The Spanish Civil War Or at least the part of it that was fought in the kitchen

"Manolo, señor."
The waiter had brought Bea and me a glass each of sauvignon blanc, and after responding to my question about his name, he stepped back a bit and welcomed us to Buenos Aires. He was a celebratory man, holding his arms out for a moment as he looked out the window onto calle Salta. With a moustache and a jowly smile and large hands, he had a kind of priestly authority, although really he more resembled an American football player, perhaps an Hispanic Dick Butkus. The de rigueur clothing for Buenos Aires waiters is a long sleeved white shirt, a black bow tie, black slacks and, occasionally, a long apron either white or black. Manolo's was black with pin-striped gold thread, a formal look that was also very jaunty. He was about thirty years old.
We had just made it through the front door of the Restaurante El Hispano before a tempest had broken open, the beginning of a massive storm of rain and hail. Outside, the street was silvery with the ricochet of so much water in so many different forms, and there was little foot traffic: a woman under a slender umbrella trying desperately to run from the storm; a taxi driver hurrying from a doorway to his parked taxi. Otherwise, an empty street in the dark, its buildings from the early twentieth century, two- and three-story apartment buildings whose persiana wood shutters were closed against the storm.
The street had a film noir feeling, lit as it was in our view by just a single street lamp. The way the rain took advantage of the light made it appear like wayward sparkling glass as it fell to the street. Shattered lightning. The parked cars were animals hunkering down against the dank wind. Once the taxi had driven away, there was no foot traffic of any kind, and no moving automobiles. The storm took over, fiercely so, a rage of water and wind.
The Restaurante El Hispano, at Salta 20, is in the middle of an old gallego neighborhood in Buenos Aires, "gallego" being the descriptive term for all people of Spanish Iberian heritage in this city. It's not altogether a flattering word here, sometimes used to express an opinion about someone's slowness of perception, someone's stupidity. Luckily there are such words for every ethnic group in Buenos Aires, a city where political correctness has not reached that level of bland grayness that makes all humorous personal kidding somehow unacceptable, as has taken place in the United States. Here you can still call someone a name and have it be simply an insulting, humorous part of the discourse. I would fully expect to be called a mick here, except that I don't believe that that particular word exists in Spanish at all. I'm sure the citizens of Buenos Aires, though, have such words of their own for the occasional feckless Irishman, since there are so many of them in this country.
In any case, this neighborhood in Buenos Aires, off the Avenida de Mayo near the corner with Avenida 9 de Julio was once central to those who had emigrated from Spain. The interior of El Hispano is made up of simple wood tables, stained quite dark brown, with similar chairs. A number of succulent, wrapped cured hams hang over the bar, and yellow-white curtains cover the windows. There is the lyricism of Spanish song in the place, the feel of The Three-Cornered Hat, of Juan Ramón Jimenez's rustic descriptions of the little town, the garden, the plaza, of the music of Paco Peña or Paco de Lucía. Maps of Spain decorate the walls, old photos of Spanish cities, all manner of graphics having to do with the corrida, flamenco dance and the lush warmth of the Spanish village.
Manolo watched the storm as the levels of water in the street rose almost to the sidewalk. Lightning flashed very often and not so far in the distance, since the accompanying thunder was immediate and extremely noisy. As a result of the storm there were few customers in the restaurant, and the welcoming light of the place, enhanced by its rustic décor, made us feel safe from the savagery of the tempest, protected from it.
"It reminds me of the war," Manolo said, looking out the window.
"Which one?"
"Ours!"
I waited a moment for more explanation. There have been many, many wars in Argentina: colonial ones, conflicts with the Indians, civil wars. But the most recent one, the disastrous defeat of Argentina at the hands of the British in the Malvinas Islands, had been fought when Manolo himself was maybe five years old.
"Yours?"
"Yes, señor, the one in the restaurant. Here!"
For a moment I imagined an assault upon El Hispano, its front corner door of heavy ironwood maybe a hundred years old, decorated with brass fixtures, its glass panels expertly beveled. A large barricade, maybe, with an Argentine flag flying from it, sandbags and turrets, Manolo at the ready with a rifle, taking his stand. But against whom? Perhaps el gran libertador General San Martín himself had defended El Hispano against marauding Brazilian sailors.
"The Spanish Civil War, I mean," Manolo said.
A flash of lightning lit the street.
"We fought it here," he smiled.
Manolo handed us our menus, then turned and pointed to the high wall above the restaurant bar.
"You see those flags?"
There were about six of them, on angled standards that came out from the wall itself. The flags were very old and dusty-appearing. They were made up of three horizontal stripes, red, yellow and a kind of purple.
"Those are the flags of the Second Spanish Republic . . ." Manolo folded his arms, looking up at them. "1931 to 1936. The communists. The anarchists. Socialists." He shook his head slowly. "Good men, every one of them."
He took a notepad from his apron pocket, ready to take our order, then lowered the pad to his waist.
"They're different from the Franco flags, which were red and yellow.” Manolo turned and gestured around the restaurant. “No, this . . . this is our land here. This was a Republican restaurant," he muttered.
"Were there . . . were there . . ."
"Francoist restaurants?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"There were. And there were battles between them."
"Between the restaurants."
"Yes. Some of the older customers used to tell me about it," Manolo continued. "This was Republican here. And there was a Communist restaurant down the block."
Manolo smiled.
"No anarchist restaurants, though. It's tough to have to battle it out every time on how to make a good flan."
A gust of wind peppered the window with rain.
"The cooks in all the restaurants on this block were for the Republic. The waiters . . . Republicans, every one of them. The customers, too. A Francoist customer would gave been thrown out."
"But there were Francoist restaurants," I said.
"Of course! Very close by here. There were fights in the streets, when our waiters would fight against theirs."
Manolo took a pencil from his apron.
"The customers, too. Once they even fought a battle here, when a bunch of the bastards from a place called El madrileño came in through that door and attempted to take down the flags!"
Manolo frowned. “A seafood place.” He frowned even more deeply. “They invaded the kitchen with soup ladles and rolling pins. Maldito fascist soup ladles.”
"Who won?" I asked.
"Who won!" Manolo sputtered, his frown suddenly replaced by a broad, gold-lined smile. He placed the hand holding the pencil against his heart. Nationalist pride beamed from his face. Lightning dazzled the street outside. "Che, our guys won!"

(teryclarke@hotmail.com)

Terence Clarke: Books, Art, Music, Film, Style

Sunday, May 20, 2007