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I love a good generalisation. The Spanish are, on the whole, a stylish bunch and the natives of Santander were no exception. At the slightest hint of cold weather the fur coats would come out of wardrobes and animal clad ladies would prowl the streets. At the seafront you could see plenty of classically-dressed middle-aged men in chinos, shirts and – best of all – the sweater draped nonchalantly over the shoulders and casually knotted. However, I never thought of these people as vain, which was my particular mistake in a bizarre incident one weekend.
On Sunday mornings, I often went for a little stroll in my barrio, with a stop to have coffee while attempting to decipher the newspapers in my local café El Porche. Then I’d wander home through the quiet residential streets and spend some time there before whatever activities were to occur that day.
One such morning, as I walked along the pavement, I noticed a shortish, stocky, well-built man in large square spectacles coming towards me. He was dressed in a denim shirt by the way – not quite up to the standard of his compatriots. As he neared, it was clear he wanted to talk to me and when I heard him say ‘Soy policía nacional’, I stopped, a little intrigued. What could the police want with me?
He began speaking to me very fast so that I could barely keep up with his staccato Spanish. But the gist of what he was saying started something like this: ‘There have been lots of cars broken into and stolen in this area recently …’, and he came closer to me, his face now inches from mine. I hadn’t been living in Spain long enough for my English sense of personal space to diminish so I began to feel a little uncomfortable, ‘… and I’ve seen you in this area.’ Oh, I thought, but I haven’t seen anything, I didn’t even realise there was a problem. I began to tell him this when I became aware of his finger pushing into my cheek and he interrupted me again saying ‘Yeah, I’ve seen you walking around here, looking into the cars …’
‘Que!’ I interjected, ‘You think I’ve been stealing cars?’
‘Yes’, he replied confidently, his finger pushing further into my face.
‘But I only live over there!’ I said indignantly, pointing at my flat, ‘I walk around here all the time!’
‘But I’ve seen you, always looking into the cars. I’ve been watching you.’ Prod, poke accompanied the finger. I began to get a little worry. What on earth was this man talking about? What’s going on? Why was he doing that with his finger? Was he about to wrestle me to the ground and arrest me?
‘What? I’ve no idea. I was probably looking at my reflection in the windows.’ This the only explanation I could think of under this summary and impromptu interrogation. And then I demonstrated this at the driver’s window of a the blue car next to us by styling my hair.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry’. Then he shook my hand and immediately walked off in the other direction.
Sadly and ashamedly, my explanation of innocence by gazing at myself in window reflections was entirely true. I hadn’t quite attained the style of the locals but at least I was trying.
