You think you know a city by its history—its archives, its records, the whispers of the past preserved in dusty rooms. But let me tell you, you do not truly know Madrid until you have tried to walk across it with bad knees.
I have spent a lifetime poring over maps of old Spanish streets, tracing my ancestors’ paths through history, imagining them strolling through grand boulevards and charming alleyways. What I did not imagine was the reality: a city designed, apparently, by people with an intense hatred for joints. The sidewalks are made of stone slabs that shift with every step, cunningly placed just so that they tilt underfoot, ensuring a lifetime of mild but permanent anxiety. Curbs? Some are ankle-high, others are entirely conceptual. And then there are the streets that start out as inclines but, through some cruel trick of geometry, seem to get steeper as you climb them, like an Escher drawing designed specifically to ruin my day.
I tell myself my great-great-grandfather must have been sturdier than me, but then again, maybe he just had a horse. If I could ride a horse around Madrid without drawing attention, I absolutely would. Instead, I shuffle, adjusting my pace based on which knee currently wants to betray me, trying to make it to the archive without having to explain to a Spanish paramedic why an elderly American historian is lying on the pavement cursing the Bourbon monarchy.
Of course, the day I decide to complain about this, I find myself at the Archivo Histórico Nacional, where the floors are even worse.
This is the grand archive of Spain, the repository of centuries of bureaucracy, a temple to paperwork. I have dreamed of coming here for years. But what do I do as soon as I step inside? Trip. Not dramatically, not enough to make a scene, just one of those awkward, stumbling moments where you pretend nothing happened even though everyone definitely saw it. I recover, straighten my jacket, and pretend I am still a man of dignity.
The reading room is cathedral-like—high ceilings, rows of desks, the faint hum of fluorescent lights. I fill out a request slip, a sacred ritual for researchers everywhere, and sit down to wait for the past to be delivered to me. A stack of leather-bound records appears, thick with dust and secrets.
The first book creaks open. The script is dense, slanted, impossible. My eyes narrow. I have read documents in Latin, in crumbling Gothic script, in ink so faded it may as well have been whispered onto the page, but this—this is something else. This is the handwriting of a man who had absolutely no intention of ever being read.
I squint. I adjust my glasses. I angle the book under the light.
My knees hurt. My back hurts. I am leaning closer and closer to the page, as if proximity will somehow translate the scrawl into something comprehensible. I feel like an archaeologist unearthing an ancient curse, except instead of a curse it’s probably just a grain shipment ledger from 1783.
At this moment, a thought occurs to me: maybe I am too old for this.
Then another thought: this is exactly what I came here for.
Madrid might be trying to kill me, but the archives? They’re what’s keeping me alive.