Tales and Stories

Chapter 10 - A Cafe in Barcelona

They heard the twang of guitar strings and slapping of palms before a breeze sent the smoke on its way and revealed the musicians. There was no stage - the performers and their afficionados sat outside the taverna in an informal circle, their collective attention focused on the act of the moment. The patron leant against the wooden doorway to the bar, lamps to either side of him throwing a musty glow onto the white walls and he took a healthy swig from the bottle of wine that made the rounds.

The roof hung low and modest, the unadorned facade of the taverna in keeping with the anonymous celebration and lament of life that is flamenco. The guitar skipped and weaved like a flame, looking for fuel on which to bite, scales flickering with life for a moment and then subsiding with a melancholy bass. Then the young man with oiled, flat black hair found his course and commenced to set the fretboard alight with long fingers that seemed double their number as they galloped up and down the wooden neck.

“Ay. Ay. Ay.” Gypsy Lou cried, leaping up on the table where the three storytellers now sat. With barefoot heels she stomped Zappato rhythms on the oak and admiring whistles went up from several tables. She strutted like a peacock in a low-cut, flowing red blouse, frilled at the sleeves and wore a long, blue skirt with a slash that chanced occasional flashes of thigh.

Baba Gene fingered his coral bead mala nervously and shifted about uneasily in his seat. But Kifkef gazed on in awe and wonder. Seventy camels and not a hoof less, he decided.

A tall waiter in tight black trousers and long white shirt came to their table and asked them in Spanish what they wanted. Gypsy Lou threw herself into his arms and wrapped her body about him.

“Nada mas que te.” (‘I only want you’) She moaned. This didn’t seem to surprise him in the least. They exchanged a few whispers and then she turned to face her companions.

“I’m out of here, bozos. May the night be good to you.” She turned to disappear in the shadows behind the taverna with her new partner. But she hesitated as Baba Gene reminded her:

“You know as well as I do that you cannot leave until all the stories are told.”

“Just watch me.” She snarled and turned on the heels of her stiletto heels that she’d scooped up from somewhere. But after a few steps she found that an unseen force restrained her from leaving the scene. She struggled for some furious moments but finally understood that she was somehow bound to remain with the other two spinners of tales. Fate had outguessed her once again and she spat on the ground in fury. Stroking the cheek of the young hombre with regret she slouched back to the table.

“Alright. Have it your way.” She conceded gracelessly. “I guess there’s no alternative but to get drunk and hope oblivion comes to rescue me soon. Chico. Tres Cervezas. “

Almost immediately a tray arrived with three chilled bottles of beer and Lou grabbed hers to her lips with a cry of ‘Salud.’

“It would be rude to refuse such hospitality.” Kifkef reasoned with a shrug, reaching out for his beer with long, brown fingers that sparkled with gold rings.

Baba Gene stared at the table soberly, making no move towards the bottle set before him. In his long robes he was taken to be an itinerant monk and no one took it amiss that he should be served alcohol, few having such a thirst as men of the cloth.

Gypsy Lou now raised her head to make the best of the evening and decided to explain something of her domain.

“Walking down the streets of Barcelona is like strolling through the lanes of history.” She told them. waving her arm toward the alleys and avenues that hinted at the promise of the city.

“Muslim, Jewish and Christian cultures have all swept through this sun-burnt land, striving to indent their ways on the instinctive anarchy of its people. We are telling stories? Here every corner and balcony is a piece of a story, a scrap of a tapestry that holds the tale of a thousand years - Telling of thriving markets, heroic loves, civil war and betrayal; of souls clutching faint hopes through countless unsatisfied generations, holding onto life with the desperate hope that it might somehow come good against all of the odds.

The Story of the Lost Beloved