“Fernandito,” Maria said to him. “Tell us of the time thee went to Valencia”
“I did not like Valencia.”
“Why?” Maria asked and pressed Robert Jordan’s arm again. “Why did thee not like it?”
“The people had no manners and I could not understand them. All they did was shout ché at one another.”
“Could they understand thee?” Maria asked.
“They pretended not to,” Fernando said.
“And what did thee there?”
“I left without even seeing the sea,” Fernando said. “I did not like the people.”
“Oh, get out of here, you old maid,” the woman of Pablo said. “Get out of here before you make me sick. In Valencia I had the best time of my life. Vamos! Valencia. Don’t talk to me of Valencia.”
“What did thee there?” Maria asked. The woman of Pablo sat down at the table with a bowl of coffee, a piece of bread and a bowl of the stew.
“Qué? what did we there. I was there when Finito had a contract for three fights at the Feria. Never have I seen so many people. Never have I seen cafés so crowded. For hours it would be impossible to get a seat and it was impossible to board the tram cars. In Valencia there was movement all day and all night.”
“But what did you do?” Maria asked.
“All things,” the woman said. “We went to the beach and lay in the water and boats with sails were hauled up out of the sea by oxen. The oxen driven to the water until they must swim; then harnessed to the boats, and, when they found their feet, staggering up the sand. Ten yokes of oxen dragging a boat with sails out of the sea in the morning with the line of the small waves breaking on the beach. That is Valencia.”
“But what did thee besides watch oxen?”
“We ate in pavilions on the sand. Pastries made of cooked and shredded fish and red and green peppers and small nuts like grains of rice. Pastries delicate and flaky and the fish of a richness that was incredible. Prawns fresh from the sea sprinkled with lime juice. They were pink and sweet and there were four bites to a prawn. Of those we ate many. Then we ate paella with fresh sea food, clams in their shells, mussels, crayfish, and small eels. Then we ate even smaller eels alone cooked in oil and as tiny as bean sprouts and curled in all directions and so tender they disappeared in the mouth without chewing. All the time drinking a white wine, cold, light and good at thirty centimos the bottle. And for an end, melon. That is the home of the melon.”
“The melon of Castile is better,” Fernando said.
“Qué va,” said the woman of Pablo. “The melon of Castile is for self abuse. The melon of Valencia for eating. When I think of those melons long as one’s arm, green like the sea and crisp and juicy to cut and sweeter than the early morning in summer. Aye, when I think of those smallest eels, tiny, delicate and in mounds on the plate. Also the beer in pitchers all through the afternoon, the beer sweating in its coldness in pitchers the size of water jugs.”
“And what did thee when not eating nor drinking?”
“We made love in the room with the strip wood blinds hanging over the balcony and a breeze through the opening of the top of the door which turned on hinges. We made love there, the room dark in the day time from the hanging blinds, and from the streets there was the scent of the flower market and the smell of burned powder from the firecrackers of the traca that ran though the streets exploding each noon during the Feria. It was a line of fireworks that ran through all the city, the firecrackers linked together and the explosions running along on poles and wires of the tramways, exploding with great noise and a jumping from pole to pole with a sharpness and a cracking of explosion you could not believe.
“We made love and then sent for another pitcher of beer with the drops of its coldness on the glass and when the girl brought it, I took it from the door and I placed the coldness of the pitcher against the back of Finito as he lay, now, asleep, not having wakened when the beer was brought, and he said, ‘No, Pilar. No, woman, let me sleep.’ And I said, ‘No, wake up and drink this to see how cold,’ and he drank without opening his eyes and went to sleep again and I lay with my back against a pillow at the foot of the bed and watched him sleep, brown and dark-haired and young and quiet in his sleep, and drank the whole pitcher, listening now to the music of a band that was passing. You,” she said to Pablo. “Do you know aught of such things?”