Count the present days until today arrives (YERMA)

 

(Blown by the Castilian wind, Madrid is restless, bustling, popular; it boils and pulses to the rhythm of the people themselves on the streets --- what a street people! --- even we Catalans feel a bit "homeless" in this city where everyone is on the streets all the time; its passionate character for the street and popular participation has nothing to do with that of Barcelona, ​​which is less Spanish than Madrid --- in Madrid, the adverse climate, the officialdom, the rat race of everyday life prevails, followed by partying, work, and happy hour in Madrid --- it is necessary to know Madrid's happy hour in depth, free of its obvious tourist excrescences; as for its happy hour, it is necessary, if possible, to "be it," to engage in its complicated technique --- I will not talk about bullfighting here so as not to feel like a naive tourist in search of romantic remnants of an old idea of ​​a city destined to disappear --- Madrid, for the Spanish, is still the capital of the future, for many it still is, amidst the paganism of bull and the images of Christ broke the monopoly of football and the world conquests in the sport only worsened this atavistic affection of the people, always impregnated with greed and hostile feelings; we see every day what the passion for football causes in the guys, this unbearable intellectual atrophy and this cultural nonsense of businessmen with full bellies and alcohol in their heads --- Now, preparing to contact Blanca (Bard's wife), as instructed --- ''To create rapport right from the start, be 'darkly Victorian,' because Blanca is also 'darkly Victorian'; arrange a meeting in a setting of great architectural beauty (K said), use bored, joking gestures, demonstrate vast experience and familiarity with negotiations and pre-contracts whose intentions are always about to fall apart. Stick to covering your 'Life in Chile,'' before any advance into the realm of familiar and well-defined feelings. Anyway'' --- No problem (I thought), I had already become malleable and capable of "assuming positions" instantly, without hesitation or fulfilling any operational need with excessive discretion, avoiding the noisy femininity of most literary agents and publishers: the moral frankness customary in this environment marked by a disgustingly honest mixture of pragmatic intelligence and commercial aggressiveness, always inclined to dismiss without fear all the victims of the fame and sales machinery ----- In a downtown bakery-café, I worked at my desk without much enthusiasm, mutely modulating, mentally, modul-muttering, let's say, a melodious voice with which I imagined myself (judging by the report on Blanca), speaking to a madwoman newly empowered by her husband's fame --- naturally, we Spanish women in general always represent a lot, a simple mirror on the way is enough for us to begin multiplying ourselves in gestures and poses, superlatively clinging to the surface of life, where any vague idea of ​​oneself soon degenerates into a false security of a smug bearing --- then, walking down Calle de Alcalá, I called Blanca and suggested we meet that very afternoon, at the Prosper X Bookstore --- I wasn't surprised when she got out of the car (a very expensive SUV), goyesquely arranging her hair in the wind and talking on the cell phone with the aristocratic mannerisms of a typical daughter of the Spanish Grandees ---