Where have all the Spaniards gone?
Where have all the Spaniards gone? |
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| Chapter 39: Surreal |
The fields are laid out as if on an operating table. A few derelict buildings lay scattered around like upturned sewing machines. We turn off down a tunnel of a road, under an umbrella of trees. In front of us is an egg. The building has eggs all round the roof. It is the old theatre of Figueres. Outside is a statue with parts blown away by the wind. Inside is a pair of heavily rouged lips, a carefully constructed nose, and two square eyes. In another room is a group of paintings done with that same slick perfection that was the hallmark of Salvador Dali. Wherever you look is a slick mechanical world created out of dreams. A bull meets the decay of time. Ants trumpet at the feet of a disinterred rose. Everything is dead and disengaged. It is a toy world left by an angry child trailing bits and pieces blown by the wind. And nothing works. The cadillac is on a pedestal. Gala's tits are eggs. Great elongated blue drops of water fall from the boat. There are double paintings in a three dimensional mirror, holographs, and toys. A huge bust has a cracked skull and a hole right thru the lungs. A golden roof is a resurrection, and a pentecostal descent is a big bang of colour descending for the artist to use. Trick paintings start as faces and become women's bodies, and men's bodies become the face of an old lady. *****
In Cadaques the house is silent. Two heads that are eggs lean together on the roof. To one side is the bay of Port Lligat. The sea is silent and does not move. The rocks are like a painting. I park my car where the land rises up from the sea. The doors are wide open, and I take off my clothes, covering myself with a trailing towel. I stand on the roof of the car. I raise my arms. Julie takes a picture of me rising from the surrealist sea. How is it the landscape looks so like a painting by Salvador Dali? We drive away across some geological destiny. The sky is pale, like the first days of spring. There is a ruined house looking down a valley. What a view. I am shaken out of my surrealist world. I could buy this house. I could make it a home. I could..... I stop the car. Wherever I climb the rocks are chairs, the ground is a ghost, and it is a few minutes before I realize that I am leaning my elbow upon a table, circa 1934. I couldn't live here. It is a countryside bedevilled with demons. There is a brief moment of transition, but the transition doesn't move. The landscape doesn't move. The sun is beginning to go down. I watch the shades of night descending. The shadows lengthen, but somehow still they dont move. There is the hillside, stones, the gap in the cliff where I can see across to the next valley. It is the triangular hour. It is an average pagan landscape without the pagans. If I stand here much longer I shall be able to see swans reflecting elephants. I get back in the car. This place is creepy. I drive to Girona. |
| .... to be continued |