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It is impossible to recreate the intensity
of feeling generated in me by my reunion with Flipper. I crept
silently into the dim interior of the rough stone shed where
he lay. He was flat out on his side, fast asleep on an old
potato sack. I could barely make him out at first, for the
light which came from the one mini-glass window at the rear
was heavily filtered by the age-old grime which covered it.
But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw him clearly. At
last! He had been gone just over 24 hours. Curled up beside
him was a compact bundle of brown and white Podenco pulchritude…also
fast asleep, and also on an old potato sack. The couple were
clearly, well, a couple. There was that aura of trusting togetherness,
of how shall I say, affectionate closeness, which was so like
the same thing in humans that I was touched to tears.
Our hosts, Madame and the rest of the family,
remained quietly just outside, anxious and supportive. They
had a special problem, however. Baby Sandra’s affection
for Flipper had grown from the seed planted at their first
meeting in Paris into a full fledged love affair since being
reunited with him in Ibiza. When he had gone lost she had
been haunted by a conviction that he would never be found,
and she had refused to be comforted. And now, despite that
he had been found alive and in reasonable shape, she continued
inconsolable, having become convinced that he would not survive
the wounds of his ordeal. The family, even now as I had made
my way inside the shed where he was lying, had tried to make
her realize that Flipper was, in fact, alive and basically
well. But logic it seemed had nothing whatever to do with
her feelings. She was an extremely sensitive child and would
become even more so as she grew up. Her distress during the
past day over Flipper’s disappearance had been formidable,
and her continuing fear for his future well being began to
loom as a real problem for Catherine and her father. And for
all of us, really. It wasn’t until she actually was able
to hold him in her arms again and see for herself that he
was in good spirits that she began to feel better about him….and
that moment, alas, was to be delayed for some time.
The shed was cramped enough in feeling to
be a claustrophobic nightmare to the sensitive. But it was
just right for the two animals in winter time. It was so small
and so nearly air tight that their body heat helped to keep
it warm. And it was almost entirely countersunk into an earthen
bank behind and around it, which also helped to keep the mid-winter
chill well in check. This bode well for the two dogs. Our
hostess was right; warmth was a critical healing element in
their recovery.
Overhead were crude, open ceiling rafters,
made from the trunks of only half-grown, hard-pine, Sabina
trees. The wood from these trees was so hard it was insect
and water proof and almost indestructible. The beams supported
not only the heavily thatched roof, but also a, primitive
collection of worn farm-life work sundries which hung from
them. There were ancient mule harnesses, even crude mule saddles,
saddle blankets, bridles with dried out leather fittings,
odd coils of heavy rope, some antique agricultural tools,
rusted saws and even a venerable butter churn. The walls,
of hand laid stone, could not have been more uneven. They
bulged from their centres as if about to collapse. But one
knew that was a long way off. The floor was hard-packed dirt.
Most telling, to be sure, was the startling,
if half expected, powerful smell of the place. It was a smell
which had been developing for years. It was an individual,
a very unique, a particularly indigenous smell. It was also
a non-offensive smell, one that told of farmyard happenings
a hundred musty years ago. And all of it, the roof, the walls,
the hardened earthen floor, and even the deeply sleeping dogs,
all of it was true. All of it had never known pretension,
never made a false statement. The whole thing, like the main
house in front of it, was perfect in all of its attributes:
its function, its construction for that function, its proportions
for that function and its long years of service in that function.
It was an honest outhouse, indeed.
All of these tidings were passing through
my mind as I stood there, a bit hunched over because of the
low ceiling. But it was on Flipper that I focused. His breathing
was regular, his body was relaxed. Every once in while one
of his feet would move abruptly as he dreamed. It was an old
story. Flipper dreamed endlessly and very often would seem
to be running in his sleep. He seemed quite all right as I
watched him and I was filled with unbounded relief. As to
the bitch, she too seemed not to be too badly off. She also
slept the sleep of the weary. She also told the silent story
of lost dogs. Extreme exhaustion followed by deep slumber,
buried in which were dreams of home. And so the two of them
lay there.
It had been my intention to take Flipper
to a Vet after we had all gone back to Madame’s house
and had our lunch. Juanito would have by then decided whether
he also wanted to have his bitch checked by a Vet. But standing
there, looking at the two animals peacefully sleeping together
on potato sacks, I was given pause. I decided to talk with
our Ibicencan hosts, who would have canine savvy as country
people do, and to Madame and the others as well, before I
did anything. Backing out of the shed as silently as possible
so as to leave the dogs undisturbed, I motioned for a return
to the main house. On our way back we had to duck carefully
beneath the extraordinarily low overhead of the back doorway,
to avoid damaging our heads. This, I had discovered, was typical
of all the old casas payesas. Only the main front doors of
these old houses had been made a bit grander than the rest,
and therefore were able to more easily accommodate taller
people than the ones who had built them. Like their child-sized
general purpose chairs, their general purpose doorways were
made for very small people, indeed.
We gathered in the front room, the entrada,
Seated on the kindergarten chairs, knees almost to our chins,
we debated the next move while tea was being prepared in the
kitchen. The question came down to this: should we waken the
dogs and leave with them after tea? Or should we be off without
them after tea, leaving them to sleep off their ordeal in
a natural way? We could drive back to Madame’s place,
have our lunch and a siesta and then return in the later afternoon
to pick up the dogs, bringing Juanito with us.
Our kind hostess tried quite genuinely to
persuade us to have our lunch with them, then and there. She
insisted we could even siesta comfortably in her house. It
had been, she said, built for large families. And were we
not, at least for the day, her family? She had known us for
years, she insisted, and had never been favoured by circumstance
before in this way. She was about to go on with it, ramifications
proliferating as she went, but her husband gravely interrupted
and said it was not for her or for him to make the decision,
but for us. We could be sure, he emphasized, that whatever
seemed best to us, would be welcomed by them. And so it went
for awhile, back and forth, until it became clear that we
could afford to wait half an hour while we had our tea. If,
in that time, the dogs awakened, we could be off, taking them
with us. If not, we would go without them.
Then, suddenly, just as tea was being brought
out, it was taken out of our hands. Flipper had slept it off,
it seemed, for he began to bark in a way which I recognized
at once. He wanted to be let out. And it was urgent. I rushed
out to the shed, and, in my hurry and excitement, I smashed
my forehead against the low overhead of the back door. It
was painful and stunning but it wasn’t enough to stop
me. I lurched on, not forgetting to duck this time, before
bursting through the also low overhead of the outhouse door.
Flipper tried valiantly to jump up when he saw me, but there
was something missing in his motion and I knew with a sinking
heart that all was not right with the little fellow. He fell
back on his potato sack and began to whimper, so I gathered
him up in my arms and, with the bitch following, severe limp
and all, we made our way back into the entrada. The greeting
given the two dogs was general and generous and they both
responded as well as they could. Flipper yipped a little and
the bitch wagged her tail furiously and licked hands widely.
After a bit, I took both of them out to the back of the house
and let them relieve themselves, which they seemed able to
do in the normal way. But Flipper could hardly manage to walk.
Nevertheless I was reassured, because it seemed that there
had been no internal damage. And, indeed, as later examination
proved, there was not.
Needless to say, there was not only tea
for us before we left, but also….salsa.
Harold Liebow
haroldliebow@ibizahistoryculture.com
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