Roman Bridge of Salamanca

The Roman Bridge of Salamanca is the setting for a pivotal nighttime encounter between Frank and Vera: a place where they revisit their family life with Sonia and where Frank unexpectedly recognizes Ana and José on the riverbank. Its ancient span connects personal memory with the novel’s uncanny recurrence of people and images across distant places.

Setting and Earlier Visit

Vera had walked alone beside the Tormes on the afternoon she arrived in Salamanca. From the old Roman bridge she watched birds, swans, and geese, and heard a nightingale sing at sunset with the city behind her, glowing like a reddish jewel. The scene had moved her deeply, and she later insisted that Frank come see the river for himself.

The bridge is described as having stood for two thousand years. Its long endurance contrasts with the brief human lives recalled upon it: the walk first becomes a space for speaking of Sonia, who died at four and a half, and of the parents who must carry the memory of her childhood into their own advancing years.

Frank and Vera Remember Sonia

After the official closing dinner, Frank and Vera leave the celebration and walk toward the river. At first their conversation is slow, then turns to their separate lives. Frank asks about Vera’s research and recalls his years in Oceania, including the comic episode of being afraid to shoo a gecko from a gin bottle in case it knocked the bottle over. Vera is proud of the scholarship she has received for her research into prehistoric migrations, and Frank regards her as perhaps Spain’s leading specialist in that field.

On the bridge, their memories return to family life in Oslo. Vera recalls walks to Lake Sogn and the Ullevål cabin, Sonia’s first trip to Huk beach with swimming armbands, and the nearly hour-long attempt the child needed to cross the great maze in Vigeland Park. When Sonia emerged, she asked for a reward, and her parents bought her a large ice cream at Herrgårdskroen. Another remembered story concerns Sonia returning home with a hundred-kroner note she said she had found in a nursery-school teacher’s pocket.

These small recollections sharpen the loss rather than resolving it. Frank reflects that Vera remains Sonia’s mother and he remains her father: although Sonia’s life ended in childhood, each parent will live on with the four-and-a-half-year-old child in memory. He considers asking whether they might begin again, but hesitates because he does not want them to retrace the painful path that led to their separation. He also wonders whether what happens in the present can give new meaning to what has already happened, including Sonia’s death.

The Riverbank Encounter

Frank asks Vera whether she has a new friend, but she has no time to answer. Below them, two figures move along the riverbank, embracing so closely that they appear almost fused into one. For several minutes they pass in front of the powerful lights illuminating the bridge, casting enormous shadows over Frank and Vera. He makes out a woman in red and a man in black and is convinced that they are Ana and José.

The sight abruptly transports Frank’s attention from the remembered family life in Oslo to the palm grove at Maravu, where he had seen the pair before. He places a hand on Vera’s shoulder and, greatly agitated, whispers that the figures are Ana and José. The bridge thus becomes the threshold between a fragile possibility of renewed closeness with Vera and the uncanny reappearance of the couple whose story has followed Frank across continents.