Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
Eventually we arrived at the Madrid station and wandered around until we found a suitable hotel not too far from the station. We slept late the next day and after finding a small bar that sold strong black coffee and croissants I mapped out our schedule for the day.
'We're going to the Prado,' I announced
'When do we get to see a bullfight?' Bill asked.
'Patience, dear boy, we have things of a more cultural bent to investigate first.'
'Such as...'
'Such as The Prado,' I said.
'What in hell is The Prado?' he asked.
'Just one of the most famous museums in the world is all!'
'Then the Prado we must see,' he said resignedly.
That evening we strolled along the Avenida de Jose Antonio, stopping occasionally for a glass of Fundador Domeq until we finally spotted a small restaurant with a menu posted outside that appealed to us. Inside the restaurant was still not crowded because of the early hour. There was crisp white napery and the cutlery and glassware both sparkled. When the white-aproned waiter arrived I ordered half a litre of house white wine and a medium rare filet mignon. 'A green chef's salad would be nice too, with vinegar and oil dressing.'
'Tell him the same for me,' Bill said. 'I'll be glad to share the white wine with you, though.'
'Very kind of you,' I said, 'I'll ask the waiter for an extra glass...a shot glass of course.'
'Very funny!'
I guessed the steaks to be at least ten ounces and they were perfectly cooked, pink and juicy. I cut into mine and chewed it effortlessy; it was completely free of gristle. The chef's salad had crisp new iceberg lettuce and plump small tomatoes quartered. Delicious! I had just finished pouring out the wine for Bill and myself and was about to go into my quasi-professional wine tasting ritual when Bill gave an exclamation of horror.
'What the hell's the matter with you?' I said crossly. I had been slightly shocked by his sudden outburst.
'Look for yourself!' he said, pointing to his salad.
'I don't see anything unusual.'
'Look! there!' he said disgustedly.
I peered more closely and finally saw a tiny green caterpillar about a quarter of an inch long and barely distinguishable on one of the green lettuce leaves.
'Christ almighty!' I exclaimed, 'is that what all the fuss is about? Maybe you'd like to go to some other restaurant. So they missed a little caterpillar, for God's sake! I think you'd have a hell of a lot more to worry about if the caterpillar had been dead. Pull yourself together you big sissy, just flick it off and get on with your dinner. Better still, give it to me and I'll eat it, after all, it's just been washed!''
I had noticed a solitary man sitting at the table next to us who appeared to be listening to our conversation. He was short and very fat and I noticed that his feet did not quite reach the floor as he sat perched on his chair with his back to the wall. His dark clothes were well-tailored but did not conceal the massive proportions of his shoulders, indicating, in spite of his obesity, that he had been no stranger to heavy work in his past. The red alcoholic flush on his blotchy face extended up into the thinning hair on his scalp, contrasting sharply with the alert, black eyes that peered piggishly from the heavy surrounding folds of flesh. He had finished his meal and sat ruminating over a glass of liqueur which he gripped in one of his great hairy hands as though fearful it might suddenly elude his grasp and flutter away like a frightened sparrow.
When the waiter returned to ask us if we wished to have dessert or an after dinner drink the stranger seized the opportunity to speak.
'Try the 'sol', boys, it's the best you can drink. Have one on me, in fact!' He spoke rapidly to the waiter in fluent Spanish. As the waiter hurried away he turned to face us, obviously pleased to be able at last to open a conversation.
'You boys are American, aren't you?'
'Canadian,' Bill answered.
'Well, you don't say, you don't say; I'm an Englishman myself. A Geordie! You ever heard of a Geordie, huh?'
'I have,' I said.
'Come from up Cornwall way, you know, used to be in the coal business. Worked in the mines when I was a kid....started when I was twelve years old.' He glanced at us as if expecting us to challenge his statement.
'That's pretty young!' Bill commented.
'Goddam right it's young,' the red-faced stranger expostulated, 'didn't do me a bit of harm, though, not a damn bit.' He spoke quickly and with great animation, as though anticipating something, or withholding a secret he was bursting to divulge.'I've come a long way since then, though,' he added. 'Yessir, one hell of a long way!'
I almost felt obliged to ask some sort of leading question that would give the man an opportunity to enlarge on his autobiography.
'You still in the coal business, then?' I enquired.
'Nope, not by a long shot sonny! You might say I'm in a lot of litle businesses!' His pig eyes glittered as he chuckled silently as though at some private joke. 'You might say I'm a collector.' This apparently amused him even more than his first attempt at a humorous sally and he shook again with suppressed mirth. He took a sip of wine and my eyes followed the path of an immense diamond that glittered from a ring on one pudgy finger. The quick dark eyes apparently noticed my unveiled interest. I wondered if he was going to tell me he had found it on the beach.
'You like diamonds, sonny?' he chuckled with pleasure.
'When they're that big I do!'
'Look, boys, I'm going to show you something I picked up in Venezuela a couple of months ago!' He reached into his pocket and withdrew an exquisitely engraved solid silver snuffbox, polished smooth with use and glinting dully in the dim light from the wall lamps. He held the box below the level of the heavy oak tabletop and, glancing furtively around, pressed the catch and snapped the lid of the box open. A number of small, tightly-wrapped bundles of white tissue paper had been packed into the interior of the container and he withdrew one of them and unwrapped it slowly but with obvious excitement.
'Emeralds, I'll bet, just as sure as hell,' I blurted out suddenly, unable to stand the growing suspense any longer. The stranger stopped unwrapping the small package and looked up with an expression of disappointment.
'How did you know?' he said in such a hurt tone that I immediately regretted my impulsiveness.
'I don't know; when you mentioned Venezuela and I saw the small packages I just automatically thought of emeralds. The place is famous for them!'
'Very astute, sonny, very astute,' he smiled, seemingly pleased by my amateurish bit of deductive reasoning. He turned again to the small package and continued unfolding the wrinkled white paper. He turned the last fold back and held forth the paper and its contents with a sigh of pride. An emerald the size of a robin's egg glowed softly in its nest of white paper.
'Miiigaaaawd' Bill whispered in awe, craning ahead to afford himself a closer view of the fabulous gem.
'A real beauty,' I said, 'good colouring, too,! The dark ones seem to be most popular now.'
The fat man leaned forward and, after casting another theatrically furtive glance about, said 'You know, boys, there's more than one man in this town that'd cut my throat in a jiffy if they knew I had this stone.'
'I guess,' Bill said, still staring at the stone as though mesmerized.
'You know, it's a funny thing,' the man said, rewrapping the gem carefully as he spoke, 'there was a stone just like this one stolen from a wealthy woman in France five years ago; they never did find out what happened to it!' He began gasping again with silent laughter, leaving little doubt as to the significance of his words. 'I told you I was a collector, didn't I?' he said, winking slyly and tapping his nose with a forefinger as he erupted again with silent mirth. Bill and I exchanged a quick glance.
'You boys been here long?' the stranger asked, changing the subject abruptly. He slipped the snuff box back into his pocket. I longed to know the contents of the other small packages crowded in beside the one containing the emerald.
'You mean in Spain?'
'Yeah!'
'About three months. We just came up from North Africa yesterday, though.'
'Where in North Africa?'
'Tangier, Tetuan...just around Spanish Morocco.'
'I own a big place in Tangier,' he said, reaching for his wallet. He produced it from an inside pocket of his coat and extracted some snapshots. 'You know Tangier very well?'
'Fairly well,' I answered. 'We stayed down in the Casbah, though.'
The stranger handed him the snapshots which showed him standing in front of a large modern home in the Spanish style. One of the photographs showed an attractive dark-haired woman standing by his side.
'Cost me a hundred thousand dollars to build that place three years ago,' he complained. 'I can't even rent it for enought to pay the upkeep and taxes now.' He slipped the snapshots back into his wallet.
'You like Spain, boys?' he asked, signalling the waiter to refill their glasses.
'Man, yeah!' Bill replied with enthusiasm, 'especially the women; they're really out of this world!
'Now, that's a fact,' I volunteered. 'It's an amazing thing about Spanish women but I have yet to see a really ugly one. There's something about the bone structure in their faces or something...perfect conformation, like a good breed of racing horses, you know! It's not the same with Anglo-Saxon women, though. Granted you'll see the occasional one who's outstandingly beautiful but on the other hand you encounter a lot in between that are downright homely. That just doesn't seem to be the case here.'
'They're all right, sonny, take my word for it; I ought to know, too, I've been married to one for twenty years.'
'Oh yeah? I'll be damned!' Bill said, leaning forward with renewed interest.
'Amazing thing about it is that I'm not around very much. Oh, I show up for a month or two every year if I can manage it, but that's about all. Nevertheless, there are never any questions asked. As long as I send along enough money to keep the house going, nobody ever complains. Oh, I tell you, sonny, those American girls of yours have got a lot to learn yet about how to make a man a good wife.'
'I'll buy that!' Bill agreed.
'I'll buy it too,' I said, 'but you seem to forget one thing, old boy. We're not Americans, we're Canadians!'
'So what's the difference?'
'What's the difference between an Englishman and an Irishman?' I said.
'I take your point!' the fat man said, looking miffed.
'Well,' I said, 'we have to be on our way...things to do, you know.'
I rose from the table and threw down enough pesetas to more than cover our meal. 'Nice to have met you, sir,' I said, 'maybe we'll run into you again some day.' Bill looked a bit surprised but nevertheless got up and followed me out to the street.
'You sure gave that old bugger short shrift,' he said as we walked toward the subway.
'He's a crook, in my opinion,' I said.
'Why do you say that?'
'Do you really know what a 'Geordie' is?'
'I guess so! Like he said, it's a guy from Cornwall!'
'Bullshit! That's a 'Cornishman', a 'Geordie' is from the Tyneside! A guy from Cornwall who says he's a 'Geordie' is either just nuts or he's a liar! I choose the latter!'
'Maybe he's some kind of 'scam artist''!'
'Think about it,' I said, 'the penny will drop!'
— The End —