A Canto Hondo Pavoroso (A Singing Deep and Awful)

            “Raech, let’s go in here,” my friend Liz suggests.

            I look into the small, windowless room and see a young man bent over a guitar, strumming half-heartedly.

            “I thought we were going to try to find some Flamenco,” I reply…okay, whine.

            This night is not going well so far.  It’s our first night in Madrid, my first time in Spain, and I don’t care about the delicious tapas or the beautiful architecture or the thumping dance music playing downstairs in this labyrinthine, old, mansion-turned-nightclub.  All I want is Flamenco.

            When I was little, after my parents divorced, my dad played guitar and sang in bars in Northern New Mexico to earn extra money to help support me.  My dad is a talented musician, and although we don’t have any Hispanic heritage, he grew up in New Mexico like I did, surrounded by ancient Spanish, Mexican, and Pueblo culture.  My “Grandpa” Eloy (my paternal grandfather’s best friend) taught my dad to play guitar, so he learned the songs Eloy played: “Cielito Lindo,” “La Rana,” “La Malagueña.”

            When I was a child, my dad played and sang for me all the time.  He played children’s songs and folk songs and Beatles’ songs, but what I loved listening to the most were the Spanish and Mexican songs.  Sometimes, he would take me to his gigs with him, and I would sip on a Shirley Temple as I listened to him play for the crowd.

            He’d play “La Bamba,” and the crowd would cheer, “¡Más rápido, Coyote! ¡Más rápido!”  They called my dad “Coyote” because he was white but had dark hair and eyes and could speak Spanish.  He wasn’t Chicano, but he wasn’t a lowly gringo, either; “Coyote” was a term of respect.

            I loved watching my dad play in these little bars.  He is a natural showman, and he knew how to draw everyone into his show.  He’d often play “La Malagueña” as the last song of his set.  “La Malagueña” was my favorite.  It’s a melodious, Flamenco-style guitar solo that pierces your ears, vibrating through your blood until it rearranges and transforms your soul.  Although in reality I probably only accompanied my dad to bar gigs a handful of times (or less), they are some of my favorite memories.  I think as a girl I loved my dad most when he was playing “La Malagueña.”

            And now I am in Span – the birthplace of Flamenco – and after wandering around for an hour in an area of Madrid that supposedly has bars showcasing traditional Flamenco, all we had found was this club.  The sign outside advertised live music; that music turned out to be a DJ – the one spinning the thumping music downstairs.  And now Liz wants to stay and sit in a room with a stranger.

            “You said you wanted live music,” Liz pleads with me.  “This is live music.”  

She nudges me toward the door. Then, the man in the room looks up, and I realize why Liz wants to stay.  He’s beautiful.

“Please??” she whispers.

I roll my eyes but follow her into the room and ask the young musician if we can listen to him play.  He assents, and we sit for fifteen minutes listening to him practice scales while he largely ignores us, and Liz stares at him as if naming their future children.

As I am about to physically pull Liz from the room, two older, very well-dressed men enter, escorted by an entourage of beautiful Spanish women who make me feel frumpy and old at twenty-four.

The men close the heavy wooden door behind them, greet the guitarist, and ask him if Liz and I are his friends.  When he says no, the men look at us in an interested, hungry way that makes me nervous.  I wish I had pulled Liz out of here ten minutes ago.

The older men ask us where we’re from.  When I answer, “America,” their lupine smiles grow larger, and they begin to ask questions so rapidly I have trouble understand them.  One of the men nods to the…waiter? bouncer?... brawny club employee hovering inside the door, and he leaves, closing the door behind him.  I have a bad feeling about this.

I stand up, grab Liz’s arm, and tell the men that my friend and I had better go, that our other friends are waiting for us.  This is a lie, of course; the other students on this trip are across town at an expensive, touristy nightclub.

As I try to pull Liz from her seat, she and the men begin to protest vigorously.  The older men tell me to sit, stay, drink with them.  Liz begs to stay here with the handsome young guitarist a little longer.  The beautiful Spanish women giggle and whisper to one another.  Reluctantly, I sit back down and look around the room.  No windows, thick stone walls, no exit other than the door.  I wonder if the whitewash hides the places where shackles were attached during the Inquisition.

The beefy worker returns, carrying a tray filled with glasses of deep red Spanish wine.  He gives drinks to the men, the cover girls, the guitarist, and us.  I politely say, “No, gracias,” but the waiter doesn’t take my glass away, and the men insist we accept their hospitality.  Liz eagerly takes her glass with her right hand, while elbowing me with her left arm.  I relent and accept the glass.  The Spaniards cheer as the waiter leaves, once again sealing our escape route.

The more talkative of the men raises his glass and makes a toast.

“What did he say?” Liz asks.

“He said, ‘To our new American friends,’” I reply, and we all drink.  

Well, I just pretend to drink; I’m still not convinced that the wine isn’t drugged.  Years of television news programs and my mother’s paranoia have convinced me that every man I don’t know (and maybe some that I do) wants to kidnap and rape me.

The men smile, satisfied, and start speaking to the musician in Spanish so swift that I can’t understand them at all.  He replies and tunes his guitar as the swimsuit models stop whispering.  

And then…ZAM! The guitarist plays a loud, strong chord, and the men begin to sing.

Only “sing” doesn’t describe it at all.  The men belt out music – a strong, ululating call and response that the women punctuate with staccato notes clapped in rapid syncopation as the guitarist strums chords, picks cascading melodies, and pounds rhythms on his instrument.  I have never heard Flamenco this powerful before.

When the song is over, I close my open mouth and fight back tears as Liz and I applaud furiously.  The men chuckle and ask, “¿Te gustó?” Did you like it?  I nod.

“This is what we came for,” I manage.

The men smile – warm, proud smiles – and when the women laugh, I can tell they’re not laughing at us.

Liz and I spend the next five hours drinking Tempranillo and laughing and flirting and experiencing the soul-transforming beauty of traditional Flamenco music performed by masters.  As we leave the club that night, long after closing time, we kiss our new friends goodbye (even the handsome guitarist and the Spanish supermodels), and I realize how grateful I am to Liz for making me venture into that tiny chamber for the sake of one beautiful man.