NF (1995) The Pillars of Hercules Read Online Free PDF Page B

governor.”
    “What would Spain say to that?”
    “Spain would never agree that Gibraltar should have its own government,” he said. “But I don’t want to be colonized by Spain. I was colonized already by Britain!”
    “Weren’t you worried when Franco was in power?”
    “Yes, because he had a tyrannical government. But just the other daythe Spanish foreign minister made a speech demanding sovereignty over us and calling us ‘the last colony in Europe.’ The Spanish say, ‘It is a matter of honor!’ But we have honor too.”
    “Isn’t Gibraltar a colony?”
    “We call ourselves a dependent territory.”
    “I have the impression that business is rather poor, with most of the British troops pulled out.”
    “Business isn’t good. We get tourists, and some day-trippers from Spain”—the tormentors of the Rock apes, the souvenir hunters that arrived in buses from Torremolinos and Marbella. “We used to have day-trippers from Morocco, but because of French paranoia against North Africans the Moroccans now need visas to enter EC countries. It’s ridiculous and very bad for business.”
    “Gibraltar’s in the EC?” This was news to me.
    “Yes. We are a full member politically. But we are excluded from VAT and other taxes.”
    I asked him, “Are you aware of being a sort of folk hero and father figure of Gibraltar?”
    He smiled at this, as though agreeing with what I said but forbidden by modesty to say so.
    “I am speaking to you candidly now,” he said. “I go to Spain every now and then. My wife shops for vegetables there. On one trip I said to a guard, ‘Why are the Spanish police and guards here so courteous to me, when they know that I want to keep Gibraltar independent from Spain?’ ”
    The order in Sir Joshua’s office and the way he was dressed, with that excessive neatness that is common to morticians and lawyers, told me that he was fastidious. Perhaps this was why he pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, as though an unpleasant thought was passing through his mind.
    “The guard said to me, ‘Because you put
sus cojónes sur la mesa—’ ”
    “Your balls on the table,” I said.
    “Yes. He continued, ‘And you haven’t offended anyone.’ ”
    “That’s a pretty neat trick.”
    “Oh, yes. I was flattered.”
    It was time for me to go. I thanked him for seeing me and speaking frankly, and I told him sincerely that I had enjoyed myself in Gibraltar. Though I did not tell him this, fearing he would misunderstand, I liked itbest because it was unexpected; the rain, the gusting wind, the dignified apes. It was not at all the Mediterranean port I had expected but more like an English seaside resort in autumn, full of plucky retirees and gasconading soldiers.
    “The only thing wrong with us,” Sir Joshua said, ruefully rather than in anger, “is our bloody size!”

2

The “Mare Nostrum” Express to Alicante
                 T o prove a point to myself about Gibraltar’s smallness I picked up my bag and walked from my hotel in the middle of Gibraltar to the Spanish frontier; got my passport stamped, and then sauntered into Spain; another stamp. The whole international journey from my thirty-dollar room in Gibraltar to the cheese-colored suburbs in the foothills of Andalucia was less than half an hour.
    My first day in Spain. I thought of a line from the Spanish writer Pio Baroja, that V. S. Pritchett quotes.
    “It may look as if I am seeking something; but I am seeking nothing.”
(Parece que busco algo; pero no busco nada.)
    There were no coastal trains from Algeciras, no useful trains at all until Málaga. The Algeciras bus was waiting at the station at La Línea, over the border, a town cauchemaresque in its littleness and its sense of being unpeopled and nowhere. Its nondescript beach was noted for its smugglers—drugs, cigarettes, appliances. This bus was just a rattly thing, full of locals who were heading home from work to the ferry port that lay beneath