I went to Jorge & Merche’s cafe-bar (El Molino) in Nigüelas and sat on the terrace across from Raimundo and we exchanged greetings.

Raimundo, who is 86, is a frequent visitor to the same cafe-bar, so we often bump into each other there. So, I decided to open a conversation in that very British way, mentioning the weather: “Y con esta puta calima, me tiene hasta las narices!” I offered with the correct amount of profanities to be taken seriously.

He glanced up and nodded and then contact fizzled out. Hmmm. He was not exactly going to overdose on loquaciousness today, I thought.

So I went for the tried-&-trusted open with all elderly village folk: “Seguro que no era así cuando eras mozo, Raimundo.” Bingo! He immediately sat up and came back with an animated, “¡Qué va!,” adding, “A estas fechas el pueblo tenía nieve por todo lado!” I wasn’t going to let him slide back into monastic silence so I added, “No me digas, pues vaya cambiazo!”

Now animated, he explained that as kids they had rolled a snow ball right from the top of the village, along the main street, which had been dust and gravel in those days, right down to the church square and there it stayed, laced with stones and other odd assortments that the gigantic snowball had obtained through the village, “Y allí se quedó,” he announced with pride, “hasta bien entrada la primavera.”

We chatted further and he recounted some of his life, mentioning that he had been born in a Guardia Civil cuartel, as his father was a sergeant in a village not that far away, so I asked him which, and he said, Otívar! I explained that I used to live there and that my wife was from the village, so we exchanged surnames from Otívar, Alaminos, being my wife’s, and he had known the surname. Otívar doesn’t have that many surnames amongst them but other popular ones are Aneas and Fajardo.

“Diles, cuando te vayas por allí, que hayas conocido a Raimundo Ortega, hijo del Sargento Raimundo  Ortega,” he said, and I said that I would. Trouble was that I remembered that my mother-in-law had mentioned a Sergeant Raimundo who was not that popular amongst the village folk back in the 40s, but I didn’t tell him that because this Raimundo was the opposite. Besides, the Guardia Civil back in the 40s were not exactly on people’s Christmas Card lists.

Well, he then went on to explain how he had been sent to a school in Madrid and travelled up each time on a train from Granada; it was a long journey, he explained, but they had all had fun playing dominoes and cards along the way.  After that, he emigrated to Switzerland, worked there a life time and returned to his native village and opened up a smithies.

By this time our coffees had long gone so I said farewell and took my unopened book back home – why read a book when you can read a person?

(Editorial: Nigüelas)