Tom Foran Clark

In Sagunto was a Roman temple saved from destruction during the siege by Hannibal because it had been consecrated to Diana, the pagan goddess of wild animals and the hunt, virtually indistinguishable from the Greek goddess Artemis who'd still earlier gone by the name Astarte, also known as Tenit, the Phoenician moon goddess, and Tanit, the supreme goddess of Carthage in North Africa. Tanit was associated with the Tree of Life, depicted as a palm tree in the desert. Also called Caelestis, she was also known as Juno (Roman), Inanna (Sumerian), Arinna (hethitic), and Ishara, Istar, Istaru, Aschtar, Aschtart, Geschtinanna, Nins-Anna, and Anna. Babylonian scriptures called her the Righteous Judge, Lawgiver, Goddess of Goddesses, Light of the World, Exalted Light of Heaven, Torch of Heaven and Earth, Opener of the Womb, She Who Begets All. Her symbol was a triangle with horizontal bars supporting a moon disc.

Close by the church of Santa Maria, the Templo de Diana had recently been declared a Spanish National Monument. Rita, of course, insisted the Spanish knew, in doing this, exactly what they were doing -- honoring the gratification of the physical and sensual -- especially the sexual -- appetites. It proved her point: people still sought to unite sexuality with the experience of the sacred. The erotic was a sacralization of sexuality, expressed through mysticism and art. The western world's understanding of the erotic had started with the Greeks. Hellenistic thought had shaped the philosophy of the West. Hellenism was the philosophical tradition of the Occident, shaping Christianity and, later, Islam.

Rita said the Spanish knew well what St. Augustine had insisted: sexuality was part of the natural order and, as a creation of God, intrinsically good. God inspired fear, yes -- but also fascination. There was always this longing for the wholly other. The pursuit of the divine involved actions and relinquishings.People wanted to cower and hide -- and come closer, to be captivated. People wanted to honor God's creation by respecting sexuality and repress the animal nature. St. Augustine knew how deeply people felt both the revulsion to sin and simultaneously the sexual urge. Augustine called Christ a bridegroom, going from his chamber to the marriage bed of the cross to consummate his marriage, joining himself to his woman forever. 'Grant me chastity and continence,' St. Augustine begged God again and again -- 'but not yet'!"

For Rita, all this led only back to Abdul in Tangiers: "The search for the divine was a journey from quiescence to rising agitation to the release of tension followed by the return to quiescence. To know self-transcending erotic intimacy with a person was to become intimate with creativity, the dynamic force, the moving power of life -- God."

When they drove into the wine region of Utiel and Requena, between the Rio Magro and the Rio Oleana in the foothills of the Sierra del Negrete, Emery kept his eyes peeled for botijos. They'd departed Sagunto without getting one as a souvenir. Emery said he could have kicked himself. He said he should have got a botijo in Sagunto because now, approaching Requena, he was reading in the guide book, Rambling in Spain, which noted that the handcrafted waterjug the Saguntans called a botijo could only be found, in fact, in Sagunto. Made from cork fashioned into cylinders bearing richly adorned metal fittings, the botjo had once been used by travelers and Saguntan farmers to keep their drinking water cool. Now they had become mere tourist's trinkets. The botijo, issued in the taller of its two available versions, was called a colx. The alternate botijo, the squatter version, was called a colxa. No matter. They were already way out of the realm where anyone would ever again see or hear of either a colx or colxa botijo, and they weren't turning back.

In the village of Cuenca, a postcard from Pike awaited Emery at the post office. “It's enough for you to know I am alive,” he wrote, signing his name with a new, exuberant flourish. He gave Emery a few details concerning his forthcoming arrival in Madrid. Emery and company were to meet him at the airport on such and such a flight, on such and such a day, and so on. This was good news. Forget the colx and colxa botijos, he said to himself. Events were happening as they needed to happen. Things were adding up.

Rita and Emery drove from Cuenca on through Tarancon, and did not stop until they reached Aranjuez, an oasis in the dry Castilian plain. The area was famous for its huge strawberries, sweet melons, and plump asparagus -- the fields, orchards, and gardens richly irrigated by the Tagus River. A fraternal order called the Knights of Santiago had built a castle in Aranjuez for the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. After Christopher Columbus traveled here in hopes of speaking with Isabella, who had refused to see him, he'd slunk into abject poverty and died in Valladolid. In his reign, the notoriously murderous Philip II, who'd taken up gardening as a hobby, had plants brought in from the New World -- also exotic animals like jaguars, ostriches, gazelles, and buffalo.

At an Aranjuez tavern, the colorful and hopping Taberna Zarzuela, the two gorged themselves on tapas, tortillas, and the fish stew for which the Zarzuela was named. It was as if they'd landed in overzealous Philip II's pantry and kitchen. Everywhere were mussels, prawns, clams, squids, lobsters, and monkfish tails and eyes exotically displayed among cucumbers, tomatoes, almonds, green bell peppers, red paprika chilis, onions, garlic cloves, shelled peas, and fava beans -- all drowned in olive oil, red wine vinegar, and brandy or fried in flour, salt, and pepper -- lavishly garnered with bay leaves, parsley, and an edible confetti (perhaps ostrich eyelashes and fish scales). For dessert the two had oozing carmelized orange custard -- flan. A waiter explained the word Zarzuela meant, beyond fish stew, a show, an opera, a musical comedy, which not only the stew was, but the entire tavern!

Stuffed heels to eyeballs from this Zarzuelan feast, Emery and Rita strolled lazily over to the Hotel Tucaruza and slept like boulders underwater. The next morning, they arose refreshed and ventured forth, crossing flatland grain-fields into industrial suburbs, driving through villages tucked away high in the hill ridges, to Toledo. They took a room at the Hotel Mendigorria, opposite Toledo's San Martin Bullring. Rita, inspired by our feast the previous evening, this night offered herself to Emery as a kind of human flan and Zarzuela. He felt grateful she'd met Abdul and then him.

The next day, from their hotel room -- located in the heart of the city at the heart of Spain -- they could hear the noise in the Toledo bullring, the shouts and jeers and cheering of the crowds. They did not go in. For all the time they were in Spain, Emery and Rita did not go to a bullfight. Rita said so long as there were bullfights, there would be wars. This seemed right enough to Emery, though Hericlitus had said there was nothing if not conflict and strife. Rita enlightened him about that, saying "this spectacle of pointless butchery" had originated not with despising the forebears of the Toro Bravo bull, the original urus, but with worshipping it. As in ancient Crete, the prehistoric Iberian tribes of Spain had developed a cult based on reverence for these urus bulls. The temples in which the religious ceremonies for the sacrificing of the bulls to the Gods had evolved into today's bullrings.

According to Rita, it was the Greeks and Romans who'd converted that religious ceremony into a mere public spectacle with its colorful procession, murder, and disgrace. It went like this: a gate was opened and a teased and brutalized bull entered the ring, snorting mad. The crowd yelled and clapped. A band played. A purple and yellow cape was waved at the bull -- whenever you see purple and yellow in a ritual, as in art, you know you're past civility. Lances and pointed sticks were now planted in the bull's back and neck. A matador waved another little cloth. The band played on. A man on horseback plunged an eight foot pole into the animal's neck. A few more matadors came out to tease and taunt the tiring bull. Still more sticks were plunged into the bull. Then a matador knelt down in front of the bull. Now standing, sword in hand, poised for the kill, the Matador lunged at the half dead bull with a sword three feet long (since medieval times, Toledo has had an international reputation for its beautiful hand-crafted swords). Now another man came in with a butcher's knife to cut off one or both of the bull's ears. The band played. A team of horses dragged the dead bull from the ring. With just one ticket to a bullfight you could see the slaughter of half a dozen of these Toro Bravo bulls, or more.

Rita and Emery climbed up to the house of El Greco and the Museum of Santa Cruz. Emery pulled up an ancient wooden chair to regard the painting called the Ascension of the Virgin. El Greco must have had something like the same chemical or metabolic imbalance that van Gogh would later suffer -- released in them like spurts of adrenalin in times of danger? There was no precedent for his seeing things the way that he did -- or seemed to be seeing -- in this, his particular, unconventional, even peculiar, unique way.

The two walked on a poplar-lined road going parallel to the green and murky River Tagus, flowing fast and smooth. They crossed the San Martin Bridge out into the countryside, where Rita told Emery more of the story about the treasure digger of St. James.

“You remember how, in Madrid, Benedict had been befriended by people having money and power? Well, at that point, that was all the treasure hunter was going to say about it to George Borrow. Just as Borrow was on his way out of the village, Villa Seca, the Benedict Mol came up suddenly, politely bidding him farewell. 'I am returning to Compostela to dig up the schatz,' he revealed. 'I go at the expense of the government, but I cannot tell you the details,' he apologized. 'I am sworn not to tell! Farewell!' he sang out. 'I shall succeed!' The treasure hunter turned, and marched ahead. Then, just as abruptly, he turned and marched right back. He looked horror-struck. 'But what if I should not find the treasure after all?'

" 'More's the pity,' Borrow laid it on the line. 'Pity you did not think of that till now. The chances are, a hundred to one, you will in fact not find the treasure. You will be looked on as an imposter. The consequences will be horrible. The Spaniards do not like to feel they've been tricked. Their thirst for vengeance knows no limit. But it is not too late. Return your fine garb and fancy rattan. Put on your old clothes, grab your ragged old staff, and come with me to the Sagra'."

At dusk the two returned to the city. Toledo was splendid that night, the narrow streets lit by wrought-iron lanterns. They had beer and tapas at the Café El Greco (sadly, for about a week after their feasting at Aranjuez's Taberna Zarzuela, the prawns, lobsters, and peppers of other bars and taverns, including the Café El Greco, now only looked to them like so much fishtank food), then returned to their room (where their Zarzuelan intimacy flourished undiminished). In the morning, they visited some of the goldsmiths in their little shops, then went to the Alcazar, transformed by the dictator Franco into an eerie military museum housing arms and armor. They went to the Cathedral of Toledo, with its stark Goyas and its writhing El Grecos, then got in the car and turned north to Madrid where, come January, the two would again meet up with Jack and Dieter and, of course, Pike.