from Trouble in Transylvania
by Barbara Wilson
1993, pp. 52-55
“Senor Martinez fell into my Spanish as passionately as into a beloved’s arms. Not that he’d previously been parsimonious (according to Jack) with his ungrammatical English, but his Spanish was a force of nature that now gushed out of his mouth like water from a blocked pipe.
…
‘And you’re the one who will be my translator?’ he said to me in Spanish. ‘Then please tell Senora Eva that her eyes are as blue as the Mediterranean.’
‘Senior Martinez says he’s dying to try some paprika chicken,’ I said. ‘But I suggested the stuffed carp.’
Eva handed him her menu. ‘Please.’
‘I speak of love, not food.’ He pushed it away and fixed her with a tender look.
‘I can’t persuade him,’ I said. ‘It’s gotta be the chicken.’
The Gypsy musicians had appeared . . . ‘Tell Senor Martinez this is a real Gypsy tune, not for tourists.’
‘I translated and Senor Martinez sighed eloquently, his hand at his heart. ‘The Spanish and the Hungarians are very much alike. We have the wildness and also the sadness, what we call duende. We have both ben conquored peoples, we have the souls of Gypsies and the heads for business.