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“Come on…where are you?”
I’d been sitting at the computer for fifteen minutes, pressing every key in every possible combination, trying to find the @ symbol.
“Come on,” I begged the keyboard. “Just show me where it is!”
All I wanted to do was check my email, but the Spanish keyboard was making it impossible.
“Come on, you stupid thing…”
The computer was in a little library on the third floor of the dance school. It was a place where students could come to watch videos or check out CDs, brush up on flamenco theory or check their email. Well, supposedly.
¢∞¬#5[]ñ…}ç¿
Hang on. Most of those symbols I’d seen before, but ¿ was new to me. An upside-down question mark? I was pretty sure I didn’t have that on my computer back home. What did it mean? Why would anyone use an upside-down question mark? I pondered this for a moment before going back to my search for the @.
‘·2$)($¨^*¿¡
What? They have upside-down exclamation marks too? But why did the Spanish feel the need to invert their punctuation? Do the upside-down symbols have a different meaning? Do they mean the opposite? What’s the opposite of a question?
Finally I hit on the @ and was able to get into my email account. Of course, when I started typing, I had the same problem trying to find the right keys.
In the end my email looked like this:
Hi everyoñe¡
Please excuse the rañdom punctuation…I¡m still tryiñg to figure out how to use a Spañish keyboard. Check this out: ¿’¿?¿!ç¿¡!
Pretty cool„ huh¿
As I walked back to the apartment, I could hear a man singing flamenco. It was la hora de la siesta, siesta time, which was from about three to five o’clock. I was always amazed by how this bustling city became a ghost town for two whole hours during the middle of the day. Inés had told me that it was considered rude to call someone during la hora de la siesta, because you would be disturbing their afternoon nap.
But the singer’s voice broke the afternoon silence, and as I came to the old stone church on the corner, I saw it was a street sweeper. He was standing beneath the orange trees, leaning on his broom with his eyes half-closed as he sang.
The wind blew the orange blossoms he’d swept up away down the street, but he didn’t notice. The blossoms, or azahar as Zahra had called them, were fast becoming my favorite thing about Seville. It was the first time I’d been in a city that had its own fragrance. I wished I could buy a bottle of it so that wherever I went I could breathe in Seville, but there was no way any perfume could capture the smell of these streets. It was a mix of the sweet smell of the orange blossoms, the fried fish from the corner tapas bar, and the whiff of cigarette smoke from the man who’d just walked past. I knew that this smell would always remind me of these days in Seville, walking up and down these little streets on my way to and from dance class with my head full of rhythms.
“Da da dum…da do di da, da da, da-da…” I repeated softly to myself. The only way I could memorize the footwork patterns from class was to practice them over and over again. And even then I normally managed to get them confused between classes. They were such complex patterns that I found it almost impossible to keep them in my head.
I always stayed in the studio after class was finished, repeating the new steps again and again, trying to make them stick in my head. But I hated practicing when there were people around, because I knew I was making mistakes, even if I didn’t know what they were.
Today, Enrique had poked his head in while I was practicing and had seen me repeating the new choreography out of time. He had stopped me and told me to clap the compás, and I was forced to admit my shameful secret—I didn’t know how.
He stared at me in disbelief. How could I have made my way into his class without knowing compás? Of course I knew of it: I knew that every different flamenco style had its own rhythm pattern and that was what all the clapping in flamenco was about—someone’s got to keep the time. I just never wanted it to be me, because it’s really, really hard.
Enrique started clapping the beat, slowly. I watched his hands. He clapped some beats louder than others, and left some out altogether. This kind of clapping is called palmas.
“Soleá,” he said.
I knew that soleá was the name of the type of dance that we were doing and that there were twelve beats to the bar, but that was about all I knew.
He started clapping again, this time numbering the beats out loud, emphasizing certain beats. “Uno, dos, TRES…siete, ocho, nueve, DIEZ. Uno, dos, TRES…siete, ocho, nueve, DIEZ.”
Okay, so: one, two, three, then seven, eight, nine, and ten. But what happens to the four, five, six, eleven, and twelve? They’re silent? And the three and the ten are accented? I followed along with him, but I still kept getting mixed up.
Enrique took my hands in his and clapped them together. “Uno, dos, tres…siete, ocho, nueve, diez. Uno, dos, tres…”
But I gazed up at him, lost in those flamenco eyes, and everything he said simply went in one ear and out the other.
Afterward, I followed him out into the hall. He took a pen and wrote on a scrap of paper, Sólo Compás. He explained to me very slowly in Spanish that this was the name of a CD that I had to buy and wrote down the address of a shop where I could get it. He told me to listen to it all the time—at home, when I was having my coffee, when I was walking down the street. “Todo el tiempo,” he emphasized. All the time.
• • •
The shop that Enrique sent me to, Compás Sur, was a little CD store in the center of Seville dedicated to flamenco. My eyes wandered over the racks: the CDs were alphabetized by the artist’s name. Some of the more famous names I recognized, but the vast majority were unknown to me. I smiled, remembering the way I used to pore over the dozen flamenco albums in the dusty back corner of the CD store I went to in Sydney. Now I’d found the shop of my dreams.
The sales assistant came out from behind the counter and asked if I needed help. “Sólo Compás?” I asked, and he indicated with a wave of his hand a large section of the store. That’s right, section. I’d thought that Sólo Compás was a disc, but it was in fact the name of a brand that produced CDs that were, as they say, sólo compás, or “only rhythm.”
I looked around at all the different styles to choose from. Some of them I’d heard of, like bulería, soleá, alegrías, tangos, and sevillanas. But there was a whole heap more I’d never encountered before, with names like tarantos, siguiriyas, tientos, fandango, granaína, farruca, malagueña, toná, caña, and zambra, to name just a few. As my eyes scanned the titles, all I could think was, “How on earth am I ever going to learn all this?”
When I got back to the apartment, I chose one of the half dozen Sólo Compás CDs I’d bought and put it in the stereo in the lounge room. The first sound was a man saying “Ay!” Then a guitar started to strum with the chords muted, followed by a percussion instrument and someone clapping.
I turned up the volume so I could hear it while I made lunch. One, two, three, open the fridge. I drummed my nails on the door to seven, eight, nine, and ten. One, two, three, take out the rice, seven, eight, and a bag of green beans. Carry it to the bench, two, three, close the fridge with a kick, seven, eight, turn on the gas, click click click, light the flame. Put the pot on the stove. Rinse the beans and shake off the water, two, three. Take a knife, chop chop chop. Throw the beans in the pot. Put on the lid, turn down the flame.
Lunch in compás. Olé, olé.
• • •
I listened to my Sólo Compás CDs at every possible moment of the day and night, just like Enrique had told me to. I listened to the different rhythms on my headphones as I walked to and from class, in the market while I did my shopping, even in the café. The simplicity of the recordings let the sounds around me filter through, and rather than taking me away from my surroundings, the music gave form to the noise of daily life.
In the café the whir of the coffee machine blended into the rhythm pattern on my headphones. The sounds of spoons clicking against cups and cups clattering against saucers merged in with the beat. One, two, three…I stirred my café con leche. And seven, eight, nine, and ten.
I also played the CDs when I practiced alone in the studio, and having to stay in compás changed the way that I danced. I started to see the reasons behind Enrique’s choreography. Every twirl of the wrist and flick of the hips had its place in the compás, and each must be on their beat for maximum impact and drama.
At the end of the week, Enrique’s guitarist was joined by a singer, and they both accompanied Enrique as he choreographed a new section for the dance. Then his eyes caught mine, and he beckoned me to come to the front of the class.
Me? What did he want me for? I walked nervously to the front of the room. Enrique told me to clap compás as he demonstrated the new footwork, and I got that flushed, nervous, dry-mouthed feeling that is usually felt by people who are about to throw themselves down a water slide that didn’t look so scary from the bottom. It’s easy, I told myself. You know how to clap, don’t you? Just put your hands together and…
All eyes were on me as I began to clap. The guitarist picked up the rhythm and started to play. Enrique stepped forward, his arms raised, his eyes on the floor in front of him; he seemed to be waiting for inspiration. Then it hit him and he attacked the floor with rapid footwork. I had to keep all my focus on the beat so I didn’t lose the compás. Enrique spun around, clicking the heel of his boot against the floor on the offbeats as he turned, then he landed and continued to dance as the singer started his verse.
By the end of the section, I could no longer tell if I was in time, but Enrique nodded and said, “Muy bien.” I did it! I did palmas for soleá, and I didn’t mess it up. I didn’t clap on the wrong beat, or go too slow or too fast or pass out from the pressure. I did it!
It was an important moment for me, because it showed me that I was able to keep the rhythm for a singer, guitarist, and dancer. For the girl who a week before had only a vague idea of what compás meant, it was a big step forward, and I had Seville to thank for it, because in Seville compás is everywhere and I never lacked opportunities to practice.
Sevillians grow up with flamenco and know compás intuitively. The street sweeper who sang outside the church didn’t have to count to know where he was in compás. When I passed him I listened carefully, trying to pick up what style he was singing. And I noticed that when the sun was shining brightly he sang alegrías, which I guessed was because alegrías means happiness.
The next day as I was walking to the café to meet Zahra, I saw the street sweeper again. He was singing a slow song and I stopped to listen to him. What style was that? It sounded like a sevillanas, but it was much too slow. Maybe it was a fandango?
“Hola,” he said, seeing me standing there.
“Fandango?” I asked, and he nodded. “Gracias!” I said, and continued on my way. And as I walked on I heard his voice ring out again.
He doesn’t know it, I thought to myself, but he’s made my day.