Grand tours Clap your hands, stamp your feet

Writers' adventures in literature. This week, flamenco-loving Jason Webster has trouble befriending Madrid's Gypsies

There is no word for it in English, but Jason Webster went to find it anyway. After being dumped by his Italian girlfriend, this American-born academic ditched his life of Oxford lecture halls to embark on a quest for 'duende', a concept rooted in Andalusian flamenco culture, an approximate translation of which is 'spirit'. On a mission to perfect his flamenco guitar skills, Webster falls in with a group of Gypsies. 'Duende', the ensuing travelogue, much of which involves nefarious nightlife, stolen cars and stolen girlfriends, exposes the hidden heart of flamenco Spain.

Carlos lived in the sprawling Madrid suburb of Vallecas: a grubby, concrete area south-east of the city centre that sat like a giant slug-like parasite on the belly of the capital. Ordinary Madrileños referred to it with awe or loathing. "Vallecas?" they'd say. "That shit-hole?" It was an area of cheap, red-brick tower blocks that absorbed waves of immigrants seeking work: Basques from the Sixties; North Africans wearing thin leather shoes; short Latin-Americans who spent most of their time calling home from wooden booths in grocers shops offering cheap international calls. And Gypsies, moved by the authorities from their shanty towns into modern flats.

"They're not like us. Water in buckets – when they wash – and they cook over fires on the kitchen floor," a balding bar-owner had told me. "I tell you, I haven't got anything against them. A Gypsy comes in here and I serve him as I would anyone else. But he's got to have respect."

It was an echo of the past, only today the Egyptians, or New Castillians as the Gypsies were often called in the 19th century, were kept on the outside not by city walls, but by a ring road dividing them from the main city.

Non-Gypsies, payos, said you were taking a risk just by walking into Vallecas. The change from the city centre was clear: another drab, modern suburb with lifeless architecture. But there were subtle differences, something more edgy and run-down about it. The kiosque where I bought cigarettes from a ghost-like woman and her daughter had sawdust on the floor and a red neon strip flickering around the door like a nervous twitch. Thin-trunked, blackened trees stood by the side of the road like starving refugees, unable to stand straight under their own weight. Graffiti was everywhere: Pásale al la Resistencia, or the Basque spelling of "Vallekas" painted in bright colours like a standard proclaiming the "otherness" of the place and its people. Most of the roadsweepers were women. You'd see them drinking in a bar and then see them again in the street a couple of hours later, transformed into dawn workers with tight green overalls and workmen's gloves, throwing cigarette butts into the gutter they'd just brushed clean. Here there was a wearing away of strict divisions. Where normal people saw a world of lines, Vallecas was more of a blur.

Carlos's flat was on the fifth floor. I didn't trust the lift, and so took the stairs, past children with dirty faces and bright, animal-like eyes. They had been there the first time, when Carlos brought me back with the other group members, playing on the steps at four in the morning.

Carlos's threat to test my guitar-playing was never carried out. I returned the next night to Restaurante Alegrias but he wasn't there. We met up again by pure chance after I got to know some aficionados who took me a flamenco bar, or tablao, where Carlos was performing. It was a lucky break after almost a year of trying unsuccessfully to fall in with flamencos, particularly Gypsies. Until then my search had produced nothing, thwarted mostly by the complete unwillingness of Gypsies to have anything to do with me. At best they might offer to give me lessons for exorbitant amounts of money. That night, though, things began to turn.

"Eh, churumbel!" Carlos said when he saw me. From then on, he always used the Gypsy word for "kid" when addressing me.

We spent the night at his grubby flat, playing, singing and drinking heavily. I was drawn to a joyous spontaneity about him. When he sang, the veins on his neck stood out, his face reddened, spittle flew from his mouth and I feared he might collapse. But once it had been captured – the raw essence he was seeking – his expression reverted to calm self-assuredness and a deep relaxation, as though he had rid himself of something cathartically.

You could tell when the moment has come as the jaleo, the flamenco cries of encouragement, increased in a sharp crescendo of "olé", "eso es", and a surge would pass around the group, as though something had happened. And all the while, the incessant clapping rhythm of the palmas pulsated in the background.

Was this duende? There was enormous energy carrying us all along but it was different to my first experience in Alicante, when I heard the woman sing in the Plaza Mayor. There I had been captured, as though by an invisible, sentient being. Here there was an intense group emotion that vivified me. It was impossible to say. I simply sat on the sidelines, grateful that I had been allowed even this far into a closed and very hierarchical world.

'Independent on Sunday' readers can order a copy of 'Duende' (rrp £12.99) for £10.99 (including p&p within the UK) by calling Bookpost plc on 01624 836000.

The Facts

Viva Madrid

A relative newcomer to the European capital scene, Madrid gained such status only in 1561, when it became the home of the Castilian court. It is a melting pot of rival cultures with its roots in the former colonies as well as the rest of Spain.

Bus tours of the city with Madrid Vision (00 34 91 302 0368, www.trapsa.com) take three hours and cost £10. Walking tours organised by the tourist board (00 34 91 429 4951, www.munimadrid.es) include Vallecas and cost £8.

Getting there

Cresta Holidays (0870 3333 303; www.crestaholidays.co.uk) offers two nights in Madrid for £219 per person, based on two sharing, including flights, transfers and accommodation.

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