The essence of Spain

Spain doesn’t smell the same any more. At the airport, the very first impression used to be of bitter black tobacco smoke, more acrid than Balkan Sobranie, a harbinger of stronger smells beyond Customs.

That smoke would follow you wherever human activity was to be found. It was the cantus firmus in the polyphony of smells flying up from a culture being itself. On the station platform a drift of smoke would bind together the passengers waiting far too early, as is their habit, for a train: the conscript going back to his village on weekend leave or the countryman and his wife, a cardboard box knotted with string at their feet. The cigarette ends would roll into the grooves of the tiled platform for a few minutes until an overalled woman swept them into her plastic dustpan on a long stick.

The law of 26 December 2005, a fateful feast of Stephen, the first martyr, broke this unifying constant.