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“I protested though. I told her that when you arrived last night, you were clearly very tired, but she insisted so much that I had to go open your door, and what a surprise I got when I saw your room was empty. When I got back down I told her, ‘He’s not in his room, could he have left without paying?’”
“‘Has the bed been slept in? Has he taken his things?’”
“Well, I don’t know what else she would have went on asking me if I hadn’t cut her off, reassuring her saying, yes he’s slept in it, it shows in the bed, and he’s left a bag on the chair, I suppose it must be his.”
“‘Oh good! What a fright,’ she said, calming down a little.”
“‘But a fright from what? Come on, don’t be silly,’ I told her, ‘he’ll have gone out early, he’ll be one of those people who like to get up early to see the sun rise,’ I said, thinking you’d be around here somewhere nearby.”
“‘Come on! If he’d opened the window and ran off, I would have seen him leave without having to get out of my bed,’ she answered.”
I interrupted him at that point and asked him:
“Don’t tell me I can see the sunrise from my bed?”
“Yes,” he said very seriously, “and where did you have breakfast?”
he asked me with a tone in which I noticed his concern. I kept talking:
“Well, you were right, I went to see what the dawn was like, but tomorrow I’ll watch it from my bed, which is more comfortable and that way I won’t get cold, because this morning the air froze my face,” I was saying with the intention of ending the chat so I could go on up to my room.
“You have to be careful, when the breeze blows here, you really feel it. Alright, but you’ve not answered me yet,” he said very seriously.
“Answered what?” I asked in surprise. I didn’t know at that moment what he was referring to.
“Where did you have breakfast?” he asked in a worried tone.
“Well, I haven’t had it yet, although… Ah yes!” I remembered at that moment, “I had some coffee and some cookies before I left,” I answered, smiling to calm him down.
“What did you say? Come eat quickly, you must be starving.”
Almost pushing me, he led me to the dining room. I glanced around and saw that there were two ladies sitting there despite how late it was, and they were talking to the man’s wife, the other owner.
“Excuse me,” he said as soon as we entered, “this man comes hungry, you have to take care of him.”
Apologizing to the two ladies who were there eating something that I couldn’t identify, his wife turned around and went into what I assumed must have been the kitchen.
“Good morning! Excuse me,” I said, “what is it that you’re eating there? It smells so good”
Looking at me, one of them answered with a smile:
“And it tastes even better, believe me.”
I went to sit at a table close to where they were seated. The rest of the dining room was empty and I didn’t want to be so alone. I’d been on my own the whole time I’d been walking around without talking to anyone and I wasn’t going to clear up many questions that way. I saw that they’d not minded that I had sat close to them, so once I sat down I asked them:
“So where are you both from?”
“From Spain, well from Madrid,” replied the one who seemed older.
“I never would have guessed,” I replied, “you speak Portuguese very well.”
“And where are you from? You don’t seem like you’re from around here either,” she asked me.
“No, I’m not from Portugal, I’m Galician, from Santiago de Compostela,” I answered.
“Also Spanish, well you can’t tell, you also speak Portuguese very well.”
“Well, it’s easier for us to learn, it’s almost the same as our Galician, but you speak it very well, and I think having understood that you’re from Madrid, that’s quite unusual,” I said.
Looking at me, they both said at the same time:
“We’ve come here so many times.”
We all laughed at the coincidence.
“But you don’t learn the language just by visiting a place,” I said when the laughter had died down.
“No, of course not, that’s true, but when one has an interest in the things that have happened in that place, it’s best to learn how they speak in order to find out more about those things, wouldn’t you agree?” the older one asked me, trying to engage in a bit of chat, or so it seemed to me.
“Are you here alone?” the lady who appeared to be the younger of the two then asked.
“I am,” I answered a little surprised by her question.
She turned to me and said, “You can eat with us, if you feel like it.”
“No, don’t worry, I don’t want to bother you.”
“No, you wouldn’t be bothering us at all, it would be better. That way we can talk a little. Well, if you don’t mind.”
I got up and was changing table when the lady came out of the kitchen. She was holding a steaming dish in her hands and when she saw me she said:
“You’re changing table? What’s wrong? Did you not like the one you were sitting at?” and she stood there with the dish in her hands.
“It’s just that these ladies have invited me to join them so that I wouldn’t be sitting alone, is it a problem?” I asked.
“No,” she said, smiling, “that way would be better, I’ve never liked eating alone either.”
She set down the plate that she had brought out for me. I looked at it and I saw that there were vegetables with an exquisite smell, but I also looked at the plates that were sitting in front of the two ladies and asked:
“What about what they had? Is there any left?” and I pointed to the dish that was in front of the lady next to me.
“Don’t worry, when you finish your soup, I’ll bring you a big helping of cod with cream,” she said smiling, “it seems you’re eager, that’s good.”
“Did you say cod with cream? How bizarre! I’ve never heard of that.”
“Yes, but don’t you like cod?” she asked me a little surprised.
“Is that what they’re eating?” I asked, looking back at their plates.
“Yes, that’s the cod with cream,” she said.
“I’ve never tried it, but it looks delicious, and given how hungry I am today, I would eat it no matter what it was.”
“Of course!” she said with a slight tone of annoyance, “says he to whom it occurs to go out without any breakfast.”
“Ah, so you’ve not had any breakfast today?” the older lady asked me, “I’ve had so much that I can hardly move. You’ve served us a truly delicious breakfast. I can’t imagine anyone refusing anything we had in front of us, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” she said, looking at the owner:
“Tomorrow, please just a coffee with milk, otherwise you’re going to make me fat,” she fell silent and kept eating.
Not even a minute had passed when she said:
“How can this be so scrumptious?”
Once the meal was finished, I thought I’d go and lie down for a little while as I usually do, but it turned out to be impossible. The post-meal conversation lasted until well into the afternoon. When the owner of the place finished serving us food, she brought us a coffee each, and asked for permission to have her coffee with us. The three of us had said:
“Be our guest!”
I was actually quite surprised, what confidence! As she sat, she said:
“I don’t like to drink coffee alone and now that nobody needs me, would you mind if I spend some free time here with you?”
“Not at all,” said the older lady, “sometimes we need to rest and you must have been on your feet all morning non-stop, with so much hustle and bustle.”
“Yes, as I am every day,” she answered, “it never stops here, although less people have been coming recently, probably because of the rain.”
I was keen to finish and leave, so I started to get up and said:
“Well, I’ll leave you for now.”
“No,” the three of them said, “stay a little while longer, the company will be good for you too, because I’ve seen that you came alone,” the owner of the place added.
I sat back down a little disgruntled, but the feeling dissipated immediately, as soon as I heard the older lady saying to the owner:
“Now that you’re no longer rushing about, we could talk for a while, and you can tell us things you’ve heard in passing.”
I opened my eyes and thought, “Well, this is surely the kind of thing I came looking for,” and I kept quiet to see what would become of the subject.
The owner, as a decent small-town resident, and without the intention of offending anyone, liked to gossip about what went on in her town. She began to talk and talk, she knew a lot and she knew everything first-hand. She was not one of those people who tell you that they found something out, or that they’ve been told something. No, she had seen it, she had experienced it, and she told us so much, that I couldn’t keep up. I was so happy, here I had the subject I wanted, first-hand experiences.
“Well, since I don’t know what you’ll know about all of this, I’m going to refer to something you might not know, because nobody outside the town knows about it,” she began.
She told us so many things that she spent all afternoon talking without realizing it, and we’d sat there listening to her spellbound.
At a certain point, when the lady got up to bring a jug of water and some glasses, I said to the other two ladies:
“What she’s telling us is so interesting, right?”
“Yes, yes,” they said at the same time, “she always knows how to make us happy, that’s why we come here whenever we can, we spend a few days, and she lets us know everything that’s happened.
I looked at them carefully, both had a calm countenance, as if reflecting a great inner peace, which surprised me and I asked them both:
“So what is it that you’re looking for in such a place?”
The question must have sounded funny to them, and I have no idea why, because they both started laughing.
“And where could we go that’s better?” they both said at the same time.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I answered a little surprised.
“Look, in life we all go where we enjoy, and since we came for the first time, many years ago now, we haven’t stopped coming. It’s as if we recharge our batteries here, to be able to get on with our lives, until the next time we can get back here, for another short while.”
“It’ll be because of how well they feed you here, as you said before,” I said to them taking what they had just said to me as a bit of a joke.
“No son, that’s only a very small part of what one can find here, food for the body. Okay yes, we’re not going to deny that, but the best thing that can be found here does not enter through the mouth, it enters the body through all of our pores. It’s something inexplicable, something that you have to feel yourself, one can’t put it into words, one must experience that to continue living. That being said, don’t think of it as just a lovely thing that two lonely old women tell you. We’ve seen that so many events have happened here to different people, that we wouldn’t have enough time to tell you about them even if we were telling you for a whole month straight, right Mam?” they asked the owner, who came back to the table at that point to sit with us.
“What were you talking about? Although I can imagine the subject. If you knew what happens around here, I’m sure you would be coming back as they do,” she told me very seriously.
“But what you say happens here, what is it specifically? Or is it something so personal that it can’t be shared,” I asked quietly to see how they would respond.
“No, not at all, we don’t have secrets here, because we’ve seen that by sharing this stuff, what one person experiences can help others, I’ve been sharing this with everyone I know for years. Many people come here without knowing anything other than the fact that something happened long ago, with the sole intention of taking a look around, and they find themselves fully immersed in something so important that it changes their lives. And don’t think that’s an exaggeration, we’ve seen it happen many times.”
The husband entered at that moment and said in a surprised tone:
“Wait, your conversation is still going on? Well I’m sorry to have to tell you that it’s time to start making dinner. You’ll have to leave the chat for another time.”
Standing up, his wife told us:
“I’ll prepare this in half an hour. Don’t worry, no one will be going without dinner,” and she quickly left for the kitchen.
I took advantage of the pause to ask the husband: “What do you think about all of this?”
“Son, what do I think? I think it’s all good.”
“That’s all?” I asked a little disappointed by his succinct response.
“Look, there is something here, I don’t doubt it, but it’s something that everyone has to find for themselves. What I’ve found wouldn’t benefit you, just as what you might find wouldn’t benefit me.”
“But what is there to be found?” I asked him to find out what he was talking about. “I would imagine that only those who come looking for something will find it.”
“Well, I can tell you,” said the older lady, “that it does all of us some good, because good things never come amiss in this life.”
As I saw that nothing further would be forthcoming, I told them:
“I’m going to my room for a while. I’ll be back in time for dinner,” and I said goodbye.
I had to rest, even if it was only for a few minutes. My head was bursting with so much information. I couldn’t believe how I had gotten into this situation. Nothing had shed any light on what had happened to me, but I had been able to verify that I was not the only one who had experienced something strange around here, and I certainly had to look into it more closely.
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