Sacred Sierra (26 page)

In all of this it was always something of a struggle to imagine these tiny creatures one day soaring high above. The temptation was to plant them too close together – a little sapling standing in a large space of its own could be a melancholy sight. It took a certain leap of faith to realise it would often need more than we could give it on our rocky, sloping ground.

I did my best to follow Ibn al-Awam’s advice about tree-planting, digging a big hole, placing manure at the bottom, and then more around the top to protect the roots afterwards. All simple stuff to an experienced gardener, but it was invaluable advice to a novice like me. He also warned against planting trees on rainy days – except olive trees – although cloudy days were preferable to sunny ones. Fridays and Sundays were also advised against, being the holy days of Muslims and Christians respectively; interestingly, no mention was made of the Jewish holy day, Saturday, despite the sizeable Iberian Jewish population in his day.

Slowly, I began to get the hang of planting in general, and started to develop a sense for what kind of trees might survive. I still had doubts, and only with time would I see if I was getting it right, but our land was clearly suited to hardy species and varieties. I could have said that
at
the start, having read it somewhere, but now these words actually began to mean something. Experience was beginning to fill in where books and comments from other people only gave a sketch.

Apart from the trees, I also planted a few herbs and climbers at this time. One of the last things Agustí, the previous owner, had done before leaving the farm, was to put in a septic tank. He’d managed to half-bury it in one of the stone animal shelters that stood near the house, but frankly it was an eyesore, with its square cement roof plonked right in the middle of the garden. Perhaps at a later date, I thought, we might build a new one in a less conspicuous spot, but for the time being I decided to disguise it as best I could by cultivating a herb garden around it. Laurel, sage, lemon thyme and rosemary were tucked around the edge, while I planted some thornless blackberries on the south side in the hope that they might grow over the structure and mask some of its ugliness. A box plant and some holly joined them.

Meanwhile, I turned my attention to some of the ruins standing near our own houses. These were crumbling down in most cases, the roof having caved in years before and the walls slowly dissolving as the rain seeped in and washed away the simple mud mixture that held the stones together. The owners never came up here, but, even so, I couldn’t really pull them down, despite the temptation: word would get out and I would almost certainly end up with a feud on my hands. The best bet, as with the septic tank, was to try to beautify them in some way. And so I planted some ivy and jasmine against the walls, with Virginia creeper for autumn colour. Agustí had already planted a couple of roses beside them. Now, after heavy pruning, it seemed they might come back to life: new buds were quickly appearing. Near the ruins stood a pomegranate tree that had sprouted over two dozen shoots and was looking more like a bush than a tree. I pruned it back as harshly as I dared, hoping that a proper tree – and with it some fruit – might appear in time.

Finally, I planted the onions the Truffle King had given me, placing them on a little terrace below the kitchen where some of the water from the sink ran out. That way, I reasoned, watering them would take care of itself, even if the soap suds and other elements washed down on
to
them might give them an interesting flavour when it came round to harvesting. Half a dozen lettuces went in next to them, to give us something cool and watery to eat in the heat of the summer.

*

A westerly Ponent had been blowing since the night before: that ill-wind that brought dry, dusty air in from the central plains, charged with a curiously negative energy almost guaranteed to put everyone in an odd mood. We are usually blessed with fresher winds coming in off the Mediterranean, but the Ponent seemed to bring with it dirt and anger picked up during its overland flight and dumped it down on the coastal mountains.

I stepped out of Concha’s
mas
, pulling my coat tighter around me as I leaned in against the force of the breeze, tears peeling down the side of my face as my eyes squinted, struggling not to dry out in this desiccating air. El Clossa came out after me and we headed towards a four-wheel-drive where Pau was already sitting inside.

‘We’re on red alert,’ he said for the third time that day. ‘This kind of wind is the worst for forest fires.’

‘And what with the lack of rain this winter,’ El Clossa chipped in.

We’d come over for lunch, Concha tempting me with a trip to a nearby abandoned village – a magical, mysterious place hidden in a secret valley. La Estrella, she said, was one of the most ‘powerful’ places in the whole Penyagolosa area. We could drive there in the afternoon.

‘Where the fuck are they?’ Pau was getting impatient as we waited in silence for Concha and Marina to appear. Africa was now seven months pregnant, and Salud had wisely decided to stay behind and keep her company while we went for our jaunt.

‘Switch on the engine,’ El Clossa said. ‘They’ll think we’re leaving without them.’

‘I’m not emitting any more carbons than is absolutely necessary,’ Pau said.

At that moment the rounded figures of Concha and Marina came bundling through the tiny door. Marina wrapped a large green boa round her neck, smiling.

Pau didn’t speak as he turned the ignition and clunked the car into gear. It had that peculiar leather-and-damp-socks smell of an old car,
and
it came as a relief when El Clossa wound down his window as we set off.

We headed down from the
mas
to the village to hook up with the main road. There was little traffic about. An old man with a straw hat and a holey, thin jumper ambled past as we drove along, his wife in her apron a few feet in front of him picking herbs by the roadside and placing them in a plastic bag to take home.

After a while we pulled off the road and down a dirt track near the crest of a hill. It was almost hidden by the low bushes and undergrowth surrounding it and I had probably driven past it dozens of times without even noticing. It was not one of the better-kept forest tracks, and we bumped and crashed around inside the car as Pau manoeuvred around holes in the road and abnormally sized rocks that had fallen in our way. Scots and Austrian pines lined some of the route, while a rare handful of yew trees huddled in a dark corner beneath a cliff as we started heading down into a deep, narrow valley. The gorse was no longer in bloom, but patches of broom plant gave flashes of yellow in their place. After a while the trees and plants simply disappeared, and we carried on past naked rock as the track fell down and down, hugging one side of the valley as it cascaded away in front of us before turning away out of view.

The drop beside the track was steep and very long. I was thankful that Pau, for all his faults, appeared to be a good driver. All eyes were on the road, looking for a sign of our intended destination: La Estrella, the mysterious abandoned village.

We turned a corner into another branch of the valley and continued our descent. It was dark down here, pale, fading sunlight just catching the tops of the valley from where we had come. The land felt bare, unloved. Other areas nearby were similar in many ways – no trees, bare rock – but there was something different about this, as though the spark and energy that seemed to light up the earth was missing. I felt trapped.

‘There it is.’ El Clossa broke the silence, pointing ahead towards a small group of houses nestling down at the bottom of the valley, by the banks of an empty, dry riverbed. In the middle a church tower rose up above the tiled roofs.

‘La Estrella,’ Concha announced. ‘The valley of the curse.’

We parked the car a few yards outside the village, by an ancient, decrepit cemetery, its walls crumbling slowly into the ground. Through a gap you could see the small patch of land inside had been taken over by weeds.

The path took us through almond groves before we came to the first house at the edge of the village. There, on the wall, was a sign carved into the stone, the letters painted black. Concha read aloud: ‘RIP. The Estrella flood. Ninth of October 1883. Seventeen houses destroyed. Twenty-six people dead.’

The place was deserted. Rough cobbled streets led from where we stood into the village proper. The stone houses looked well built: it appeared once to have been a wealthy village. Beautifully carved stones formed fan-like arches over the doors; carefully carved gables were still visible; the doors were tall and solid, the first floor windows had delicate little iron balconies. This was far superior to the quality of building of most
masos
. And yet there was no one around. All this had been left and abandoned. Some of the houses looked the worse for it: roofs were beginning to bend where soon they would fall in, while the walls of others were already beginning to fall, exposing the interiors. Many of the houses, though, probably the majority, were in fine condition, even now, over a hundred years after they had been abandoned.

‘The flood virtually wiped the place out,’ Concha said. I looked over towards the parched riverbed running next to us: it was hard to imagine such a destructive amount of water pouring down here. ‘The survivors stuck around for a while but then just left. They said the place was cursed and ill luck would come to anyone who chose to live here again.’

It felt colder down here; the wind was less strong than higher up, but there was a dampness in the air.

‘There’s another version of the story, a local legend,’ El Clossa said, stepping closer. The others started walking away, towards the centre of the village; they didn’t want to hear.

‘Locals say there used to be a special convent down here,’ El Clossa said. ‘It was meant for lovers of the king and the nobles at the royal court. Whenever a woman became pregnant by them she was sent here, to La Estrella, miles from anywhere, so no one could find her.’
He
paused for a moment and checked where the others were. Concha and Marina were some way ahead; Pau seemed to be lingering within earshot.

‘One day,’ El Clossa went on, ‘a woman at court got pregnant by an important man of state. She was expelled from the court and sent here. When she gave birth to a healthy baby boy it was snatched away from her and its brains dashed out.’

A few paces away Pau gave a shiver.

‘The woman was mad with grief, so she called on the stars for justice. One night, in September, they say, a star in human form came down to her. The mother asked for vengeance, but the star refused, saying it could only help her if in her heart she could truly forgive. So the next night the woman climbed the mountain and called out to the Devil. He appeared before her and agreed to grant her wish in return for her soul. A storm broke out and that’s when the floodwaters came down and washed the village away. But the convent and the church still survive, and there you can see the Virgin and child, protected by the star.’

We strolled on towards the church and what had been the centre of the village. There, in the middle of the tiny square, stood a proud mulberry tree. It was still bare of leaves and its spindly branches shot out like needles from the thick, heavy trunk. On one side was a high wall behind which lay the riverbed. To the other side stood a large stone building. Its walls were painted with heavy Baroque designs in pinks and browns: columns and amphorae, a coat of arms and pretend facing stones. It was as though this abandoned structure sitting at the bottom of a forgotten valley in the middle of the empty Spanish countryside were meant to look like a palazzo in the centre of Florence. It was incongruously kitsch, and the effect was to heighten the slightly unreal feeling. It was softened, in part, by the sight of the church in front of us, far more plain and classical and easier on the eye. I walked towards it to have a closer look.

‘That’s where the real power is,
cariño
,’ Concha said enigmatically, pointing to the church and looking at me.

‘My pendulum’s going all over the place,’ Marina said. She was standing by the mulberry tree, her head bent down as she stared at the ball and string circling energetically from her hand. Images of her
deciding
the place needed ‘cleansing’ and pulling her pants down again to piss everywhere sprang to mind and I determined to make myself scarce. The door of the church was firmly locked, though: there was no way of escape.

A yowling came from the side of the square and for the first time I became aware of a group of cats dozing on a stone bench built against the side of one of the houses. They looked clean and well fed, with that satisfied, smiling, feline siesta look on their faces. There seemed nothing extraordinary about it at first, but then I wondered: someone must be feeding them. Cats wouldn’t otherwise be lounging around looking so pleased with themselves. And they seemed more than comfortable with our presence in the square, as though it wasn’t unusual for them to see people there.

We were, I felt certain, not entirely alone down here. This was supposed to be an abandoned village – a cursed abandoned village what’s more. But there were signs of life.

‘I’ve never come across anything as strong as this,’ Marina was saying, still fixed on her pendulum. ‘This is the perfect place for it.’

‘For what?’ I asked, slightly warily.

‘From here,’ Marina said, ‘I can place a hex on all that evil development and building they’re doing down on the coast. Marina d’Or,’ she cried, raising her hands high above her head, ‘shall be no more!’

I’d had enough of Marina’s crazy magic, and turned my back on her, preferring not to see what her ‘curse’ would entail. As long as it didn’t involve her stripping off: dear God, please not that again.

I walked away as she began mumbling something, and began to study the church. The façade was fairly simple, with a white, heavy statue of the Virgin Mary above the door, the baby Jesus in one arm and in her other, outstretched hand a star. On the pedestal beneath her a pentacle was clearly engraved – the
estrella
– or star – that gave the place its name.