Holy Week Tuesday--A Love Story

Bar Cervantes is perched in the corner of the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain. Inside sits a young woman of 20 years. She is an American student and finds this cafe touristy, but the surrounding streets are full with spectators of the holy week parades. Plus she enjoys the view overlooking the plaza, which is quite empty this afternoon, as most people are participating in the parades. In her small spiral notebook, she scribbles the beginnings of a poem. The colored bottles on the shelves of the cafe remind her of jewels through her teary eyes. She is a bit melancholy today, a product of being far from home but in the center of an exceptional city. The waiter brings her cafe con leche and a plate of patatas fritas, which she did not order. Because your smile is beautiful, he explains. She blushes, but she is used to this. Waiters are constantly bringing her free platas or bebidas because of her youthful prettiness, she suspects. Even in the States she was used to these extras.

She notices her friend Sancho strolling through the plaza. He is American too, David, but prefers Sancho as in Sancho Panza. Because I see the world with different eyes, he says with a smile. Sancho is stuffing the remainder of a cream filled pastry in his mouth, and this makes her chuckle. He swears by a two pastry a day rule. Soon he will bound up the stairs to the bar in search of her. They spend most afternoons together, after class and siesta, filling the hours with a stroll or a game of cribbage in a cafe. They have become quite close, and she suspects he loves her. She catches him watching her carefully and notices his light touch on her arm during conversation. It is strange though. This does not feel like the lustful desire that is usually directed towards her. This feels more patient, more present, almost indifferent.

She returns the feeling with a friendly indifference too. She is not interested in love. She came here to redirect her focus, to step out of the momentum of coming of age in the States. Yet she finds that she searches for him in the street, in the markets, in the nightclubs. He seems to appear only when she can hardly stand it anymore. At night, in her cot-like bed in her host home she often wakes feverishly, sure she felt a whisper of his breath on her cheek. The remainder of the night leaves her in restless wonder, what could possibly become of a love like this?

At this moment he knows she sits in Cervantes. He knows she is watching. He knows she is confused about this relationship. More than anything, he knows to be patient, that she will seek him wholeheartedly in time.
Everyone does in time.