Tom Foran Clark

They turned in their rented Opel at the Barajas airport, then took the Metro to Madrid's old historic district and walked to the bustling, noisy Carrera de San Jerónimo and checked into the Pension Jerónimo, flanked by news stands, shops, cafés, bars, and restaurants. Here then was their winter retreat. Their second floor room, with a rickety little balcony, was one of ten facing the busy street below. Their cerulean blue room had matching wall-to-wall cerulean blue carpeting and, wonder of wonders, in the tiny bathroom was a large old porcelain bathtub on iron legs with working plumbing. The whole of November, it seemed to Rita and Emery, came and went as if but one week.

On the first day in December, the hotel was covered in seasonal lights. Gypsies were already selling Christmas trees in the streets. Christmas Eve was called Nochebuena -- the Good Night. Christmas dinner, complemented with Cava, sparkling wine, was eaten after midnight. Rejoicing continued into the wee hours. On Christmas Day were further feasts and still more merry-making. The Spanish Christmas season went on for days, with dancing and festivities going on right through to Epiphany, the day children received their presents -- not from Santa, but from the Three Wise Men. On the Eve of Epiphany, January 5th, children placed their shoes, filled with straw, carrots, and barley, on their doorsteps. The Three Wise Men wandered the streets singing, leaving their gifts in the night. On January 6th, Epiphany -- Three Kings Day -- Los Reyes -- children lined the streets, receiving abundant candy -- turrón and marzipan -- tossed from parade floats.

There was a big street party out front of the hotel on New Year's Eve, with fireworks going off all through the night. Emery and Rita went bar-to-bar, joining in the feasts of drink, food, music, and dancing. At the stroke of midnight, they ate twelve grapes, as was the custom, to bring good luck for the new year.

On the first Monday in the second week of January, Emery and Rita took the Metro to the airport. Pike was flying in from Boston’s Logan Airport on a direct Delta Airlines flight, due in at Terminal One at 11:00. The plane was right on time. Emery cried when he saw him -- Pike looked happy. Rita gasped. The not so long ago emaciated Pike had put some weight back on. His cheeks were almost plump. He had gone a little bald. His clothes were neat and tidy. He looked good. He had his heavy, hairy golden coat over his arm, and only a light pack on his back. On Pike's head was a big new smooth and golden Stetson cowboy hat.

"I was thinking this dog-gone day might never get here!" Pike called to them. "Is it really you, Emery? Rita, is it really you?"

After an enthusiastic, jubilant group hug, Emery and Rita led Pike via the metro to the city center, through the shopping district to Maestro Victoria Street, got Pike a soda and some kikos, then entered the Pension Jerónimo. Pike got a room for himself and Jack and Dieter, who were also scheduled to arrive at some point that day, or in the coming days. Pike put his things in the room, excused himself to wash up for just fifteen or twenty minutes, then knocked on Rita's and Emery's door and said he was ready to go out on the town. He didn't want anything further to eat or drink -- not yet. Right now he was avid to see the Prado Gallery.

So the three went up to the Prado. Here were pictures from Velazquez, Goya, Ribera, Murillo, El Greco, Brueghel, Van der Weyden, Van Dyck, El Bosco, Durer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Fra Angélico, Mantegna, Botticelli, Bronzino, Rafael, Tiziano, Tintoretto. Emery had been hearing so much about Velasquez, the greatest Spanish painter -- so it was said. But when he stood before the pictures, Velasquez just left me cold. Like Pike, he was most eager to see the Goyas there.

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes had started out as a painter of lightweight rococo fluff. In 1792, at forty-eight, Goya had gone deaf and turned inward, putting out some wild, bold, fevered, angry work. When Napolean put his brother on the throne in Spain, the country erupted like a volcano. Guerrilla fighters roamed the countryside, ravaging Spain. Bodies were strewn everywhere. Goya captured the nightmare -- the capriciousness, the atrocities. Rita said there wasn't anybody in the country at the time who didn't feel justified in the use of terror, mutilation, and mayhem and, in turn, retaliatory terror, mutilation, and mayhem. It was the same in Nazi Germany and in the Cambodian killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, she said. Systematic "justice" led to counter justice -- chaotic, ruthless, brutal, senseless famine, torture, rape, and killing.

How could anybody sustain such an insane, driven, tortured ouvre? Goya was like the Chinese man just mad about painting, working right on into old age. He'd died at eighty two, after completing his Los Caprichos prints, pitting bizarre beasts and witches against both soldiers and clergymen (John Ruskin had bought a set and found it so disturbing he'd thrown it into his fireplace), and the personal exorcism of the atrocities he'd witnessed, the series called The Horrors of War.

Pike, Emery, and Rita were standing in front of the painting titled The Shootings on the Third of May, 1808, painted in 1814 in commemoration of the execution of a group of Madrileños who'd been shot dead at rifle pont. Somebody came up behind Emery suddenly and put his or her hands over his eyes. Emery's stomach tightened. "Guess whoooo?" Jack hooted, laughing out loud in this very hushed, almost sacred museum space. "Ich bin es!" Dieter sang gaily to Rita, having similarly covered and released his hands from her eyes. She fell to her knees, touched her forehead to the floor, and wept. Pike went over to her even sooner than Emery did. He got down on his knees next to her and held her there a while, without saying anything. Emery motioned to Jack and Dieter to stand aside with him. He stood close to them and said quietly, "What in hell's blazes were you thinking?" and so on.

Once Rita had gathered her wits back around her and they'd all calmed down and gone out of the Prado, the five of them went to the Café Gijón for café con leches. Pike told them all about how he'd been working and saving in Lawrence, Massachusetts all the while the others present, his ne'er do well friend, had been getting into trouble and getting out again in northern Morocco and southern Spain. Jack explained that Dieter and he had been over in Barcelona, which they both agreed was just about the most insanely nuts and sexually liberated place outside of Tangiers they'd ever been to, and they were happy to report (without thinking how Pike might react) they'd spent no time in some Goddamned dungeon, jail, or prison. (Pike did not react at all.)

Afterwards, Jack suggested they all split the tab five ways. Dieter offered to leave the tip. Pike said he'd like to pay for the drinks and reached into his pocket and put the money on the table. It turned out being the exact right amount. That reminded Jack of a story he'd heard about a man who'd walked into a restaurant with an ostrich and, after the two had eaten and the waitress handed him the bill, he'd reached into his pocket and pulled out the exact amount due. The next day, the same thing happened. It got to be a routine. Finally, one day, the waitress asked him, "How do you always manage to reach into your pocket and come up with the exact change?" He told her, "Years ago I found a lamp which, when I rubbed it, produced a Genie who offered me two wishes. My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything, I could just reach into my pocket and the right amount of money would be there." Nodding toward the ostrich, he leaned in closer to the waitress and explained, "My second wish was for a chick with long legs."

Dieter just about turned purple, laughing with delight. Rita looked at him blankly. Emery was lightly amused. Pike was on his feet -- on his way out of the Café Gijón. The others jumped up now, and followed him out, striding up the Paseo de Recoletos to the National Library and the monument for Columbus. At that point the Recoletos took the name Paseo de la Castellana. From there they went down the Gran Vía, another long avenue, very busy and noisy, with swarms of locals and tourists, all the way from Calle Alcalá to the Plaza de España to the Madrid de los Austrias -- old Madrid. Here they went amid cobbled alleyways lined in lean-to buildings very precariously supporting iron balconies.

The bars and tapas joints of the student enclaves Moncloa and Argüelles were cooking that night. The five of them hopped from bar to bar, enjoying best the Viva Madrid and the Los Gabrieles where, at the Café Central, they splashed in sangría and Cervecería Alemana before returning to the pension on the Carrera de San Jerónimo.

In the morning, they rented bikes. They rode out to the spectacular Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, built between 1563 and 1584 in honour of St. Lawrence. This, of course, Pike just had to see. In his book Rambling in Spain, Juan Armando Cabrera had noted that "the location of the monastery, built by King Felipe II between 1563 and 1584, was chosen on the basis of advice gathered from architects, quarrymen, philosophers, theologians, astrologers, and doctors, who agreed the Guadarrama mountains were ideal. The library contains a priceless collection of over sixty thousand ancient books." This, of course, Emery just had to see, but Jack wouldn't leave him be, hovering around his head like a bad hangover.

Emery excused himself and went off in search of Pike. He needed to talk with him -- alone. The two somehow managed to give Jack the slip, going afoot down a narrow path that led to stone steps leading to the top of a watchtower on the Escorial's eastern side. Pike was excited, also glad at this opportunity to fill Emery in on all that had happened since he'd last seen him.

"Do you remember how, over and over, Townsend kept calling us Giles and Dominic?

Emery recalled it, yes. He'd said it a couple of times.

"He kept calling you Dominic, and me Giles," Pike insisted. "Well, listen. Giles of Assisi, who lived from 1190 to 1262 was one of the first followers of St. Francis. He was also called Aegidius. He was a simple, prayerful man. Francis really valued him, calling him 'Blessed Giles' and 'The Knight of our Round Table.' There's no doubt -- Francis saw his band as spiritual knights in a tradition akin to that of Arthur. They went around smiling and laughing, saying the world is beautiful and the earth is good. People believed Francis knew the language of animals, especially birds. People said Giles was the liveliest of Francis’ companions. Francis taught his companions to consider money like dung -- they avoided it. They strove for peace and gentleness, sleeping on the bare ground. In 1209 they went to Rome to seek papal recognition.Then he sent Giles to Spain to make the pilgrimage to Santiago -- to St. James of Compostela. Some time later, they met back in Assisi..

"Now listen to this," Pike said, drawing closer, clasping Emery's shirt collar tightly in his right hand, "We're in the year 1211. Everywhere is warfare. Dominic Guzman, who lived from 1170 to 1221, is forty-one. A group of English pilgrims are on their way to Santiago -- to Saint James of Compostela. They're in France, crossing the River Garonne, when their boat sinks. Dominic Guzman hears their cries, prostrates himself, prays, and asks God to grant them safety. The pilgrims are all pulled to the shore. One of the pilgrims -- listen to this! His name is Lorenzo -- Lawrence! -- Can you believe this? -- who is one of the first members of St. Dominic's Order of Preachers!"

Emery opened his eyes wide, pretending amazement.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Pike asked plaintively. "Well, in 1212, St. Francis went to Syria to preach to the Saracens -- Muslims. In 1213, he went to Morocco. In 1215, he was back in Rome. It was then that Francis met the founder of the apostolic religious Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, Dominic Guzman -- a gentle, quiet man drawn to prayer and study. His peaceful life there had been disturbed when his bishop had taken Dominic with him to southern France to convert the Albigensians, who stressed poverty and austerity, rejecting the entire material world as evil. Though Dominic led an austere life, he was radiant and joyful. In 1215, in Rome, Dominic dreamed of a beggar who, like Dominic, would do great things. He met the beggar the next day. It was Saint Francis!

"Hah!" Emery blurted out.

"Okay, okay. Don't overdo it. Do you remember how, yesterday, at the Café Gijón, after we'd had our café con leches, I reached into my pocket and came up with the exact dog-gone right amount of money?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well, listen to this: there's this story about Dominic Guzman who, when a ferryman demanded payment from before carrying him across a river, had said a prayer and then reached down and picked up a coin at his feet -- the exact dog-gone fare!"

Again, Emery opened his eyes wide.

"I'll just be very patient," Pike whispered solemnly. "I am going to get through to you, Emery. This is really very important."

They couldn't have been at the Escorial for but a couple hours at at most, before turning back. They must have been a sight to see, the five of them on their bikes, going along the rough, narrow paths back to the city, Jack talking the whole time, riding alongside Emery sharing his crazy anecdotes and insider tips as to all the topless bars, strip joints, and comedy clubs he'd so enjoyed in Barcelona, or regaling him with bicycle and motrocycle tales ("I knew this guy in Alabama, he had a Harley-Davidson. He was riding it down a highway, when a bug flew in his mouth. He was so shocked he lost control and slammed into a concrete wall. Today he has a slight limp and occasional blinding headaches, that's it. From this, he said, he learned that even little things can have a big impact."). Dieter meanwhile hovered close to Pike, probably just to get some needed space between himself and his too-familiar companion, ranting Jack. Pike was quiet, apparently enchanted again -- this time under charming Rita's spell.

Back in Madrid, the five turned their bikes back in at the rental agency. They snacked on tapas and sipped sangria while reading newspapers. Later in the evening, they followed Jack and Dieter into the Malasaña and Chueca sections of town, known for their quaint architecture and lovely winding streets -- quiet all day long, before erupting into madness nights. Jack and Dieter steered them into Chueca, epicenter for the city's gays. “What a guy!” Jack was saying to Pike, slapping him on the back. “We never figured we’d actually ever see you again. Ha ha! Like that was really ever going to happen. But here you are! You get the picture? Man, when we last saw you, you were one gone guy.”

“Jack, he iss himself so ein character,” Dieter whispered in Emery's ear.

In the lobby of the pension, sitting in large plush leather chairs set around around a circular glass table, Pike had his four friends sit down so he could reveal his game plan for pursuing the treasure they all had heard so much about. He whispered something to Rita, who quickly got up to go to her and Emery's room. When she came back, she very ceremoniously turned Arlen Townsend's map and diary over to Pike, who now explained things to them. They would turn north to Burgos to begin their pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, he informed them. He would tell them more as they went along, Pike said.