"The Compañero" a Tribute to "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" (1933) / Ernest Hemingway

The old man fingered the fresh scar running around his neck but would not think about it. This was not the time. There was brandy de Jerez. Tonight was the Cardinal Mendoza, dark and huge with raisins and burnt caramel. The glass was overfull and sticky. The disdain in the young bartender’s voice was noise to him.

He could hear, but there was so little reason to let others know that, these days. After a certain age, you no longer needed to hear. He could feel the world creeping closer. He could feel the bricks under his feet and in the wall of the building – cooling and settling in the evening air after a full day of baking in the hot sun. The night lay on him like his years. There was still the brandy de Jerez, the Cardinal Mendoza.

Behind him in the bar, the two waiters watched him while they cleaned. One young. One middle-aged. The middle one lived in the gray – saw the approaching night and knew the value of a clean well-lighted place, the old man thought. He looked out across the flagstones of the terrace into the dark square and waited for the man to come. A couple hurried by. A flash of brass. A soldier and a woman touching in the intimate and serious way the young have. Knowing without knowing how temporary the flesh is.

Suddenly, the man was there, sitting on the wrought iron chair next to his. The darkness kept the old man from ever seeing his face, this companion that had come to visit more and more on these quiet evenings. The street light did not reach the tables. The leaves were in shadow, also.

“There are few pleasures,” the man said and nodded toward the Cardinal.

“The pleasure comes from tasting the years in the cask,” the old man replied. He took another careful sip.

“For me it is the evening.”

“It is the same thing.”

“I like the dew on the grass. I sometimes feel like it is weeping for the day.” The man settled deeper into the shadows and remained unnoticed by the waiters. A slight wind moved the leaves of the tree, stirring memories within the old man.

“I had a wife, once,” he said.

“I know.”

“She preferred cava. The bubbles. She even danced in her sleep.”

“So few dance.”

The old man could see the golden bubbles rising from the bottom of a glass, swirling. Like his esposa’s hair as she returned flushed from the dance floor.

“I never danced. I just watched.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps I was embarrassed. Perhaps it was never fitting for a man in my position. She would say that she danced for both of us.”

“The leaves dance now. Yet they need no reason.”

“The leaves dance for the wind and the night.”

“It is the same thing.”

“Will she be there if I come with you?”

“I cannot say.”

The old man looked across the square for some time. He remembered the energy, the confidence of his youth. Yet he had not danced. His glass was empty. He looked back at the waiters and saw that the man was gone. The young waiter came to him impatiently.

“Another brandy,” he said.

The young waiter shook his head and the old man stopped pointing at his glass. The waiter moved with finality. He didn’t bother to listen to the words. What did the young believe? Everything. Everything, but this.

The old man counted out his coins carefully, leaving a tip. There was no point in complaining or being cheap – punishing the young for their youth. Perhaps he should tell him to dance while he could. No. He would be dismissed as loco, a crazy one. Only the leaves dance, these days.

In the end all there was – he staggered, the point of the table striking his thigh – and he felt a weakness run up the right side of his body like an electric current. He was gratified the bartenders did not see the movement, it was slight, a tremor in the gait of an old man. But, yes, as he went into the night he was grateful they did not see even if all he had was an empty glass and the rope.