Key to the city

Later I sat at a table in a bar whose doors were open to the night, and to the sound of guitars strumming in the plaza. I drank chilled, dry sherry, ate a tapa of grilled tuna and a flan for desert. I watched a small group of Spaniards standing up at the bar, clearly all old friends. I remembered back to my college days in Spain and how, when the hour would grow late, my Spanish friends wouldn't think of going home. Instead they would linger at a favorite bar, then move to another, insisting that I come too. They would drink red wine from glass tumblers, eat with their fingers from small shared plates of grilled mushrooms or garlic shrimp. And if an alegrma played from a radio at the bar, they would clap and stomp their heels. And if a solea played, someone at the bar might begin to sing in a voice mournful and slow, until everyone was silent. And no one thought it strange.

That is what the Spanish intuitively understand, what they acknowledge in the way that they live and in their rituals around the bullfight and in flamenco: The line between laughter and despair is fluid, each informing the other. Life lasts "just a couple of days," as the doorman said; one might as well enjoy it.

In Ronda the next morning, I awoke early and made my way to the bus station. The station doors were locked, and the lights were off. A cab driver out front told me that I must have misread the schedule: My bus to Malaga wasn't due for several hours. So much for my itinerary. Soon, of course, I was back at the Hotel Reina Victoria for one last try at Rilke's room.

The doorman didn't seem surprised to see me. "One should always have one more day in Ronda," he said again. Still, he shook his head. "No key, seqorita."

I started to turn away when he spoke again: "But have you seen the garden?"

I followed his pointing finger through the back door. There, a garden of palms and century plants grew thick, overlooking the Tajo gorge and river, which ran full and brown that day. Unlike at the Puente Nuevo the night before, there were no other tourists; I had the view to myself. I sat on a bench, enveloped by the scent of pine and of the garden wall's brick, wet with dew. Then, something out of the corner of my eye made me turn.

There was Rilke; It was a life-size bronzed statue of the poet. He stood with a small book in one hand, looking out to the gorge and beyond, sharing the view with me: The groves of olive trees, the earth parsed into plots, the misty blue sierras. Birds chattered around us -- while from the gorge, the river roared in an ominous undertone.

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Since that trip to Ronda, I have heard various things about Rilke's fabled room. One disappointed visitor I spoke with was told that the room was under renovation and could not be viewed; another told me he'd heard that, in fact, the room didn't exist. I've encountered no one who has seen it. And although I, too, failed to glimpse the quarters where he'd stayed, I did not leave Ronda disappointed.

As with the best journeys, I didn't find what I expected, but I did happen upon what I was looking for. The key to beginning to know Spain, it turned out, was not to be found in the portal to Rilke's room or at the Tajo gorge. Rather, I glimpsed it by opening myself, just a little, to the words of a wise doorman: A vivir que son dos dias.

Boarding my bus for Malaga that afternoon, I hoped to keep the essence of Ronda with me. Rilke, who after a few short months in Ronda moved on to Paris, apparently shared my wish. I settled into my seat and read these lines from his "Spanish Trilogy":

Let me, though, having once more the thronging of towns and tangled skein of sounds and chaos of vehicles round me, uncompanioned, -- let me, above the enveloping whirl, remember sky and that earthy brim of the vale where the homeward-faring flock emerged from beyond.

And as the bus wound down the mountain toward the thronging of the Costa del Sol, I recalled that "earthy brim" of the Tajo: That moment in the garden, listening to the rapturous song of the birds -- and to the minor chord of the river ringing from the gorge below.

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