PATIENCE, AND SHUFFLE THE CARDS Evelyn Miller Stahl Patience, and shuffle: An old Spanish proverb. "Should it not be so, I say, oh cousin, Patience, and shuffle the cards." —Don Quixote de la Mancha Miguel Cervantes "Men disappoint me so, I disappoint myself so, yet courage, patience, shuffle the cards." —Margaret Fuller in a letter N.B. Most names, including the author's, have been altered, although events are presented as they occurred. The time is 1970. Evelyn Miller Stahl AKA Harriet Macey Browne © 2007 Estate of Evelyn Miller Stahl (1921-2001) 2 Contents Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 3 Preface............................................................................................................................................................. 4 Macey’s Itinerary ............................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter One: IN THIS PICKLE ..................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter Two: WITH THE LUXEMBOURGEOISIE..................................................................................... 9 Chapter Three: THE AVIGNON CONNECTION........................................................................................ 13 Chapter Four: A TASTE OF LE MIDI ......................................................................................................... 17 Chapter Five: THE BIDET INCIDENT........................................................................................................ 20 Chapter Six: THE COUNT OF BARCELONA............................................................................................ 24 Chapter Seven: GAUDÍ AND GAZPACHO ................................................................................................ 28 Chapter Eight: CHARLIE BROWN AND THE CATALAN QUESTION .................................................. 31 Chapter Nine: THE CATALAN METTLE................................................................................................... 34 Chapter Ten: PICASSO IN BARCELONA.................................................................................................. 40 Chapter Eleven: AUTO-DA-FE IN TARRAGONA..................................................................................... 45 Chapter Twelve: THE POLLYANNA PRINCIPLE..................................................................................... 49 Chapter Thirteen: ANDREA LA SIMPÁTICA ............................................................................................ 55 Chapter Fourteen: MADRID MAMITA MIA .............................................................................................. 62 Chapter Fifteen: THE CURTAIN RISES ON TANGIER ............................................................................ 67 Chapter Sixteen: OF CHONT AND COUS-COUS ...................................................................................... 73 Chapter Seventeen: AHMEDS AND MOHAMEDS .................................................................................... 79 Chapter Eighteen: A STUDENT IN CÁDIZ................................................................................................. 83 Chapter Nineteen: FERIA IN SEVILLE....................................................................................................... 87 Chapter Twenty: ADVENTURES IN ESTREMADURA ............................................................................ 91 Chapter Twenty-one: BADAJOZ, A CITY NAMED FOR PEACE............................................................. 98 Chapter Twenty-two: SESIMBRA—A LUCID INTERVAL..................................................................... 104 Chapter Twenty-three: LOBSTERS IN LISBON ....................................................................................... 109 Chapter Twenty-four: SARDINES IN NAZARE ....................................................................................... 113 Chapter Twenty-five: ALICE IN FRANCIA.............................................................................................. 118 Chapter Twenty-six: THE WELTSCHMERZ EXPRESS .......................................................................... 122 Chapter Twenty-seven: SALZBURGER NOCKERL................................................................................. 125 Chapter Twenty-eight: SALT IN MARIAHILFERSTRASSE ................................................................... 129 Chapter Twenty-nine: SCHILFWEBEREI OF BURGENLAND............................................................... 132 Chapter Thirty: EFFICIENT IN VIENNA.................................................................................................. 135 Chapter Thirty-one: EISENSTADT'S TURN ............................................................................................. 140 Chapter Thirty-two: VIA DONAU-DAMPFSCHIFFAHRTS-GESELLSCHAFT .................................... 146 Chapter Thirty-three: CIAO ITALIA.......................................................................................................... 152 Chapter Thirty-four: WITH SARAH AND THE GYPSIES....................................................................... 158 Chapter Thirty-five: SANGRIA AND CHAMPAGNE .............................................................................. 161 Chapter Thirty-six: TO TRYST IN TOULOUSE....................................................................................... 165 Chapter Thirty-seven: THE LAST SHUFFLE............................................................................................ 169 3 Preface 2101 Walnut Street, Apt. 806 Philadelphia, PA 19103 May 1997 What is this suddenly doing on your doorstep? In 1970, about to turn fifty, I took a longish trip abroad and upon return wrote Patience, and Shuffle the Cards, which, aside from an occasional nostalgic leafing through its pages, had been languishing in the file cabinet since. This year Ben and I opted to stay home for the winter and I needed something to keep me occupied. Hauling out the old manuscript I put it on the computer, shortening and editing a little as I went and in the process learning a bit about the New Technology, until now resisted. At this point I needed to do something with the result: it couldn’t just go back in the old file cabinet! So am sharing Patience with a very few close friends and relatives who I think will find something in it of interest—if not the whole thing—and you are one of the lucky ones. The material is of course dated, twenty-seven years old. Franco was in power in Spain, and I couldn’t bring myself to shorten those pages by much. And try to get by on seven dollars a day in Europe today, economize as you may! What emerges, I guess, is a mixed bag detailing many aspects of a varied experience. I am asked why the names are disguised. It is obvious I would want to protect the Spaniards. For others, I did not wish to deprive them of their privacy, and in a way the same is true for me—it was much eaiser writing it all as Macey than as Miller. Ben (Mike), my technical advisor, and I hope you will enjoy reading it as we enjoyed the winter’s work of getting it done. As ever, Evelyn Miller Stahl 4 Macey’s Itinerary 5 Chapter One: IN THIS PICKLE What put you in this pickle? —Don Quixote The burgeoning cold that had gripped me by the throat was settling in an ear. I had just got the curse and was probably a little feverish to boot, yet, burrowing deeper into the featherbed I was blissfully content. Outside the big bay of the warm and well-scrubbed room on the third floor of the Hotel Wellington it was night again. The street lamp at the corner showed the snow still falling on the Place des Martyr just below, a stately square that some spring day, I did not doubt, would wear the handsome formal gardens of the tourist brochure. Now it lay blanketed in three inches of snow. Another Luxembourg day had come to an end. Almost twice around the clock I had lain abed: slept, read and between times daydreamed out the window at the falling flakes, now dusted powdery fine upon the land, now flights of soft white stars. A few times I must have risen for the unavoidable, meanwhile pausing to look out onto my new environment. I was completely anonymous in this room—and how I reveled in it! What had brought me here? Shall I say Icelandic Airlines, cheaper than the rest? Or at another level, the constantly recurring yen for other lands and different people, the need to alter my horizon, the just plain itchy foot. Yet there was a more important third level which constituted the immediate stimulus, a combination of factors not quite so simply put. # # # It was winter's end and I, along with the times, was out of joint. Twice in as many years I had left my job after a brief unhappy stint and now I hardly knew what next to undertake. Other things too: physical nudgings that left one all too often harkening inward sympathetically, shenanigans of a female thermostat out of kilter; and the empty nest when both sons' college absence had lengthened into marriage. Suddenly the middle aged woman. As to broader considerations, the prevailing social and political scene inspired me mainly with disgust and the will had left me for involvement in it. Overridingly, I guess, in May I'd be coming face to face with fifty.