Spain

NORTH NAVARRE

Today it struck me how I’m
permanently trying to jazz up my absurd,
worthless life.

So here’s how it goes:

Olga, Joseba and I
drove from Zubiri to Eugi,
then further into the mountains toward the
French border in an Opel.
At some point there stood
a completely dilapidated munitions factory
by a stream, in the rain.
We were standing in the rain too.
OK, actually it was more
txirrimirri… drizzle, I mean,
but for an Indian
summer the leaves were too pale and
the sun wasn’t blazing anyway.

Instead, sometimes
hundreds of leaves danced
in the air like butterflies,
Olga said, and I took
photos with a run-of-the-mill
phone.

The deciduous trees
recalled paintings
by Modersohn-Becker
… and I wondered
whether Hemingway had fished for trout here. Surely
not; he’d surely have been in the
Irati forest, and we were at
Eugi, where we then
drove back. In a polsada
we had a hearty lunch: next to us,
puffy-cheeked,
overweight dignitaries
without
female companions. Then I helped
finish off Joseba’s chuletón, because even
in North Navarre everything
is eaten until the
plate is clean.

Notes on a few terms
txirrimirri (also txirimiri, sirimiri, chirimiri) is a Basque/Spanish regional word for a fine, persistent drizzle typical of the Basque Country and Navarre.

Indian summer is kept as a metaphor for an unseasonably mild, sunny spell in autumn.

0 8 15 Handy is German colloquialism for a completely ordinary, mass‑produced mobile phone; “run‑of‑the‑mill phone” captures that tone.

polsada is a Basque word for a small eatery/tavern; “tavern” or “small restaurant” works in English.

chuletón is a large T‑bone or rib steak; keeping the Spanish term with a brief gloss is common in literary translation.