cantaraville | cantarabooks

If you've read Katherine Manfield's classic,
In a German Pension, you'll enjoy this novella
of love, life and lessons set in Barcelona
during a more-innocent era, the 1970s.

Excerpt

After moving in, a simple process given his few belongings, and being shown the schedule of meals, Ross met most of the other tenants within the next few days. There was a middle-aged man who worked for the postal service, a waiter, an elderly accountant, and a school teacher. They were all male Spaniards, all friendly, and spoke with varying degrees of English fluency. He was the only American. If he wanted to immerse himself in Spanish culture, he had come to the right place. Everyone worked except for one man who quickly befriended Ross, saying that he was a count and that his full name was El Conde Felipe de Mastena y Piaja.

At first Ross didn’t believe that the man, who said he could call him Felipe, was actually a count. But then he learned from the others that it was true. Felipe was a disinherited nobleman whose sister paid his way. He was of medium height with thin brown hair combed mercilessly straight back from a widely furrowed brow. Small black eyes retained a measure of alertness though it soon became clear that Felipe downed a considerable amount of wine on a daily basis. Thin lips and the barest suggestion of a cleft in his slightly receding chin gave more prominence to the upper part of his pale face.

"I drink, that is true," Felipe admitted without any sense of shame while they lingered in the dimly-lit dining room with strong, bitter coffee after dinner. A slender bottle of unlabeled red wine stood like a sentinel beside a half-filled glass. Stale, oppressive odors of oil and grease drifted in from the unwashed sinks. "But one must know the reason."

"Which is?" Ross prompted. With someone else he was sure he would feel more constrained in asking such a personal question. But Felipe was so open in his vulnerability that he felt free to poke around his personal life.

Felipe grimaced. "My father, blessed be his memory, decided to disinherit me. This came without warning, reason or justice!"

Felipe’s face suddenly became more animated though some words were slurred.

"You must know that my father was stern and cruel and capricious."

Fascinated by these revelations, Ross didn’t know how to react or what to say. Felipe’s face sagged again as if caught up by the weight of his sad memory. Out of the corner of his eye Ross spotted Senora Oruna staring at them as if unhappy. Did she just want to clean up, or did she disapprove of their chatting so easily?

"I’m sorry," Ross said, feeling his late response was lame.

But Felipe just nodded. "A servant woke me up one night and said my father wanted to see me. He was lying in bed and he said he wanted me to get him ostrich eggs. I thought he was joking, though in truth he never joked. I said, 'Father, where am I to get ostrich eggs at this hour?' He said that was my responsibility, and he insisted I get dressed and serve him."

"What did you do?" Ross asked, his curiosity stirred as he wondered what he would have done in the same surreal situation. Senora Oruna was back in the doorway, her glance harsh and impatient. Ross would have preferred to go to his room, but he didn’t want to get Felipe into the habit of knocking on his door at any time of the day. And the count’s room was too drab and disorderly to sit in.

"As I was told. What else? He knew I would have to do it. Here in Spain a son obeys his father. Even though I was forty-two years old and a man, he was still my father."

"Did you find the ostrich eggs?" Ross made a mental note about filial respect in Europe, even among the aristocracy. How many sons, however, were disinherited in the US at any time and especially after the age of forty? And for what reasons, ones surely more meaningful than finding ostrich eggs in the wee hours?

“Eventually,” Felipe sighed, pouring himself some more wine. "After I tried a few restaurants without luck I was about to give up when I thought of the hotels. One of them, I forget which one now, had some ostrich eggs put away. I had to pay an outrageous price but I got some. But when I took them back to my father, he wouldn’t see me. He told the servant to tell me he was asleep, but I knew he wasn't."

Shrugging, though the resentment still shone in his eyes. Felipe glanced at the depleted wine bottle. “That was the kind of man he was."

And the man Felipe had turned into, Ross thought, concealing his conclusion. He tried to think of what a similar situation could be in the U.S. Would an American son, desirous of an inheritance, endure the same sort of humiliation? The matter would surely have more to do with monetary matters than filial respect.

"This was six years ago," Felipe said. "Now he is dead and I’m dependent on my sister, Maria, who lives in luxury in Paris. She could have shared our inheritance once our father was gone, but she chose not to. So you see the result.” Felipe smiled languidly as if the victim of forces beyond his control. "Ah," he grabbed the wine bottle and stood. “I’m sleepy. Another time I’ll tell you more."

In his room, crouched in bed under a dim bulb, Ross wrote:

Felipe is easily the most fascinating person I’ve met, but he has no counterpart in American culture. Who could I compare him to? I believe his sad tale, and I want to hear more details of his life, even if he’s semi-drunk. And he’s the only person here who can speak English well, which means I don’t practice my Spanish enough; but that’s a worthwhile trade-off, considering his unusual saga. Supposedly every inebriate has his personal tale of slippage, but no American drunk could come up with Felipe’s experience. And of course we don’t have nobility, unless you count our show business celebrities. A title is a title, I suppose, and carries a certain amount of weight here, regardless of the drab circumstances. Our entertainment-world luminaries wouldn’t get the same measure of respect if they sank as low as Felipe obviously has. So what does that have to say about our respective cultures? Meanwhile, commoner that I am, Felipe is very open with me. It helps, of course, that I’m around during part of the day; he can speak English with me, and I listen to his tales with avid interest. Moreover, and probably most important, I spring for an occasional bottle of wine which, fortunately, is inexpensive.

I wonder what Diane is doing. And I wonder how she would react to Felipe? Truth be told, I miss her. More than I would have thought, but life goes on and I’ll get over our break-up.

© 2006 Jack Adler

Read this excerpt in our Cantaraville sampler. Download it here free.

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Jack has over 25 years’ experience writing about travel. His columns have also run in the San Francisco Examiner, Westways, and Cruise Travel. He also was a columnist/editorial writer for Better Business Travel, a nationally distributed newsletter and a columnist for TravelAssist, an electronic magazine. He has taught a course in Travel Journalism for many years at UCLA Extension, and a course in Feature Writer for the Writer’s Digest School. Currently, he’s the leader/chief content provider for Prodigy’s travel bulletin board and a columnist for Travel World International, an electronic magazine Penance is his first book of fiction.

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