Arcos De La FronteraWords

-Arcos de La Frontera: Red Puppet in a White City-


[This is an archived piece. I wrote it after a particularly lively trip during my travels in Spain.]

I had never ridden a mule, and the man had no teeth. I think that’s what made it so easy; we were both unsure. But he smiled at me, a visitor, as I mounted that mule, and I thought I could not soon be higher than this—on a mule’s back on a hilltop whose skirts were sheer rock.

This hilltop, a fine point of defense, had drawn Moors to Arcos, but it had not drawn me. I had come to Spain’s most dramatically perched pueblo—a pueblo blanco—because I wanted to walk narrow streets of a town too old to wake up. I wanted to see its cobblestones and its whitewashed homes, and know who lived inside.

This toothless man did not, though I was lucky to meet him. He lived below, where sheer rock plunged to dirt. The dirt, like the hilltop, had tempted the Moors; it was fertile and rich, and I could tell from one green glimpse that it was the dirt’s fruit that had fattened the mule.

He was most certainly fat, and I was uncomfortable. But I smiled despite it, with all of my teeth, and held tight as the man pulled his beast through the streets. In Arcos, the streets are strikingly narrow. Lined with small elegant homes and wrought ironed gates, they are not meant for creatures so fat.

As my feet brushed white plaster, I wondered why nobleman had not wanted streets sufficiently wide for grand carts and carriages. Perhaps they’d been happy to walk.

Men like the man who pulled me that day could have walked four by four; unlike his mule, he was thin as the gates. I watched him amble—lovely, light steps—and the only sound in the town was mule hoof on street.

Now he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him but my backpack probably explained a lot, and my eagerness, too. And I’m certain my Spanish—blunt and not sweet—had helped earn me free passage that day. But I was content to be thought a traveler. Afterall, I was just that, and maybe, I thought, maybe he knew who lived behind these white walls, where I could sit and bite olives.

Olives are Arcos and oranges are, too. Their scents haunt the air; I couldn’t stop smelling. But I stopped when he stopped. The man pulling me stopped in the middle of town and reached into a bag on his old leather belt. He pulled out a thing which I would not think men tote—a puppet, tiny and brown, but a little bit red. Red where someone had painted his shirt.

And then, as bulls do, the children came out. They came out of white doors to see that red puppet. The square held them there; a square lined with benches and guarded by trees, but not olive trees. These were orange trees. But not the oranges you eat. These oranges were stored in barrels on ships and then made into marmalade, and they were also good for tossing. My senora had explained that. And I guessed that these children tossed them often and happily, and probably off of the hilltop.

The oranges were pale though, compared to the puppet. The children knew what he could do, and they watched the thin man and I watched him, too, as he made his puppet walk. He hadn’t bothered to tie up his mule, and I sat on its back—fat and heaving—and wondered if the man was a farmer or just a minstrel that made children laugh.

I laughed, but not too much, because my eyes looked away. I looked at the children and their bronzed skin. Their simple eyes wide and bright, very bright. I thought they must play hard and sleep well at night. Most of them were thin, like the man, though their laughter was fat. It echoed off white walls ‘til one mother called: que te vengas!

It was six o’clock.

I think I got lucky that day; I dismounted my mule and received an invite to eat olives inside white doors. I don’t think I’ve ever known olives so good—an old taste that lingers. Old like Arcos and fat like the mule. And full like the children, who laughed at the table and questioned my speech. I told them everything about my home. They wanted to know this, for they’d never seen it. I will never forget seeing theirs.








.MGW.