teapotmonk.com

Beans on toast, frozen Mormons and the mysterious kidnapping of Baby Jesus.





Cherry and I had come to Toledo for just a day, to escape the hustle and bustle of Madrid where we had been seeking accommodation and work. Instead here we were, standing in the middle of this medieval town, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a tourist industry in full swing, selling swords, suits of armor and marzipan. In desperation we escaped into an enticing alleyway that led us down to the encircling river Tagus and found ourselves pleasantly lost amongst secretive paths running along the tranquil waters edge. It was an unforgettable few hours of peace and serenity, bathed by an early December sunlight. Later, we reluctantly scrambled back up cobbled streets towards the town centre knowing we had to make the return trip to the capital before dark. On route we passed an advert for a flat rental crudely stapled to a wooden pole. ‘Why not?’ we thought. Within ten minutes we were knocking on an 8 foot tall pair of wooden barn like doors and listening to the sound of scurrying footsteps approach.

The house was about 350 years old. The patio tilted a bit, the old well in the centre had long since been cemented over and converted into a dry fountain, but we were told, Arab baths remained hidden in the basement giving us a fleeting reminder of Toledo's historical home to cultural harmony and its wide reputation in the12th century as the city of three cultures: Christian, Jew and Moor.

The flat was a little dark and musty and like many of the older houses in town, the internal balconies were open to the elements, which in effect meant that our living room was outside. The perfect place to spend our first Christmas in Spain.
The weekend we moved in a huge pine tree went up in one corner of the main square called Zocodover. Several of the lights on it weren’t working, but no-one seemed inclined to replace them. Around the base of the tree, council workers had slowly constructed a biblical nativity scene. Sand piles had been placed at different points, presumably depicting a Middle East landscape, whilst several plaster animals and a badly painted infant had been deposited inside what appeared to be a dog kennel. The Toledans seemed to either love it or laugh at it, and would spend many an hour in large family groups awing or yawning over the exhibition.

One frosty morning as I was about to leave our snow covered lounge, I heard the front door thunder to its characteristic close and, shortly after, the Venezuelan tenants – who occupied the flat across the patio from ours – ascend the stairs. Christian, the little boy, caught sight of me at the window and waved, jabbing his mother in the ribs to alert her to my presence.
.
.

The woman, Norma, was evidently still feeling the climatic change from the Caribbean to the Meseta and was bundled in an enormous red Parka-come-Anorak with a fur-trimmed hood that projected three feet in front of her face. She turned and waved, mouthing “¡Qué frío!” at me and rubbing her hands together. I descended the stairway, searching for the landlord. Our TV was only working on its side and even then the picture was all green. As I reached the bottom stair, Norma’s husband Livardo appeared, dressed smartly in a long camel-coloured coat.
“¡Que pasa amigo!” I said in a neighbourly fashion as he approached the staircase.
Livardo shook his head mournfully, his thick and lustrous black mustache drooping downward. He had been out of work for three months now, but last week had been offered a job in a local restaurant.
“I’m OK, and you Pablo, still writing?” he asked, searching my eyes for lost hopes. “Still hoping to be a writer?”
“Well, we must have goals Livardo, we must fight for our dreams”.
"Ah, we too used to have dreams like you once…" he sighed as he gazed off into the impossible distance of his youth, "…to have a bit of land…have my own business…¡Tonterías! What's the use in these crazy dreams?"
He pushed past me, snow tumbling from his wide shoulders and turned at the top of the stairs looking back down. “This city is too harsh on dreams Pablo”. And with that he disappeared into a shadow.
Xmas Eve came and we ate roast chestnuts and oranges in bed, watching a green film on the sideways TV, and felt very much in an alien land. The following morning we awoke cold but happy and celebrated the day by re-visiting the plaza to see how the nativity scene had progressed. As we approached we could see crowds standing around the base of the tree, that now sadly flashed with just one blue bulb.

People were pointing at the kennel and exclaiming wildly. As we shoved our way to the front we were shocked to find that the Baby Jesus had been kidnapped! Who would do such a thing? The plaster animals had also escaped leaving one sheep that had had its head knocked off and replaced by an upside-down polystyrene cup with a cold churros stuck in the end.

Back at the flat, a pipe had burst leaving us without water. We bravely thawed a little snow off one of the armchairs and brewed a pot of tea. For our Christmas meal we combined a jar of haricot beans with fried onions, tomate frito cumin and fresh lemon all served on loaf-size chunks of white bread to make Baked-beans-on-toast Toledan style. It was delicious. As we were finishing off there came a knock on our warped, damp door.
“Ay probrecitos hijos mios,” burst out Norma as soon as she had found out what we had just eaten. “You poor little things, so cold, so poor and so far from you're country. Come round for a little something, yes?” And with that exclamation she turned and skied back into her flat.
Livardo greeted us at the door, his thick Latin American mustache curled up towards the mouldy ceiling. As he spoke, frosted air gravitated upwards like drifting clouds and the fearful smell of serious damp besieged our nostrils.
“Adelante vecinos! How about a little whisky-cita, huh?” he pointed at a conveniently placed bottle in the corridor, “whilst we wait for Mami.”
“I'm just preparing a little something. Papi, take them into the living room!” Livardo;s eyebrows raised a little as he led us out of the snowy corridor and into what was evidently usually Christian’s bedroom, windowless and cramped with a sofa bed on one side and unpacked boxes on the other.
“Siéntense ustedes,” Livardo motioned towards the sofa. He sat awkwardly beside us on the floor next to his whisky bottle.
Now in his mid forties, Livardo had arrived the previous year intending to set up an export business from Madrid. Things hadn't quite worked out the way he’d planned and now Norma and Christian had flown over to join him just a short while ago.
“How's the new restaurant job Livardo?” I asked as he fidgeted stiffly on the cold uncarpeted floor. He remained looking at the floor as he answered: “The wages are awful but the work is not too bad. I have a lot of responsibility you know.”
Norma entered the room with little Christian huddled against her legs. She was wearing her parka again and chuffing out from one end of the hood, like a diesel exhaust pipe, I could see several small clouds of chilled air. In her gloved hands she was carrying a glass of wine, a plate of best Manchegan cheese swimming in olive oil and a bowl of olives.
“Ay pobrecitos Papi,” she intoned to Livardo, nodding at us, “their flat is so cold!” Livardo’s eyebrows wiggled a little in response, glad for the change in subject.
Norma had very few positive thoughts on our flat, the house, Toledo or even Spain. Instead, her eyes would flutter towards the ceiling, a far away smile breaking out from within the hood and she would hark back to their life in Venezuela. Her big house, the splendid climate, the marvelous music, and the wonderful food. To reinforce this love of their homeland, their small flat was covered with official tourist board posters of Venezuela showing bland photographs of green landscapes and waterfalls. Livardo caught my eyes wondering over his collection and immediately
plunged behind some crates in one corner of the room.
“Ay, life was so much better there, “ Norma bemoaned “and life here is so hard; so cold and the Toledans so unfriendly towards outsiders. Poor Papi forced to clean kitchens. A man of his background! Forced to scrub the scraps of food from the street bins at the back of the restaurant, forced to clean the drains and the toilets, forced to…. “
“Here it is”, shouted ‘Papi’ emerging from his grotto, his mustache whitened by a fine dust and in his arms a long tube of glossy white paper. As he unrolled the poster, it revealed a semi-naked woman washing her hair under a waterfall. Above her was the captivating phrase: 'Look… Venezuela!'
“Feliz Navidad vecinos,” beamed Livardo, There was a momentary silence as he gave Norma a serious mustache look. She withdrew into the hood and we all sat and collectively sighed. Suddenly the doorbell sounded and Norma’s hood shuffled towards the door.
She reappeared a few minutes later accompanied by five long-rain-coated, North American Mormons.
“Ho-Lar!”, they grinned in unison, shuffling closer together and clutching their bibles tightly to their chests. On their coat collars, they wore name badges, not unlike those you see on people trying to sell you strange diets.
“I'm Brother Harvey,” said the tallest, “Together with Brother Jacob, Brother Wayne, Sister Janet and Sister Hilary, I would like to bring the message of God here to you all on this joyous day of Christ. We would now like to sing a traditional Christmas carol and we would be very happy if you would all join in to glorify the Lord with us.”
“Brother Harvey” I asked, “ would you mind not standing on my ‘Look…Venezuela’ poster?”.
“Oh! lo siento señor” He replied and nudged everyone further back to the door, shoving Sister Hilary out into the hallway. Livardo. swiveled on the floor and poured himself another rather large whisky-cita, whilst Norma withdrew into the furthest recesses of her hood. Christian looked at me and giggled. I looked at Cherry and could see she was in danger of sharing Christian’s response. To me it was just another surreal event of the kind I’d come to expect in Toledo.
The Mormons sung badly that afternoon. Perhaps they always sung badly. Perhaps it was my mood, or perhaps it was the presence of a plaster Jesus poking out of Brother Harvey’s raincoat pocket that effected his tone? I nibbled a bit of cheese and we sat in silence.
Having at last completed their repertoire, they trundled frozen out from the flat in reverse order. Our laughter, finally surfacing, cruelly followed them out onto the cobbled streets of the icy city.
“Otra whisky-cita Pablo” Said Livardo with the same grinning eyes as that of his son. I pushed my glass towards him.
“Well, now that’s over we can all eat” came a voice from within the parka hood as Norma got up. “ I’ll bring in the turkey!” she exclaimed and bustled back into the kitchen leaving Cherry and I exchanging embarrassed vegetarian looks.

© Paul Read