I'm not telling you anything new when I tell you that literature doesn't feed you, but you might be surprised to learn what writers do to pay their bills. As expected, most of them find themselves on the merry-go-round of precarious part-time work: a writing workshop here, an article there, maybe a screenplay. But suddenly there are profiles that are difficult to imagine, like that of Silvia Hidalgo (Seville, 1978), who, in addition to being the winner of the recent Tusquets Novel Prize, is also an experienced computer engineer responsible for the cybersecurity certification of Public institutions are responsible – security must be in his blood because his father was a police officer.
Nothing about his appearance fits the stereotype of the reclusive and scrawny hacker who lives hidden in a dark basement watching waterfalls of zeros and ones on seven screens. She does not go unnoticed, she has presence, not only because she is tall but also because she likes to dress with eclectic and polychromatic fantasy. I met her one morning on a train on the way to the Hay Festival in Segovia, dressed in a fashionable uniform with military boots and a Fred Perry polo shirt. In the afternoon I saw her again in a dazzling Chinese silk shirt with printed figures. Orientals and at four in the morning I found them again in top form in the middle of a dance floor, measuring the rhythm of those present towards the dawn.
We've arranged to meet for dinner at the table at the entrance to the Ponzano restaurant in Madrid, where we feel like we're in an obscene cornucopia of wild mushrooms, seasonal vegetables and huge aged beef loins. Without a doubt, an inspiring corner to ask our guests to imagine their last dinner, the one after which they will die.
After hearing this request, Silvia exclaims “Wow” in a Sevillian accent and begins to silently immerse herself in her fantasies. Coco Dávez saves her from the silence by asking her what kind of ending she will choose: one in which only she dies after dinner or another in which the world ends, and if we learned anything from this interview have. The question is that there are many people who can only imagine their death in a context in which all of humanity perishes.
The writer would like her last dinner to be in Cádiz, somewhere on the Costa de la Luz, Conil or Zahara. “With my coquinas, with my sardines, a few white shrimps from Huelva, everything very simple but delicious and with a white wine from there,” he says. Coco Davez
“As a mother, I would rather die than have everything end,” says Silvia. If my favorite thing in the world, before movies, is a good book and then music, is people. I am a collection of friends, a collector. The fact that I'm gone is just a small harm, but please let people continue to exist.
Although she comes from the interior and from Seville (she clarifies: a polygonal Sevillian who comes from outside the Wall, more precisely from the Brotherhood of Work neighborhood in Polígono Norte), she wants her last dinner to be somewhere on the coast takes place in Cadiz de la Luz, Conil or Zahara. “With my coquinas, with my sardines, a few white shrimps from Huelva, all very simple but delicious and drinking a white wine from there, in Vejer there is a wonderful organic winery called Sancha Pérez and I love it. What they do,” he explains.
I demand from Hidalgo more precision in the preparations, because as simple as everything may seem to him, it is already known that the world is divided into two irreconcilable camps: those who prefer grilled shrimp and those who demand cooked shrimp and time . She doesn't hesitate, she has clear ideas: “I want my coquinas with garlic and wine, my cooked prawns and my sardines specifically from Malaga.” She says that she associates this menu with happiness, not with luxury, it is the taste of those Days when she is relaxed and healthy, the Coquina takes her to Cadiz and tastes like days without an agenda, when you can do nothing. She associates shrimp with festivals, fairs and Christmas, and for her sardines are the incarnation of summer.
I ask her who she would be with and she tells me that it is her daughter Valeria and her friends, who are the people she is usually with on the days she doesn't plan to die anyway. There are around 30 of them, he says, and he has a large tribe of divine ladies around him. He divides them into biographical layers: 7 are his emotional support, friends from his childhood in the Brotherhood of Labor, the other 23 he has accumulated in the life that follows childhood, there are those that the university gave him, Work, leisure and, more recently, literature. “The best thing literature has brought me is friends,” he says.
– Where are the uncles? “I ask him.
Silvia laughs scandalously, repeats loudly and shouts: “Where are the boys!?” and the people in the restaurant turn to her. Then she answers herself: “I'm looking, I'm trying to find them, I've always had a lot of friends, but I've noticed that emotional bonds with them disappear more easily.” My friends got involved and the connection continues , but when my friends got married or got into a relationship, I feel like the everyday life of friendship is lost.” Silvia says that now that she has broken up, she is alone and is looking at life at a certain age, reconsidered her relationships with men. This is an area he observes carefully but with distance, and he reminds me that he actually wrote a novel about it: “Read it, it's called Nothing to Say and it's about how we treat each other.”
This friendship with men is complicated. It seems to her that they are using codes that she cannot navigate well because she is a person who needs to fully connect and has no interest in doing so in a superficial way. If you meet a person four or five times and cannot establish an intimate relationship, you will lose interest in both boys and girls. “My therapist calls it emotional distancing disorder: I need to be intimate, open my heart so you can tell me the ugliest thing about yourself, break down the walls we put up for ourselves, I want people who are generous with themselves. “…. Silvia says she loves men, but it takes a lot more effort for her to deal with them, and she claims that it's easier with women to have the kind of deep relationship she's looking for: “Women are more connected.” with our vulnerability and that makes it easier to form bonds.” Men frustrate her, she says, because when you open your heart to them as a friend, it doesn’t seem enough to them. If you don't already offer them a sexual relationship at that point, they wouldn't be interested in you as a person because that makes them “sluts, idiots, all those kinds of insults,” meaning if you don't sleep with them then, You're wasting your time, you're wasting your money and you're just an idiot.â€
She tells me that it's nothing serious either, it's just a moment she's going through, things will change: “I didn't drive them away, they're the ones leaving my life, look, I already told you “I said that I was a collection of people, but when it came to men, it was very complicated for me.” Absolutely, she clarifies when she says that it is about 30 friends is an inclusive woman, there might be some real friends in that group of friends. “You know who the friends are.”
– And then what are these 30 friends doing on the beach other than eating sardines? How do they spend their time at this celebration?
– Well, I do what I like best: dancing and getting blowjobs, barefoot, listening to music and in panties. “Everyone with dancing tits… the ideal situation,” she says with a laugh.
Later, when they were already in their madness, he waited for sunset, because “there the sun sinks into the sea and the horizon catches fire and the sea calms down and becomes a silver mirror and then you can go.” “The others do towards the world. Then she would put herself on the list of doom, a list she created on Spotify for turbulent times, “of groups of sad girls with straight hair” who, with a lot of humor, talk about current relationships, love in the age of WhatsApp, life singing glued to a mobile screen. And so with the glow over the strait, already exhausted from dancing with her daughter and her friends: “I'm going into the sea, and goodbye, very good.”
Silvia stays silent for a while, stirs something on the plate with the cutlery, it seems as if the interview is already over, but suddenly she lifts her face with a smile, takes a sip of wine and adds: “Maybe, finally.” Wait a moment , I find one between the dunes and I treat myself to a treat for my body, I won't say no. Until the last moment, anything can happen… I'm not a big fan of romantic love, but I'm a practitioner. It's complicated, but I think I can still fall in love.