As always, I was working quietly in my small shop, hidden by the newly opened five-star hotel of grotesque size standing proudly on the main street. Behind the great building, if you take two lefts and a right, you can find me. There I lurk in the shadows, allowed to carry on with my work, pitifully grateful for the functioning of a small yellow light of a second-hand reading lamp, which as of now, has yet to fail me. This unnoticed corner has served me as a home my entire life, and hopefully, will continue to do so in the short years left. Despite the small and compressed conditions of the room of my craft, I cherish my own isolated island. My private personal brick castle. Working in slow, fragile, and delicate movement crafting each figure carefully and thoughtfully. There, hours seem like minutes and minutes seem like seconds. Yet when I am home, eating at the dinner table near my wife, it is exactly the opposite, every word she utters is excruciatingly long and every moment seems painfully dull. I admit that I am not very well-read in the fields of theology and the natural sciences, yet I know that there are three components in this world that are irrefutably infinite: God’s grace, the days and seasons, and the list of complaints of my wife.
At my work, the silence gives me the feeling of a tree growing slowly and firmly, to a better, stronger form. Yet when I return to face the dreadful horror of her voice each evening, it is as if she is chopping my trunk and roots with every new question. She never seems to run out of a supply full of meaningless enquiries: “How was your day?”, “Did anything interesting happen to you?”, “what’s on your mind? tell me” I simply have no patience for her. I would rather spend my time in solitude with my lamp and metal sculptures. As of now, I have a big project I intend to finish. I need to focus.
Lately, such a task has been increasingly difficult to achieve. After years of this town being empty of visitors, the dry streets are beginning to flood with people; the breathless vacuum of the stores is already filled with tourists and even the harp player began to play her music to someone other than a flock of scavenger pigeons. I for one, gladly remain out of it all. In the shade, out of the glare of the sun, out of the artificial light all around. The produce of cheap, glowing hotel signs next to expensive souvenirs. I need nothing more than my trusty lamp, my material, and my silence.
This rise in tourism is to be expected. This is Santillana del Mar, the most beautiful village in the whole of Spain, if not the world in its entirety. There is a certain mesmerizing quality in the uneven shape of the streets. The nature of the different paths, that all lead to the main church, all with a distinct pace of comforting nostalgia. Although the ground throws you off balance every other step, the sight is as pleasing as can be. The pain of the feet gracefully dissolves at the prospect of the proud tall houses, crests displaying symbols and legacies that exist only in fragmented fantastical memory traces. Even now, after living here for more than sixty years, I still feel the same sense of comfortable awe, enough to distract me from the trouble my feet have to endure over and over again.
It is as if there is unspoken magic in every asymmetrical stone. Each keeping a unique secret story of old. Stories that now are nothing more than an indistinguishable fade of forgotten memory. Stories of virgin love, awkward and silent. Stories of nameless people kissing nameless faces. Stories of sacrifice and war, all for the sake of nameless children. They are now inaudible, gone forever. Meaningless, imperceptible music that no one will hear.
One day, as the sun began to rise, I was finishing my work on my latest sculpture. This is indisputably my best work thus far – a meter-long ball, resembling the shape of the earth covered all over by numbers, from top to bottom. In the middle, there is an empty space where small gray figures stand and hide, cramped together with barely any room. They are identical, each no bigger than a finger long, without hands, without clothes, hair, or faces.
As I witnessed the rays of the sun invade the top of my shop, a young bearded man entered carrying a green backpack and an odd smile on his face. Strapped on his shoulder was a scraped guitar bag. As I came to greet him, I noticed that he was holding a phrasebook, a pen, and a small notebook. Before I could say anything, this strange creature spurted excited Spanish, with a strong effortful accent:
“Hola! I am Jonah, or Jonás in Spanish, I am Israeli, how are you called?”
Irritated by the abruptness of his visit and his unjustified smile I did not answer. I kept my eyes fixated on this creature. Seeing what it will do next.
“What business do you have here?” I inquired.
“I understand no, me sorry, can you again say please?”
“Do you want to buy something?” gesturing quite foolishly the transaction of money.
“I understand! No, it is ok. But can me see… hmmm… the sculp…
“The sculptures?”
“Yes!” He almost jumped with excitement, “if it fine you”.
Sighing at the amusing irreparable circumstance of this young man, I nodded and continued with my work, glancing at him only to ensure none of my gray figures goes missing.
The young fellow began to observe the different sculptures that were laying around my shop. He began inspecting them all closely and slowly, before uttering a comment such as: “much beautiful” or “me like that”. Then he approached my unfinished globe and stood in front of it frozen. He then began to search rapidly his phrasebook, while I waited curiously to see his reaction.
“Scary,” he said, “that… scary”.
Surprised by his description, I asked “why scary?”
He looked at me with an inquisitive look, as if the answer is obvious. He said a word in a language I could not identify, then, after giving up on finding the word in his phrasebook, he announced morbidly, “Numbers on people, lonely, bad, my parents and parents, the past, much death…” Seeing the perplexed look on my face, he gave up. “Not importance…” he said finally. Then after laying down his guitar and bag, he said, “I say that I am love this shop, especially the… the…” He tried to gesture the shape of a ball with his hands, then pointed onto my globe.
“You like that one? Well, these are people. People, like you and me. These people are nothing. Nothing. Just numbers. This is the truth.”
He looked puzzled, so I replaced my explanation with another deep sigh. I then pointed to my glass of tea and asked, “Do you know what ‘tea’ is?
He nodded happily, “much thanks, much much.”
He drank his tea gladly, often writing some Spanish words in in his notebook as I returned to my work. This is an hour where no one visits the shop, usually my favorite time of day. I was uncomfortably unaccustomed sharing my silence with another. He proceeded to uncover his instrument, tuning it softly, then without saying anything more, began playing.
I was bewildered by the style of music that guitarra flamenca was able to produce. Why and how did this young man learn to play the Spanish guitar in such a manner? With one hand securely strumming the center of the guitar while his other was rushing down and back, across the neck of the guitar in speed I was not able to follow. It was as if his fingers themselves were dancing to his tune. I never heard this piece before, yet it had a distinct familiarity to it, something Andalucian, not from Cantabria. This was from the south I left long ago. As I was listening, I closed my eyes. I saw a horse running in every direction, the horse too was dancing.
He stopped playing and smiled at me, and sipped more tea, swallowing and finishing with a childish “Yum Yum” sound. He thenchanged the melody altogether to something much softer, more relaxed that filled all corners of the room. The wild horse that he initially unleashed grew tame and obedient, still fierce but no longer dangerous. The change was apparent in not only the strings of the guitar, the face of Jonah, or even the atmosphere of the room – it struck me at some other core. It was a sensation I had not felt for many years, probably since coming to Cantabria.
After that, I continued to work, no longer in silence. The smoothness and fluidity of the guitar guided my work. The little figures I made were, like me, listening to the music he played for us. We both stayed that way until the red glimpses of the sunset changed into the bright greyness of twilight.
Almost involuntarily, knowing there is not much time before he will leave, I initiated a conversation with him. In my clearest, slowest Spanish, I told him about the history of the village and about the people that now lived here. He answered or responded with mostly signs and nodding. I am not even certain if he understood most of it, yet he seemed to be listening acutely – the growing energy of his pupils triumphing over his darkening eye bags. I even told him about my wife Rakel.
Then suddenly, he declared, each word slower than the one that proceeded it, “Words is difficult but important less, names is important words, much more. Everything have name, everything have story.” Despite his terrible grammar and pronunciation, which made him sound close to incomprehensible, I felt that I understood him clearly. He had a certain conviction in his eyes and tone that just made me smile.
I patted him on the back and said, “You are a wise young sage”.
he nodded back.
“Very wise”
I could not help but be amused by this person’s unexplained enthusiasm. I remember that I had never given him my name, “I am Miguel, Miguel Federico Gomez”. I was surprised at hearing the sounds that came out my mouth. How long was it since I have last had to introduce myself? How absurd it is to be surprised at the sound of your own name, I thought.
I then took one of my figures that I had finished making. Though initially exactly like all the others, I carved on it a letter “J”. I offered him the small gray man, and smiled. He looked at the figure rather dramatically and thanked me. He hugged me. I hugged him back. He then took his backpack and went back after saying “adios” more times than I could count.
When I returned home, I wanted to tell Rakel Everything. She will be so delighted to hear everything about this strange person “Jonah” and our encounter. Yet, when I arrived home, Rakel was already in her bed. In the morning that followed, I was expecting her to ask me how I have slept, or if I am enjoying my meal, yet, to my great surprise, though she was serving food, her mouth remained motionless, shrouded in dark quietness. There was nothing for me there, so I joined her. This was, I guess, the same comforting, familiar silence.
I often think about that day and wonder to myself, if a story untold remains a story nonetheless. Then I simply return my attention back to my work and continue to make more of my faceless, nameless men.