Spanish Lessons

by Derek Lambert

  We ate at a famous fast-food restaurant, the Barrachina, in the square and went to bed early. Twice during the night I awoke bathed in sweat as a truck bore down on me.

  After breakfasting in our room on fresh orange juice, croissants, and coffee we went shopping in El Corte Inglés, the Bloomingdale’s of Valencia. Peter Pateman, the designer of our dining hall, had sold us the bar made from an old wedding chest, an antique table seating eight, a bookcase, a wine rack, and a spinning wheel. What we needed just now were easy chairs, rugs, side tables . . .

  After lunch in a dark bar in a street of tottering tenements in the old quarter—arròs con fesols i naps, a rice dish cooked in a broth with white beans, turnips, onion, pork and sausages—we drove home, giving way to all oncoming trucks.

  It was dusk when we got there. Lights were on but the house was strangely quiet. I went into the dining hall, where Toni was moodily mixing plaster. He scarcely acknowledged me.

  “What’s the matter, Toni?” I asked.

  “The cassette player, man. It’s kaput.”

  “That’s tough.”

  Rejoicing, I retired to the annex to do some work before supper. But the silence was oppressive—contagious too, because Jones and the cats all seemed to have lost their voices.

  My ears were clogged with silence. I couldn’t work; I was becoming Spanish.

  I went back to the dining hall. “I’ll do a deal with you, Toni,” I said. “I’ll lend you my cassette player on one condition—that you play it softly, but really softly. You dig?”

  He held out his hand. “Cool, man,” he said. “Real cool.”

  NINETEEN

  Guests Galore

  Forgotten acquaintances suddenly came back into our lives when word got around that we had bought a place in the sun. Real friends made contact with us before heading for Spain, but casuals phoned when they just happened to be in the area, anywhere from a ferry crossing the English Channel to a bar a few hundred yards down the road. We put the acquaintances in a narrow bed in the annex squeezed between my typewriter and my books on Siberia and they usually departed precipitously, complaining of night cramps.

  One acquaintance, Ted, was undeterred by his nocturnal proximity to salt mines and penal camps and turned up for a second visit. So we then gave him the Aitor treatment, prolonged exposure to the menacing presence of the Basque restaurateur that depressed unwanted guests so comprehensively that they packed their bags and left. But Ted proved resilient even to this extreme measure.

  He was a freelance wine correspondent who contributed mostly to magazines in Britain and claimed Bordeaux was his spiritual home. He was a large, florid man with soft white hair and was as boring as a carton of plonk. So much so that when he announced at a wine-tasting in the City of London that he had to leave to catch a plane to Bordeaux, someone said: “Give my regards to Monsieur Deaux.”

  He usually brought us a bottle from some obscure vineyard with a nose-wrinkling bouquet, an unhealthy color, and a flavor to match, and spent much of his stay disparaging Spanish wines despite the nectars of Rioja, the heady produce of Catalonia spearheaded by the Torres family, the sherries of Jerez, and the exquisite and expensive Vega Sicilia wine.

  On the third day of his second visit Diane, normally patient with unwanted visitors, led me to the end of the garden and said: “He’s got to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he hides bottles of cheap wine under his bed, gets drunk, and scares the hell out of Maria. She’s conscientious and honest and I don’t want to lose her. Any suggestions?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ve got to poison him.”

  “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

  “It’s an extreme situation,” I told her.

  I had remembered from the days when I had met him as a reporter in London that he was a curry as well as a wine bore.

  Over lunch on the terrace—cuts of cold meat and chorizo and chicory salad followed by Manchego cheese and crusty bread—I sounded him out.

  “Still fond of curry, Ted?”

  “Call me Teddy, more personal.” He made an exhibition of tasting the run-of-the-mill red Valdepeñas wine. “Of course. All those years in India . . .”

  “Like it hot?”

  “Hotter the better. A curry isn’t a curry until your head steams.” He smiled boyishly. “Used to have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Bombay.”

  “Good,” I said, “because we’re having one for dinner.”

  “The first I knew of it,” Diane said later while Ted slept off his lunch beside the pool.

  “I’ll make it.”

  “You can’t cook.”

  “Where Ted—sorry, Teddy—is concerned anything is possible. And I will serve it. That is very important.”

  Cookbook to hand, I spent the afternoon making an Indian curry spice mix. Red chili peppers, green chilies, black peppercorns, mustard seeds . . . Chicken Vindaloo powerful enough to blow a bridge.

  I also made a less venomous mix for Diane, Jonathan, and myself and served Ted’s separately in the kitchen with a minimal portion of rice.

  He sniffed it appreciatively at the table on the terrace. “Hope it’s got a kick in it.”

  “It’s got that, all right,” I said.

  “Good man, no time for the sissy stuff. And a woman is only a woman, but a good curry is a Feast. Adapting Kipling,” he explained. “Sorry, my dear”—to Diane.

  Diane glared at him. I gave Jonathan permission to take his own bland curry indoors in front of the TV.

  Ted stuck a forkful of steaming brown explosive into his mouth and chewed expectantly for a moment. Then the detonator exploded. He opened his mouth, clutched his throat, and croaked: “Water!”

  I passed him a pitcher of water, ice cubes clinking in it like wind chimes. “Too hot for you, Teddy?”

  He gulped water. I wondered if it would change to steam. He blinked watering eyes.

  “Not too hot. Just a bit spicy. Caught me by surprise.”

  “Eat up, then. They say it gets hotter by the mouthful.” I dug into my curry, which I had prepared in a different saucepan.

  He took another mouthful of TNT and tried to sluice it down with water but fragments must have stuck in his throat, because he began to cough violently.

  When the coughing spasm had passed he glanced at his wristwatch, pushed aside his plate, and said hoarsely: “Great Scott, almost forgot—got to see a man about a crate of wine in Denia. Wants my opinion . . .” He began to cough again.

  “Don’t worry, Teddy,” Diane said. “We’ll keep it hot for you.”

  “And the good news,” I said, “is that I’ve made enough for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.”

  We didn’t hear him get up in the morning but he left a note saying the wine he had tasted in Denia was excellent and he was driving to Madrid to market it. He didn’t return.

  Tom, once known as the meanest man in journalism, was also a professional house guest—although how he had the nerve to invite himself to our house when he knew I despised him beggared belief.

  But there he was standing in the doorway of the dining hall one autumn day with a nondescript woman wearing a gray twinset who was presumably his wife. “All the hotels in Denia are full,” he said. “Can you help us out for the night?”

  “Shall I make a few calls?” I asked him. “No,” he said hastily, “that won’t be necessary—I’ve already phoned around and there isn’t a room to be had.”

  It was lunchtime—so Diane, who didn’t know how obnoxious he was, invited the two of them to eat with us. She had been reliving her years in Rome and had cooked spaghetti Bolognese, which I had been looking forward to eating all morning.

  “I’m sure Tom hasn’t come all this way to eat Italian food,” I said without much hope. “Paella is what he’s lusting after, isn’t that right, Tom?”

  “Italian will be fine,” Tom said. “Won’t it, Bridget?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” his wife said, twisting t
he worn wedding band on her finger.

  Tom carried three suitcases from his rented car, dumped them in the annex, and took his place at the table on the terrace. “I bought you a bottle of wine,” he said, “but it was broken in transit.” After pouring himself a brimming glass of Campo Viejo red wine, he dug into a plate of spaghetti and meat sauce.

  He was one of those people who, although endowed with the appetite of a starving hyena, never put on weight. Hollow-cheeked and sparse-haired, he always looked too skinny for his clothes. He smoked a pipe and his sweaters and shirts—a faded maroon one that day—were perforated with holes burned by smoldering shreds of tobacco.

  His one redeeming quality was his journalistic savvy. Such was his tenacity, supplemented by a reluctance to spend money mixing socially with other journalists, that he was an accomplished reporter with a string of exclusive stories to his name.

  He accepted a second helping of spaghetti from Diane, sprinkled it with the last of the grated Parmesan cheese, helped himself to another glass of wine, and told us he intended to take us out to dinner that evening.

  Diane accepted eagerly but I didn’t believe it. It was his habit, when pressed to eat in company, to discover when the check arrived that he had left his wallet behind. Invariably a young reporter in awe of his reputation offered to pay his share.

  When he issued his invitation to us, I decided to do a deal with Aitor, the moody Basque restaurateur. A deal with the devil, according to Diane, when I told her about Tom’s reputation.

  After he and Bridget had enjoyed a swim, a nap beside the pool, and a couple of cocktails, he put on a blazer, shiny with wear, and said: “Right, let’s go out and have a bang-up meal. On me, of course.”

  Diane glanced at me. Was I right about him? the glance inquired. I nodded imperceptibly—trust me!

  “I know a good place,” I told Tom. “The owner’s a bit of a character—you know, outspoken—but the steaks are out of this world.”

  “Lead the way,” he said. “Money no object. Just like old times, huh, Derek?”

  “Not quite,” I said.

  “Might as well go in your car,” he said. “Bit more class than mine”—pointing at his threadbare automobile rented from a cowboy outfit in Alicante.

  I told him to wait in the car with Bridget and Diane while I locked up the house. As I’d anticipated, the annex was already locked; I unlocked it with a spare key and picked up his black leather wallet lying on the single bed—maybe Bridget would have to sleep on the floor—between my typewriter and a book about the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

  In the empty restaurant, where a log fire fueled with pinewood burned and spat, a table covered with a red-checkered cloth had been laid for us.

  The Basque, bleary-eyed and scowling as usual, brought us a pitcher of red wine from nearby Jalon that Tom immediately sent back. “We want the best Rioja you’ve got,” he said.

  After the thick tender steaks had been served with scalloped potatoes and canned peas, Bridget took a bite from hers and said, “Delicious,” the only word I had heard her utter since lunch.

  I ate my meal as swiftly as a stray dog, followed Aitor into the bar, and said: “Are you sure you’re going through with it?”

  “Quite sure,” he said.

  When I got back to the table Diane was staring at her empty glass, preoccupied presumably with what lay ahead.

  “Anyone want coffee?” Tom asked brightly, lighting his pipe and brushing smoldering tobacco from his blazer.

  No one did.

  As Aitor approached with the check, Tom went into his famous pocket-slapping routine familiar to journalists all over the world.

  “Oh, my God,” he exclaimed, glancing pitifully at his wife. “My wallet . . . Have you seen it?”

  “No, darling. The last time I saw it was when we stopped at a garage on the way from Alicante.” She was obviously well versed in the deception but not, I suspected, happy with it.

  Giving his pockets another chastising, Tom bowed his head in spurious defeat. “I’m sorry about this, Derek, but I’ve lost it. Maybe it’s been stolen. I’m afraid you’ll have to pay and I’ll settle up with you when I can lay my hands on some cash.”

  “No time like the present,” I said. “I found your wallet. Isn’t that wonderful?” I fished the wallet from the back pocket of my trousers and threw it on the table. “There, I can see the money and your credit cards.”

  Tom stared at it as though it was a sleeping scorpion. “But—”

  “You left your room unlocked,” I lied. “That lock on the door needs repairing . . . I opened it and there was your wallet lying on your bed. I knew you needed it so, hey presto, I brought it along.”

  I beckoned Aitor, who was hovering near the table. “My friend would like the check,” I told him.

  Aitor placed it on the table in front of Tom. It was, I knew, the equivalent of $150, not a lot of money for such a meal in New York or London but a fortune for a restaurant in a Spanish pueblo. It was twice what it should have been.

  “This is preposterous,” Tom exploded, staring at the check. “There must have been a mistake.” Sparks flew from the pipe clenched between his teeth.

  “Come off it, Tom,” I said. “Don’t let the side down. We don’t want the Spanish to think we’re a nation of tightwads, do we? Didn’t I hear you say,’ Money no object’?”

  He counted out the bills as though peeling off layers of his skin.

  “I’ll take care of the tip,” I said as he rose and, shoulders slumped, made his way to the car parked outside.

  Confronting Aitor when he came to clear the table, I said: “You’ve made a good profit, double what you expected to get. You must be a happy man.”

  The scowl gathered around his bloodshot eyes lifted for a moment. He spread his hands. “Señor Derek, I am not a crook. I didn’t want that money.”

  “So what are you going to do with it?”

  “Give it to charity. What else?”

  And I believed him. Retrieving the scowl, he picked up Tom’s money, stuffed it in the pocket of his striped apron, and piled the plates on a tray.

  I was walking down the driveway, having driven the car into the garage, when an ethereal figure emerged in the moonlight from the orange trees to my left. Tom’s wife, Bridget.

  “I locked our door before we went out to dinner,” she whispered. “I tested it just in case it was still open. It wasn’t!” She kissed me on both cheeks. “I want to thank you for making this holiday worthwhile. His face when he got the check . . . If only—”

  If only what? I could only guess. She ran down the driveway and disappeared into the annex. The door shut and I heard the key turn firmly in the lock.

  They left the following morning.

  One other guest visited Aitor but the roles were reversed; this time Aitor the tormentor was tormented.

  The guest was an octogenarian, Sir Rupert Grayson. Born into money and privilege, Rupert served in World War I as a second lieutenant in the Irish Guards. With him was Rudyard Kipling’s son, John. Rupert was blown up but survived, John Kipling was reported missing, later presumed dead. Thereafter Rudyard Kipling treated Rupert as a surrogate son. And when he came to Spain more than half a century later, a fragment of the shell that wounded him was still embedded in the flesh of one hand.

  His brush with death whetted his appetite for life. He headed for Hollywood where he became friends with, among others, David Niven, Clark Gable, and Shirley Temple.

  Back in London he went into publishing and wrote a series of thrillers about a precursor of James Bond called Gun Cotton. During World War II he assumed Gun Cotton’s derring-do mantle and became a King’s Messenger, delivering secret dispatches all over the free world.

  Rupert, whom I had met in a bar in Gibraltar, turned up at our house just as the swallows were leaving in September, crowding the telephone wires and congregating in the sky before flying to Africa for the winter. He stayed in a small hotel in Denia.

 
From there I used to drive him to Aitor’s bar where, out of perversity, he set up office, taking over two or three tables for his books and papers. Bulldog chin lowered, exotic cravat knotted at the neck of a safari jacket, he became a local attraction as he revised his memoirs with a broken ballpoint pen.

  I enjoyed his company, his ascerbic wit, and the whiff of aristocratic assumption that still accompanied him from a bygone age, but Aitor didn’t share my enthusiasm.

  Not only did Rupert occupy more than his ration of space, he usurped his authority, demanding a steady supply of Fernet Branca pick-me-ups, cracking a table with his stick if he didn’t get them.

  Aitor fought back. He discovered that Rupert hated noise, a quixotic aversion in Spain, and therefore created as much of it as possible.

  Outside he employed youths to let off fireworks. Squibs that were lit and thrown; tro de bacs, which exploded when hurled against walls; strings of bangers known as tracas; fiery serpents’ tails called borrachos (drunks).

  But it took more than a few bangs to shift an old soldier who had been blown up in World War I and had a piece of shrapnel in one hand to prove it. When a boy threw a masclet into the bar, Rupert took a couple of wax plugs from his carpetbag, dusted them down, and stuck them in his ears.

  I was reading my newspapers while he corrected passages about quieter locations he had visited as a King’s Messenger, when Aitor, who had been steadily sipping absinthe, asked Rupert if he intended to eat.

  Rupert cupped a hand to one plugged ear. “Could you speak up, please.”

  Aitor shouted: “Eat, do you want anything to eat?”

  Rupert’s formidable jaw rose. “Yes,” he said, “I rather think I do,” and took two cheese crackers from his bag.

  Aitor ran his fingers through his tangled black-and-gray hair and returned to the bar, a wounded and dangerous animal.

  I saw him grope under the bar. Was he going for the gun he was reputed to keep there? I wrote on a sheet of typing paper: I think he’s got a pistol. Rupert smiled and offered me a cracker. No gun materialized.