The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is one of the Madrid museums Frank visits during a period of recovery and deliberate delay. Its brief appearance alongside the Thyssen shows him returning to cultural and professional routines even as he postpones the encounter he has come to Spain hoping to make.

Setting and Visit

After arriving at Chamartín, Frank takes a train to Atocha and walks to the Palace Hotel, where he rents a room for an indefinite stay. He feels unable to return to Norway until he has recovered, and finds it difficult to leave Spain while Vera is in Barcelona. Madrid becomes a place to wait as much as a place to work.

Frank does not visit the Prado until nearly two weeks have passed. He considers the attention given to his casual remark about visiting the museum excessive and dislikes being ordered to go. Yet during those same two weeks he visits both the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Thyssen, museums he says he had not visited for several years. The Reina Sofía is thus part of a return to Madrid’s museums that occurs alongside, rather than immediately after, his resistance to others’ expectations.

Work and Waiting in Madrid

The museum visit belongs to a stay still organized around work. Frank brings material for his Salamanca presentation and continues, from his room at the Palace Hotel, a report on which he has been focused for several months. He also visits colleagues at the Complutense University, spends several mornings at the National Library, and goes for the first time to the Casa de Campo zoo. The Reina Sofía is one stop within this mixture of research, professional contact, and renewed activity.

His time in Madrid is also shaped by his unresolved search for Ana and José. Frank goes to two different flamenco venues, not because he expects to encounter Ana there, but in the hope of seeing her name on a poster or leaflet. He does not want to investigate too aggressively and prefers to let time pass. The museum’s place in his itinerary therefore contrasts with his suspended personal purpose: it offers something he can choose to do while the hoped-for reunion remains uncertain.