Here’s a link to my latest short story - How To Make Love To Fire - published in the winter edition of Panorama; a literary magazine of travel, fiction, and nature.
And here’s where the story came from…
Lunch in the only restaurant in town. It's picturesque here, with a Romanesque church, cobbled streets, and traditional cottages, all nestled into the valley bordering Aigues Tortes - a national park where golden eagles and brown bears live amongst the thousands of rivers and lakes. Indeed, the translation into English would be twisted waters. We're here to walk, swim, and escape the city heat.
Inside, it feels more like the living room of a great aunt than a restaurant, with old farming tools and browning photographs pinned to the stone walls, collecting dust and spiders. Our spoons chime as we scrape the last of the homemade crema Catalana, and we talk about nothing in particular.
Later we stand at the counter to pay, listening to the waitress (who we think is the owner's daughter) playing Candy Crush in the kitchen. We wait patiently, not wanting to be like those rushed patronising city folk. And now sounding like one, I’ll admit that something I love about remote places is the community noticeboard. I've felt genuinely teary from looking at a pinboard in the Scottish highlands advertising Fresh Winkles and Bingo Nights. Here in Catalonia, amongst the first holy communion classes and mountaineering groups, I once found a pumpkin festival lasting five days.*
Through the door to the kitchen, the gamified music announces the waitress has reached yet another level, and my husband clears his throat. I catch sight of the community noticeboard, where a poster flaps in the breeze. It features a clip art cartoon of a bonfire and in comic sans announces, Les Falles. The overall effect feels both cute and disturbing, like how I would imagine a child’s drawing of a murder scene. I beckon to my husband, whose eyes light up before he enthusiastically describes what sounds like a summer-solstice-come-bonfire-night with fire running thrown in.**
A bit more investigation tells me that this festival is recognised by UNESCO, and it goes a bit like this: the runners, els fallaires, construct a huge bonfire in town, before hiking up to a high point with their pinewood torches, and finally they descend onto the town in formation. The fires they carry symbolise fertility and prosperity for their land and people, and will ward off bad spirits before harvest.
We decide to go. Under a starry sky the streets are packed and the atmosphere is electric. Pop-up stalls sell honey-fried nuts and cold beer. We squeeze through the alleyways to the main square, where a bonfire meets us, over four metres tall.
We edge into a corner, pop open our beers, and take in the scene. Beside us, a group of ladies are talking about their husbands, who are the ones running with flaming torches. Apparently they run every year, and their families have always run. Are you scared? I ask them. Always, they say, but it's important to them (their husbands), and we love it too. Originally it was just the young single men who ran, but now everyone does, even women. As they speak, my focus shifts to an elderly couple seated on a bench. The man, well turned-out in a tweed coat and flat cap, shares a packet of nuts with the woman. Their hands quiver as they hold the nuts in their palms; and as they chew, their eyes simultaneously close, savouring the taste. I suppose this isn't their first fire festival either. I wonder if they've been coming here all their lives and what it means to them... and my musings took me down the path of this story…
*
*How, you may ask, can a festival dedicated to a single vegetable last the length of a working week. Sadly I didn't make it there myself, but the website advertises lengthy competition rounds, tastings, face painting, cooking classes, and a workshop in pumpkin sculpture.
**Health and safety being very much an afterthought in Catalan town festivals, and perhaps this is when I feel my Britishness most strongly.
Comments