casa de correos

A beautiful girl went into meltdown at the post office counter at ten o’clock at night and we saw her wailing, sobbing with her mouth open, pleading in liquid Spanish. Tears ran down her face and arms, she was almost screaming with some kind of unbearable grief, what could be the matter? I felt like a psychopath unable to share her intense suffering. People behind us in the queue started shouting and pelting the staff members with accusations. No, said the man at the end, no, we’re closed now. I asked the man next to me, Hablo pocolito Ingles? Do you have a tiny bit of English? Yes, he said, hesitating. “Why is that girl so upset? What happened to her? Do you know?” He said, “She have to deliver something and the staff is working extra slow, that is why she’s unhappy.” I looked the girl over, carefully. I had never seen anyone cry so unashamedly and I envied her. She had dropped her head onto the counter and long black hair fell across her shoulders and pooled on the desk. She lifted her head suddenly and with both hands spread imploringly cried out to the postal worker in her husky treble, oh you can not do this, you are ruining my life. This tableau took place in a surreal setting as at some deserted wedding reception or garden party, we were right up the back of the seventh floor of a department store where the post office is located – other floors had advertised a travel agent, health insurance office, cafe – and on three sides were palatial suites of bright gleaming garden furniture, orange and pink and purple, sleek beige couches which fold out into beds, Chinese vases, immaculate mirrors. The rest of the store had closed and we went slowly, reluctantly down the escalators past floor after floor of unlit displays of homewares, women’s clothing, children’s fashion, appliances. Outside it was high blue hour and all the creamy ancient buildings reared into the perfect endless Spanish sky like stagecraft, I have never seen anywhere more beautiful and its mix of comfortable acceptance and torrid drama is a constant astonishment to me. Last time I flew home to Berlin from Madrid I noticed Spanish passengers tend to applaud, once the plane safely touches down – something English-speaking people will do only when the weather has been perilous and the landing dicey. They did it again this time. A ragged shout of “yay!” went up when we took off. The streets are crowded with tablecloth stalls which are held by four ropes to be picked up over the shoulder if the police happen past; there are stores filled with gold-crusted crosses and confirmation cups, long white candles with gold stickers round them, baby Jesuses the size of small bears. The sacred Andalusian baths in a grotto underground which are lit only by candles and have tiled signs in every room which say Silencio, Por Favor are always crammed with people gossiping at the tops of their voices. At the end of the night we walk home very slowly, worn out by the endless stones and the glaring heat, and in the Museum of Ham and the Paradise of Ham along the zinc-topped counters men in white aprons are sweeping, very quietly, a dirty snowfall of white crumpled napkins flung down by the day’s customers as they have finished their meals, one by one.