Our conversation lasted a good half hour. She did practically all the talking. Sra Vicenteta had cooked dinner, the waitress had served it up, and everything was tidied away. She could now relax and hold forth. She felt like talking. I was surprised. When I arrived in the village, it impressed me the way anything unknown does: it struck me as impenetrable and opaque. I’d felt the first signs of a terrible drowsiness overwhelming me. I’d not considered the reverse effect: I mean the intense curiosity newcomers arouse in village people. The flow of words from Sra Vicenteta’s lips could have been sparked by only one thing: the pleasure she experienced when talking to a complete stranger. Then, just as I was beginning to drowse, I noticed a person who also seemed drowsy — maybe even more so.
I took advantage of a short lull in the mistress of the house’s monologue to dare to ask which café I had best repair to, in her opinion.
“The Social Center,” she replied, “will serve you coffee that’s chestnut water and cheap liquor. I wouldn’t recommend Pepito’s café. The people that go there are not exactly flush. Try the Recreationaclass="underline" better class and good coffee. It is, I might add, a Catholic center, though they do own a fridge.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, senyor, they own a fridge … and next year, God willing, so will we.”
“Electric?”
“No, senyor. Easy does it, an icebox. There’s nothing like the ice this village makes in the summer, you know?”
Villages in our country always have two or three excellent, unrivaled products. The first was obvious: ice. I discovered the second later: the almond biscuits made by two or three confectioners on the Carrer Major and a little factory. That’s right, a little factory. A sign on the entrance to the building made that crystal-clear: Narciso Soler’s Almond Biscuit Factory. Founded in 1837. The industrialization of the manufacture of almond biscuits might be considered a trivial accomplishment. But the causes were soon revealed: ingredients, climate, water, local labor, everything seemed actively to conspire to create first-rate almond biscuits. That’s right, nature’s mysterious ways. Cerinyola’s almond biscuits are a source of pride for its citizenry.
Once in full flow on what was dear to her heart, Sra Vicenteta chattered irrepressibly at a merry tilt. She spoke in the village dialect that was perfectly understandable from the point of view of the words she used, but was in fact hardly intelligible, because her value judgments were purely local and referred to facts that were a complete blank to me, a thick fog. However, I won’t harp on, because it’s so common in this country. I’ll simply say that it is one of the wearisome burdens we learn to bear.
“The new doctor,” she said, “came some three months ago. Roundabout when they buried Sra Rosalia. And what a funeral that was! A rich lady who did lots of charitable work and was related by marriage to old Soler, you know, Sr Tet, the almond biscuit maker, you with me? The doctor immediately struck me as rather dodgy. He ate at the very table where you just dined, senyor, right there, as if you could see him there now. When he told me he was on a diet, I knew he wasn’t up to scratch. How could you credit such a very young man, a qualified doctor to boot, being on a diet? Toast, broth, grilled meat, and lots of fruit … And where will we ever find fruit in winter? Just what the truck driver said: Sra Vicenteta, you must be pulling my leg asking for fruit. Let them eat prunes! Then it was time to give him his bill; you know, two weeks had gone by, and then his excuses started coming, and tomorrow is another day … We could have come to an arrangement, but he was suddenly as thick as thieves with the vet, Sr Daniel, who’s so full of himself, and likes to guzzle and stuff and splash out … Broth and vet, don’t make sense, do they? It’s what my deceased husband used to say: in for a peach, in for a pumpkin … I should have seen it coming, particularly when the goings on with Venus started …”
“Please, senyora, could you throw some light on the goings on with Venus. Are you telling me that there’s a Venus in this neck of the woods?”
“There’s a girl people call Venus.”
“Is she a rural or industrial Venus?”
“On my way out from Sra Rosalia’s funeral, the day when it was so windy (a curse on us here), Sra Quimeta, from the sewing shop, said to me: ‘You know who Venus is? She’s a nasty piece of work, no two ways about it …’ ”
“Please, senyora, be more precise. Who is she exactly? Is she from farming folk or weaving and textiles?”
“I really couldn’t tell you, honest I couldn’t … A tavern keeper’s work is never done! I’d only remind you …”
Just when Sra Vicenteta was about to launch into another endless, nonsensical monologue — her opening line was already striking panic — a door creaked and in walked a man in his sixties. He was on the thin side, pleasantly dressed and seemed affable enough. As he walked past the electric switches, he flicked one and darkness descended on half the room. That’s the master’s touch, I thought. Then he came slowly toward our table, smiling warmly at Sra Vicenteta. Once he was next to us, she knew she had no choice but to introduce him.
“Agustí Vinardell,” she announced rather shamefacedly. “He’s a gentleman who lodges here.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance …”
But, as she didn’t know my name (at the time guest forms didn’t exist) she couldn’t complete the introduction she’d just begun. That little drawback put a stop to our conversation.
Sr Vinardell smiled continuously, as if the smile were embossed on his face. In the meantime he rubbed his hands together, occasionally muttering: “Well, well!” And the three of us exchanged affable smiles in the silent dining room — rather stupidly perhaps, but pleasantly nevertheless. Given the general silence, and particularly (for me) the tavern keeper’s surprising silence, in contrast to her previous chatter, Sr Vinardell finally broke the ice, “Senyora, we ought to be off to bed,” he said. “It’s almost eleven. It is very late.”
“Of course …”
And so we said goodnight, after agreeing that for breakfast next morning I’d be served lemon juice with sugar lumps, and tap water.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sr. Plàcid Comes at the Societat Recreativa, a kind of incipient, rural gentlemen’s club. We struck up a conversation after watching an enormously long and tedious twilight game of chess. We put on our raincoats at the same time by the cloakroom. While he was buttoning up I heard him clearly say, “The anxious expressions on the opponents’ faces were quite exaggerated. Pure pantomime. Completely fake …”
I replied that I could only agree with his perceptive remark. We talked as we left the club and headed leisurely up the High Street, smoking. It was rather a misty, coldish, dark April night, deserted as well, agreeably so.
We soon walked past the pharmacy and Sr Comes said, “I work in that hut. The apothecary and his wife live in Barcelona. Their daughters are at primary school and their sons at high school. That way they can keep an eye on them and keep the nest warm. Ha, ha! I look after the pharmacy for them … You’ll visit me in due course. It’s an old-fashioned village institution with an intense odor cannon fire couldn’t disperse.”
Sr Comes spoke clearly, modulating his sentences. He looked poor and underfed, but was smoothly shaven and wore a cheap, shiny tie under a dubiously clean collar. A lively wit, small and excitable, he was the kind of villager who is endlessly resourceful.
When I told him — as we walked past — that I lived in the Central Tavern, he chuckled mysteriously, and I couldn’t decide if that signaled praise or disapproval.