Poor Folk in Spain

by Jan Gordon; Cora Gordon

As we were about to undress we heard scuffling and giggling which drew our attention to another drawback, one to which we would not submit. There was a second door to our room, half glazed, and the glass was covered by a hanging drapery. But this drapery, which was outside the glass, had been pulled aside, and a row of faces of curious children were staring in on us. We rang the bell. The daughter of Mrs. Hotei was half surprised at our objection to publicity and that we were so squeamish about undressing as a popular spectacle. But we persuaded her to pin up a pink shawl on our side of the door, and we then went to bed.

To bed, but not to sleep.

The bed was distressingly narrow. We could remain in it by clinging together, but if we loosened our grip, one or the other began to roll out. After some while Jan had ideas of getting out and of sleeping on the floor, but the floor was of stone and the only mat in the room was small and circular. Our determination to leave Lorca strengthened as the night wore on. At last we found a partial solution, we lashed ourselves together with the blankets. When sheer weariness was making us doze off, a man upstairs began to take off his boots. The floors were thin, and he seemed to be a centipede. Boot after boot he hurled into a corner, but even his feet were not inexhaustible, and at last we slept fitfully.

We awoke very early, grateful at least that no bugs had disturbed us. In spite of the many warnings we had had of the verminous condition of Spain, it has not been our experience to encounter in the provinces of Murcia and Alicante even as much insect life as one might easily find in Chelsea. Fleas, of course, there are, but in a hot dusty country fleas are to be expected.

Washing things were brought on demand, though I think they had expected us to wash at the public sink in the outhouse. Then we breakfasted on bread, coffee and grapes, while Mrs. Hotei sat by resting her stomach on the edge of the table and chanting in a hollow voice a pæan of her own virtues. It ran somewhat thus:

"I am la gorda,
The fat one of Lorca.
My stomach is ill.
Of an illness which makes it
Swell up like a football.
But my heart has no illness;
It is sound, it is loving,
And makes no distinctions
Between different peoples.

"I am la gorda,
The fat one of Lorca.
My home is well known
Because of its cheapness
And the love of a mother,
Which I shed o'er my lodgers.
Nowhere else will you
Find meals of such richness
Or cooking so luscious
For people whose purses
Are small in dimensions.

"I am la gorda,
The fat one of Lorca.
My house is so loved by
The folk of the district
That my bedrooms never
One moment are empty.
I'll give you an instance:
Last night, for example,
Each bed carried double
And would have contained more
Could one but compress folks
To smaller dimensions.

"I am la gorda,
The fat one of Lorca.
Those who once come here
Come back again, always.
My card I will give you
That you may remember
That Lorca possesses
A kind-hearted mother,
Or, anyhow, one who
Will fill that position
As long as you settle
The bill she presents you."

In this plain song she explained both the disappearance of our second bed and the centipedal man upstairs. When she had finished we broke to her the news of our imminent departure. We lunched once again at the eating-house, which this day was full of peasants. Three women in black who might have stepped out of the pages of the Bible faced us. They were not friendly in manner. A small soldier, half tipsy, came in and, soon after him, the agency youth. The latter began to tease the tipsy soldier, and in a short while both had pulled out knives and were threatening each other in mock earnestness. But one could see that it needed little—an accidental word, a sentence misunderstood—to swing the drunken soldier over from joking to earnest. We took coffee at a café in the central street. La gorda rolled up the street, came to our table, and accepted a glass of anis dulce for the illness of her stomach.