Spain: Reading Hemingway in the Land of Contradiction (cont.)

The morning brings with it a low fog. It slides in slowly from the ocean and settles in the deep valley. I take coffee on the porch – thick and strong, with a touch of cardamom and nutmeg. I follow the gravel road down the mountain and catch a bus into town. The morning is fresh and cool, but with the rising sun comes the promise of warmer temperatures. I get off at the edge of the Parte Vieja – directly across the river from the train station. People are strolling through the cobblestone streets, peeking in shops, lounging at outdoor cafés. The old town dates back to just the mid-19th century when a fire ripped through its tight streets. The relative youth of the quarter gives the buildings a dignified, colonial air. The streets here are much narrower than in the city proper. Wandering through the limestone canyons, it is easy to get lost among the shops, boutiques, and outdoor campas. It is meant to be traversed without hurry. Life in Spain runs at a tempo all its own. The Basque take their time, out of necessity as much and leisure, and all shops and businesses close for the afternoon siesta.

Enjoying the sun, I take mine on the beach. San Sebastián is renown for la Playa de la Concha, a stretch of golden sand that curves like a seashell for two miles along the bay, where icy Atlantic waters are warmed in the shallows by the Spanish sun. In its heyday, the town rivaled the beach resorts of Biarritz, St. Tropez, and Nice as the summer playground for the famous and beautiful. Today it is more accessible but still retains those luxuries of the golden age: sparkling jewelry shops, designer boutiques, and above all, la Concha.

Before long the sun gets the best of me, and I strip and dive into the frothy surf. The water on the surface is warm as bath, but a body’s length below, the cold currents of the ocean remain out of the sun’s reach. I swim out into the sparkling harbor where a large raft floats tranquilly. I pull myself onto its wooden deck and lie with my face in the sun. A chorus of masts lines from anchored yachts chime along with the sharp call of sea birds. It is easy to understand how Papa found inspiration and calm here along the edge of a continent. In this quiet solitude it is hard to imagine that tomorrow will bring the utter chaos that is the most quintessential of Hemingway’s Spain.

The next morning I wake before first light. The bus leaves at 5.30. Dozing passengers bounce in their seats as we roll through the Basque highlands. I stay awake, watching my reflection in the dark windows. The blackness soon gives way to a deep grey that reveals the outlines of distant mountains. At half-past six we are rolling into the outskirts of Pamplona, Iruña in Basque. This is the home of the world-famous San Fermín festival, the pride of which is the legendary Encierro, commonly known as the Running of the Bulls.

La Fiesta de San Fermín consists of a weeklong orgy of booze and bulls in celebration of the city’s patron saint. During this week in mid July, the tiny provincial town nearly quadruples in population. It’s a chilly pre-dawn as the bus dumps us out in the middle of a large square. Everywhere revelers are decked out in the fiesta’s official garb: white cotton pants and shirt with a red handkerchief around the neck, perhaps a symbol for the end-result of the bullfight. Today is the final day of the festival, and it shows. Thousands of drunken partygoers stumble through streets littered with the debris of a week well spent. The town itself is a conglomeration of narrow medieval streets, snake-like alleys, and dirt tracks. I wander for twenty minutes trying to find the race route, assuming I can just follow the crowd. But the whole town is one giant crowd, literally every street is packed with white-clad men singing and fighting.

A couple of dubious lefts and I come out in a wide canyon between buildings. Along the street a gang of men work feverishly in the coming dawn, fitting hundreds of heavy timber posts in gaps between the cobblestones. I have found the course. For nearly 900 meters it twists and turns through the narrow streets, starting at the Coralillos de San Domingo and spilling out finally into the bullring across town.

I walk for a few blocks along the timber rails that separate spectator from bull, stopping where the course makes a left-hand curve. I had been debating whether to run or not for days but finally decided to remain a spectator rather than a target for a quarter-ton muscle with horns. I find my perch on a post offering a view of about twenty meters in each direction. The wooden barricades slowly take shape as the morning sun rises above the buildings before me. People begin filling in behind the partitions and runners slowly walk around, talking, sharing advice, stretching. Loudspeakers across the city blare warnings in five different languages: “Do not run if you are physically unable…, do not attempt to run the entire course…, if you fall, attempt to protect your head and vital organs….” I begin to feel relieved; I’m not taking my chances with the bulls.

Hemingway first came here in 1923. He had served as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during the Great War and stayed on in Europe to write. It was here in Pamplona that his love for Spain first blossomed. Perhaps nowhere else in the country is its contradictory nature more apparent. Both the beauty of culture and the violent nature of tradition coexist in a town that is hopelessly lost in the ancient times, yet the center of a modern world phenomenon. Chaos and order – this is Spain.

At exactly 8am a cannon fires and all hell breaks loose. The street is transformed into a blur of white and red as runners streak towards the bullring. A moment later and there’s a black flash in the crowd. I see a short-statured bull, head down, come tearing through at amazing speed. The term ‘running with the bulls is an utter misnomer; the bulls reach top speeds close to twice that of the fastest man. ‘Deftly avoiding death with the bulls is a much more realistic term. A split second later and two, three, four, five more bulls – these much larger than the first – follow in similar fashion. The city is reduced to mayhem; people are screaming, running, cheering, dodging. Medics in bright orange jumpsuits attend to those runners who have escaped over the barricades. Finally the sixth and last bull comes charging through. He is a great hulk, off-white hide with dark brown spots; and he strides with a slower, more confident gait.

Ten seconds have passed and the race is over. Runners continue to trickle down the street in the bulls’ wake. I jump down from my safe perch to snap some photos of the crowd passing into the distance. I reach the ground and duck as white cotton and red bandanas continue to flow past me. I aim, release the shutter, and catch my breath.

BOOM. I stop. “What was that?” I ask out loud.  BOOM, again. Two more cannons are fired, and my stomach drops. I turn, and from the direction of the corralillos come three massive beasts. I start moving. Wearing only sandals, my feet struggle for traction on the muddy cobblestones. The bulls catch up and move along side me. For one frozen moment I glance over and witness three stud bulls charging at the same pace. They are massive, and I can see the muscles shimmering beneath thick coats. Then they are past me, and I duck out beneath the barricade, my heart absolutely racing.

Laughing to myself, I follow the crowds toward the bullring. The excitement is electric. Shopkeepers on either side are pulling plywood off of storefront windows. The same gangs of city workers are now taking down the wooden posts, in essence storing the festival away for another year. The stadium stands in the middle of a wide park dotted with linden trees. Inside, throngs of runners are tussling with an adolescent calf with corked horns. Cheers pour out as someone gets thrown. Meandering through the streets, I ask about tickets to the night’s fight. On the last day of the festival they’re hard to come by.

I soon find my way to the Plaza de Castilla, a large dusty square that is the heart of the old town. Arcades and cafés line all four sides, promising hot coffee and cold beer. Café Iruña is an old Hemingway haunt. He used to sit here in the mornings after the run and read the bullfighting papers over chilled drinks. I sit down and order a coffee – black and piping hot, the perfect antidote for a cool summer morning. The sun is rising steadily over the plaza, and slowly the white and red begins to disappear as everyone takes leave for the siesta. I think I’ll spend my time here in the shade of the café. I take out that tattered old novel and turn to page one.

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