The Squares of the City (1965)
“The lion does not move, except to open its eyes. Yet its body ceases to be relaxed. Inside the tawny pelt a thousand living springs are wound up instantly to maximum tension.
The only occasions when I’d ever walked up to a sleeping lion had been on the outside of a cage of steel bars. But I was inside Ciudad de Vados. I was inside the mouth of the lion.
I did something that night that I hadn’t done for years. I felt the need to get loaded with Dutch courage. When I was through at the traffic de...partment—not that much work got done—I went to the bar of the hotel and drank steadily for three hours. The lights went out around me; at one in the morning I was still looking at my hands and seeing them shake. I wanted to leave this place. Now. Today.
Once, a long time ago, I met a newspaperman who had had to cover the great Chicago race riot of the twenties. He had found it difficult, he said, to describe to me exactly how he felt to be in a city divided against itself. If he had walked up to me now in the bar of the Hotel del Principe, I could have told him to save his reminiscences—I knew from the inside how he felt.MoreLess
The only occasions when I’d ever walked up to a sleeping lion had been on the outside of a cage of steel bars. But I was inside Ciudad de Vados. I was inside the mouth of the lion.
I did something that night that I hadn’t done for years. I felt the need to get loaded with Dutch courage. When I was through at the traffic de...partment—not that much work got done—I went to the bar of the hotel and drank steadily for three hours. The lights went out around me; at one in the morning I was still looking at my hands and seeing them shake. I wanted to leave this place. Now. Today.
Once, a long time ago, I met a newspaperman who had had to cover the great Chicago race riot of the twenties. He had found it difficult, he said, to describe to me exactly how he felt to be in a city divided against itself. If he had walked up to me now in the bar of the Hotel del Principe, I could have told him to save his reminiscences—I knew from the inside how he felt.MoreLess
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