Every day I eat the same soup at lunch time. Where I live, as op­posed to where I used to live, that is, in the Gra­cia neigh­bour­hood of Barcelona, lunch is more a snack than a sat­is­fy­ing meal. I must say that the food where I live now, a cold place in which for most of the year no co­mestibles grow, is in­fe­ri­or to what was avail­able to me in Gra­cia where there is a love­ly mar­ket as well as in­nu­mer­able gro­cery stores. The soup is tasty, though it con­tains more salt than is prob­a­bly good for me. It is made in Japan. Just add pack­age con­tents to boil­ing water.

The woman I lived with on Gen­er­al San­jur­jo—you can tell that it was a long time ago, back when so many streets were tes­ti­mo­ny to the van­i­ty of mil­i­tary men—also, for a time, lived with me here in the cold place. She didn’t stay for long, com­plain­ing that I, in this cold place, had grown cold. She re­turned to Barcelona but not to Gen­er­al San­jur­jo, which I un­der­stand now has a hap­pi­er name.

In front of me as I eat the Japan­ese soup is a book open to a pho­to­graph show­ing seven pen­guins on an ice­berg. The pen­guins look quite at home. In fact, one is jump­ing into the sea for the plea­sure of a swim. I would rather swim at, say, Llafranch, but that is now im­pos­si­ble. I used to swim often at Llafranch on week­ends away from Gra­cia. I would stay at a villa with María José and José Cordón and Ana Cristi­na and David and other of their friends. I be­lieve the villa has been re­placed by a hotel. To think that is so caus­es a tear to drop into my salty soup.

It is a soup, as I said, that I eat each day. It is warm­ing, which is im­por­tant here. I find it charm­ing that a Japan­ese soup eaten in a place where snow lies all around should con­jure a time when love and rev­o­lu­tion cou­pled to sear the air and streets bore less­er names. Per­haps it is the salt. Per­haps it is the flavour of the sea on curves of sun-warmed flesh today too well re­mem­bered.