers into stacks at the end of a long, wooden bar. Locals start to arrive and queue. Holas reverberate. A man sits reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. Legs of jamon hang from the ceiling. Orders sound, spoons rattle and coffee begins to grind. An old woman is served first. She stands at the bar carrying a small, red leather bag. The camarero asks what she would like:
– Senora, qué quiere?
– Dame un whisky.
– Uno simple o doble?
– Simple. Gracias.
He turns and reaches for a large, green bottle of J&B on a shelf (its yellow label stands out, as do the large red letters). He pours her the single shot she ordered and asks if she wants ice:
– Con hielo?
– Sin hielo.
She pays and takes her glass of whisky to an empty table and sits alone. A pot bellied man, maybe in his fifties or sixties, smartly dressed next approaches the bar and asks for coin change. The thin belt around his waist is tight. He needs change for the slot machine against the wall. I watch him play for a while but he wins nothing. The coins go in, lights flash, the wheels spin and stop, but nothing happens. No jackpot. Only the silence of the bar signals another lost round. In the narrow, curved calles beyond an open window, swifts and swallows chirp – flitting in and out of the small, green Judas trees which stand baring their heart-shaped leaves to the searing light. Seville continues to bake.
Here I sit, finishing a coffee and considering a wine. The raise of temperature makes perspiration prick through my skin. Am getting hungry, too. The camarero has stopped making café solos and begins slicing cured pork and ham for those who have ordered food. I read through the menu and my limitations with the Spanish language gives way to the desire to eat (some attempt to speak castellano seems to go a long way and smiles can easily be shared wherever the gaps appear). Without prompting, almost anticipating, the camarero comes to take my order, and in a busy bar I labour in language and point to what I’d like to eat from the menu:
– Senor, qué quiere?
– Quiero anchoas, pan y otro jamon serrano.
– Y algo más?
– Si, quiero un vaso de vino blanco, por favor.
Soon, a small carafe of white wine was placed in front of me along with an empty glass. Condensation immediately began to cloud and ran like raindrops down the curved body of the glassware. Three small, square dishes then appeared in no particular order: thin shavings of soft, translucent ham, slices of bread and four, fat fillets of plump anchovy (ruby red in freshness and mirrored the length and breadth of my cutlery). These have to be the most delicious anchovies I have ever eaten –garlic and vinegar coat them all. The serrano ham is so sweet to eat. Oil drips from my fingers onto the table. Almost half past twelve now. And all is good. All is good.
PART TWO: BARRIO DE SANTA CRUZ
At seven o’clock the bells of Santa Catalina strike. The sun is still high in a cloudless sky. From the rooftop of my hotel most of Seville can be seen. From here, landmarks rise up above the buildings. The Giralda stands tallest (some eight centuries old and counting). Eyes dance along the city. Searching for the pathways taken this morning. Streets look different now. Can no longer see the river. Can barely see the shapes and contours of Triana (let alone hear its deep song of flamenco). Over in the Plaza de Toros, the yellow sand continues to burn. A giant palm tree pokes up over the rooftops. It must be tall as it’s the only one I can see. The trunk rises up to a golden knot. From there, around fifty or so palm leaves sprout. Green fingers wriggle in the air.
The bells have just finished singing from the Iglesia de la Anunciación. Their echoes fade around the streets of Seville. Even though it’s seven o’clock, it is still hot. The sun is strong. The levanter breeze that came in yesterday has all but evaporated. Nowhere to be seen. Up here on the rooftops the heat is sticky. Thousands of spires reach up to Heaven. White, flat buildings reflect the heat. Birds twitter still. Flies annoy. A dog barks. To quote from the verses of Wallace Stevens, “…what is divinity if it can come only in silent shadows and in dreams?”
Found my way up here yesterday and wanted to come back tonight – just to sit and write and watch the sun set over the Summer Solstice. Came prepared. Went to a shop a few doors down. Practised the language and bought some good things to eat: bread, octopus, cheese, olives, anchovies and a carafe of red wine. The oil on my fingers makes it difficult to hold this pen. There’s a few other people up on the roof tonight. A woman from Argentina came over and asked me what I was writing:
– Que estas escribiendo?
– Solo la puesta de sol.
– Puedo leerlo?
She took my book. She took my pen and wrote her name along with her room number and walked off saying nothing more. My head still spins from the afternoon at the Alcázares Reales. Quite the experience walking through things never seen before. The geometry of Moorish tiles and patterns stimulated imagination, intoxication and dislocated rational thought. The cool, standing stones in archways and soft marble carvings left impressions that began to change something within. I wanted to follow but remain here, determined to write down my dreams and draw a clear path of where I want this life to go. Impossible to know the direction, but the concealed labyrinths of the soul could only close in to show that a path was there. Belief was the way.
Down below in the cool of the shade, the day is all but over. The streets look tired and world weary in the way that life can sometimes feel after a dynasty of adventures. Bells that rang and peeled moments earlier only seem to drift down there now. Floating, falling, sinking down to the darkness. Loud. Soft. Tumbled echoes. A couple sit beside each other on a small wall outside the hotel. She is dark-haired, voluptuous; he is dark-haired, skinny. Both wear white shirts, open collared, matching black skirt and trousers. They share a cigarette together and smile in their own private Seville. The clouds of smoke that they create rise slowly upwards, lingering here and there, before dissolving forever on the journey. Doves coo and swallows continue to dart and dive into the vacant spaces above their heads. Rooftops and squares. Dark rectangular windows hiding inside white buildings. Oil drips from my fingers. Endless blue above.
PART THREE: EL CENTRO
The sun set about an hour ago and the sky has sunk into a deep, violet fog. It is dark. Church bells clang into each other, sounding solitary markers for a half past ten. And at last the city of Seville is winding down. The place to be – as always – is seated outside, tucked up into a narrow street, heart beating, close enough to where the shadows and voices echo ever-upwards into the starlit skies. That tight, blank canvas of touchstone dreams – that stretched, black fabric where you know you and I will one day return. Underneath those twinkling inscriptions, tables are pulled together, people feast from small white dishes, share bread rolls, refill glasses of wine (even including grandma). This is the place to be. Unaffected by the steady stream of tourists, Seville seems focused on its own sequestered universe. Workers are walking home. Unhurried they move along the long, curving calles. Friends greet each other. Hands touch. Lips kiss. Cerveza pours. The world and its clutter exists elsewhere. Latticed windows reflect neon lights and the images of people searching for other places to go. But this is all there is. An eternal city has nothing else to prove. The dreams it dragged down and brought into being scar and mark the soul that thirsts for beauty; the dreams it dragged down and brought into being shine and charge the body that aches with beauty. And it knows it. There is nothing more to prove. Life becomes an indulgent dance of love in slow, patient footsteps, edging, nudging, moving ever closer to union.
Midnight has arrived. The hollow chimes from the bells of the Convent de Santa Catalina sound their echoes across the rooftops of Seville. The heat of the day has gone. Only the feint scent of jasmine remains. My heart feels so happy and wishes this evening would never end. The longest day is already over. To quote from the stanzas of Wallace Stevens, “…at evening, casual flocks of pigeons make ambiguous undulations as they sink, downward to darkness, on extended wings.”
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siesta del somewhere 