The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by Paterniti Michael

Author:Paterniti, Michael [Paterniti, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780812994544
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

* Eventually I would sort out some of the names for the land, and I offer one last refresher here: The land above—what was identified as arriba by those in the village—was also the páramo, the high flatland. The undulating land below the village was called the coterro, but also where it dipped was called the ribera, which also described the previously mentioned barcos.

† He was a doomed Yankees fan living in Red Sox territory back home, and I could never get over how often people, old and young, went out of their way at the doughnut shop to disparage the Yankees cap of a three-year-old, as if the kid were the conglomerated reincarnation of Babe Ruth/Joe DiMaggio/Mickey Mantle/Bucky Dent and every other reminted Yankee who’d at one time or another eviscerated the dreams of Red Sox Nation. Here in Spain, he refused to remove the plastic Yankees batting helmet that had become his signature. He ate in it, played in it, tried to sleep in it—and no one cared, or knew what team it was. They just treated him like a three-year-old.

‡ The frontón was a relic from the times of Franco. It was said that El Caudillo had provided these handball courts for all the northern towns—and most especially in Basque country—in hopes that people would forget some of the atrocities that had been done unto them during the Civil War. One can almost imagine the Caudillo’s line of thinking: Remember the bombing of civilians by the Luftwaffe at Guernica, the rubbled town, the hundreds of innocent dead? Well, it’s time for amends, folks …

The frontón in Guzmán stood at the base of the village, to the south, about halfway between Abel’s soldering shed and Ambrosio’s long metal caseta. It was L-shaped, with high green walls. No one really played handball here anymore, but the shepherds kept their sheep in its penned-off area, which meant the ground was covered at all times with little pellets of sheep shit.

§ Writes Henry David Thoreau in his famous essay “Walking”: “I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.” He also advises one to “walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking.”

‖ Well, no, in fact, they didn’t. We would come to find out that in most of the homes there existed an abbreviated kitchen downstairs, just a galley space for the making of food. This was to keep the cooking—and especially the heat, for nothing was air-conditioned—well away from the living area. Eventually, Clemente shared this insight with us, too, though again, we did not take his advice, cooking in the kitchen on the second floor, which led to the eventual violation of another sacred rule: Because of the heat, we switched our comida (the Spaniard’s big lunch-dinner) with our cena (the

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