The Pillars of Hercules

He was dark and small and stout and lined, a kindly sloping presence, and he had the softest hands, and the limp handshake of an old woman. His Ladino accent and his solemn face made him seem at times not Jewish but Spanish, but his confidence and fits of sudden jollity transformed him into a Dickensian barrister. He was seventy-eight.

Realizing I did not have much time, I bluntly asked him about the status of Gibraltar.

“The person who says ‘I want Gibraltar to be Spanish’ does not exist in Gibraltar,” he said. “If Gibraltar is not my country, where is my country? Ha! We consider ourselves Gibraltarians irrespective of where we came from. We get along very well together.”

“So you are totally committed to Gibraltar,” I said.

Sir Joshua said, “Jews have a second loyalty—to Israel. But that is an emotional loyalty. My daughter lives there.”

His own people, he said, the Hassan family, had emigrated to the Rock in 1788, from Morocco—from a town just across the water, Tetouan. On his mother’s side, the Cansino family came from Minorca. “We’re all settlers here,” he said, “dating from roughly 1704.”

I said, “It amazes me how everyone quotes the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht when they talk about Gibraltar.”

“Because of the clause about Jews and Moors being forbidden to stay in Gibraltar more than a month. But they needed us. They had to look to Morocco for vittles. Because of realities they drove a coach and horses through the treaty.”

He shuffled some documents.

“I wrote a paper about it. My thesis was that Gibraltar developed despite the treaty.”

“Do you think the Chief Minister made any headway the other day at the U.N.?”

“Joe Bossano doesn’t know what he wants,” he said, and leaned towards me. “When people go berserk they ask for something they don’t understand. The idea of a colony smells bad.”

“So what’s the best solution?”

“It is very difficult! There are three choices for Gibraltar. Independence is one. Or, to be part of a state—but Spain is out of the question. Or free association, like the Cook Islands and New Zealand.”

“The Cook Islanders go fishing and New Zealand pays the bills. Something like that?”

This made Sir Joshua wince. He said, “The best solution would be the utmost autonomy in internal matters, and a treaty with Britain that would remove the wide powers of the governor.”

“What would Spain say to that?”

“Spain would never agree that Gibraltar should have its own government,” he said. “But I don’t want to be colonized by Spain. I was colonized already by Britain!”

“Weren’t you worried when Franco was in power?”

“Yes, because he had a tyrannical government. But just the other day the Spanish foreign minister made a speech demanding sovereignty over us and calling us ‘the last colony in Europe.’ The Spanish say, ‘It is a matter of honor!’ But we have honor too.”

“Isn’t Gibraltar a colony?”

“We call ourselves a dependent territory.”

“I have the impression that business is rather poor, with most of the British troops pulled out.”

“Business isn’t good. We get tourists, and some day-trippers from Spain”—the tormentors of the Rock apes, the souvenir hunters that arrived in buses from Torremolinos and Marbella. “We used to have day-trippers from Morocco, but because of French paranoia against North Africans the Moroccans now need visas to enter EC countries. It’s ridiculous and very bad for business.”

“Gibraltar’s in the EC?” This was news to me.

“Yes. We are a full member politically. But we are excluded from VAT and other taxes.”

I asked him, “Are you aware of being a sort of folk hero and father figure of Gibraltar?”

He smiled at this, as though agreeing with what I said but forbidden by modesty to say so.

“I am speaking to you candidly now,” he said. “I go to Spain every now and then. My wife shops for vegetables there. On one trip I said to a guard, ‘Why are the Spanish police and guards here so courteous to me, when they know that I want to keep Gibraltar independent from Spain?’ ”

The order in Sir Joshua’s office and the way he was dressed, with that excessive neatness that is common to morticians and lawyers, told me that he was fastidious. Perhaps this was why he pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, as though an unpleasant thought was passing through his mind.

“The guard said to me, ‘Because you put sus cojónes sur la mesa—’ ”

“Your balls on the table,” I said.

“Yes. He continued, ‘And you haven’t offended anyone.’ ”

“That’s a pretty neat trick.”

“Oh, yes. I was flattered.”

It was time for me to go. I thanked him for seeing me and speaking frankly, and I told him sincerely that I had enjoyed myself in Gibraltar. Though I did not tell him this, fearing he would misunderstand, I liked it best because it was unexpected; the rain, the gusting wind, the dignified apes. It was not at all the Mediterranean port I had expected but more like an English seaside resort in autumn, full of plucky retirees and gasconading soldiers.