It’s a pleasure to walk down the narrow streets of Cádiz, where few cars pass, and they going one way and taking great care with scant margin for error, turning the corners slowly, lest they scrape their paintwork. Most of the buildings are no more than three or four floors, and all are old stone and stucco and the streets are cobbled, which gives a strong impression of permanence altogether fitting for one of the oldest cities in Europe, first settled by Phoenicians, followed by Romans, Visigoths, and Moors, and then reconquered by Catholic Spain in 1262. Columbus sailed from here, and other explorers too, in their search for the wealth of other lands, the silks and spices of the East which they paid for, and the silver and gold of the Incas and Aztecs which they simply took.

One evening, we return from a stroll along the Alameda Park with its enormous ficus trees which spread their limbs, seeming to reach out across the broad Atlantic to the Americas whence they came. There are palm trees here, too, and other plants from the deserts and the high Andes — plants which, we may assume, no Phoenician, Roman nor Visigoth ever saw. Here on the far western edge of Europe, many of the old buildings have towers atop where, long ago, sharp-eyed young men were set to look for the sails on the horizon which might announce the return of merchant ships deep laden with rich cargo and, all hoped, their crews come safely home. Earlier in the day we climb the highest of these towers, the Torre Tavira, and see the old city spread out before us, and beyond this the endless salt sea.

We are staying in a comfortable third floor walk-up in the Calle Sagasta. The owner’s sister runs the small chocolate shop on the corner a short walk away. Our evening paseo takes us by her shop as the darkness begins to close in, and we notice a small tapas place which was closed for siesta when we passed this way before. On a whim, we step in. It seems the place has just re-opened for the evening, and we are the first ones here, so we are greeted all the more cheerfully by the young man who tends the bar where he invites us to sit and look over the tapas on display, an array of jamón, sardines, olives, a seafood salad, and something that might be squid — all the usual things. Tapas is such a sensible idea, a little of this and a little of that, and if something pleases you, then you order a racione, a larger serving. Aside from our cuttlefish and chorizo, the young man gives us a plate of olives steeped in just the right mix of vinegar and oil, together with bread. and with all this we order a glass of wine and a beer and so we create our dinner.

As the young man prepares all this before us, Kyongsook, as is her usual inclination, asks him about himself — Where is he from? How old is he? Is he married? No? Then perhaps a girlfriend? — and so we learn that he has not been long in Cádiz, and he is twenty-eight years old, and before here he lived in Málaga with his girlfriend, who was Russian, but she broke up with him, and so he has come to Cádiz to start over and perhaps to mend his heart, and he opened this new place just two weeks ago. His English is good and he seems very willing to practice it, to be drawn out. Not for the first time, I reflect that people, when speaking another language, may say things on first acquaintance which conventional reticence would not allow. Or perhaps it’s just my wife, who will talk to everyone, and they will just as easily reply.

By now there are several other customers, all seeming to be from the neighborhood and carrying on lively conversations, having their apertivo or a quick bite to tide them over to their usual very late dinner hour. Some customers spill outside the door where there are no stools, but a high table accommodates them. Here, too, they may smoke, still a common custom in Spain. The bar owner and another man, his colleague, are very busy now, pouring this, preparing that, serving others at the bar and those out in the narrow street.

And then I notice something else. Along the shelves behind the bar we see the usual sorts of bottles, but there is something else. Pinned to the wooden shelves are currency notes from a miscellany of countries outside the euro zone, each note signed by the person who left the memento behind. Some are from Africa, (not so far across the water), and others are from Asia and the Americas, and among the notes I see an American one dollar bill, which strikes me as not quite right. One dollar seems so paltry among these other notes. True, the strength of the dollar may convert to two or even three digits in another currency, but one is still only one. And something else bothers me even more. The face on the dollar bill is Washington’s, and even though he is held up as a paragon of republican virtues, when I see his picture I see a slave owner, a willing participant in our country’s original sin. Like anyone raised in America, I was taught to revere the founders, but later in life I came to have a different view, and now believe that anyone who ever bought and sold other people and compelled them to servitude against their will and with no commensurate reward cannot claim our admiration for whatever else they did in life. No one else — and certainly no one else visiting this bar — may share my view but  still, there it is.

I have an idea. I look at the American money in my wallet and find only ones and twenties, and certainly Andrew Jackson is no improvement, but fortunately Kyongsook has a five-dollar bill with its portrait of our best president. I speak to the young man to make my intention known: will he please replace the one-dollar bill with this five dollar note? He is surprised, so I explain that his one dollar shows a slave owner (el dueño de esclavos), while this new bill for five dollars shows el Libertador. He smiles and says, of course, he will substitute the new bill, but first I must sign my name on it, as everyone else has done with theirs. And so I do, and then I wonder, if perhaps in a year or two we visit Cádiz again, will Lincoln still be there looking back at us? 

Well, there’s every good reason to come back and see, and perhaps we will.