Hemingway's Madrid

PROOF User: 155273 Time: 10:39 - 06-10-2011 Region: SundayAdvance Edition: 1 6 TR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011 FOOTSTEPS Blood, Sand, Sherry: Hemingway’s Madrid By DAVID FARLEY N Madrid’s Legazpi neighborhood, a vast complex of early-20th-century buildings of ornate stone and brick sits near the banks of the Manzanares River. For most of the I20th century, the Matadero Madrid, as the compound is known, was the city’s main slaughterhouse; its robust stench lingered far beyond the high stone walls surrounding it and deep into the work- ing-class neighborhood nearby. In the late 1930s, though, that odor didn’t deter a young bullfighting-ob- sessed American writer living in the city from frequenting the slaughterhouse. “This is where the old women come early in the morning to drink the sup- THE NEW YORK TIMES posedly nutritious blood of the freshly killed cattle,” he later told A. E. Hotchn- er, his biographer. “Many a morning I’d ONLINE: KICKER TAG WITH DU get up at dawn and come down here to watch the novilleros, and sometimes Lorem ipsum dollor sitt att, consec even the matadors themselves, coming tteur adipis cing elitt, 10 a diam no in to practice killing, and there would be nummy nim euismo the old women standing in line for the blood.” These days, you won’t find the matadors or the old women: the Matadero alarm. Otherwise, they would have has been converted into a dynamic new thought you were a foreign spy.” art center. I had just taken in an exhibi- Schooled in correct sipping technique tion of Latin American designers — but and fortified by the sherry, I bid adios to I wasn’t really there for the art. Mr. Drake-Jones (and Jessie, who went I was instead following the tracks of to nap back at the hotel) and headed to that American writer, Ernest Heming- Las Ventas arena, one of the most pres- way. Hemingway is associated with a tigious bullfighting rings in the world. I handful of places around the planet — joined a guided group tour. The tours, most notably Paris, Pamplona, Havana, given daily from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Key West and Ketchum, Idaho, where in both English and Spanish, take he took his own life in July 1961. But guests both into the seats (Hemingway none may have held a warmer spot in liked sitting in Section 9, Mr. Drake- his heart than Madrid, which he called Jones had told me earlier) and onto the “the most Spanish of all cities,” re- sand in the middle of the stadium, ferring to its diverse population from where brave matadors stare down 500- every region of the country. He also ti- pound horned beasts in front of 24,000 tled a short story based in Madrid “The fans. When the tour finished, I asked the Capital of the World.” guide, Sean Marcos, 24, if he was a bull- “Don Ernesto,” as he was known to fighting aficionado. the Spanish, spent enough time in Ma- “No, not really,” he said. “The people drid — he was there for chunks of the of my generation don’t like bullfighting. late 1920s, late 1930s, and parts of the It’s mostly for older people.” 1950s, with his last visit in 1960 — that When I asked if he thought that didn’t he left a distinct, mostly booze-stained bode well for the future of bullfighting in trail. With the exception of the re- Spain, he shrugged and said, “Who vamped Matadero, the modern version knows? Maybe when we’re older we’ll of Hemingway’s Madrid is an old-school become interested.” itinerary of bars, bullfighting arenas Don Ernesto would most likely have and restaurants. So in advance of the been crushed that his beloved bullfight- 50th anniversary of his death, I set out ing was losing interest with successive to experience all that drew Hemingway generations. But he’d be happy to know that interest in his other Madrid love is far from waning: He was also a lover of the Prado, home to one of the world’s In the ‘Capital of the great art collections. The analogy he drew to viewing art at World’: roasted pig, the museum was pure Hemingway: “The tourist should be introduced to an bullfights and bars. attractive woman quite unclothed with no draperies, no concealments and no conversation and only the plainest of back again and again to the city. beds.” After starting my tour at the Matad- The Prado was one of the main rea- ero, I met up with my wife, Jessie Sholl, sons he sometimes chose to stay at the in front of our hotel, the Tryp Gran Via, Palace Hotel (now the Westin Palace one of the spots Hemingway stayed (the Hotel), located across the street from second-floor breakfast room, named for the museum. Hemingway would often the writer, displays photos of him in var- begin his evenings with a martini or two ious acts of masculinity like firing a gun at the stuffy bar inside the hotel, which or pulling in a huge fish from a boat. ). also appears toward the end of his 1926 From there we headed down the Gran novel, “The Sun Also Rises.” Via, a wide boulevard Hemingway de- Like Jake and Brett, the novel’s pro- scribed as Madrid’s answer to Broad- tagonists, my wife and I cozied up to the way and Fifth Avenue combined, pass- bar and ordered our own round of mar- ing by Museo Chicote, a cocktail bar he tinis (at 17.20 euros, about $, each, it frequented in the 1930s, when it was wasn’t easy pretending we were in the popular with international journalists. 1920s). When asked for a dining sugges- We then zigzagged through the streets tion, the bartender pointed up toward around Puerta del Sol, many recently Plaza Santa Ana and said the streets made pedestrians-only, crossing nar- were crammed with restaurants. I had a row Calle Victoria, where Hemingway different spot in mind, though: El Sobri- often purchased scalped bullfighting no de Botín, Jake and Brett’s next stop tickets. We walked through leafy Plaza in the final scenes of the novel. Santa Ana, home to Cerveceria Alema- Botín, open since 1725 on a tiny street na, a 1904 beer hall that was such a fa- behind Plaza Mayor, claims to be the vorite of Hemingway’s that he had his oldest restaurant in the world. Jake and own table (just to the right of the en- Brett turned up here — like Hemingway trance, the only marble-topped table himself often did — to dine on the house overlooking a window). specialty, roasted suckling pig, and A couple of twists and turns later, we drink several bottles of Rioja Alta. Botín reached Calle de Echegaray, its cobble- stones shining from a morning rain, and isn’t above playing up the association: entered La Venencia, an old bar where the front window displays an image of men in flat caps and tweed jackets the writer and a quote from the “Sun sipped sherry from tall, narrow glasses Also Rises” that mentions the restau- and barkeeps wrote their tabs in chalk rant. (Until recently, the owners of a on the bar. nearby restaurant, presumably trying We sat down at a table toward the to differentiate themselves from Botín, back of the room with Stephen Drake- hung a large sign above its door read- Jones, who has lived in Madrid for 35 ing: “HEMINGWAY NEVER ATE years. “Welcome to the civil war,” said HERE.”) the 61-year-old former University of Jessie and I asked for a table upstairs, Madrid history professor, referring to the place where Hemingway put Jake the three-year period, 1936 to 1939, that and Brett and where he preferred sit- pitted left-leaning Republicans against ting as well. And like our fictional coun- the Fascists. Mr. Drake-Jones runs a terparts, we dined on juicy roast suck- tour company called The Wellington So- ling pig, though we stopped at just one ciety of Madrid. A native of Leeds, Eng- bottle of Rioja. Afterward, I introduced land, Mr. Drake-Jones gives a popular myself to Antonio and Carlos Gonzales, Hemingway-themed tour and has an en- the third generation of their family to cyclopedic knowledge of the writer’s own Botín. The brothers hadn’t been time in Madrid. born when Hemingway was a regular As he pushed glasses of crisp man- guest at their restaurant, but they’ve zanilla sherry toward us, Mr. Drake- heard plenty of stories. Jones explained that La Venencia was “Don Ernesto once wanted to make — and, in some ways, still is — a haunt paella,” Carlos said. “And so our grand- for Republican sympathizers. “During father allowed him to go into the kitchen the civil war,” he said, “this bar was fre- to make it.” quented by Republican soldiers. Hem- Was it any good? ingway would come here a lot to get “Apparently not,” he said, laughing. news from the front” — in the late 1930s, he was reporting on the war for the “It was the last time they let him cook North American Newspaper Alliance — anything.” which would later inform “For Whom Gonzales’s grandfather, however, did the Bell Tolls,” his novel about the war. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES RAJOTTE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES give Hemingway the privilege of mak- “This place hasn’t changed in 70 FROM TOP Hemingway liked Section 9 at Las Ventas bullring; taking refreshments at Las Ventas before the bull- ing his own martinis.

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