Persephone's Lament
by Ruth E. Dominguez

“This where we keep our food so that rats don’t get at it,” said the woman in Spanish, opening the wooden door of a small cupboard that could have originally been kept in a bedroom. It was against the cave wall with some bowls, dishes, and pots piled nearby. There was a plastic basin used for washing. The opposite side of the roomy cave had a large mattress with bedding. This was, Macarena knew, where they slept.

It was maybe 4 pm now, as it had taken them an hour or so to hike into the valley from the city for their lunch. Macarena, who was living abroad teaching English as a foreign language in a small academy, knew the couple only from the plaza. She rented her small apartment cheaply, and though there was no phone outlet, oven, or TV, she had three balconies that looked out over the plaza below. Her days were spent shopping in markets in the mornings, quickly learning the art of the barter, wandering around ancient streets and sitting near fountains drinking coffee in the numerous outdoor cafes. Sometimes she felt she was living a Bob Dylan song, especially when she caught a tune from a musician playing on a street. Hey, mister tambourine man, play a song for me / I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to / Hey, mister tambourine man, play a song for me in the jingle-jangle morning I come following you...Though I know that evening’s empire has returned into sand / Vanished from my hand / Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping...My weariness amazes me / I’m branded on my feet / I have no one to meet...And the ancient, sleepy streets too dead for dreaming...

Jose was outside lighting a fire on the entrance to the cave—a small, dusty porch that looked over the valley and connected with a path on either side. They had invited her for lunch, so of course cooking a Spanish tortilla—with the eggs, potatoes, and onions—was in order. “Do you want to smoke?” Jose asked, also in Spanish.

“Sure, why not?” said Macarena, knowing the question meant hashish rolled with tobacco.

“This stuff is good...pure chocolate,” he said reassuringly. On the streets of Granada, there was either chocolate or gasoline. Chocolate was soft and crumbled moistly, like a Better Homes and Garden prize-winning brownie. The gasolina hashish was in hard little blocks with a tainted potency and a strong gasoline smell when you burned it, because it had been smuggled in the gas tanks of trucks or ships, where the fumes had penetrated the wrapping. Usually this was sold cheap, if you didn’t get ripped off thinking you were buying chocolate.

Mercedes, the woman, later lamented in Macarena’s apartment that looked over the plaza where Mercedes and Jose spent their days greeting people and asking for spare change. “Jose is a heroine addict,” Mercedes said. “That’s where all our money goes. Not the chocolate, not tobacco, not the food...the heroine. There’s a guy from the coast who sells him the stuff. Jose’s so skinny...it’s what he lives for. I tell him, ‘We need to save money, maybe travel somewhere new, get a house...’ but no, he uses the money on heroine. I don’t think I can live like this, you know what I’m saying, niña?” Macarena wondered why Mercedes always called her niña (girl) when she was 23 and Mercedes herself couldn’t be more than ten years older. She chalked it up to life experience from begging in plazas and living in one of the deserted caves above the valley.

One of Marcarena’s students, Luis, during their conversation class, told her of a friend of his—a man—who had had strange dreams after his encounters with heroin addicts. “My friend owns a home in the country,” he explained, “and he rented this house to some young people. But he didn’t know they were heroin addicts. Now they won’t leave and he has to go to court,” he explained. Squatters, Maracrena thought. “The strange thing is, he has these dreams sometimes, but very vivid, very real...and can’t wake up. He’s going through this court case, but he sees those people in his dreams, like they are together on some astral plane. He tries talking to them in the dream, but they can’t hear him, and he observes everything they do...”

At the cave, Mercedes brought Jose a large canister of olive oil and a frying pan. Macarena moved outside and started peeling potatoes. On the small earthen balcony, the view was spectacular. Down in the valley was a farmhouse and orchards with pomegranates and oranges. On the other side—the same side where the Alhambra (the old Muslim fortress) was, a mile or so back into town—Macarena could see the whitewashed outlines of other deserted caves on numerous paths that wound through the foothills. On their side of the valley, in other foothills, was the Gypsy Quarter, Sacromonte, with the remains of the old sandstone wall that bordered the ancient city of Granada. There was a road that led all the way up from Plaza Nueva in the old city, through the Albacín (old Arabic quarter), through the most famous gypsy caves that were now tourists’ spots and taverns, right into the valley and out of town. The farther away from the city you got, the larger the distance between cave dwellings. They were now all uninhabited, but still whitewashed from the time when people lived there.

“There was a big flood in 1960s,” a Gypsy proprietor of one of famous flamenco caves had told her. “The older people got washed out and many gitanos were relocated to apartments in a place called La Chana.” There was a spontaneous session that night in El Farol (the tavern), and people sat in a circle clapping, singing, and playing guitar. He had asked where she was from, recently arriving in Granada, and about her Spanish heritage. She explained she rented an apartment overlooking one of the old plazas. “So now I know where she lives,” he said.

During hikes on these paths through the valley, Macarena would sometimes peek into the caves and see discarded clothing from a wayward traveler who had spent time there. Sometimes there was evidence of campfires and beer bottles, indicating that someone had been there on the weekend. Where Merche and Jose lived was not too far from where the settled gypsy neighborhood crept up the foothills with proper streets and addresses. Some of these cave-houses were very elaborate, with numerous rooms and electricity as well as running water.

Merche’s and Jose’s cave, however, had been abandoned before they made it a comfortable home with the few furnishings they had found.

“This chocolate is good,” said Jose after starting a small fire successfully around a circle of rocks and beginning to roll a joint. Macarena sat nearby, now cutting potatoes in thin slices good for frying the way her grandmother had taught her, and could smell a deliciously pungent odor as Jose burned a bit of the small block of hashish to soften it and make it easier to mix with tobacco. Rolling a joint was an art in Granada that many had mastered. There was the matter of laying the cigarette paper on the right side, sprinkling a thumb-full of loose tobacco, and then adding the softened, powdery hashish. After that, the joint was carefully rolled between forefingers and thumbs, and the adhesive licked to seal.

Jose sat watching the fire and the valley and lit the joint. The delicious odor, mixed with earthy tobacco, was now more prominent. He took a puff and exhaled, passing the joint to Macarena. She took two puffs, and the hashish tasted fruity in her mouth.

Mercedes came out with the onions, and after taking the joint and passing it along, began to peel and slice them into small slivers. “What do you think of our cave, niña?” she asked.

“I love it; it’s beautiful.” Macarena felt unembarrassed for living in a regular apartment, while her friends lived in a deserted cave. She was letting them come from the plaza to use her shower, and they had established a neighborly friendliness with her, shouting to her window from the plaza below. If she were out shopping in the morning, for bread or fruit in the market, they would stop her and start to converse. Jose was the most gregarious in the beginning, and he had a tendency to flail his skinny arms about in gesticulation for what he was saying.

Now she was sitting near the cave and observing the valley below and the Alhambra in the distance—and starting to feel high—Macarena mused. There are people who provide the narrative in our lives, she thought, who fill in the blanks with personality and observation, poignantly expressing what we are thinking or feeling. Jose was one of these people she realized—his long, dark hair and beard, his animated face, and wildly gesticulating arms—he was like the image of an ancient anonymous prophet.

She passed the joint back to him and he took a long drag before exhaling the sweet smoke. “This is all you need, really,” he began, sweeping his arm before him and indicating the spectacular view. “Why do you need a car? A regular house? Most of those people, you know, who have all those things, they don’t have this...” It was understood that Jose meant all of it. “What do they have...running around in their suits and ties, working all day in an office?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Macarena said, as she let him provide a piece of her personal narrative.

“Yeah,” said Merche. She had deep blue eyes, long sandy blonde hair that was straight and fine, and a large mole on her neck. She wore clothes reminiscent of a modern-day gypsy, long skirts and sandals, loose blouses, while Jose clothes were tattered. “That’s right,” she said, “Who needs all that bullshit where you just need to eat and smoke?”

Macarena felt that she had settled in Granada for people like this and for this purpose. Granada, especially the old quarters and gypsy neighborhoods, was far removed from the modern, Western World. There was a liveliness in every plaza, a strange confluence of cultures attributable to past empires, and many modern vagabonds and expatriates living fittingly like modern hermits in the many cave houses bordering the valley. Even the granada (pomegranate), with its magical, ruby beads of sweet juice seemed to embody the mythical aura of the city. Wasn’t it Persephone, in the ancient Greek myths, who stayed in the underworld and changed the seasons by eating six pomegranate seeds? Because of those seeds the earth rested, barren and wintery while Persephone was away from Demetre, her mother, and with Hades, lord of the underworld.

Macarena felt the ambrosia around her as Merche fried the potatoes and onions for their Spanish tortilla. Later, perhaps, she would unfold her troubles and complaints. Now, however, she was the faithful (if younger) companion of the very skinny Jose, tending to their need of a hot meal. Macraena thought again of what this corner of Spain must have been like before the rise of fascism in Europe, in the days of Garcia-Lorca. It was still a haven for bohemians, she thought.

“So many people have lived in this city,” Jose began, animated, “You know? This city has seen so many different times...wars, battles, music, cultures.” He listed this off raising his right hand high in the air and then taking a puff from the joint. “We have a home here, even.” Macarena knew he was grateful.

Out of nowhere there was a loud sound, like a huge tree cracking from one the hills somewhere above them. Their peacefulness was mildly interrupted. Then there was another loud cracking noise close that sounded like a gunshot.

“Holy shit!” said Jose. It was impossible to tell where the gunshot was coming from. The three were frozen in late afternoon sun and suddenly the valley seemed to have an echo and turn ghostly.

“Boom-crack.” It seemed the bullets were getting closer and that someone was taking aim at the cave. Macarena wished she hadn’t smoked any hashish and rushed into the cave.

Maybe a minute passed without more gunfire. Then they heard voices of what seemed to be three men talking. Eventually, they heard people coming down into the valley from one of the foothills next to them, from somewhere above. There were other footpaths there that ran through the valley.

Soon the men passed them on their way down the valley. Two were carrying rifles. “Hunters!” exclaimed Jose, “Hunting rabbits...” The Spanish tortilla they had been cooking sizzled in the pan.

They ate in silence. Macarena decided to hike back as Merche was clearing the dishes, before it got dark. Her hike back was mostly hurried and the footpaths now seemed deserted and treacherous. When she finally reached cobble-stoned streets she was grateful for other signs of life. She felt alone in a vast world, where there was no such thing as utopia.

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Ruth E. Dominguez is a published author of non-fiction, short fiction, and poetry. She has worked and traveled in numerous cities in South America, North America, and Europe. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Performance and a M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology. She presently works in education and continues to write.

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