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What was left of the Oberhauser family moved to Madrid in 1977. It was planned as a two-year stay after which they’d go back to Germany, yet, when Baldur Oberhauser was offered a permanent position as Siemens’s CEO, he, his wife and his son had spent enough time in a different country that they couldn’t bear the thought of returning to a land in which so much that had been just wasn’t anymore.
One of Elisabeth Oberhauser’s many vices was complaining. She voiced her discomfort at living in that Spanish detached house often, visible to a scorching heat that seethed through the walls, and that sweaty orange colour that made everything unbearable in the summer. She’d been a regular at “Piscina Estela,” Madrid’s most prestigious pool club, but then again, she wasn’t made for manhandling. One day a lifeguard kindly advised her to put her bikini top back on, and walked her out when she shook her head no. She travelled around the entire length of the pool once with her half naked body arched and proud, and never looked back. Remember Simone, she thought. It was time to move.
The day that Elisabeth smiled on 18 different occasions, one for each time that she held her index up to find not one speck of dust, Baldur knew they had found their home, in Burgo de Osma, No 7. A high up, four-bedroom flat with swift cavities and cool white walls that one could press their back against. A chimney for the winter and a wide, square-tiled terrace for the summer. They’d been recommended a school in a German neighbourhood a walk away where their son, Markus, was to finish high school, a street full of German shops where they could purchase and eat like they did in their upbringings. Victor’s and Alamo were right next to their flat on street level, and the family made habits out of both.
Victor’s was a pub where to alleviate vices, and Baldur let his worries blurry there often. Like clockwork, he stepped inside the house swamped with the recent memory of meetings and commitments, changed into a short-sleeved t-shirt or a thick woolly jumper (depending on the month), and marched downstairs for a drink. It was and still is a place in which the option of sitting on a stool and drifting away is as inviting and acceptable as it is to start a conversation with the bartender, who’ll probably have a drink with you if you tease him enough.
Alamo was for popping down for an aperitif and an appetiser or indulging in a coffee and a Santiago slice of pie. Its biggest attraction was its terrace, open when the wind allowed. At 20, Markus Oberhauser ate there often on the weekends, with his parents or his friends. Its biggest beauty, he tells me now, is its story, still told by the same people that started it, as the times evolve and the place does with them. It never lost its essence.
The restaurant was founded long before the Oberhauser’s had heard of it, even before they stopped considering themselves lucky. It was born out of a partnership of three men: Jesús, Ramón or “the one with the round belly,” and “El Flumi,” the flirtatious beach boy who came up with the idea. Every person that has worked in Alamo since has been a partner of the business and has earned their wages in relation to its profits.
Baldur retired early. The second he did, he was hit with the image of a broad garden surrounded by quiet air, nothing but the birds chirping away. He’d been a country kid. He grew up knowing that there was nothing quite like having a forest to let the mind unravel. They owned a car anyway, he told Elisabeth, who agreed with reluctance only to a place that would be no further away than half an hour to the centre of the city.
That last summer month, amongst moving boxes and things to arrange, she met Markus in Alamo every day for lunch when he came back from acting school. She’d been a distant mother, but something told her that this would be the last house they’d share as three people that had only had each other, and she felt an unbeatable urge to hold on to it before it faded.
The house they moved to, Calle Valle de Leniz No 10, became and perhaps still is the home to my biggest dreams and nightmares, a bed of things that I like to reminisce about but that I can’t bear to sleep on. Our formation and demise as a three generational family of which there is very little left. But that’s a story to be told elsewhere.
Alamo is like a sanctuary for those fearful of change. “Look kids, see that added bit of fence there? They added that because of me,” my father repeated without fail every time my mother drove by the German school on our way to the restaurant. I remember locking eyes with my Opa from the rear-view mirror of the car, “Kleine, should we go to Alamo? Should we have a menu?” he’d say each time that we were in the area. Above all, it’s the only place that we all ever went together, and that I can remember from every viewpoint and almost every period of my life.
Now, let the wheels of the car slide down the hill and turn left to Burgo de Osma. The soft, sandy bricked buildings with rolled-out emerald sunshields will guide you through until you spot it. There. You’ll find a space as you move along, it always looks full at first. Depending on the era that you’d like to travel through, the terrace’s cover will be red and beige striped, or green and white, open or closed. The rest will meet the eye with the same effect no matter when it is you choose to visit, with me or on your own. A grey marble exterior with bright red ornaments such as plant pots, and before it, wicker chairs on metal supports and squared tables that a waiter (and partner by default) will cover with a white tablecloth, clipping it four times.
“El Flumi,” my dad will point out with his finger, shaking off his amazement with a smile. The menu options will change but the number of choices is always three, and the number of tables twelve, which “El Flumi” manages by himself. Two menus come with a bottle of wine to share, coffee and dessert for 10,50 euros each. I suggest you go for that. And as you sit down and enjoy the common view, and hopefully reasonable company, just remember that this is a place that has collected so many stories through the years that they’re almost visible. You can almost hear it. “Look Kay, when I lived with Oma and Opa it used to be right there…”