The memoirs of a Barcelona taxi driver

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ast week we remembered Xavier Gonzàlez's blog, with his nocturnal chronicles about the experience of driving a taxi in today's Barcelona. But taxi drivers and their anecdotes also allow us to go further back and travel in time without having to get out of the taxi.

In the United States, for example, the very recent 50th-anniversary special issue of New York Magazine was accompanied by splendid images by Joseph Rodríguez, a documentary photographer who worked as a taxi driver between 1977 and 1985, always with his camera on him. The result is spontaneous portraits of unusual quality, immortalizing the daily life of Harlem or the Bronx, with images of street musicians or the hustle and bustle of sadomasochistic clubs in a decaying Meatpacking. There are also photographs of the extreme social inequalities of the time, and some portraits of the clientele, such as the couple who have been married for 45 years: the wife complains that her husband snores, and he replies that she spends the night farting.

A few months before the dictator's death, in Catalonia, Memòries d'un taxista barceloní (Memoirs of a Barcelona Taxi Driver) was published, an anecdote collection by Albert Figuerola – written at the age of 70, when he was already an "honorary taxi driver" – which gathers decades of experiences in taxi driving and of the famous people he drove, such as Charles Aznavour, Mary Santpere, or Ernest Lluch.

Figuerola was born in Ampurdán and, after dabbling in various odd jobs around Barcelona, a winning lottery ticket allowed him to buy his first taxi, a Citroën Torpedo. It was 1924, a time of big cars and good times – at least taxi-wise – with a clientele made up of gentlemen with cigars and ties and many dead times at the stops, chatting. With the war, those splendid vintage cars were collectivized and the yellow of the doors, which had already become widespread, was dyed the red of the CNT. Figuerola lost his taxi and did not get back into one until 1956, first driving a friend's Citroën Rosalia, and later buying a SEAT 1400, with which he obtained the license with which he would eventually retire.

His philosophy is interesting: Figuerola argues that a taxi is a second home, a kind of temporary shelter that the taxi driver offers to the client, which is why many try to make it welcoming (now there are even those who offer Wi-Fi). If the passenger feels good in it, he says, the taxi transforms into a confessional, a space of intimacy where the client unburdens themselves and becomes completely honest, establishing an unusual trust with someone you've met minutes before (and who won't make you pray three Our Fathers afterward).

Taxis have also always been spaces for courtship, Figuerola recalled, from the moment the first flag was lowered until today. The Memòries d'un taxista barceloní (Memoirs of a Barcelona Taxi Driver) recount comings and goings in various meublés – which even then paid commissions to the drivers – and also couples who, with the excuse of being together and having a discreet space, would tell him "towards Molins de Rei and we'll see," and the driver had to limit himself to driving them around for as long as they wished. On such occasions, "the taxi driver has to be deaf, blind, and mute," the author adds.

Regarding foreigners, Figuerola's advice is more relevant than ever: the taxi driver has to act as a cicerone for tourists, because he acts as an ambassador on wheels for the city. Even today, for many tourists, the taxi driver is the local with whom they will interact the longest, and from small conversations like these, the experience that the visitor takes away as a memory will largely depend.