Ebro is indeed in the crook of the intersection of two rail lines in central eastern Spain. In a few bold strokes Ernest Hemingway's short, short story "Hills Like White Elephants" describes the locus of the train station at Ebro and is geographically true. Moreover, his description of the terrain and weather has the crispness of a journalistic report, and his attention to detail does not overlook the exact time his characters must wait for the train bound for Madrid--forty minutes. In fact, the entire story takes place between two lovers, a man and a girl, during a forty minute wait in a train station at Ebro under a hot sun. While the lovers wait, they drink beer and anis, and make sneering, snide, and sarcastic comments to each other. They are in the grips of a pressing decision that affects both of them, i.e. whether to go through with an abortion or carry the pregnancy to term. The dialogue is spare, pared down to the bone, so to speak, and focused on the matter between them, about which they lie to themselves and each other. The atmosphere is oppressive, infernally hot, and already loveless. The only lightness that enters the picture, like a breeze, is the simile the girl makes: she compares the hills to white elephants. That is the only gratuitous moment in the entire story, which like the life of the fetus, is allowed to live for only a beat.