Music to go: Alan Vega in Madrid
Thanks to circumstances, I ended up on the RN20 south from Orléans where I got to be picked up soon by a bright yellow nineteen seventies Mercedes with a Barcelona licence plate. A man in his fifties stuck a well-groomed head out of the front passenger window. “Where are you going, my friend?”
“Barcelona,” I answered as casually as my luck allowed.
“Get in, then.”
I threw my luggage in the boot and got comfortable on the brown leather back seat.
“My name is José,” my host said a pitch higher than I would have guessed from his looks. “And this is my companion Sex.”
“Cesc,” the driver, perhaps in his thirties while maintaining a much younger appearance, corrected. He gave me a long, blue stare through the rear-view mirror. “Pep is living in Madrid these days, so he’s suddenly all very Spanish. You know, refusing to pronounce foreign names correctly, that sort of thing.”
“José, please!”
“But don’t be fooled, he wasn’t born there,” Cesc continued. “Were you, my dear Pep?”
The passenger now fully turned towards me, resting a ring adorned hand on the youngish driver’s knee. “Pepita if you must, sweety,” he pitched even higher while pouting his lips. “But please remember nothing else will do.”
I sat back and peered out of the window, not sure what this was all about.
José had begun lighting a cigarette which he now passed on to me.
“Nobody was ever born in Madriss,” he declared, “Madriss is where you end up.”
“Pepèt is from Sarrià,” told Cesc. “Do you know Barcelona?”
“I live in Les Corts,” I admitted. I started handing back the cigarette, but José declined with a quiet nod.
“That’s quite alright,” he smiled. He lit up for the front row as well. “Sexy is from San Andrés and so far he hasn’t got out. Of course, if you’re from Sarrià, getting out is much easier.” He giggled loud and long, waiting for his chauffeur to take over.
“I like Madrid for a party but I couldn’t live there,” said Cesc. “It’s just a giant mass of houses in the middle of nowhere, an illusion made out of stone. Way too unreal for me. And it’s Sant Andreu, but you already knew that.”
José waved a smoke wrapped hand in my direction. “Anyway, Madriss can’t possibly be real of course. We are the heart and the Spanish heart was broken many times.” He blew a giant ring of smoke and smiled when he saw how well-shaped it was. “Madriss has always had to live up to its expectations. That’s why we love her so much.”
We had passed Vierzon and were heading for Limoges, now on the motorway because it was free of charge here.
“Do you know Madrid?” informed Cesc, offering eye contact as a natural way of understanding.
“I try to get there every other year. As is normal with a town at that distance, I reckon.”
“Mister travelling man, are we?” exclaimed José apprehensively.
“I wouldn’t call it that much,” I replied a bit dryly, not ready yet to produce a laughable format for my life’s adventures.
The silence was all mine this time, so I tried for the easiest of questions. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an enforcer with the cabinet,” José let know with a flashy smile, the sun perhaps catching a gold fringed tooth.
“And I am his victim,” laughed Cesc behind the big old wheel.
“What does an enforcer do?”
“We see to it our leaders’ wishes are obeyed.”
A skinny thrill ran down my spine. “Are you talking about the incoming government?”
“O yes. We are particularly active in the rebellious province, aren’t we, Franny?”
Cesc gave me a quick straight look over the shoulder, then through the mirror again. “It’s Madrid’s unwavering wish to wipe Barcelona off the face of the Earth, to never be annoyed again by us unruly and disgustingly successful upstarts. I’m saying it correctly, amn’t I, Pepèt?”
“Perhaps a bit rash,” pondered José affectively. “An ever deepening crisis would do just fine in my mind.”
We were approaching Limoges now. José waved at an overhead road sign. “Bordeaux turn right,” he warned.
I couldn’t help responding immediately. “The road to Barcelona is over Toulouse and Andorra.”
“The road to Madriss is over Bordeaux,” José assured coldly.
“Madrid? I thought you were going to Barcelona.”
“We are in fact,” Cesc quickly threw in.
“But we must go to the capital first,” stressed José.
“The capital is beyond Barcelona,” I noticed.
“It’s never,” insisted José. He gave me a sudden mean look. “I tell you, my friend, it’s not. Barcelona may be beyond Madriss, o yes, but Madriss can’t ever be ’yond your stupid, dirty ciudad condal, you hear!”
He was yelling now and I sat back once more, not knowing how to respond to this unexpected outburst.
“I urgently need to go to Madriss,” José said, seemingly collected again. He stuck out a remarkable long arm to lay his free left hand on the inside of my thigh. “I can’t live without Madrís one minute longer than circumstances require, you see. I am unable to imagine life in the province.”
He leaned back towards the glove compartment to produce a silver flask which he took a swig from before passing it on. “And since I’m with the cabinet and you are not, we will obviously go home first. You are then free to continue.”
“I really think that sounds a bit absurd, Pipa. It’s hardly a detour going to Barna first.”
“Impossible,” sulked José.
Cesc held my hand a touch longer than needed when he took over the flat bottle containing a sweet burning brandy. “How about Lleida?” he offered. “There’s a good train connection and it’s probably fastest for us as well.”
“Now don’t you start your little negotiating scheme!” shouted José. “There’s no way we are going to change plans at this point. I’m going to Madriss and I don’t care how far it is.”
He started passing round cigarettes again. “You sound like a foreigner so you must have noticed how one can never trust those Catalans. First they give in to your every wish like good boys should and then they are mistaken and they want it all back again.”
“It is not easy saying no to Madrid,” I remarked.
Cesc started laughing and José after a dark flash sent me an approving wink. “It is certainly true, dear, that we don’t take no for an answer very lightly. Exit coming soon, my Sex.”
“Pepèt gets all sick when we first go to my place,” explained Cesc, observing my growing concern with satisfaction. “In fact, he never feels comfortable outside Emma Trenta.”
“That’s why I prefer travelling by train to the old town.” José grinned, sharing looks with his Sexy. I wondered whether peace was restored with the crossing less than two miles off.
“I’m used to giving Pipa her way,” told Cesc from the driving seat. “But I imagine it’s a bit much asked to see you take the long road with us.”
José laid a hand on the wheel. “No dealing, I said.”
The exit Bordeaux was just a hundred of meters away by now.
“Let’s drop off our friend a little further and take the road to Lourdes or something.”
José hooked the wheel to the right, so that the car swept over the emergency lane. “To Madriss, I say.”
“We aren’t honestly making a spectacle of ourselves, are we, dear? And take your hand away, you’re being dangerous.”
José gave another twist to the car. “Madriss and I’ll be good with you.”
“The next gas station, for your god’s sake.”
“Not even, you hear?”
“I don’t like this,” I said.
That’s when the Mercedes started swaying and wagging but not losing speed and I knew we were in for the crash and I was just hoping the hit would be mild and then we rolled over and a loud blow came through the seat like a spanking, nothing to lose consciousness from though, at least not before realising the big one might still be ahead of us. I dug low and planted my heels against the front seat, the belly belt under my armpits. We seemed to be gliding and I didn’t first realise we did it upside down, that we’d be hanging and it might be nice if the car came to a halt.
When the hit came it wasn’t bad any longer, at least not for me. Screaming around me suggested the others were at least conscious. I listened for control in their voices and when the car began coming to a full stop I joined in, creating instant relief on the front row.
“You killed my car, sweetheart, my beautiful yellow Mercedes.”
“What do you mean your car, I paid for it.”
“With my money.”
“Now don’t you give me that nonsense again.”
José in his upside down situation had managed to light a cigarette. “I’m terribly sorry if we gave you the chills, love. Hope you are safe?”
I slid out of my belt and on the suede ceiling. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Come to Madriss, dear, all expenses paid for.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. I have a family waiting for me.”
“You do then?” wondered Cesc disapprovingly. “I thought you were on the ride with us.”
“Just on a hitch, I’m afraid.”
I opened the door and crawled onto the orange dust strip along the motorway. Cars were coming to a halt and I could hear voices shouting. Perhaps someone has read the licence plate, I thought.
