#27 The Troubadour …

“Hey, you’re Nikko from the FvD, and that’s Boris!” a man calls out in Dutch as Boris the little terrier and I walk out of an electronics store in the Spanish city of Zamora. FvD is a Dutch political party, some of its members of parliament good friends of mine, its party leader a woman named Lidewij de Vos.

“I uh… I think you’re confusing me with Lidewij de Vos,” I reply. “Happens often,” and since only Heidi—my wife, Dutch, like me—sometimes laughs at what I think is funny, I am surprised when the man bursts out laughing and says, “No, of course you’re not from the FvD, but I see you in their podcast every now and then. I read your short stories, and I’ve read the book about you becoming a matador here in Spain. But when I ordered the sequel, the book about your time in Afghanistan, something went wrong.”

We chat for a moment, and I learn that the man, Henk, Dutch, moved to Spain some years ago and now lives in a village near the Almendra Reservoir, not far from where Heidi and I live. He renovated the house he bought and sold it last week. Soon, he will move to northern Spain with his wife and children. After texting Heidi Henk’s email address, I promise to send him a copy of Unpredictable Past, the book about my time in Afghanistan, when it is reissued in a revised edition, and we shake hands. Henk enters the Media Markt; I walk to a grassy area where Boris can run while at the same time calling our accountant.

Monday, January 5. After some sleepless nights, I started the day in a bad mood. An American publisher texted me last Friday that in a story I once wrote and that he wants to publish, he had stumbled over the lines: I try to focus on a falling snowflake, then on another, and think of Freud, who fled Vienna in 1938 because of the antisemitic measures being implemented there back then. Heidi and I will soon be fleeing Austria, and Freud figured out why we would one day do that. Human life, according to Freud, is not something to wildly experiment with.

Of everything I wrote in that story about the vaccines that, in 2020, would save humanity from COVID-related extinction, those were the lines the publisher stumbled over, and the texted discussion that followed left me flabbergasted.

Publisher: If we publish you fled Austria because of mandatory vaccination, framing that as a reason for exclusion, it will be read as a political claim and state coercion.

Me: Good!

Publisher: Your claim will be treated as a factual assertion, not literary texture.

Me: Fuck me!

Publisher: Editorial risk outweighs narrative freedom. Your claim is a real-world claim about political events and policies.

Me: I know; I wrote it!

Publisher: Please create perception other than cause/fact. Consider: “In a period of political tension around vaccination policy, we thought it best to leave Austria.”

Me: What about my claim that Freud left Austria because of the antisemitic measures being implemented there? Will that not be read as a political claim and state coercion?

Publisher: No.

That eh… that made for some sleepless nights. This morning, after our breakfast and a short walk with Boris, I texted the publisher that I withdraw my story. I worked on my manuscript The Caveman Code for a few hours, ignored the strange behavior of my computer, walked with Heidi and Boris through the fields around Montelobado, a village west of Salamanca, where Heidi and I settled six months ago, and after I sat down at my computer again, I had no choice but to call Heidi for help.

“Is this the first time your computer shut itself down this way?” Heidi asked.

“Well, eh…” “Grab the external hard drive,” Heidi interrupted me, “I’ll see what I can save.”

I found that external hard drive quickly, and just as quickly, Heidi was grumbling behind my computer, leaving me in a state of panic. Every few weeks, my computer does something that panics me. Time and again, after Heidi has called the thing to order, I resolve to be more careful about making copies of my work. But I work on so many documents at the same time that my resolutions fizzle out in no time. Heidi grumbled for well over an hour. I made tea and coffee and paced through our living room until Heidi said: “Your computer won’t boot up anymore, but I think I copied about everything. How old is that thing?”

“We bought it in Feldkirch when we were still living in Austria. 2020? 2021?”

“I remember,” Heidi said. “We got off lightly there.”

“Huh…?”

“You hit the shop owner when he tried to push us out of his shop because we weren’t vaccinated.”

“Das war einmal that was then, but what now?”

“There are electronics stores in Salamanca and Zamora.”

We left home just over an hour ago, and … “Ignacio,” a voice comes from my phone. I tell Ignacio, our accountant, that our bankcards have been blocked again.

“Te llamaré en dos minutos I’ll call you back in two minutes,” Ignacio says, and he breaks the connection. Confused, I wait, and when Ignacio calls back, he explains that just before the bank closed, he managed to talk to Antonio, the manager of a branch where Heidi and I opened an account after settling in Montelobado. Antonio, according to Ignacio, confirmed that Tráfico, the Spanish traffic authority, has frozen our account, just like it did two months ago.

Before Heidi and I, in 2019, moved to Austria, we had already lived some years in Spain. Back then, during a trip to the Netherlands, our Spanish Renault Kangoo broke down in the Netherlands. We emailed a copy of the international certificate of destruction we received from a scrap dealer to Tráfico in Spain, and with that, a Tráfico employee assured us over the phone that our Kangoo would be deregistered. A few months ago, we received notice about our scrapped Kangoo, which had not been deregistered after all. We paid a visit to Tráfico in Salamanca, took another shot at deregistering our Kangoo, and a month later, after Tráfico had frozen our account, Tráfico charged us for seven years of unpaid road tax. Ignacio filed a complaint—Heidi had kept the certificate of destruction—but something has gone haywire, Ignacio explains, because Tráfico now wants to charge us again for those seven years of road tax, and the moment Ignacio lets out a cry, I realize I should not have whistled at Boris with the phone near my mouth when I saw Heidi walking out of the electronics store, a box in her hands.

“Nada,” Ignacio says as I apologize, and as Boris and I run toward Heidi, he adds, “As soon as Tráfico has collected that road tax again, your account will be unfrozen, and I will file a complaint—again.”

Running, I break the connection. Boris, running alongside me, jumps aside, a question mark on his snout, as I stumble over a curb, barely keeping my balance, and I chuckle inwardly as I realize how, since the introduction of compulsory education, humanity has been wallowing in a reality based largely on fallacies. Pedagogues—who primarily teach children to be obedient—condition the next generation to believe that the new monetary system that is being rolled out in Western countries without democratic consent is a wonderful, easy, and safe system because the old system was not wonderful, easy, and safe. What pedagogues fail to let the next generation know is that the new monetary system not only regulates the use of money in our economies but also, without the intervention of a legal authority, punishes disobedience, and … Boris jumps up at Heidi. I take the box from her arms, and before I can ask anything, she says: “Kitty and Dad paid for your computer from the Netherlands. Did you speak to Ignacio?”

“Tráfico is collecting the road tax for that old Kangoo again.”

Heidi bursts out laughing and says, “Same old, same old. But now that I think of that Kangoo, I think of the antique Citroën C-15 we drove before we bought that Kangoo. From France, in …” “… 2016,” I add, “… we drove to Spain in that C-15,” Heidi finishes her sentence. “Some impossible place in the Pyrenees, you wanted to brew coffee. Just as you poured water on the coffee in the filter on the thermos, the handbrake of that C-15 gave way. I’ve never seen anyone run so fast.”

It is my turn to burst out laughing as I picture that C-15, in the snow, rolling toward a ravine, all our earthly possessions in its trunk. I overtook it, yanked open a door, jumped behind the wheel, and brought it to a halt, and my thoughts jump to Afghanistan, where an American soldier once told me he had never seen anyone run so fast.

Well ahead of the Humvees of the American platoon with which I went out on patrol every day—long before Dutch troops arrived in Afghanistan in 2006—I was ambushed in a wadi, looking for possible roadside bombs. From at least two sides, our opposition opened fire on me, and I ran to the only tree in the wadi, where I dropped down and fired back with my Diemaco as bullets ricocheted off the pebbles and larger stones around me. The gunner of one of the Humvees that rushed to my aid later told me that despite our situation, he had burst out laughing when he saw me running so fast that the turban I was wearing partially unfurled. The unfurled piece of fabric had pointed straight backward, and … Boris sinks his teeth into my trouser leg as Heidi asks, “Something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I mumble, and I know that is not true because the, say, homesickness that always assails me when I think about Afghanistan assails me with a vengeance. Man, I was happy in Afghanistan, and to avoid wandering withdrawingly—and imaginatively—through Afghan settlements during the next hour or so, drinking tea with village elders, I ask as I open the passenger door of the Berlingo we presently drive for Heidi and Boris, “Coffee in Zamora?”

It has been raining in this part of Spain since the first week of November. Around Christmas, the rain ceased for a few days. Same today, the sky pale blue, the sun pleasantly warm. Our TomTom guides us into a parking garage, and until we catch sight of a cathedral, strolling the streets of Zamora’s casco antiguo, we are not impressed. Cobblestone streets, sure, but the medieval atmosphere I had hoped for is lacking, which changes when we walk past the cathedral and toward Zamora’s castle. Within seconds, Heidi and I are no longer two tourists but Álvar Fáñez and Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Minaya and El Cid, two knights who besieged Zamora in 1072 in the service of King Sancho II of Castile.

Two months before we marched with our armies to Zamora, we helped Sancho defeat his brother, King Alfonso VI of León, at the Battle of Golpejera, and … closed! The castle of Zamora is closed on Mondays. To curb my disappointment, I force myself to linger in the Middle Ages a little longer. I wrap my cape around me and stride north, where I know I will find El portillo de la traición in the old city wall, Minaya and Boris on my heels. Left, right, and everywhere, traces are still visible of the destruction wrought upon the city by the troops of the Islamic general Almanzor when they besieged and invaded Zamora for the umpteenth time in 986. People are hoeing in their small fields. They are carrying water and are working on reinforcing the city wall we are walking toward. Donkey carts come and go, and after walking through El portillo de la traición, the sight of an asphalted road brings me back to 2026.

We are standing on a tree-lined strip of grass that probably—without trees—served as a glacis for a few centuries, due to the present proximity of the asphalted road not the best place to have coffee. Through El portillo de la traición, we walk back into the casco antiguo, find a bench in front of a church, and sit down, the last rays of the afternoon sun on our faces. I take what I need to make coffee out of my backpack, see that Heidi is looking thoughtful, and to convince her there truly is nothing wrong, I say: “I just wanted to walk in the footsteps of Vellido Dolfos through The Gate of the Betrayal.”

“The Gate of the Betrayal?”

“El portillo de la traición.”

“There is a sign claiming we just walked through La puerta de la lealtad, The Gate of the Loyalty. And who is Vellido Dolfos?”

“Look,” I say as I place our moka pot on the gas stove after filling it with water, coffee, and a little milk, “at that gate, history and legend come together.”

Heidi raises an eyebrow, and I explain, “In 1065, King Ferdinand I of León, who was also king of Castile and Galicia, died. He left each of his five children a part of his kingdom. His eldest son, Sancho, about twenty-seven years old, inherited Castile. Sancho was not over the moon, because Castile was less prestigious than León. Alfonso, Sancho’s younger brother, inherited León, and García, Sancho's youngest brother, inherited Galicia. Urraca, Sancho’s older sister, and Elvira, his younger sister, respectively inherited the infantado of Zamora and that of Toro, large domains within the kingdom of León with a lot of administrative autonomy.

“In 1068 there were skirmishes between the armies of Sancho and Alfonso. Neither side achieved a victory, and in 1071, Sancho and Alfonso made a pact. Together, they invaded Galicia with their armies, where their brother García was at odds with some of his nobles. Despite being young, García had suppressed an uprising of Portuguese nobles at the Battle of Pedroso, but he was powerless against his brothers’ armies. He was captured and exiled to Seville. Galicia fell into the hands of Sancho, the county of Portugal into those of Alfonso, an arrangement that lasted until Sancho turned against Alfonso once more and defeated Alfonso’s armies at the Battle of Golpejera, in early 1072.”

As the moka pot begins to sputter, I further explain, “Sancho, from that moment on, and just like his father had been, was king with the crowns of León, Castile, and Galicia, his sister Urraca, in Zamora, a nuisance because she disapproved of Sancho’s actions and was supported by a number of nobles, mainly from León, who had sought refuge in Zamora with their armies.”

I pour coffee into a mug, hand the mug to Heidi, carefully unscrew the moka pot so as not to burn my hands, fill it with water and coffee, place it back on the stove, and continue, “Immediately after he had defeated Alfonso’s armies and had exiled Alfonso to Toledo, Sancho marched toward Zamora, the knight El Cid at his side. But in the years before his death, Ferdinand I, Sancho’s father, had reinforced Zamora’s defenses—we are sitting in the middle of them. The castle had just been completed—the cathedral was not yet there; a small church stood in that place—and conquering Zamora wasn’t easily done, which is where the Spanish proverb no se ganó Zamora en una hora comes from, you don’t conquer Zamora in an hour.

“The siege of the city began in March 1072 and only ended when a nobleman, Vellido Dolfos, slipped out of Zamora. He pretended he wanted to defect and took Sancho to what supposedly was a weak spot in the defenses. Just before El Cid could intervene, Dolfos murdered Sancho. Dolfos fled, El Cid on his heels, and just before El Cid caught him, Dolfos slipped back into Zamora through the gate we just walked through. The siege of Zamora ended, and Alfonso returned from exile. He took over Sancho’s kingdom and, after convincing El Cid that he had nothing to do with his brother’s murder, played a major role in the Reconquista.”

“But saving your city isn’t exactly treason, is it?” Heidi interjects.

“No, but murdering a king was, in the Middle Ages, and only recently has the name of the gate been changed to La puerta de la lealtad.”

“Hm… but I think we walked through that gate because you want to write a story about it. That’s why you wanted to go to an electronics store in Zamora, not in Salamanca. Will that be a story about a gate that marks the boundary between history and legend?”

“I eh… I don’t know yet. The fraternal conflict unfolded as I just told you. The siege of Zamora began on March 4, 1072, and Sancho was murdered on October 6 or 7 of that year. Most of what we think we know about Minaya and El Cid—who did exist—and about Vellido Dolfos is legend.”

“Fine, but Salamanca has history and legends too, and its electronics stores are larger than the one here.”

“Sure. But I wanted to visit the castle here, wanted to see that gate, and yes, something is haunting me with regard to history and legends, from which, in the West, we have estranged ourselves since, in preserving them, we made ourselves depend on pedagogues and experts. On top of that, we have allowed the Abrahamic religions to condition us to believe that legends are reality. Estranged from our history and legends, we eh… we have no future in which there is still room for laughter, while we open the door wider and wider for pedagogues and experts to condition us to believe that the future will be better than today because today is better than the past.

“People, in the days of El Cid, were physically and mentally stronger than we are. They lived longer in good health than we do—if they survived their first months and did not fall off a scaffold while building a cathedral—feared hardly anything, certainly not God, knew their history and cherished their legends, and would have laughed even more than they already did if a troubadour had recited a poem that … that eh… wait …”

I ponder for a moment, clear my throat, and recite, “A day shall come, centuries from now, when the state forces mankind to go to school somehow. Not to learn to live with logic and reason, but to learn that disobedience is treason.

“A day when mankind loses history, legends, and freedom of speech, shouting from rooftops that happiness and laughter are well within reach.

“A day when mankind wallows in a fallacy-based reality, because children are raised in sophistry rather than clarity.

“A day when half of mankind says, ‘Democracy is good, because we choose our government, as everyone should.’

“A day when mankind says, ‘The law is truly fair,’ although crime rises, so common there.

“A day when no one cares for themselves anymore but is cared for by the state, submissive to their core.

“A day when mankind not only calls legends true but believes fables too.

“A day when mankind lets its pride depart, to live as serfs, obedience at heart, with money, believe it or not, that punishes, what a sorrowful lot.”

Heidi, as I proudly look up and the moka pot begins to sputter again, bursts into such laughter that she startles both Boris and me. But I don’t feel offended, knowing I will never be much of a poet, and as the sun disappears behind the city wall, I pour coffee into my mug and say, “I think we will only laugh like people did in the Middle Ages once we realize how much of what we think we know for certain is conditioned, and…” “I get it,” Heidi interrupts me, wiping tears from her eyes, “but how do you want to incorporate all of that into one story?”

“That uh… that I don't know,” I mumble, and I let out a cry as I unscrew the moka pot and burn my hand.

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