THE PATTER OF THE SPANISH

Madrid, 12 June 2024

My flight was delayed because of some trivial issue with seat allocation, and I spent a restless hour fumbling and shifting in my narrow Ryanair seat while we sat on the tarmac, engines off.

The idle waiting around, the rattling of the metro that brought me to Puerta del sol in Madrid's city centre, and the warm dust rising from the streets where I’ve been walking in search of a place to have lunch, have given me a mild heachache. Madrid is quite hot in mid-June, baked under the seemingly ever-shining sun. It might be the two years I have spent under the fickle Irish weather speaking, but my senses appear to be keenly alert here; I am acutely aware of the prickling heat on my bare arms, the mild throbbing oppression on my feet, the Spanish lisp dangling from my ears, and the rumbling protest of my empty stomach...

It is past midday, and food is only just being prepared as I walk into Achuri, a suburban restaurant that was recommended to me. When I wander in, looking hesitantly left and right for a menu, I am greeted by a purple-haired lady from the other side of a small arched pass-through. ‘¿Do you need something?’ she croaks, her brittle hair moving stiffly like the minute hand of a clock, as she thumps on the slab of beef in front of her.

Typically, I have not anticipated that it is too early for food, and being unable to adjust to a variable I had not considered,  I immediately walk back out and down the street, thinking of what to do now. Soon enough, I realise that some sparkling water and a bit of journaling will kill that half hour, so I saunter back and sit at a table outside.

As soon as the clock strikes 1:30 and food is back on the menu, the bartender comes round from behind the bar and starts setting up for the lunch service. No food orders are taken until 13:50, though. Instead, he brings the hand-written menu along with the cutlery and the white square of paper tablecloth he fastens to the four bare tables with plastic clips before walking from one customer to the next, making sure everyone knows it is time to order something to eat.

Menus are hand-written every day.

During this ordinary sequence of events, I suddenly feel like a spectator watching my waiter interact with incoming patrons:

"If you’re not going to eat and I need the table, I'll ask you to give it up, girls."

"You have to wait here. If someone else comes to eat before your friend arrives, they're going to take the table. I can't hold it for you."

"If you are going to share, I'll charge you for two half meals, not just one."

Five years ago, I sat in the shade at Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona to get some respite from the burning heat, had an iced coffee, and pondered on what it was about the Spanish that I found entertaining, perhaps even charming. I tried to capture it on a postcard, but it ended up being a bland and brief description which did not encapsulate what I really wanted to say. I knew this then, but the words did not come to me. Now, somehow, in this state of mild discomfort — I still have a bit of a headache — watching lunch preparations unfold in front of me in a run-of-the-mill restaurant somewhere in Madrid, the words have come cascading down from some nook in my head I have no access to. They just pour out in a sort of sudden spurt, and my only job is to put pen to paper. Intertwined with the events that prompted them, they now take up a couple of pages in my travel journal:

It occurs to me that curtness is the norm here and that is why people don’t even seem tobat an eyelid. It seems as though the Spanish have been imbued by nature with a kind of affable unceremoniousness that is unique to them and quite amusing to witness when you've lived among the Irish long enough to be used to their politeness and outward poise.

"Excuse me, give us more cutlery; it looks as though only one person is going to have lunch." calls the woman at the table next to mine to the waiter, only half-joking, after ordering for herself and her husband. The waiter has his back to her and is busying himself with cutlery and drink orders, but he is still within earshot. 

Yes, that's it -I smile to myself- It was that trait that caught my attention back then…. 

Sometimes, being able to string the right words together is like the lights coming back on in a room; the whys and the hows become visible and clear after you have blindly stubbed your toe on them, groping your way through the semi-darkness.

Back in 2016 in Melbourne, I was amused by a playful "What's for lunch, Argentina?" coming from behind me in the kitchen of the hostel where I was staying. It was a backpacker from Madrid effortlessly striking up a conversation with a stranger —me, of course— who had their back to him, while minding their own business, having lunch. True, there was the hoop earring, the dark hair and stubble, the vivacious eyes... but it was mainly the way these matched the personality that breathed life into them which drew me in. What I did not know at the time was that the quality of being refreshingly forthright was quintessentially Spanish and in my naivety, I became convinced that I had come across something uniquely special. Funnily enough, as it turned out, half the population of Spain was 'uniquely special.'

Now, sitting at this table and reflecting on how I was duped by my own gullibility, I smile again. I cannot blame my younger self, though. That bluntness, that way of being, is attractive in its resoluteness and lack of qualms. The Spanish have the boldness of character to ask for what they want without preamble, and to say what they think without much sugar-coating. They just do not beat about the bush. There is none of the fidgety nervousness of the spineless and the shy, no elusive eyes, no awkward chatter, no half-hearted remarks for the sake of social politeness or dissipating awkward silences. There is always intent: a joke, a quip, a curious question...

I let out a chuckle as yet another disused memory huddles up against the previous one: some time after the episode at the hostel in Melbourne, I flew to Spain to visit the owner of the hoop earring. He picked me up at Barajas airport and drove us to his house in a small town in La Mancha. It was around one in the morning when we arrived and he flung the door open, stepping in and calling out excitedly into the dark hallway 'Maaa! Mamá!'. It took a few moments until a shuffling figure appeared from out of the dimness of the house. She had been clearly awakened but showed no signs of surprise as she lumbered towards us. 'Hola' she said, squinting, her lips curling slightly up into a drowsy smile, as though her 30-year-old son had not just called her from her sleep to meet a complete stranger. Her hair was dishevelled, she was barefoot and the worn-out T-shirt she was wearing barely covered her knickers, which may have been what curbed my awkwardness when he blurted out:

"Mom, this is Victoria. You won't believe how good her English is, and look! Look at her bum!"

His tone was that of a kid showing their mother a new trick they have just learned, and her reaction was that of a parent accustomed to their excitable child wanting to share their every discovery about the world: she gave him an indulgent smile. No eyebrows pushing up the forehead, no pursing of the lips, no sign that this whole situation defied her expectations on any level.

I stood there in astonished amusement and I only remember saying 'hola' before she went back to bed. Later, when I asked him who on earth wakes their mother up like that, let alone says those things to her, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, 'it was just to break the ice', an impish smile crossing his face.

‘¿How big is the tiramisú?’ I ask when the waiter clears my table.

‘Not that big... seeing as you eat the way you do...’ he says. 

I chuckle, and he casually turns on his heels to walk away without another word, so I assume I have ordered it. Here they serve three courses for the price of which you would get a sandwich in Dublin, and I haven't had much food today. He suggested I start with a small primero, but I did not take his advice, so when he placed the segundo on the white paper tablecloth, he challenged me:

 'Let's see if you can finish that.'

 I did, which explains his comment about the dessert. ‘Pay inside’, says my waiter when he catches a glimpse of my purse on the table next to yet another empty plate, as he hurries past. I do as he says before making my way to the station where I'm going to catch the bus to the meditation centre I have come to visit.

With the 2:30 p.m. sun at a slant and the heat pressing a flat palm against the top of my head, I power walk, thinking that I have found words to describe an impression I had not been able to name until now, and mentally adding this small achievement to my list of simple pleasures. 

Once on the bus, as one might step back from a newly hung frame to check it is not skewed, I open my journal and reread what I have written. 

Just right, that's exactly what I mean.