Bruno Scarfe – notes for an autobiography: Salamanca

Salamanca! It holds memories of paralyzing cold, of languid heat; of drenching rains at night, of powdery dust in the glare of day; of grey swirling mist, of black on white, of every colour El Greco visited on canvas. It holds memories of unbroken silence; humdrum sounds of man and beast; crash and roar of progress all around. It holds memories of peace in solitude; a trickle of friends conversing; the flow, the eddy, the swirl of crowds. It holds memories of loneliness, and relief then, on contact found.

That year in Salamanca before going up to Oxford was no year of rest, as my time in Germany had already warned. It was a year in which I seemed always to be searching: for better accommodation, a girlfriend, confidence in teaching, academic knowledge, or simply words. There was, besides, much soul searching. Why so much searching? Was it something gnawing within me, craving satisfaction? or did Salamanca just take it upon itself to draw, to tease, to stimulate and challenge, and profer then a hundred tangled answers?

I started off with a room between the Plaza Mayor and Gran Via: but it was claustrophobic, boring, and costly. So I searched, and languished the winter long in two tiny rooms at Nicolasa’s, on the unmade streets of Salas Pombo: ascetic, icy, and remote. So I searched again, and by Easter had settled at the Pensión Mieza, between the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza del Poeta Iglesias, on half board: my room was bright and spacious, slightly better furnished, central – and with a view, though not alas of the Plaza Mayor. The corpulent, conspiratorial Beni helped his ageing parents run the place, there were street noises off, and a hundred cockroaches in the ancient kitchen nearby. I was happy there, but suffered chronic, sometimes severe stomach problems, I wonder why?

Before Salamanca, I had often had a girl friend. At Ampleforth I had written to Sara, whom I saw at end of term, and later there was Ingrid. My stay in Kochel bore resemblances to boarding school, but the different atmosphere and few prospects of seeing Ingrid, made letter writing increasingly frustrating and inadequate. Then there had been my passion for Elfriede, the ‘Cupid’ of the poem, which had brought me some companionship, however scarce and guarded, followed by a warm but fleeting stay at Sigrid’s. Faced with an uninterrupted year starting at Salamanca, I craved, and searched for, a companion. María Teresa of Zaragoza, a gently serious and pretty arts student seemed relaxed and friendly, and we went together for walks, down to the river, and out to the cafés: we held hands. Until, one day, she was locked out of her residence. Our behaviour was unorthodox, and had been declared unacceptable. She told me this in shock, in disbelief, frightened, hurt, innocent. We were not to be seen speaking. In the course of the year I came to know another student, the slim, attractive, intense and already academically inclined María Elena, from Salamanca. Or, on further thought, was it the mother I came to know, as I sat in their home and watched mother sew? María Elena was friendly, but seemed to have in mind an academic programme which stretched into the distant future. There was never a question of talking to the daughter or going out with her, alone. I was impatient. I grew disenchanted. I lost interest. It was a girl friend I needed, not her mother. I failed the test.

And so it was, eventually, that I came to search at a bar late one night, in what was then Salamanca’s barrio chino. After a glass or two of wine to justify my presence, and probably to help my courage, I put the almost inevitable question to a woman I had been observing. We left the bar, and made for the room she was using up the street. There, to my admissions of ignorance and to my questions, she reacted easily, and with warmth. She took care, and within the limits of her ‘profession’, she was kind. She was, even, moderately attractive. On the surface, the relief she dispensed – at a charge – was material, physical. But it was contact, touch, and feeling, which I could find nowhere else, which I valued more. It had immediacy, it was real. And it was emotional and psychological reassurance, which I could find nowhere else, which I valued most. In the short term, at least, the whole business brought immense relief, and it worked at more than one level. There is the memory, still, of the feeling at the base of my spine as we walked up the street beforehand: the kundalini, as she stirred, and began to rise. It was something I had never known before. It is something I have never experienced since. As for the ‘woman of the night’, I never found her again.

Searching, however, was not my prerogative alone. Others, also, were on the search, and came to find me.

Within what seems minutes of enrolling for courses at the University, I was button- holed by a fellow student, María Dolores. She informed me I was to teach her family English, at home. I would have expostulated, saying I was a student – of Spanish – and no teacher, let alone a teacher of English. Her answer would have been “but you are English, aren’t you? so you can teach English, can’t you? I mean, if you are English …” Her insistence overrode all objections – logical and imagined – and then hesitations, and I was taken promptly to her home which lay round the corner, just down from the imposing baroque Clerecía, in gently sloping Palomino. There, for a year, I taught the family English, between two and three hours a day. Carmen I did not teach, perhaps because she was too young, or because she knew no English and might have needed a class by herself. It was continuing English with a lot of grammar for the two sons, chalk and cheese, the young Luís chirpy and extroverted, the older Manolo taciturn and withdrawn. It could be boring, though alleviated at times by the interplay of characters, and the mutual culture shock which found its outlet through interminable questions. María Dolores, the fair haired, impetuous and occasionally moody girl who had commandeered me at the University, did more advanced work, and I remember to this day taking her – was it at my suggestion? – through Under Milkwood. It stretched her every which way. I do not recollect if I did this in a spirit of retaliation or reward … for having landed me with this daily chore, or with a piece of good fortune. My agenda may have been affected, even, by feelings about her obsession with her boyfriend, absent on military service at Sidi Ifni in the Spanish Sahara. She was a pensive sort, and I might have appreciated a glimpse of her inner world. How I would have enjoyed a walk, or a talk, or a drink with her, out of ‘school hours’. Then there was the Mother, Doña María Luisa, whose striking, rather severe appearance, suggested a strong personality: she was tall, spare, had a pronounced nose and profile. You might, mistakenly, think her haughty. She was well advanced in English, and classes with her were relatively easy, often a pleasure. She talked freely, usually with concern but at times with exasperation, about the children, her husband, and herself. She talked about the maidservants, of whom I recollect two, in black and white, I think with caps. She talked about her health, and home. And she was curious about her teacher, his studies, his health, his state of mind. She must have found me quite a worry. I was paid, perhaps not generously, but remuneration included a formal lunch with the family in between classes. That meant company, which I appreciated, and a balanced diet, which I may not have appreciated fully. The Father might or might not be back from his work as civil engineer: he was a shadowy, modest figure, gently spoken and frequently tired looking, abstracted. I was issued quite often with a concert ticket – and I remember still the surprise and delight of ballet, though these were all events which I had to attend alone. A wonderful fuss was made of me at Christmas, and I possess still the set of cuff- links I was given then, or at Reyes. There were a few outings to the family finca, La Torre – with its bulls and horses – off the main road to Portugal. It was a one storey, sprawling group of buildings, all white, set on a gently rolling, open plain, brown and yellow. The ranch style emphasis on white walls, the furnishings of wood and iron, the quality of the light, the sense of timelessness, suggested peace. It was the antithesis of the twilight shadows in the house at Palomino, with sombre antique furniture and damask wall hangings, suggestive of labours done and more in wait, of responsibilities without end. I was fortunate to be asked to work with that family: traditional, human, and generous.

Others who sought me out made less of an impact. But I remember still having intriguing English conversation classes with the slight and self-effacing, ginger haired, and un-Spanish looking Dean of the Faculty, in his office. He paid me most generously. I was indiscrete, however, in passing on some of his points of view to others. Perhaps his position, given the political climate nationally and institutionally, was insecure; perhaps he just imagined it. He dispensed with my services, and I was suitably crestfallen. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I remember English classes with a dark-skinned, intense but diminutive army captain, El Capi, as he was called, in my lodgings at the Pensión Mieza. I helped him with the English of his written work on Roy Campbell, a poet I enjoy, but still recollect the paroxysms of doubt I suffered with regard to the ethics of correcting his thesis, albeit mainly at a linguistic level. I have no idea how he remunerated me, but I do remember lessons he gave me on an old army hack I coaxed round and round in the army compound on the outskirts: lessons which were not to save me when I mounted an Arab thoroughbred at La Torre. He introduced me to his much used and emminently practical Vespa, which he let me ride once, and delighted in showing off to me his gorgeous, sultry girlfriend, aptly named África. He was an amiable, but most curious, bundle of contradictions, thoroughly miscast. When I arrived at Salamanca, after years of schooling, and a stint in Germany, I had reached a stage when I could write a poem, passably, in English; some early childhood ones had even been published, without my being consulted. I had reached a stage when excerpts from my travel diary had appeared in print as informed articles on monuments and esoteric archives. I had reached a stage, even, when I had the audacity to submit whole books (diaries) to Routledge’s, who rejected them of course – though I believe that, precied or edited, they might have earned a quite different answer. At the start of my year there was an irresistable urge to document those features of Spain, and Salamanca in particular, unknown or in disuse in England: the role of Serenos, Limpiabotas, and Mangueros for example. A series of articles, compact and impressionist, resulted, and some were subsequently published at Oxford. Then, later in the year, as my private life underwent increasing turmoil, I began to write poems in Spanish, prematurely, audaciously: I over-flowed with ideas both material and metaphysical, which called for tangible or abstract terms, a calm or emotional approach, taut or richly loaded treatment. I searched endlessly for the word, the expression, the turn of phrase, and the search consumed my energies and time, was at once therapy and sentence. The search ended in a set of poems, of which half were published soon after in London and Oxford, and with the poet wrung out in the scrutiny of surroundings, self, and the endless laberinth of language.

By the end of the year long course, I had obtained the appropriate certificate, the Diploma de estudios hispánicos, with mentions which included Sobresaliente, and Notable (twice). I presumed my parents would be content.

The course was based on the one followed by Spanish university students in their second year, with the difference that foreigners were exempt one or two units – such as philosophy – but attended a special language class, and could (had to?) attend a couple of doctorate seminars of their choice. I found the history unit interesting but far too vast, and hard to digest. The art unit I found frustrating, though it covered a more manageable period, but the highly emotional bohemian Profesor Láinez was a delight. There were almost no foreign students then, and I remember just two others with certainty taking the Diploma. No allowances were made for foreigners in lectures or seminars, and I was not aware of any special allowances in the exams. Following the lectures and coping with materials which might stretch from the Phoenicians to the Second Republic – was tough. So most Spanish students settled for memorising their lecture notes, and gave short shrift to reading round the subject. What mitigated these challenges for me, was the interesting literature unit – Mediaeval – outside the time frames I had known at school, ably given by Profesor César Real. I found reading the early texts fascinating – especially the Mío Cid, the Cantigas of Alfonso the Wise, Jorge Manrique’s Coplas por la muerte de su padre, and the Celestina – and paid limited attention to class notes, which could be bought in student circles. And, of the two doctorate seminars I attended, the one given by Profesor García Blanco on Antonio Machado was rich in details useful to me for years afterwards: if the delivery was somewhat dry, the person responsible was both charming and helpful. Another mitigating factor was the composition of the attending students. I was flattered to be studying alongside Spanish students, and to be treated as one of them. I was delighted, too, that nearly all were female. Might there not be some unlooked for benefits in taking an arts course, and later, perhaps, in teaching? I imagine I conveyed most of the course details to my Father, but omitted mention of one or two of the mitigating factors, above.

I was well prepared, then, for Oxford – and after. Or was I? The pursuit of certificates and diplomas beyond those usually required, had increased my linguistic and cultural knowledge. It had given me, also, a range of experiences and insights not generally to be found. Some of these insights and experiences, however, brought with them controversial attendant baggage. So while the benefits were many and quite obvious, there were sundry hidden costs, some of which surfaced soon, some much later. I am still coming to terms with these faux amis.