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There was hubbub and uproar, guitar music
and ladies’ laughter, there was also the throaty, basso
speech and deep pitched laughter of heavy men…there were
heavy shadows in dark corners, as well as the tinkling sound
of ice cubes being poured into tall glasses; there were the
to-ings and fro-ings of waiters burdened with overloaded trays,
There was, in short, a party at La Parra. Which was just off
La Marina, the port area of Ibiza town. And it was my party.
It was really, in general, by way of my
saying thank you to my new friends for the warmth and kindness
they had extended to me; and it was, in particular, a party
honouring the newly weds, Paco and Maria. In addition to the
bar’s regulars there were all of us at our own round
table. Absent was Flipper, still recovering in hospital. Present
were the starry-eyed, peasant newly weds; Vicente, cousin
to Paco and Flipper’s vet; Ernesto, man of the world,
art agent and philanthropist; Hungry Hannibal, the man with
a face like a tired eagle’s, hotel tout and instant blood
brother; Chinese Rita, nursing her own bottle with hands that
trembled; Dundee Doreen, never without a smile, a one-liner,
or a broken heart: Big Mimi, timid and silent, owner of a
tea plantation in India but always broke, child lover and
hostage hostess to the hippies; and Little Mimi, dynamo of
discontent, lover of humanity, for once overpowered by another
personality, Catalina, our majestic hostess!
It was a smallish place. Perhaps there were
ten, twelve tables, a four or five meter long bar, a small
dance space of sixteen square meters, dark walls with spectacular
bull fighting posters splendidly displayed by brilliant, focused
lighting, an obscure ceiling, and, guarding the cash register
like a stranded whale, the dueña. Robed in a vast,
Jellaba-type, all-enveloping garment, poured into a deeply
cushioned throne designed to comfortably accommodate elephants,
was Catalina, so obese that she had never been seen to walk....but
a woman so wise that troubled people came from distant parts
of the island to seek her advice….a woman known to massage
‘fallen stomachs’ (more explicitly described as
hiatus hernia), with such passionate perseverance that surgery
could be avoided. Catalina! There was a woman, indeed! Even
Little Mimi was awed by her!
She commanded a service staff of two waiters,
one of whom, Pepe, will presently appear importantly in our
story. There was another Pepe, a somewhat limited guitarist,
Pepe Escudero, whose musical shortcoming was compensated for
by his volcanic enthusiasm. Another guitarist played that
night along with Pepe, but somehow I missed his name. There
was a singer, Pepe’s Escudero’s wife, Herminia,
who sang her own inventions. And there was a Flamenco dancing
gypsy grotesque, Paquito, small, thin, and untidy, who completed
the entertainment roster.
“Antonio Bueno,” was Catalina’s
son and major-domo (as opposed to another local Antonio, “Antonio
Malo”, the town’s acknowledged bad boy). It was
Antonio Bueno who had arranged the details of my party with
me. And it was he who ordered the entertainment and managed
the bar and supplies for the place. The most unusual element
in all of this was that there was formal entertainment at
all. Most bars in Ibiza those days served only as drink/social
centres for their patrons. Entertainment was for someplace
else. And for a small place, La Parra carried a rather biggish
staff, I thought; but when you counted up the number of patrons
sitting at table, standing around, and those seated at the
bar, you began to understand why La Parra’s ancient cash
register was ringing up paid cuentas as fast as Pepe’s
fingers were sounding chords on his guitar.
It must be pointed out that the presence
of our crowd at La Parra was a departure from the usual. Antonio
Bueno had been delighted when I approached him about a party
made up mostly of foreigners. He had been quick to assure
me that a proper table would be provided, that it would be
placed adjacent to the dance square, and that the service
would be reasonable. ‘Reasonably tolerable’, was
the exact way he put it. La Parra was what was called by the
extranjeros, the permanently resident foreigners of the neighbourhood,
an ‘Ibicencan’ bar. As such it was presumed to be
patronized largely by locals and was a place where the languages
spoken were Ibicencan, Catalan or Castellano. So our presence
inspired a certain element of novelty and even of special
effort, not only from the service quarter, but from the entertainers
as well.
It all started with a prodigious Flamenco
dance spectacle. While drinks were being passed around, and
as the ambient noise level had risen to deafening proportions,
while Pepe, our principal waiter, was sweeping up an accidentally
spilled tray of olives, potato chips and cheeses, there was
a sudden explosion of guitar chords and an accompanying chorus
of startling and exhilarating shouts calling us all to attention.
A chair with a thin plywood back panel was placed in the middle
of the dance square, and then small, thin and untidy Paquito,
the gypsy grotesque, leaped on stage.
He was instantly in command. It is impossible
to give a literal written description of the overt, bold gyrations,
as well as the subtleties, of his performance. Only film could
capture that. So suffice it to say that he was a master dancer
who took us far beyond mere Flamenco machismo. More than that,
he was a master entertainer, and he held us in thrall for
perhaps fifteen minutes. It was a long time to keep a crowded
bar bewitched by the increasing complexity and mounting tension
generated solely by the prolific pounding of heel-and-toe
cleats on a hardwood floor. To say nothing of the dramatic
contrast provided when, with the guitars silent, he began
to beat out a variety of rhythms on the chair’s plywood
back panel, with his fingernails! Cries of “Olé”
rang out spontaneously from all around the room; and, when
he mounted the chair and danced on its seat, the place went
wild.
When it was over, in a final burst of inspired
gymnastics, there was a grand burst of ear-shattering applause….and
on Paquito’s face was a smile like the sun coming out
from behind a cloud. He bowed and bowed as the unison chanting
of Olé!, Olé! went on and on. At last, as an
encore, he started to dance once more, without guitars, He
adopted a slow adagio rhythm on which he began an elaboration
which soon became impossible to follow, so complex did it
become. But one continued to feel the underlying, sad, commemorative
rhythm with which the dance had begun. Then the tempo (the
key, had it been music), erupted into an upbeat mode (a major
key, had it been music), and he was away. Celebration triumphed
over mourning that night and one understood the dance was
being dedicated to a happy future for the newlyweds. And so
it proved to have been, for, when it was finished, Paquito
turned to our table and proposed a toast to them and to their
future. It was a toast in which the whole bar joined. And
Catalina, ensconced like a rotund, pear shaped Buda in her
voluptuously upholstered throne, ordered a round of drinks
on the house, as a sign of her own good will to the pair.
Her face, too, half lost in its bulging fat, carried traces
of a smile, a smile which I read as self-congratulatory in
having taken on small, thin, untidy Paquito as a regular attraction
for La Parra.
Almost immediately the guitars roared into
life again. And then, almost immediately, went almost silent.
Herminia, stepped into the dance square. She was wearing a
long red dress. It had a high sheen about it, even in the
quiet lighting. It was tight about her hips and knees, flat
over her abdomen, and loose about her breast and ankles, where
it flared out almost into a trail. She had a red hibiscus
blossom in her jet black hair and an open red fan in her hand.
She was young, beautiful, and she also proved to be an enchanting
singer. Her voice was a sultry contralto and of a quality
to mark her special in any venue. She sang softly at first,
guitars strumming lightly behind her. Not moving her body,
but turning her head with her phrasing and looking directly
into the eyes of her audience, she was close enough to make
each one of us, instantly and powerfully, feel that she was
singing intimately to us. It was a compelling performance
I can tell you, and when it came my turn, and she looked directly
into my eyes for several long seconds, I felt as if we were
about to become lovers. But soon she looked away from all
of us and seemed to be looking into herself. Her voice blossomed
into fuller volumes and her song became more agitated. Its
tonal quality was rich and womanly. Her heart, she said, had
found its home. Then, moving slowly over to the newlyweds,
she sang to them directly, changing her key and tempo. She
sang about love, home, children, happiness, sorrow, health
and illness. She sang about life in such a way that by the
end of her song we were all crying and laughing at the same
time. Paquito had been a hard act to follow, but Herminia
had been up to it. The applause was deafening. It was astonishing
to me to find such artistry, such world class talent, in such
an out of the way venue as the Bar La Parra in Ibiza.
Catalina ordered canned music and general
dancing began, but not before Maria, in a lovely long white
gown which had been her wedding dress, but which had been
modified so that it could be worn for special social occasions
such as this one, took the floor with her husband, Paco, and
surprised us all by dancing delightfully. My party at La Parra
went on and on into the small hours. When at last it broke
up, and everybody had said good night and thanked me for a
wonderful time, Chinese Rita and Dundee Doreen were escorted
back to the Delfín Verde by Hungry Hannibal and Ernesto,
Paco and Maria left with Vicente, who promised to look in
at Flipper before turning in for the night, and in the end,
I first drove Little Mimi to her place, well out of town,
and then Big Mimi, to hers, just off the main road to San
Antonio Abad.
It was then that I learned where the turn
off was from the main road to Jutta’s Casa Paput, soon
to be my own place and just a bit beyond Big Mimi’s.
It was about a kilometre north west from Ibiza town at an
area called Can Negre. One turned left. Both Big Mimi’s
house and Paput were high on a hillside overlooking Ibiza
town itself. They were half a kilometre up the narrow dirt
track and, just as we approached Big Mimi’s, my headlights
suddenly and shockingly illuminated an amazing and fearsome
sight. A huge, jet black stallion was galloping straight at
us! His eyes were wild, white froth lathered his mouth and
he was in a heavy sweat, as if he had been at it for a long
time. Standing upright in the stirrups of this apparition
was a crouching human figure completely attired in a jet black
body sock. He was wearing a full-face black mask, a large
sombrero, also jet black, and he was relentlessly whipping
his mount toward us. I wrestled the Renault to the right,
up against the hillside, and just in time, too, for the mad
black horseman and his spectral steed went by us on our left
like a lethal hurricane, with only a few centimetres to spare.
Big Mimi said, quietly, as if nothing untoward had happened,
“I’ll tell you all about him sometime. He does this
when the moon is full.” It was only then that I became
aware that it was, indeed full.
And it was not until much later that I learned
that Big Mimi had been decorated for heroism after the war.
For hazardous actions with the French Resistance. Which would
tend to explain her coolness under the fire of that nocturnal
nightmare. Many strange things were, and still are, believed
to happen when the moon is full, in Ibiza. And it was quiet,
reserved, timid, fearless Big Mimi who let me into the secret.
Harold Liebow
haroldliebow@ibizahistoryculture.com
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