I’m sitting with my friend Antonia at a little table in Arabay Coffee. It's a corner-shop on a quiet side-street near Plaza Mayor. Late-morning sunlight warms the polished wood floors and the masonry walls - built before the store was first opened in 1952. We sip artisan lattes at a little round table, recovering from our late night at the club and replenishing our energy with caffeine.
A few people occupy other tables in the cafe. Well-dressed, posh, literary types. A poster on the wall depicts a mustached man who looks like he would fit in with these customers. It says: “Hemingway no estuvó aquí, Galdós sí.” (Hemingway wasn’t here, but Galdós was).
A quick google search informs us that Benito Pérez Galdós is one of Spain’s most famous writers, second only to fellow Madrid-native Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote).
What can I say? I’m just another cliche American tourist. The first writer on my mind in Madrid is Hemingway, a fellow American.
We’ve spent enough hours inside today and the sun is shining, so we take the metro to Legazpi - outside of the main metropolitan area - to see the Matadero. It is now an art exhibition and performance space, but it used to be a giant slaughterhouse. It looks like it too.
You walk down the cobblestone arena, and low-roofed buildings with many stalls close-in on either side. The walls are a mix of stone and red brick. You can imagine Hemingway loitering here to witness the matadors practice slaughtering bulls, and morbidly basking in the stench of blood.
Hemingway was attracted to the Spanish traditions of heavy-drinking until the early hours of the morning; bullfighting, and flamenco. Maybe they appealed to his antisocial tendencies and passion for sport.
Antonia and I plan to partake in two out of three of these traditions. Having experienced the late-night drinking and recovering with a siesta in the park, we go in search of flamenco. We attend an 8pm show at Teatro Flamenco Madrid - which is where all the tourists go - but it’s a good show and only 18 euros for students. It’s a small, cabaret-style theatre.
We sit in the balcony with other students, where there’s only one row of seats and we don’t get served any drinks. But if you lean over the balcony, you can see everything. You can see the sweat dripping from the dancer’s faces.
There are three dancers. The first one is a man dressed as a toreador. Blood-red spotlight glares down on him, and when he raises his arms above his head, his shadow looks like the horns of the bull, looming behind him. The audience is whipped up into frenzied clapping along with the beat, and shouting “olé!”
It’s easy to imagine bullfighting and flamenco as parallel sports. The amount of tension and passion in the dancer’s movements - you could imagine them facing off with a raging bull.
After the excitement of the flamenco show is over and the curtain lowers, I realize I’ve come full circle. I remember getting my first impression of Spain from reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises over a year ago. Whether I knew it or not, the Madrid I experienced is Hemingway’s Madrid.
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