HOLY DECADENCE
We Succumb to Spanish Religiosity
Today is Good Friday. Tomorrow we leave for Greece, where we’ll travel for two weeks, leaving just three weeks or so in Granada before moving back to the states. We’ve now entered into the period of “lasts,” as in “This is the last time we’ll buy olive oil,” or “This is the last time we’ll go to the cathedral or the Alhambra or to the Sierra Nevada.” Last night we viewed our last Semana Santa, or holy week, procession.
During the eight days from Palm Sunday to Easter, four or five processions daily wind through the city streets. Almost all processions include two pasos, or floats, carried by 30 or so bearers, the first paso carrying Jesus and the second Mary; two marching bands; lines of hooded penitents and candle-bearing ladies in black; rows of church officials and costumed cross bearers. Some processions include kids.
The procession from the nearby Iglesia San Cristóbal left the church at six yesterday, passed down our street and by our balconies at seven, then proceeded slowly down the hill from the Albaicín to Granada proper, past the viewing stands at city hall, through the cathedral, and back up the hill well after midnight. We’d invited friends over for dinner and to view the procession from our balconies. The day was warm and the sky clear blue, the street and small plaza were packed, and the café downstairs, which normally closes at three, remained open to serve the crowds.
The procession took about half an hour to pass; the figures on the pasos were at eye-level and almost close enough to touch. After dinner, around ten-thirty, we walked our friends to the mirador de San Nicolás, the viewpoint that overlooks the Alhambra, said our goodbyes and headed back.
“This is our last Semana Santa,” Kay said. “Why don’t we watch the procession come back?” Being early-to-bed Americans, we’d never watched one late at night. According to the guide, it would pass our house again at 3 a.m. I was game.
It was agreed. Kay set the clock for 2:30 and we went to bed at 11:30.
I awoke at two to the faint sound of drumming. Were they approaching? I got up, went to the front of the house and opened the shutters. Both cafés, the one downstairs and the one across the street, were filled to capacity and the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk and into the street. I opened the balcony door and listened. I could just make out the band over the noise below — imagine a cocktail party with 300 people talking at once — but I could tell they weren’t that close.
I went back to bed and lay there listening. When the clock went off, I got back up, told Kay I’d call her as soon as the procession was near, and headed back up to the balconies. I dressed and stepped out. The street was almost as crowded as it had been eight hours earlier when the procession had first passed by. When the leading penitents rounded the corner, I called Kay. Processions move slowly, as the paso must be lowered every block or so in order for the carriers to rest, so she had plenty of time to join me.
We stood on the balcony and looked down on the sea of viewers and revelers below. There were hundreds, and it seemed that almost everyone had a drink.
“Should we?” I asked.
“Why not,” Kay said. It did seem like the Spanish thing to do. Kay returned with our drinks before the paso rounded the corner. And there we stood on our balcony, three o’clock in the morning, drinks and camera in hand, wide grins on our faces, as we watched the pasos, the marchers, the bands, the children and high-heeled ladies who had survived the nine-hour march, plus hundreds of “civilians” who had joined the procession to accompany it back to the church.
We went back to bed around three-thirty, where I fell asleep to the fading sound of the band in the distance. It had been an amazing night, one we’ll never forget.
