Voices of the Old Sea by Norman Lewis

Author:Norman Lewis [Norman Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780600345
Publisher: Eland Publishing
Published: 2013-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

THE RUMOUR THAT MUGA had bought the fonda proved true. In a matter of weeks, while the villagers hardly noticed what was going on, the builders from Figueras had torn out the labyrinth of odd-shaped rooms and replaced them with fourteen bedrooms built to a standardised low-priced hotel design. Three bathrooms were incorporated, an exotic extravagance in local eyes, where De Barros’ counsel, ‘De las cuarenta pa’ arriba, no te mojas la barriga’ (‘From forty on, don’t wet your guts’), was scrupulously observed.

Muga built a large verandah at the back of the fonda – now upgraded officially to the status of an hotel. Dances would be held on this, he let it be known, later in the year when the tourists came. The view from the verandah would have been a romantic one had it not been spoiled by an L-shaped wall in the corner of which horses were taken to be castrated, and an exceedingly ugly building which an expatriate from Sort had put up brick by brick, working single-handed, in exactly twenty-nine years.

Hardly anyone outside Farol and Sort had ever heard of the old fonda, and the few casual travellers who had stayed there had done their best to forget the experience, but the energetic Muga was determined to put the Hotel Brisas del Mar, as the fonda had been renamed, on the tourist map. He therefore joined the hoteliers’ association and, by guaranteeing to provide a few basic facilities, was accorded C Category registration on their list. The all-in price of 8 pesetas charged by the two silent brothers for a gloomy and malodorous cell, and hard-boiled eggs and sardines twice a day, was summarily increased to 50 pesetas a day, causing the locals to burst into peals of disbelieving laughter.

Muga called on Don Ignacio, eased his belly into as comfortable a position as the low chair he was offered would permit and outlined his plans for the village’s development and eventual prosperity. Don Ignacio repeated to me what he could remember of his remarks on the subject of religious observance, which the priest had found funny.

Muga mentioned that he had already been to the shop and given them a list of the things they ought to stock, such as souvenir fans, Sevillian dolls, and carvings of Don Quixote, if they wanted to derive any benefit from the tourist trade, and he had had a word with the Alcalde about the terrible quality of the wine sold in his bar. Now he turned his attention to church arrangements. ‘Who goes to Mass in a place like this?’ he had asked. ‘The grocer, the town clerk, and the police?’

‘That about sums it up,’ Don Ignacio said. ‘No one would call our people devout.’

‘I notice that there was no Mass at all last Sunday. Don’t think that it matters to me one way or the other, but I’m running an hotel and the law obliges me to put up a notice for the benefit of visitors, giving the hours of Mass.

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