Walls (2016)

When we first got back to Montánchez at the end of May this year, we found that the wall on the top finca abutting the camino had been destroyed. Not just the wall but quite a handsome portal with dry stone piers bridged by two hefty lintels. Some of the stones have been taken, others left scattered in the olive grove a meter or two below the road level. And some left haphazardly in place with a rough attempt to block the gap that had been created. Great scratch marks on the larger stones indicated that this act of demolition has been effected by machine, the work of dinosaurs. Quick to accuse, my first reaction is to identify and blame the neighbor whose wall looks suspiciously renewed with the makings of a wire fence on top. Wise counsel prevails (thanks to wife and friends), so to avoid a Balzacian standoff, we resolve on a Quakerly strategy of simply rebuilding with the remaining material, a wordless reprimand to the perpetrator.  I am remembering that the Gerard Depardieu figure in Manon de la Source labours long and hard but is eventually broken by peasant cunning. Virtue and hard work doubly unrewarded.

Before

Now at the end of July, the week's task of mending our broken wall reminds me first, of Jack Hetherington, my father's principal shepherd and much beloved; and secondly of Robert Frost. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”, Frost’s view, is countered by his neighbor the farmer who repeats his father’s adage that “Good fences make good neighbors”.  The poet wants no restrictions. The farmer is a practical man, not an idealist, who needs to manage his animals. My sense is with the farmer. Keep the donkey in and the goats out.

My sensibilities are with Frost. Something there definitely is that really does not love a wall.  I am thinking of the Trump Wall, the Israeli Wall, the Berlin Wall, ugly, brutish constructions casting their shadows of pain and injustice. No doubt the Chinese Wall and Hadrian’s Wall caused similar suffering but now we admire them for their beauty. I also think of the Enclosures (with a capital 'E') that drove commoners off the land in the old world, in Boston, Lincoln, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk forcing them to set sail as “pilgrims” to the strange and inhospitable territory that they appropriated with names from home. A wall is an easy thing not to love.

Jack taught me how to build a stone wall in limestone Cumbria. Sixty years later I am trying to recall his advice in granitic Extremadura and hope that he would at least give me the nod, a pass. Limestone is conveniently sedimentary with a tendency to flake off in cuboid layers, good to build with. The granitic boulders of Extremadura are not so helpfully Cartesian, more like cottage loaves, rounded, elliptical, irregular. The technique is to fill the space between boulders with smaller stones that collectively act something like the interstitial fluid found in biological forms, in cell structures. Is this a form of biomimicry I think to myself as I piece together this three-dimensional jigsaw, jiggling pebbles into place.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, this immensely physical exercise of heaving and precisely placing stones can be obsessively compelling, the quest for perfection leading to the limits of physical exhaustion. The activity makes me a better observer too. Now I cannot go on a walk without assessing the quality of walls that line the fields or even those in the towns built to enclose gardens, to retain terraces or for protection from belligerent outsiders. Height, consistency, uniformity, snugness of fit all contribute to superb works of architecture scoring high on the Vitruvius triad – firmitas, utilitas, venustas. With Natalia we evaluate the walls along the way, following the quintiles of academic assessment in primary and middle schools: sobresaliente / notable / bien / suficiente / insuficiente. In nearby Robledillo de Trujillo, making one's way up the Sierra de Alijares, there are long stretches of beautifully crafted wall, 'sobresaliente' all the way. In this part of the world the Robledillanos have to be the league champions. At least equal to Andy Goldsworthy and his team of stone wallers.

Before long the sun calls time forcing this uncalloused soft-fingered ingénue back into the shade, a cold shower and breakfast.

After

 HM 3 August 2016

Footnote: six years later coming back to this stretch of wall, I would say "suficiente" - even "bien" (in parts). Jack might even adjust his cap and with a smile, say “Aye”.