Night Must Fall

The Spaniard's greatest contribution to modern society has been his dogged refusal to conform to it--especially to its drab, workaday timetable. No self-respecting Madrileno would think of lunching before 2 p.m., or returning to the office before 4. Matinees in Madrid begin at 7 p.m.. evening performances at 11. The cocktail hour starts at 8:30, and until he sits down to his supper at some undeterminable time after 10 p.m., the Spaniard believes it is still afternoon.

All that is about to change--or is it?

A government decree, perpetrated on the shabby pretext that production and efficiency must be improved, laid down new early hours for nearly every phase of Spanish life. Beginning June 1, shops must close at 7 p.m., groceries by 8. Theaters and cinemas will let out at 11:30 p.m.--just when most patrons in late-running Spain are puffing down the aisle to their seats. And, as if no indignity is too much for the burdened Spaniard to bear, the government has ordered restaurants and cafes to pull down their iron shutters at the afternoonish hour of midnight. Wondered an incredulous professor as he sipped conac at Madrid's longhaired Cafe Gijon (which normally closes at 3:30 a.m.): "If they close the cafes, where are we going to go? It's too hot in the summer to go to sleep so early."

But, like many other of Franco Spain's unpopular laws--such as forcing traffic actually to stop at a red light--the new curfew seems doomed to be broken. Valentin, owner of one of Madrid's leading restaurants, will be one of the first to break it. "I'll pay all the fines I have to," he says, "but I won't close at midnight. I owe it to my public. If the fines are too big, I'll ask the United States for a foreign aid loan."

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