Read Online Following the Sun by John Hanson Mitchell - Free Book Online Page B

had been conversing in English.) He politely introduced her to me as a fellow researcher named Mercedes and the three of us crowded into the Land Rover, with Mercedes in the middle squashed over onto Torg, thigh to thigh.
    We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around on the rutted roads, stopping at blinds, counting egrets, watching the flights and flocks of gadaney ducks, whimbrels, spoonbills, storks, herons, eagles, and kites, and admiring the great cumbersome nests of the increasingly rare Iberian eagles that bred there. At one point while we were walking, another little pack of devilish boars broke out from the brush and crossed the road.
    â€œRun,” said Mercedes. “Danger. Save me Torg.”
    Torg nodded seriously and looked away.
    Toward late afternoon they gave me a ride out to my hidden bicycle, and I walked out to the road and headed south for Torre de la Higuera. On my way to the road, there were some mean-looking dark clouds in the south, and by the time I got back to my place, heavy rains began to fall. They continued to fall throughout the next day so I rode down to a bar on the coast that had the luxury of central heat and spent the afternoon drinking hot chocolate, trying to warm up. The weather station on the television in the bar pointed out that there was a cold wave throughout Europe, and heavy rains in the south.
    For another two days the rains continued and I stayed on in my little cubicle in the Quonset hut surrounded by blue-clad workers, trying to warm myself at the charcoal brazzeros , which provided the only source of heat. Finally, rather than endure this stillness and cold any longer, I set out for Seville to return to the warm bosom of my old pension near the post office and the motherly care of Anna.

Three
    The Virgin and the Minotaur
    Holy Week had begun in Seville and the streets were jammed with dark processions.
    Beginning on Palm Sunday an atmosphere of gloomy sanctity pervades this normally ecstatic, hand-clapping city and a religious sensibility settles over the towers of the Giralda and seeps downward into the squares and narrow streets. Even in the Triana district, where the gypsies live, especially here in fact, there is an aura of spirituality. Everywhere, lining the sidewalks and crowding into the streets, families dressed in their finest dark clothes push toward the squares and plazas in front of the local churches, waiting for the arrival of the processions of penitents who emerge from the open doors of parish churches throughout the various districts of the city and proceed through the streets, carrying towering floats depicting scenes from the last days of Christ. Here, in bright, realistic costumes, are Roman soldiers, hideous bleeding scenes of the crucifixion, complete with ruby blood drops, and the most popular of all: the bejeweled, silken-gowned statues of the suffering Virgin, some adorned with pearl tears. The floats are preceded and followed by lines of robed, medieval figures dressed in peaked witch hats and hooded masks pierced with eye slits, and led through the labyrinth of narrow streets by marching bands of coronets blaring out Moorish tunes in minor key. Here, in our time, is past time. There is an ominous, dark air to the event, a remembrance of the Grand Inquisitors and the rigors of the Inquisition.
    The floats are not drawn by motorized vehicles but are carried on the shoulders of men obscured behind heavy purple drapes surrounding the platform. The great challenge of these processions is to navigate the high, wide floats around the sharp curves and corners of the narrow streets, especially the Serpiente, the main street, where crowds push and gather and cheer the float onward. Occasionally the carriers of these weighty platforms rest, and at these times from underneath the dark drapes sweating men emerge, their shoulders and white undershirts stained with blood from the weight of the floats, their heads wrapped in white protective towels.