Surrender in Spain

FOUR YEARS AGO, IN MADRID, AN ELDERLY SPANISH aristocrat invited me to her house in the countryside to spend a weekend—we were social acquaintances. On the way up, she drove on the wrong side of the freeway.

- Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

Huge trucks and lorries, as they hurtled in our direction, began to honk in panic. I wondered if I had drawn out my will. I looked at the aristocrat: beady-eyed, rail-thin, hunched, clutching the steering wheel, cursing in Spanish.

An exit in the freeway led to a fuel stop, where she looked at me and said, “I really like you.” I thought she said this to calm me down after the freeway incident, the sort of reassurance one gives to a child after a scolding. Then she repeated the words, this time making intentions clear. She was well kept for 78. I was 38. I wanted to say: You’re old enough to be my grandmother. The hipster in my head wagged a wokesignalling finger at my face: Don’t be ageist! The weather forecast for our destination, when I looked at my phone to avoid her gaze, was “cloudy with a stray t-storm”.