The Summer of Katya

The man in charge recognized me from years before, and it was inevitable that he thump me on the back and ask after many people of whom I had only the vaguest memory. As the conversation was in Basque, Paul was excluded, and he drifted away as I sought to disengage myself without appearing unfriendly. The price of freedom was an appointment to do a txikiteo, a tour of the bars and buvettes, with the hostler later that night, an appointment I hoped he would forget.

I found Paul at the edge of a group of farmers and shepherds, looking off and smiling to himself. I followed his gaze and saw the motorcar that had almost overturned us. It was stationed beneath a tree at the edge of the meadow, its brass headlamps glinting back the low angle of the setting sun.

“They have been delivered into my hands,” Paul said quietly. “It’s enough to reawaken one’s belief in divine justice.”

“Oh come, Paul. For Katya’s sake, let’s just enjoy ourselves. Forget it.”

He smiled at me. “My dear fellow, I haven’t the slightest intention of forgetting it. Well, Doctor? Shall we locate the others? I am looking forward to this evening. I confess I had feared it would be infinitely dull, but things are beginning to look up.”

“Remember your shoulder. It wouldn’t do to hurt it again.”

“You’re such a good-hearted and solicitous fellow. Perhaps you should consider taking up medicine as a career? Come now, let’s set ourselves to the arduous business of having fun.”

We discovered Katya and Monsieur Treville among the throng collected in the village square, his urbane clothes and her white dress and shoes setting them apart. They were standing in the front of a ring of onlookers around the performers of the pastoral of Robert le Diable, Katya smiling on with affectionate interest, as though the performers were friends of hers, and her father watching intensely, occasionally scribbling notes with a pencil stub on a pad of paper. The Devil and the Horse engaged in off-color buffoonery while the Hero performed the Dance of the Glass, leaping with flashing entrechats and landing, balanced on his soft dancing shoes, on the rim of a thick glass that had been filled with wine and set on the stones before him. Twice the glass spilled and once it shattered, but each time it was replaced with shouts of encouragement until the dancer had effected three sauts in a row without spilling the wine, which accomplishment was rewarded with roars of applause and loud whinnies of the famous cri basque from exuberant onlookers, many of whom had already managed to get their noses bent with wine, to use the local phrase.

“The wine represents blood, I assume,” Monsieur Treville muttered to me. “Perhaps sacramental blood. And I suppose the Devil is one of the ancient, pre-Christian earth deities. Can you provide any insight into the symbolism of the Horse, Doctor?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. And I doubt that anyone here could. It is one of those Basque rituals that is performed simply because it has always been performed, and no one has ever questioned its meaning.”

“Perhaps the Horse represents fertility,” Monsieur Treville suggested. “You see how its chases after the Maiden, who slaps at it and tries to hide herself behind the Devil?”

I nodded absently, more interested in watching the delight and fascination play across Katya’s features than in constructing a symbolic substructure for a ritual I had seen performed so often.

“What are they saying?” Monsieur Treville asked me.

“Who, sir?”

“The Horse and the Devil, with all their shouting and bantering.”

I shrugged, and perhaps my cheeks reddened a little. It had never occurred to me to take any note of it as a boy, but the Basque badinage between the two performers was boldly bawdy, having to do with sexual competence and the size of members. I glanced uneasily towards Katya and cleared my throat. “Ah… perhaps you are right, sir. Perhaps the Horse does represent fertility.”

“Hm-m. And what is that large object with the knob on the end that the Maiden keeps trying to take from the Hero?”

I looked for help from Paul, but he smiled blandly back and said, “Yes, Jean-Marc, do tell us. What do you make the object out to be?”

Katya lowered her eyes and smiled the faintest conceivable smile.

“I… ah… to tell the truth, I never thought about it, sir. Say! What do you think the person who dances on the glass represents?”

Monsieur Treville shrugged. “Both hero and clown… could easily represent mankind. And how appropriate, if you consider it for a moment.”

“So,” Paul said, “if I read the profound symbolic significance of all this correctly, it is the gripping story of Mankind dancing on a glass of blood while the Devil chats with Fertility, and the Maiden tries to steal the Hero’s—excuse me, Doctor, what did you say that was?”

With a final shrill crescendo of the txitsu flute and a rattle of the stick drum, the performance was over, and the crowd applauded wildly and surrounded the performers to treat them to a txikiteo. I had used the Basque word in explaining where the crowd was bringing the players, and Katya asked me to translate it.

“A txikiteo is a tour of the bars, with a glass of wine taken at each one.”

“And how many such places would you estimate there are here in the village?”

“Twenty-five or thirty, counting the temporary buvettes set up in front of every shop.”

“My goodness, Jean-Marc. And they will accomplish a tour of thirty bars?”

I laughed. “It isn’t the accomplishment that matters, it’s the devotion with which the effort is undertaken. The Basques have few native attributes beyond their capacity for dance and hard work, but they rise to the heroic when it comes to drinking at a fкte.”

“I have always heard them spoken of as sober-minded people—even dour, if you do not find that word offensive,” Monsieur Treville said.

“Indeed they are. Most of these men are farmers and shepherds. And they work hard and long every day of the year, save for the village fкte and the day of the marriage of their children. On those occasions, however, they drink and dance. And they take their vices every bit as seriously as their virtues.”

Night descended upon us quickly, as it does in the mountains, and the crowd in the village square thickened until it was impossible to move without pressing against people. Katya and I soon lost sight of the other two, and I felt obliged to keep my arm around her waist to prevent us from being separated. Colored paper lanterns strung across the square were lit with smoldering punks by young men standing on the shoulders of other young men, and there was much horseplay and toppling and staggering and laughter as they jousted and tugged at one another to see which young man could remain on the shoulders of his teammate the longest. One or two small fights broke out, quickly stanched by friends pulling the combatants apart and taking them off to have a glass or two, but no real bagarres basques broke out, as surely they would before the night was over. There would be at least one great melee of battle, with the young men using their belts and buckles as weapons. And there would be cuts and welts and a few broken noses and chipped teeth. After all, what would a fкte be without its bagarre? A feeble and shoddy thing.

“And will there be a bagarre tonight?” Katya asked.

“Oh, probably. Does that prospect frighten you?”

“Not at all.” Her eyes shone. “It’s exciting.”

Accordion, flute, and drum struck up a traditional tune, and there was a pulse in the throng drawing it towards the center of the square. People pushed back to form a circle through which a few daring couples percolated to begin the dancing. Katya and I found ourselves on the inner rim of the circle, and she pressed my arm forward.

“You want to dance?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Of course!”

“Do you know this dance?” It was a simple form of the Kax Karot, which begins with couples, then develops into a line dance with all the young people leaping into the air on cue, the men with their arms around the waists of the women on each side, leaping as high as they can, making the women cry out for fear of losing their balance.

“I never saw it before,” Katya said. “But I’m sure I can do it.” She rehearsed the simple steps in place, making a demure little jump at the appropriate beat. “Yes, I can do it. Come.”

“No. Wait a minute. We’ll join in later.” I didn’t bother to explain the complexities of good form that regarded the first girls to enter the dance as a bit brazen and forward, to avoid which stigma they held back, coy and complaining, and had to be dragged out by their young men or pushed forward by giggling girl friends, their cheeks flushed with mock shame and real pleasure. It would certainly not have done for a non-Basque woman in a rather formal white dress to be one of the first dancers.

As I glanced over the crowd, my eye fell on the five young Parisians who had nearly run us down in their motorcar. They stood directly across the ring from us, the young women watching the first dancers with interest, but the languid attitudes of the two young men proclaiming their disdain for this rustic merrymaking.

For fully half of the first dance, there were fewer than ten couples in the ring, most of them newly married or soon-to-be-married, for this status freed the women from any implications of being brazen or showing off. Then a middle-aged farmer a bit bent with wine pushed his chubby wife out into the ring to the cheers and hoots of their friends, and he began to dance around her while she hid her face in her hands. When she gave up her show of coy embarrassment and began to dance with a will, the signal was received by all the girls that they might dance without damage to reputation, and instantly the square was alive with shouting, laughing dancers who peeled forward from the ring of onlookers, making that ring larger by their departure from it. It was then that I pressed Katya forward and we danced, unnoticed in the throng.

The trio of the band ended its first melody and immediately entered upon the next, so as to catch the dancers before they could return to the circle of bystanders. Couples linked up into lines of four or six, then the segments combined and lengthened until the dancers were formed in two long irregular queues facing one another. Two skip steps forward, two back, then a leap as high as one could, the women landing with shrieks and a billow of skirts. I was surprised at how easily the forgotten dance came back to me. Perhaps it is true that the impulse to dance—particularly the vigorous sauts basques—is a genetic trait of the Basque male. The man who shared Katya’s waist with me was a strong shepherd who could leap as high as his belt, and the woman around whom I had my other arm was a plump girl of ruddy complexion and surprising agility. Soon the center of our line was jumping notably higher than the ends and even higher than the people immediately in front of us, so we chided them about their lack of strength and will. With grins and nods, the men opposite accepted our challenge and began to carry their complaining partners higher and higher in the leap, and the joyous shrieks of the women took on a note of real fear lest they fall to the stones of the square.

Catching the mood of the challenge, the band began to play faster and faster, and the leader laughed and called out for us to give it our all. Older and less athletic people dropped away, panting and shaking their heads, and soon each of the lines contained no more than a dozen couples, with Katya and I in the center of our team. We panted and our legs trembled, but each line was determined not to give in before the other. The tempo increased. I was badly out of condition and was on the verge of dropping out when both lines simultaneously began to cry out to the band Naikua! Naikua! (That’s enough!). With a final taunt, the band played a last verse at an impossibly fast tempo, and the dance ended with all the participants stumbling, their rhythm shattered, in a panting jumble.

There was laughter and shouts, and men clapping one another on the back, and the strong young shepherd who had shared Katya with me gave her a vigorous hug and complimented her endurance and strength in the reluctant way of the Basque… not all that bad for an outlander!

Gasping for breath, my lungs aching, I led Katya through the circle of onlookers to a quieter part of the square near the buildings and out of the light of the paper lanterns. My legs were so wobbly that I had to lean against the stone faзade to regain my strength.

“Wonderful!” she said, her face aglow with the excitement and joy of the dance.

“Yes…” I tried to catch my breath and swallow through a parched throat. “…Wonderful. But I should warn you that… I may die of a heart attack any second now.”

“Oh, rubbish!” She touched my moist forehead with her handkerchief. “It is true that the men do most of the work. But that’s as it should be.”

I nodded, unable to speak. When the pulse stopped throbbing in my temples I asked her if she would like something to drink.

“No, thank you,” she said offhandedly; then she recognized my worn and parched condition and amended, “Yes, that would be nice. Thank you.”

Just at that moment, there was a clatter of the stick drum and a twittering shriek of the txitsu flute. The throng hushed and everyone in the square and at the buvettes froze in place and turned towards a narrow alleyway across the way.

“What is it?” Katya asked in a whisper.

“The Drowned Virgin. Watch.”

A firework tube was struck near the mouth of the alleyway, and its flaring, sputtering light turned the walls of the buildings a vivid red. Then the stick drum took up a funereal beat to the tempo of which a line of costumed mourners emerged from the gap between buildings and began their slow march across the square, the crowd soberly parting to make way for them. First came two children robed all in white, their faces covered with a chalky masklike makeup, their eyes and mouths accented in black. Behind them strode a richly costumed man (presumably the brother of the accused woman) dragging heavy penitential chains that clattered over the cobbles. Next came two young men dressed in rags and patches, each carrying a heavy stone with a hole bored through it, and through the holes were passed knotted ropes like those used to weigh the accused woman down when she was thrown into the river. Finally came the Virgin, a girl of fifteen or so, chosen for beauty from among the girls of the district, borne on the shoulders of six young men, three to the right, three to the left, walking in exact chain step. She lay stiff on their shoulders, her head thrown back and her hair falling to the waist of the lead bearer. Her white dress of gossamer material had been soaked in water, and it clung most revealingly to her plump body, her nipples dark beneath the fabric. Her long hair had been drenched with oil and combed out in a stiff, inhuman way, and drops of the oil dripped on the cobbles.

The swaying line of mourners passed very close to us, and at the sight of the Drowned Virgin, Katya grasped my arm, her fingers digging into it. I felt her tremble.

As the mourners approached the narrow alleyway directly opposite the one from which they had emerged, another red firework tube was struck, and they disappeared into a hell like the one from which they had materialized. For a prolonged moment, there was absolute silence.

Then the men of the crowd broke into shrieks of the long, yapping cri basque that could chill the blood of those not used to it.

Instantly, the band struck up another Kax Karot tune, and the dancing, the laughter, the drinking was all about us.

“What does it mean?” Katya asked in a subdued voice.

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just an ancient ritual. Shall I get us something to drink?”

“No, don’t leave!” She held my arm tighter. Then, in a calmer voice, “Let’s dance. I want to dance.”

I was sure my lungs would burst and my legs crumple beneath me by the time we came to the last frantic leaps of the Kax Karot and we were all laughing and clapping one another on the back. Katya had reacted to the stunning effect of the ritual of the Drowned Virgin with a vivacity more vibrant and life-embracing than before. There was, in fact, a kind of desperate energy in her dancing and laughter that made me a bit uneasy.

Once again we took refuge in our little niche by the buildings, as I tried to regain my breath. “Too many years… of study in the big city…” I panted. “I’m not up to this. I must get something… to drink… or I shall die right here… unnoticed and unmourned.”

She laughed. “Poor sickly thing. Oh, very well.”

It was not customary for women to enter the bars, so I offered to leave her with her father or brother while I fought my way through the crowd to get something for us to drink.

“Do you know where they are?”

“No, but we’ll find them.” I began to search the throng over the heads of the people near us.

“No, I’ll be perfectly fine right here.”

“Alone?”

“What harm could come to me? And if you’re concerned about my reputation, I have a feeling that a woman who is not Basque doesn’t have a reputation worth saving anyway.”

I laughed and confessed that she was perceptive in her estimate of Basque views of outlanders, those poor creatures who lacked the touch of God. After only a moment of hesitation, I gave her hand a farewell squeeze and shouldered my way through the milling throng until I had gained the door of one of the cafйs in which all the tables were crowded with old men sitting before their glasses, their veined faces alight with drink and merriment. As I pressed towards the zinc bar I caught a glimpse of Monsieur Treville at a table, surrounded by aged Basque peasants. On the table was a nearly empty bottle of Izarra, that delicious, expensive, and very strong Basque liqueur that tastes of mountain flowers. It was evident that Monsieur Treville was buying the drinks and that the old Basque men were paying for his hospitality by responding to his questions about customs and traditions, each holding forth in his broken French until he was interrupted by contradictions and clarifications (both lengthy and irrelevant) by another of the men, for one of the devices in the devious Basque temperament is flooding the other fellow’s mind with scrupulously precise detail—concealing the true behind the factual. I thought to warn Monsieur Treville of the deceptive potency of Izarra, but he did not see me in the dense crowd, nor was their any point in calling out to him, as my voice would have been lost in the din and babble. Just as his table was blocked from my sight, I saw him catch the eye of the harassed waiter to order another bottle of Izarra, which gesture the old men greeted with sober nods. It was clearly the right and proper thing for an outlander to do. I knew that the old men would soon reach the point in their drinking at which it became obligatory to sing in their high, strained voices with their peculiar harmonies. I wondered with a smile if Monsieur Treville would join in.

I was able to capture a glass of red for myself and a corked bottle of citronade for Katya, but I was pressed away from the bar before I could collect my change, and I had to make space for myself with an extended arm to be able to drink off my wine before the glass was jostled empty. It was the good, acrid, harsh wine I remembered, and it scratched away some of the dryness in my throat. Soon, by the natural and irresistible eddy of the throng, I found myself back outside the bar, without my change, but in possession of their glass—a fair enough exchange, as I doubted that Katya would prefer to drink her citronade from the bottle.

The dancing was in full swing under the colored paper lanterns, and crocodiles of mischievous children linked hands and snaked in and out of the crowd, into the paths of dancers to pester and annoy their elders, who responded with laughs and half-hearted slaps at the backs of dodging heads. To avoid the heaviest tides of the throng I eased my way around the rim of the square close to the buildings, where the occasional drunk sought to relieve himself in a passageway, and pairs of young lovers found the haven of dark doorways. I was blocked for a time at one of the temporary buvettes set up before a shop, a simple pair of planks laid across two barrels where a man sloshed wine from a big bottle back and forth over rows of stout glasses until they were more or less full on the puddled planks. The man deftly caught the coin I tossed over the head of the person in front of me, and I reached around and snatched up a glass and emptied it in two swallows before replacing it on the planks to be refilled without the indignity of being washed in public.

“…Katya?” I heard the name through the medley of babble and music, and I looked around to discover Paul standing not far away in one of the doorways. “Where is Katya?” he shouted again, enunciating carefully over the din.

I pointed in the direction I had left her; then I raised up the bottle of citronade to indicate why I had left her alone.

He gestured for me to join him, and I pressed through the mass of people until I was beside him in the doorway. It was only then I realized he was standing with a young lady dressed in high fashion, quite out of keeping with the colorful handmade dresses of the Basque women. I recognized her as one of the girls who had been in the motorcar that had nearly overturned us back on the road. Paul put his good arm about her and hugged her to him a bit roughly as he made introductions. “Dr. Montjean, I would like you to meet Mlle… I assume you have a name, my dear?”

“Of course I have a name,” she giggled.

“Don’t tell it to me. Preserve the attractive mystery. Doctor, I would like to introduce Mlle Somebodyoranother, a ravishing bit of fluff without an idea in her little head.”

The young woman tsked and coyly pushed at his chest with her gloved hand, the gesture affirming his evaluation of her intellectual capacities while it revealed that she was a bit tipsy. She had one of those pretty, vacant faces that conceal nothing, as there is nothing to be concealed. Small round eyes, up-tipped nose, pert mouth, full rosy cheeks—one of the decorative types that does not wear well, but which is happily never required to. It was evident that she was smitten by Paul’s undeniable good looks and his smooth patter of rakish nonsense.

“Delighted,” I said uncertainly.

“Enchanted,” she said in a thin breathy voice with the accent of the north.

“Mlle Nobody is visiting us from the great world of Paris,” Paul explained. “She and a company of friends have borrowed the handsome motorcar of one of their rich fathers to make this trek into the hinterlands from the relatively civilized outpost of Biarritz. Their trip here was dusty and uneventful, save for a little fun they had hectoring local rustics along the way by frightening their horses… isn’t that right, Mlle Whocares?”

She giggled, obviously not recognizing Paul and me.

“And that fellow over there,” Paul made a vague gesture towards an athletic-looking young man glaring at us from the shelter of the next doorway, “he was the driver of the vehicle in question. We may also assume he had anticipated being Mlle Nothing’s escort—if not more—and at this moment he is smoldering with jealousy in a most gratifying way. Isn’t that so, you insipid little charmer?” He hugged her to his side, and she rolled her eyes at me as though asking if ever in my born days I had met the likes of this outrageous rogue.

I kept my face set in a smile as I asked, “Will there be trouble?”

“If I have any luck at all, there will.”

“Remember your shoulder.”

He laughed. “My dear fellow, a kick-boxer uses his shoulders only to shrug, after it’s all over.”

“Shall I stay close by?”

“And spoil my fun? I’m beginning to enjoy myself for the first time in several years, aren’t I, Mlle Featherhead?” He kissed her cheek, and I could almost hear the young Parisian man grind his teeth.

“Do you think I could manage this dance?” Paul asked.

Another Kax Karot was just beginning to form its confronting lines out in the square. “I don’t see why not. It’s quite simple,” I said.

“Good! Come, Echobrain, let’s dance!” And Paul dragged his adoring bit of fluff out into the throng.

As I pressed on towards the place where I had left Katya, the young man from Paris caught up with me and clapped his heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Sir?” I asked, turning around and gripping my bottle of citronade by the neck, for the fellow was bigger than I and much bigger than Paul.

“Who was that man?” he demanded.

“Which man?” I asked gazing blandly over the crowd. “There are rather many.”

“The one you were talking with, damn it!”

“Oh-h, him. I haven’t the slightest idea. He was asking if I had come across any snot-nosed Parisian dandies at the fкte, and I told him that I doubted any such would dare show his face here.” I smiled broadly and held his eyes with mine mockingly, though I should have been ashamed to revert so quickly to the infantile pugnacious ways of the Basque.

The young man glared at me for a second; then he tossed his head haughtily as though it were beneath his dignity to bother with me, and he departed.

When I had edged around the square back to the place I had left Katya, she was not there. But almost immediately I caught the swirl of her white dress out in the circle of dancers, and I pressed forward to watch her do the rapid, intricate steps of the porrusanda, a vigorous version of the fandango danced with both arms raised and the hands gracefully curved overhead, while the feet execute the quick, stamping steps. She danced the porrusanda as though she had been born to it, her face radiant, her eyes shining, her body delighting in the opportunity for athletic expression. I smiled with proprietary pleasure as I looked on, not feeling the slightest twinge of jealousy over the handsome young Basque lad who danced before her. He wore the white duck trousers and full white shirt of a jai alai player, and the red sash about his waist indicated that his team had won in that afternoon’s contest at the village fronton. Their matching white costumes and their exceptional strength and grace gave them the appearance of a pair of professional dancers among the variegated crowd, and some of the people standing near me muttered praises as they clapped in time with the music.

The tune ended with a twirling flutter of the txitsu flute, and the jai alai player escorted Katya back to where I was standing and returned her to me with an extravagant and slightly taunting bow.

“You look charming when you dance,” I told her.

“Thank you. I love to dance. Is that for me?”

“What? Oh, yes. Here you are.” I opened the citronade and poured it for her.

The band began a slower melody to which the older people could dance a passo, and women of a certain age were begged out into the dancing circle by friends and family. After the obligatory refusals and shruggings away, they allowed themselves to be prevailed upon and they danced soberly—pairs of middle-aged women and some quite old; widows and spinsters who cut vegetables in the farm kitchens of their luckier married sisters; several stiff old men with their ten— or eleven-year-old granddaughters—their eyes slyly searching out acquaintances in the crowd to make sure they were being watched, as they should be. Anyone familiar with the rhythms of rural Basque fetes would know that this dance marked the end of the evening for the older women and the younger children, as it was nearly ten o’clock. After all, there would be a fкte again next year, God permitting, and one needn’t spend out all his allotment of joy at one time. The responsible middle-aged men, heads of etche households, would have one last txikiteo around the buvettes with friends, then they, too, would begin to slip away to their carts and carriages to make the slow ride to their outlying farms, to look in on the animals before sleep. This would leave only the young and the very old men to revel until midnight; the Young because they were full of energy and joy, and youth is a brief visitor to one’s life, while old age remains with you until death, like a visiting in-law; and the Old because they had served their many years of toil and merited their few years of relaxation in the knowledge that each hour wounds, and the last kills.

I offered Katya my arm and we strolled through the thinning crowd towards the bridge and the lower end of the village. She was pleased to hear that I had seen her father engaged in close talk with local elders, presumably gathering folktales for his studies.

“And the men accepted him, even though he’s an outsider?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “He’s an avid listener—a rare find in a land noted for its indefatigable storytellers. Then too, he is buying Izarra for the table, and that cannot fail to endear him to the Basque heart. They love their Izarra almost as much as they loathe parting with a sou.”

“And Paul? Did you see Paul?”

“Ah-m-m… yes.”

“Is he enjoying himself?”

“Ah-m-m… yes. In fact, there he is. Over there.”

“Where? I don’t see— Oh yes, there he is! What a pretty girl… the one he’s dancing with. Wait a minute, wasn’t she in the motorcar that…?”

“Yes, she was.”

“And those two brawny young men watching Paul so intently, aren’t they the ones who drove us off the road?”

“They are.”

Her expression grew troubled. “I do hope there isn’t going to be any trouble. Paul can be a trifle… provocative.”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed. But I thought you were looking forward to a little bagarre basque.”