MARCH 11 AND THE DAYS AFTER
Kay and I moved to Spain knowing that if a disaster took place in the states, an earthquake in California, a hurricane in North Carolina, staying informed would be difficult. Under normal conditions, getting through by telephone can be tricky, after a catastrophic event, impossible. I assume that CNN must exist somewhere in Granada, but we have yet to find it.
What we had not anticipated was something like the terrorist bomb attack in Madrid. Nor did we anticipate the difficulty we would have in finding out what was going on.
We first saw pictures of a destroyed train on the Thursday evening television news, which we watched with Kay’s brother Mason and his friend Monte, who were visiting. We weren’t sure what had happened. We heard the word terrorist but didn’t know if this was suspected or factual. Spanish television newsreaders speak even more rapidly that people on the street. We saw George Bush, and heard him say, beneath the Spanish voice-over, that America stood with the Spanish people.
We rushed out Friday morning to buy the International Herald Tribune with its El Pais insert, an eight-page, English-language digest of Spain’s national newspaper. According to the papers, the government blamed the Basque separatist. In fact, the Minster of the Interior stated that there was no doubt that the ETA was behind the attack. Other sources suggested the possibility that Al Qaeda was responsible. Unfortunately, the Tribune and El Pais insert are printed in Madrid the evening before and are not current.
Still very much out of the information loop, we went on with our day. About six-thirty, we decided to walk home along Calle Grand Via de Colon, the broad boulevard that runs parallel to our narrow street. We immediately noticed that the sidewalks were unusually crowded and that almost everyone was walking in the same direction. As we walked the number of people increased and traffic rapidly decreased. Within blocks the crowd had spilled out into the almost empty boulevard.
Many walkers wore a white sticker with a black ribbon on it. Spanish flags, each with a black ribbon attached, stretched across business fronts and hung from the apartments above. Shops and offices, which normally reopen at five-thirty after the afternoon siesta, were closed. Even the cafes and bars were shuttered.
We didn’t know what was happening, but we wanted to be part of it, so we followed the crowd. Every small cross street was a stream feeding a growing river of people. The wide boulevard was strangely quiet. There were no cars, no buses, no motorcycles, and the Spanish, who are very loud people, spoke in hushed voices. The only sound was that of trumping feet.
Calón ends at Calle Reyes Católicos, another major boulevard. There the two rivers of marchers merged, and we turned and headed down Católicos towards Plazoleta Real de España, the city’s central intersection and one end of Granada’s largest open space. Once there, we watched as people poured in from every direction, forming a sea that stretched towards the river in the distance. Movement was reduced to a shuffle. The tightly packed crowd - families, matrons in furs, jean-clad students, groups of older men in dark suits, the well-dressed thirty-somethings from the surrounding banks and offices, even old ladies with walkers – pressed slowly forward.
Unlike demonstrations and marches I’ve attended, there were no expressions - signs, banners, leaflets - of political opinion, mainstream or fringe. This cross section of Spanish society had gathered for one purpose, to express their sorrow and outrage.
A man pushing a baby carriage bumped me, then excused himself in English. I asked him what was happening. He told me that the march would begin at the far end of the already-packed plaza, proceed back through where we were standing, and then continue along Católicos and Calón, the route we’d just walked.
Within minutes of being blocked in, we had to decide immediately whether to continue or to head for home. We had been walking all day, were very tired, and both Kay and Mason were beginning to feel claustrophobic. Home it would be. We worked our way through the crowd towards the pedestrian shopping area, where we made our way back through narrow lanes lined with shuttered stores.
During the evening we watched the televised demonstrations and marches taking place all over Spain. Millions of Spaniards had taken to the streets. We’d never seen anything like it.
Mason and Monte left early the next morning, not knowing if the events would effect their trip home. The Saturday morning El Pais accused the government of withholding information in order to influence the election. We checked our e-mails to find notes of concern and inquiries as to our well being. We went to bed not knowing who was responsible for the attack.
Sunday was election day. All campaigning had ceased after the attack, cutting Spain’s mercifully short, four-week election campaign even shorter. That afternoon I ran into our upstairs neighbor. Enrique teaches at the university and speaks English. He was very upset. There had been arrests and Al Qaeda had claimed responsibility, he told me, but the governing Popular Party (PP) had suppressed the information so as not to damage their re-election prospects. Although surveys showed that ninety percent of Spaniards were against the war, the PP was running five to seven points ahead in the polls. News of the arrests had leaked and the Socialists had demanded a statement and explanation. Demonstrations were going on in Madrid, he told me, and people were demanding that the government step down. “We have to vote them out,” he said. “We have to!”
That night Kay and I watched the election results, which, amazingly, were completed before eleven. The incumbent Popular Party lost. The Socialist Party candidate, José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, had promised during the campaign that he would pull Spanish troops out of Iraq in the absence of a United Nations mandate. He has repeated that promise since his election. Perhaps the Spanish voted against Aznar and the PP because of the war and terrorist attack, perhaps because of the pre-election cover-up, perhaps both. What happened and what will happen is a story still being played out.
I remember watching the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the end of the USSR, and thinking that we might be entering an age of relative peace. Relative. There would, no doubt, be little wars, lots of little wars, as nationalism and tribalism replaced capitalism versus communism as the dominant conflict of the 21st century. But those nasty little wars would take place “over there,” on the soviet rim, in Africa, the Balkans, possibly the Near East, as all those artificial countries created 50-150 years ago began to fly apart. But, with the exceptions of a few situations, like the ETA (Basque) and IRA, we - Americans, French, Germans, Argentineans, Chileans, etc. – could look forward to a future without fear of war. Well, so much for my career as a political pundit. We are not safe, though the danger is no longer a worldwide conflagration, but of being blown up while going to work.
We are a little apprehensive. Many of the businesses in our neighborhood are Moroccan, and I hear almost as much Arabic spoken on our street as Spanish. But then I remind myself that there are probably more Pakistanis in New York, and what does that mean? I feel sure that what happened in Madrid horrifies the majority of Moroccans.
Hello twenty-first century. Goodbye illusions.
TAKE OUT GRANADA STYLE
What It Was, Was Chicken
Sundays are very quiet in Granada. Commercial activity is non-existent. Even the supermarkets are closed. Although the city central still bustles with Sunday strollers and tourists, streets in the neighborhoods are virtually deserted. With no hungry, thirsty shoppers and workers, few cafes or restaurants are open.
One Sunday afternoon when Flannery was still with us, we were walking in a section of town in which every business was shuttered. Except on one corner, where a line of people spilled out the door and down the sidewalk. What, we wondered, could this be? As we got closer, we could read the sign in the window. “Pollo Asado.” Roast chicken.
This was not a restaurant. No larger than a room, the asador’s back wall was one large, stainless steel rotisserie. On the rotisserie dozens of deep brown, dripping chickens rotated slowly before the hot flames.
A few blocks later, we encountered another line formed outside another pollo asador. They looked delicious, particularly since we love roast chicken and don’t have an oven.
A take-out chicken dinner seems to be primarily a Sunday tradition here in Granada. Perhaps the idea is to give mama a break. The asadors are open five or six days a week but Sunday is the day the lines form. And you’d better be on time, because they all close by four.
We’ve since sampled the roast chicken from places in our area of town. The place high in the Albayzin has chickens only on the weekend; their chicken, however, was not so flavorful and a little dry. The chicken from a tiny asador off Avenida Constitucion was quite good, though not so good, in Kay’s opinion, as the roast chicken from our local supermarket. But the chicken from the tiny asador in Plaza Romanilla behind the Cathedral and central market was delicious. Sealed in a tinfoil container, the chicken is drenched in a white sauce that is perfect with either mashed potatoes or pasta.
Last Sunday, not wanting to cook and with the memory of the white sauce still on our tongues, we headed toward Plaza Romanilla. We arrived about 2:30. There was no line but about a dozen people stood waiting in the small plaza.
The procedure was not obvious to either of us. Kay, whose Spanish is coming along quite nicely, asked a gentleman standing near the back of the crowd, what to do. Just go ask, he replied. Kay made her way through the small crowd, which was growing as we stood there, and approached the man standing at the counter. “Un pollo,” she said.
“Pan? Patatas?” he asked. Bread or potatoes?
Kay shook her no. “Con salsa,” she added.
“Solo pollo con salsa,” he said loudly, and wrote it down on the clipboard he held in his hand. The counterman was a bit of a character. About 40, he had short hair, a thick mustache, a great smile and a very loud voice. He seemed to enjoy performing for the crowd.
Kay returned and we waited and watched the show. The asador itself was very small; three people would have been too many. On the back wall was the menu and a cooler filled with soft drinks, juice and beer. On one side there was a counter over which the food was delivered, on the other a glass case filled with huge potato chips, which are sold by weight. Granadinos eat a lot of potato chips. The food was prepared upstairs and brought down the narrow stairs by a young man. The counter man shouted the orders up the stairwell.
In addition to Pollo, one could order paella, croquettes, soup, bread and desserts. And people did. We watched as they picked up their orders. Each item was declared loudly by the smiling counterman as he put it in a plastic bag, carefully tied the bag closed, then put that bag, along with any other bagged food, into still another bag. Some people left with three or four bags.
Whenever there was a brief lull, the counterman would look over the crowd, point people out in the order in which they had ordered, and shout out their order as if it were their name. It didn’t matter how many things they’d ordered, he remembered them all. I’m not sure why, maybe he enjoyed the attention we were giving him and his performance, but when the got to Kay, whose order was slowly rising to the top of the list, he would grin even more broadly and shout even more loudly, “SOLO POLLO.”
We waited for a half an hour before Kay’s order came up. The chicken was so fat he could hardly get the lid to stay on. He bagged it neatly and gave it to Kay. It cost ¤6. It was delicious and provided us with two complete meals.
Yesterday we walked through the Plaza Romanilla. The asador was open but there was no line. It was about one-thirty. The counterman was at his station, smiling broadly. He recognized Kay and she gave him a wave and they exchanged holas. I waved and pointed to Kay. “Solo Pollo,” I shouted.
He laughed. “Solo Pollo!” he shouted back in a voice that resounded through the plaza.
