[continued from entry of 9/30]
During one of those strange, fumbling phone calls -- me gripping the receiver tightly, pressing it against my ear as I concentrated in a way I rarely have in this lifetime, straining to understand everything I could of the stream of Spanish coming at me from this intriguing woman -- we decided to get together in 3-D, supposedly to talk about her continuing offer re: assisting me in applying for the teaching-English thing. Supposedly. Other vibes were percolating underneath all the job-related blabber, but we didn't poke at that. Something seemed to be happening -- something improbable (given how little language we had in common), arising out of nowhere -- and I don't think either of us wanted to risk breaking the strange kind of spell that seemed to be gathering steam. So we let it be, and arranged a rendezvous, and continued talking by phone, working to get a sense of who the other person was as best we could.
My host -- married to a Spaniard, living in Madrid for many years -- seem astonished when I filled her in on developments. Spanish women, she told me, simply didn't do things this forward, this out there. Apparently, said I, at least one of them did. She stared at me in reply, smirking a little, as if she thought I was either (a) a far more interesting male than she'd realized or (b) a classic example of dumb, undeserved luck. Or (c) a blend of the two, worth keeping an eye on if only for the potential entertainment value of the situation I was getting myself into.
And then I found myself walking through Madrid's west side on a Sunday afternoon, early-September heat thick and deceptively intense beneath the weight of the sun's direct light (the reason, I realized, many natives slink along the shady side of the street during the city's hot season). We met up at the arranged spot, strolled together toward a restaurant she suggested, checking each other out as we went, the first time we could actually study the other person, watch the mouth speaking all those incomprehensible words, look into the other's eyes, watch their body language. A whole lot more communication happening with all the visuals added into the mix. Much more intriguing. And much more promising, at least going by her clear interest in me. So much more promising that at certain moments I simply watched this attractive individual and wondered how the hell I'd managed to shoehorn myself into this situation, managed to wangle a seat across the table from what seemed to be a desirable, intelligent, high-quality Spanish woman.
She brought me to a restaurant that dealt in Argentinian beef -- meat, she assured me, of the highest quality. Big, thick slabs of it, turned out, served to us at outside tables, along a wide sidewalk outside the restaurant proper, a canopy above us providing some shade, billowing and rustling in a warm breeze. Me sitting across from this dark-eyed woman, both of us armed with dictionaries, repeatedly digging into them in an ongoing effort to piece together full-blown conversation. (Mine: your standard paperback Spanish-English deal. Hers: a nearly microscopic, severely abridged volume of extremely limited effectiveness. Got me laughing every time she tried thumbing through it, mostly not finding anything helpful, provoking laughter, both of staring each other with wide-eyed smiles of pleased disbelief at us, the situation, everything. We switched dictionaries, me then mostly not finding anything helpful, provoking louder laughter.)
[to be continued]
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Color uncoordinated -- from one room into another at the language school that's currently putting up with me:
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 5:28 AM [+]
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