On the way back, we shopped for a picnic supper at the local mercado (grocery). Amusing to see unfamiliar products with familiar names like Kraft and Pillsbury attached to them. We bought roasted chickens, cheese, olives, etc., ach, the rest we etc. The others joined us in the late afternoon with bottles of Rioja and we feasted like kings under the trees.
Jack later complained that this wasn’t his idea of a 3-star meal, but Jackie was having such a good time that he kept his mouth shut until we were back in our room. She’s a nice child, very pretty, and Luis is obviously smitten. At least it’s obvious to most of us. Jack seems oblivious, which Marie assures us is a good thing. Marie seems to walk around Jack — I’ve learned that he’s her boss as well as her brother — but she’s young enough to be sympathetic to this summer romance and she covered for Jackie last night so that the kids could sneak off to a street concert.
Now we’re in Oviedo. Our hotel is near the town center, directly across from a beautiful lush green park. I know you’re not much for nature, dear Sigrid, but even you would be charmed by the huge old trees and the peacocks. More later. Roman
From: RTramegra
To: SigridHarald
Date: 21 May
Subject: Cervantes
It’s the “Year of the Book” over here — the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote. I never did read it all the way through. Did you? Last night, some of us went to a zarzuela performance, which is a cross between opera and a Gilbert and Sullivan. As best I could understand, what we saw was a musical version of how Cervantes was inspired to create the character of El Quijote, as he is often called.
Luis and Jackie sat several rows in front of us and their heads were together the whole evening. Ah, young love! Good thing Jack opted to stay in and watch a soccer match with Forbes. On the walk back to the hotel, Marie told me that she is Jack’s second-in-command. Jackie has no interest in the business, but Marie is such an enthusiast that she almost convinced me that I need a Porsche even though you and I live but 2 blocks from the subway. If only St. Stephen’s would promote my book more vigorously!! I’ll bet John Grisham and Mary Higgins Clark can afford Porsches.
Despite her business acumen, Marie is as much a romantic as I. She thinks that Luis would be perfect for Jackie. He’s more cosmopolitan and educated than I at first realized and can talk to her about the art and music she loves. Both women are afraid that Jack will try to drive him away if he notices because he has his heart set on seeing her married to someone who’ll run the business so it can grow and prosper. He and Marie grew up poor and he has all the pride of a self-made man who wants to keep what he’s built intact. Marie says he’s like the dragon that’s imprisoned the princess in a tower, but Jackie’s young and she’s been a willing prisoner thus far. She’s quite aware of his wishes and seems to love him too much to wish to hurt him. I think she feels guilty that she’s not the son he wanted.
Marie’s enlisted my help to keep Jack from seeing how intense they’ve become. She wants them to have enough time and breathing space to be sure that this is not a mere summer fling. Two weeks is a short time, but I’ve seen too many happy marriages based on 3 dates to say they don’t know each other well enough. Indeed, the Andersons are also in on our little conspiracy because he proposed a week after they first met in college 26 years ago.
Marie’s concern doesn’t surprise any of us. Jack is SUCH a control freak. Honestly, every time we sit down to dinner, he’s quick to decide that Jackie and Marie don’t really want paella or shrimp. He tells the waiter, “We’ll all three have the fish and asparagus.” If it’s a meal that isn’t covered in the tour cost, he’ll say, “Why don’t you girls split an entrée? You shouldn’t be eating that much anyhow.”
Not that either is fat. But they do worry about their figures. You, dear Sigrid, are the only woman I ever met who doesn’t. R.
From: RTramegra
To: SigridHarald
Date: 22 May
Subject: Sidra Festival!
Today was Oviedo’s Cider Festival. You pay 3 euros for a bright green neckerchief, a clear plastic tumbler, and a scorecard. Then you go down the street, stopping at every tavern to sample and rate the hard cider. The Asturias district is proud of its native drink, but personally, they can keep my part. It’s both tart and flat at the same time. The attraction is that your server is supposed to hold your tumbler in one hand as low as possible and pour from a bottle that’s held as high as possible in the other hand. This bit of drama is supposed to insure full aeration and make the cider foam up in your glass like beer. According to Luis, experienced servers never spill a drop. Do NOT believe it!! By noontime, the street was sticky with puddles of sidra; and even though you only get a couple of inches of it per sample, the stuff is potent enough to send you reeling through streets jammed elbow to shoulder with fellow cider enthusiasts.
Saw Luis and Jackie kissing beneath a green umbrella. Marie saw them, too. Behind Jack’s back, she signaled to me and we immediately distracted Jack by steering him in a different direction, which wasn’t difficult, as much cider as he had sampled. Marie persuaded him to go back to the hotel with her and sleep it off.
I plan to incorporate this romance into my art thriller. Not that I have a plot yet. Did I tell you that the younger Brockmans own a small Oscar Nauman oil landscape that he painted down near the Portuguese border?
I’ll write to you from Santiago. Now that I’m used to the Spanish keyboard, it would be a shame to waste it. R.
From: RTramegra
To: SigridHarald
Date: 24 May
Subject: Santiago de Compostela
We have reached the end of our pilgrimage. Everything in the great cathedral is gold: crucifixes, orbs, statues, etc. Distasteful and tragic when one thinks of the cost in human lives to wrest this gold from the Aztecs. There’s too much blood on the golden statue of St. James for me to want to hug it as do so many pilgrims. R.
From: RTramegra
To: SigridHarald
Date: 25 May
Subject: Still Santiago
How perceptive you are, dear Sigrid! Yes, I’m afraid I was QUITE depressed when I wrote you yesterday. Still am, for that matter. And it wasn’t merely the South American gold. Modern Spanish gold has divided our young lovebirds and Jackie is heartbroken. Luis has left our party and Forbes’s wife has replaced him as our driver.
Things began to go sour immediately after Oviedo. Barbara Brockman, one of the wine-loving lawyers from Boston, had bought several of the coins that were struck to commemorate 400 años de El Quijote. Two were pure gold escudos, worth 80 °C each, the rest were sterling silver reales. She had them in the bottom of her purse and sometime during the last three days all 6 coins disappeared. Of course, we thought she’d either been careless or else a hotel maid or a pickpocket had taken them because she’s always setting her purse down and going off and leaving it so that her niece or one of us has to run back for it.
Then Marie bought a gorgeous — and rather expensive — jet necklace, which she left under the seat of the van when we stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the northern coast. It disappeared and both vans had been parked right outside our window through the whole meal. No stranger could have taken it. Unfortunately, Marie didn’t discover it was missing till we were unloading the vans at our hotel in Santiago.