Despite the privations and the penury, the Stéfano circus was a happy processionary caterpillar, roaming Spain in pursuit of the good weather factor. In summer we penetrated northern backwaters, in autumn we did the southeast coast, in winter we visited the villages and towns of Extremadura and Andalusia, and in springtime we flowered on the Meseta. I always traveled with Gurruchaga, stuck in his caravan next to the pile of junk that made up his baggage in life. I helped him clean the cages, see to the hygiene of the animals, and procure their fodder. I gradually adapted to the work. I thought anything was better than having to appear in the ring and keep the spectators happy. I took great care of the cages and washed out all the excrement, so they shone spick and span like newly polished altars. I was a diligent worker, and nobody bothered me. Gurruchaga watched me handle the spade in amazement. I didn’t do at all badly considering I was a dwarf, I put my heart into it, my heart and my sweat. Initially I was afraid of the animals and waited for them to enter the ring before seriously tackling their cages, but they immediately got used to my presence, and I worked in them and they didn’t bat an eyelid except when they were sick and undernourished. “Whistle the Spanish national anthem for that tiger or it’ll stick a paw into you,” Gurru advised if he saw me in any danger, and I whistled away as cocksure as anything. Gurruchaga was a prickly character who hardly spoke to anyone. On the other hand, he began to take a shine to me. In honor of his nickname, he spent the whole day up to his neck in muck, and flies buzzed around his temples even when he was cooking. “Shit is life, kid. In the war, I shit my pants the first time I went into battle, and it saved my skin,” he confessed one night after a relaxing cup of coffee. “We were in Belchite, and Franco held a hilltop vantage point. When the people in my brigade whiffed what my panic had produced, they ran away from me, and their reward was to get shot to pieces by the Fascists when they saw them move. I stayed still and was fine. That saved me. The rest was pure butchery. Their machine-gun nests rat-a-tatted death for a couple of hours. Our tanks couldn’t find a way through, and we lost the position. The battalion was wasted, but I saved my skin thanks to that shit. Just remember this, and never scorn even the most disgusting filth. Shit is life; it saved mine.”
Apart from his canary-colored hair, Gurruchaga had the loveliest hands when it came to cooking our grub. He never washed them, and perhaps that’s why his meals were always incredibly tasty. When we erected our installations in the places we were going to perform, he was responsible for two main tasks: the organization of all the tackle for our encampment, and procuring food for the animals, even for the lot of us, if circumstances required. The general norm established by repeated practice was for one family from all the circus families to see to the cooking of one meal that should be for everyone who felt like partaking. The Montinis, for example, the high-wire acrobats, offered macaroni without chorizo, the Gutiérrezes, the jugglers, cooked mountains of rice with a wonderful aroma, and the Gambero-Gamboas liked to pickle whatever they got their hands on. Gurruchaga provided the raw materials for the dishes, even though he was only occasionally called upon to prepare our pittance. If he cooked, the wherewithal of his meals could scale unheard visual heights, often verging on works of art in terms of shape, color, and texture. The taste was something else, and opinions tended to differ or even be hostile, so he was rarely allowed to be chef. We who’ve so often been starving to death have always been fascinated by the paraphernalia of cooking, perhaps because our stomachs have long memories when it comes to the hungry years. On the threshold between late childhood and early adolescence, I went from bread and dripping, perhaps sprinkled with sugar, to Gurruchaga’s grandiloquent offerings, and that made me realize I’d grown up. The content made the difference; my stomach began to expand and channel substance to my head. Nonetheless, it wasn’t all delicious delights. Food shortages and lack of ingredients meant there were days when we were reduced to bread and water. These were the last of the hungry years, with a hefty sting in their tail, when welfare and development had yet to hit Spanish hearths. That’s why when juicy fodder was on offer, we filled our bellies fit to burst for fear of what tomorrow might bring, and it ended up looking like a wedding feast for beggars. “Hey, kid, how come you were born a dwarf?” Gurru would ask while he was stirring a pot of lentils and pig snout and other nice porcine offal. “Why do you dwarves have elongated heads?” he kept on with his queries. “You dwarves are oddballs. You seem made differently, but in the end you do everything the same as the rest of us, and you’re probably even bigger cusses.” I ignored his insidious chatter and shut my mouth, so I didn’t swallow more flies than would strictly come with the food. “You dwarves should be governing Spain and not Franco. With those big heads of yours, I bet you’d work out a better future for us,” and he chewed and chewed until he regurgitated his gastric juices out of the dry flaking corners of his lips.
We reached Córdoba on a morning white with almond blossom that smelled of the high seas. The mineral structure of the mosque glittered against the indigo sky, like a silhouette of the past plucked from a fairy-tale twilight. The Stéfano circus camped its caravans on the other side of the Guadalquivir, on an esplanade opposite the Calahorra Tower, next to some ruined mills. Gurruchaga was happy, which was quite unusual for him. He smiled broadly, like a young kid. The air reached us from the river with a scent of toads, and we all quivered and shivered differently; ours was an intense desire to live life to the full. These were the lethargic early sixties, and the threadbare curtain of misfortune was beginning to fall in tatters on the Spanish spectacle of starving cadavers. The first sparks of hope and tangible signs of economic well-being were evident in the way people behaved, although the real takeoff had yet to come. The military were shuffling offstage, and technocrats were taking over the reins of that pompous, freedom-killing, single-voiced nation whose fate, by the grace of God, was still shaped by a Caudillo. Nonetheless, Córdoba dawned that day half Roman, half Moorish, oblivious to the jiggery-pokery of the Movement, swirling with archangels and swallows, Saint Raphaels and Caliphs, the phantoms of tradition or legend.
The city’s raucous trade was resuming. Carts of fruit and vegetables were crossing Julius Caesar’s bridge, coming from the orchards in Almiriya and turning up the streets to the Plaza de la Corredera, where traders set up their stalls very early. It was the Thursday market, and hens shrieked in their cages, waiting to be scalded in stewpots. It was a resplendent Thursday market, and the aroma of cold meat and sausages wafted through the air on the briny Andalusian breeze — pork loins toughened by the rising temperature, sparkling saffron juices trickling from chorizos, a rich aroma of brawns spreading across a decorous backcloth of strings of garlic, bunches of carnations, and earthenware jars full of green olives. That spot was a delight to the senses. Everything was on display and up for sale. Amid so much color and so many spicy, piquant smells, Gurruchaga’s eyes lit up with the single desire to cook a local dish. “Have you ever tried Cordoban salmorejo?” he asked, enthused. “I don’t have a clue what that is,” I replied. “And what about oxtail? Have you ever tried oxtail?”