Red Grain Beer

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1984 · Authors: Rafael Arozarena

Rafael Arozarena (Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1923-2009) is unanimously considered one of the most important Canarian writers. 

In his work Red Grain Beer , a complex text with reminiscences of Joyce and Proust, Arozarena develops his narrative around a Santa Cruz de Tenerife that is almost hidden, sometimes barely recognisable. In the following excerpt, one gets a sense of being in a remote and enigmatic Plaza Weyler.

[...] «Look at the clock; it is four o'clock. He heads to the Plaza de Capitanía. He slows his pace. He strolls under the tree canopies. The tall and leafy Indian Fig trees form a circle of coolness in the square. In the centre is the fountain. Water. A marble fish. Marble cherubs. Light and shadow. Black and white. In the kiosk Machín sings. Little black angels. A black man carries a tray with watch chains, shoelaces, razor blades, wick lighters. The black man gazes entranced towards the loudspeaker. He listens attentively. He waits, now it says it, now: ...God also made them . He smiles. She walks between light and shadow, between white and black, between children playing and elderly people dozing on benches. She leaves the square. Opposite, on the orange awning, letters: Cafetería Callao . She enters dazzled. She sits in front of the counter. She adjusts her sight to the semi-darkness. Sabino, the owner, bow tie and white jacket, leans forward quietly. What will it be. » [...]

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