Malta 6

March 9, 2012

Rain on the roof pools. I shall go slogging about come what may on this my last day.

Picked up a novel called The Sisters Brothers in the Asheville Airport. By Patrick DeWitt. Excellently well written, excellent characterization, but, curiously, I have no particular need to see how it ends. Squalidly, if the lives of the characters are an indication.

I left at dusk last night for the waterfront. Toured the long, thin gardens, then crossed over the many big streets to a well-lit tent surrounded by a crowd. Turns out it was a rally for the Labor Party. There was literature in Maltese, and people in TV monitors with solemn expressions on their faces. No security–well, there were cops, but they let me waltz in anywhere I wanted. Nothing was happening, so I moved on. The descent to the waterfront was fascinating on its own, but the loci of delight that people spoke of were either clearly derelict or probably closed until tourist season, so I found myself walking a long way solitary with mammoth battlements to one side and brightly lit ships to the other. The cats of the Maltese night were all around. It was weirdly wonderful. Though the fortifications are not medieval, they certainly have that aspect. It was like being in a movie. Climbed finally, endlessly, back onto the streets I knew, and found more downtown nightlife than I had acknowledged before. One of the cafes before St. John’s was open, and I had Mdina wine, and widow’s soup, which is vegetable soup featuring cauliflower prominently, and egg white. I will leave the eggs out when I make it myself.

The drizzle was never an outright downpour, so I took a couple more rounds of Valletta to cement it into my head. I blundered into the National Museum of Fine Art, housed in a palace which is itself a work of art. The collection is good, and often interesting where it is not good, but the paintings are badly in need of cleaning and conservation, and the lighting in the galleries is atrocious. Surely someone has noted this before. Preti and Favray are especially well represented. Wandering about, I eased at last toward the attraction called The Great Siege of 1565. The date is significant– the Maltese knights and their allies may well have save Christendom from Suleiman the Magnificent–but the attraction is several score department store manikins arranged to represent Turks and Knights and the wounded and Gallant Citizens, and a dramatic narration played from a handheld device. It’s pretty tawdry, but awakens the mind to the event itself, which seems to have been a great moment in history, like the London Blitz or the Siege of Stalingrad, or, now that I think of it, the bombing of Malta in the 40's.. Ate a terrible lunch made better by being in the midst of locals, who spoke as if no one strange were present, and I was happy. Bought a few gifts. I’m indifferent to souvenirs, and that fact worries me a little. Cruised a little, but the man whose eye I caught was so open and enthusiastic that I assumed he must have misinterpreted the event. I’m probably wrong about that, and missed an excellent chance. The Maltese are comfortable with themselves, proud without haughtiness, and on the streets I have never encountered a beggar or panhandler.