The Songs of Manolo Escobar

by Carlos Alba

The Continental Hotel, where he’d been employed as a waiter and barman, was still there, and I went in for a drink. It was late afternoon and the lounge bar was nearly empty. I chose a seat in front of a large open log fire, admiring the walls that were garnished with intricate Moorish carvings and mosaics. A waiter dressed in a burgundy suit and a white shirt sidled up to me and asked if I’d like a drink. I ordered a beer, and he smiled indulgently before shuffling away.

  A large portrait window looked out on to the seafront. Dusk was closing in, but I was still able to see across the misty Mediterranean to the Andalusian coastline. The waiter returned with my bottle of cold beer. He poured a little into a chilled glass and placed the bottle on the table. I imagined Papa doing the same for Beat writers and gun-runners fifty years before.

  I drank my beer slowly, almost in a trance, trying to imagine what it would have been like for my father to be here – working in a foreign country, in the shadow of his homeland, too fearful or ashamed to return.

  I paid at the bar and said goodbye to the waiter, but as I turned to leave something caught my eye. The room was dimly lit, and I had to lean closer against the bar to see, hanging on the wall in a dusty frame, an old black-and-white picture of Humphrey Bogart, his signature scrawled across the bottom.

  I returned along the seafront to the ferry terminal. I’d planned to stay in Tangier overnight, but I decided I’d seen enough. The trip back was calm. There was hardly anyone on board and I had the whole deck to myself. I leant against the railings and breathed in the salty evening air, watching as the lights of Spain grew closer and closer.