In the middle of the Malasaña neighborhood, there is a tiny little attended pedestrian street called Galería de Robles. This is where Café Ajenjo is located, with an old-fashioned look but so cozy, so quiet, mostly unchanged as the years go by, true to itself far from the hustle, such a wonderful oasis, a lost island. Everything seems to welcome the visitor who is passing by, the facade, the old lanterns, a subtle golden light coming from the inside.
I always think of the Ajenjo café as the right place for Antoine Roquentin, it should have existed a placed like this in Bouville; a place where he should have ended his rides to sit at one of the tables to read, to take notes on his book about the Rollebon Marquis or to talk to the Self-taught. He could have ended with a final goodbye to Bouville, before catching a train but after listening for the last time a gramophone playing: Some of these days, you’ll miss me honey..
