Nothing to Declare

There are always mariachis in the Jardin, hanging out on one line of benches or against a wall. They play for about $10 a song. But they don´t really mingle with tourists. Until this week, I´d only talked to one once. Last summer, I was sitting on a bench late one afternoon, and an older man decked out in powder blue suit plopped down next to me and handed me his violin because he couldn´t hold it and eat the big plate of tostadas he was carrying. We tried to chat, but my Spanish was even worse then than it is now. And he had a mouth full of food and was missing a few teeth. So I can´t say we covered a lot of ground.

But Wednesday night, I had an early drink with my housemate and afterward, I walked up to the Jardin for a quick sit before heading home for the night. Two mariachis started chatting me up, one a guitarist with brass plates on his teeth, the other a trumpeter with acne sucking on a Blowpop. They were hysterical...totally over the top. "Your hair! Your eyes! So green!" says one. "That´s blue," says I. "Yes, yes! Blue! So blue!"

I am pretty sure one was supposed to be the wingman, though I couldn´t quite figure out which. Either way, I am the most beautiful, the most charming, the best smile. So pretty! Will you marry me? No, she will marry me! We will play a song for you. Any song. For free. The arrows of love will strike you. And you will love me. No, me! The life we will have.

I suggest that maybe the arrows of love will strike one of them and they will fall in love with eachother. They crack up, start another round of flattery.

Now the geeky part: I realized, while listening to them, that this was the first time anyone spoke to me at length in the subjunctive. We use it a little in English, but in Spanish, the subjunctive is used all the time to express dreams, hopes, desires, things that couldn´t possibly be, or things that might be, but who knows...I haven´t really got to this level, but I know there are at least four conjugations to express what was hoped for in the past, what might be in the future, what could never be, etc. It´s one of the most difficult things for English speakers to master - not because the conjugations are complicated -they´re not really - but because we just don´t qualify and evaluate our wishes that way. And we believe anything can happen. To understand the subjunctive, one teacher recently told us, you need to understand its spirit; you need to live it.

Teachers in the school also suggest, only half-joking, that we will learn Spanish faster if we find a Mexican novio or novia. I assumed this was because only a boyfriend or girlfriend would have the patience to listen to someone struggling to spit out a sentence, and not charge for the favor. But in the Jardin I realized that falling in love in Spanish must be like falling into, actually living in, the subjunctive.

Twenty minutes in the Jardin, and I walk away with a new insight into the language. And a cherry Blowpop.