Bilbao and its bull-fighting, with thirty years of delay, by a woman who is not aficionada.
A first name, whose years have not worn charm. The first time we hear it arise pell-mell a small figure of English literature, a skill game very simple and very old, a brand of bubble bath of the 70 who claimed a refinement of the Far East, Africa, with its huge trees and village names. In this combination of consonants and three vowels childish different - simplicity-focused so that enchants a je ne sais quoi primitive and playful lined with exotic confused. Bilbao is an elsewhere.
In the city I discovered thirty years ago (this is not exactly thirty years but the roundness of the number is more suited to intimate sense of time that separates me from that first meeting) I keep an indelible impression of ugliness. I remember the dirty yellow of Nervion where floating debris. I remember the gray walls, a choking sensation, dust and smells rancid. I remember being remembered mining towns of Lorraine which an internal part of my childhood. Thus, Spain was also that? I do knew her as Andalusia, where a few months ago, I went with V.
Each time, of course, it was bullfighting. Seville was the site of initiation. Seville, blue skies, its hot spring and fragrant orange flowers, magic stealth patios over the wanderings in the streets fresh, who imagine going all the intrigues, all the drama, suspicion and a lifestyle incomparable. Lifestyle which would be the quintessential bull. In the white walls hemmed ocher on a golden sand and under a clear light, it plays all seriousness with the dark forces that move us and move the universe. "Since these mysteries are beyond us, pretending to be the organizers ..." It happens in these places something extraordinarily serious and childish at times, something that goes back to the childhood of humanity and yet is a sign of accomplishment. I live and Curro Romero, El Viti and a few bulls who came alive, were dragged fifteen minutes after the exit, poor masses of inert flesh on which, I confess, I was feeling sorry.
The following summer, so there was Bilbao's feria. And arenas, as perched in a dead end and so austere appearance. Our hotel is located in the old quarters, which allowed the long journey to win the plaza de toros scored in my imaginary geography very personal feel arenas relegated at the end of the city, like the O's name. Coexisting with that impression, totally opposite, that I had inside, where the circles on the sand appeared as the heart of a concentric series: circular walls around the city, itself embedded in a round hills. This almost physical sensation of being heart, I also had no doubt that the bullfight, this time most of the day because I felt that every hour there driving, was the key, the only reason for our presence in this city.
I saw in fact two fights, not one more.
And in August 2009, the third. It was great to be a paradox here, thirty years later. Over the years, something happened that it was impossible to remember in detail and appeared to lead to this reunion. I recognized the dark but the bricks around me seemed less dirty, less sad, as if the metamorphosis of the city reflected on the high walls of the arenas. I surrendered to the superposition of the shaky memories and present impressions.
Upon entering, a surprise: the stands were no longer gray, but blue. A blue shade of a rather delicate, that of plastic worn, faded seats. The sand in my memory, was not so dark and I was typing. After a hot and sunny morning, I feared the devastation. I think now I would have been disappointed if this had not happened failover end of the afternoon to the atmosphere remained for me so characteristic of the city: a lowering sky and a gray hesitating between silver and lead.
So a mate harmony presides at the ceremony. Such was the image that I had kept it well and I had dimly dreamed of finding her. I thought that was what I liked in Bilbao: the sky a little leaden, dark sand, a certain heaviness in the air. I like the antithesis of the picturesque, brilliant. Point of flickering or sparkling reflections, off the flakes. The ritual is a splendor amortized, it seems that we would wait in vain for a fiery tragedy. The bullfight that day was not, I think, those marking the papers. But I've seen in Bilbao, perhaps better than any place more luminous, refined character, demanding, these appointments late afternoon.
Laetitia D.
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