Midnight silence
10/April/2007 10:12 .Local life
paso
The distant drums told us that the silent procession was underway. People gathered in the darkness of the plaza below, just random draws on cigarette butts or the neon blaze of a mobile phone indicated their presence. The street lights had been cut ten minutes earlier and the town disappeared as the clock struck midnight.
Miraculously, the rain had stopped for a moment, unlike the earlier processions that had either been cancelled or covered in plastic. Now, the drums had challenged the weather gods and won. The banging grew louder and louder, rebounding off steps and staircases, and still more people pressed into the plaza.



mary
Then the first hood appeared, black figures pounding out the rhythm of those that followed: the lantern carriers, the candle carriers and those that supported the weight of Catholicism on their shoulders. As the lanterns arrived, they lined up in two rows and stopped. Candles flickered, drums ceased, coughs sporadically started. Then it began, the saeta - the spontaneous ´deep flamenco wail - slipping out between a crumbling facade and a rusty iron balcony. The darkness carried the sound to plaza and a respectful silence fell.
Until an inevitable mobile rang, and then another. Someone lit a cigarette and muted chatter erupted after the seventh or eighth verse, candles twiddled and hoods were re-adjusted until the float was heaved up and edged onwards whilst the song followed its progress down and out into the main road below the square.
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