Add This to the List of Things That You Are

by Chris Fink

  Trollway

  Your mother, bless her heart, told you no secrets survive a honeymoon. She didn’t say anything about an eruption. You joke at first that maybe you’re allergic to marriage. Your new husband smiles and says that’s a good one. But as the days throb along and the rash worsens, you both begin secretly to believe your joke. You’re newlyweds after all. If you have an allergic reaction to your husband on your honeymoon, what hope?

  For the first week everything is appropriately paradisiacal. You’ve a month together in San Sebastián on Spain’s north coast. You’ve an apartment in the Parte Vieja, the old city, overlooking the picturesque harbor, the old shrimping fleet, and the Bay of Biscay. Your apartment is nicely furnished: a tiled kitchen and a big bed with mirrors. No Wi-Fi, but who needs it on a honeymoon. The Parte Vieja is like a small town nestled in a larger seafront city. It’s traffic free, and the cobbled streets are lined with tapas bars, bocadillo shops, and an occasional ancient cathedral. The streets are cool and dark, narrow and labyrinthine. It’s easy to become disoriented, but if you walk far enough in any direction, you emerge into the light and a view of the ocean and your choice in nice sand beaches.

  Your husband, Ricky, is a newly minted U.S. Foreign Serviceman, and you’ve coordinated your honeymoon with his language training. Ricky has to work on this trip, but only for a few hours, a few days a week. He could have had his language training in a number of places, including Madison, Wisconsin, just down the road from your hometown of Mount Horeb. Ricky wanted to stay at home—considering that you would be moving away to your foreign post after language training—but you wanted a clean break. You decided on San Sebastián, in Spain’s Basque country. You speak enough Spanish to get along, but not enough so that you have to engage in conversation. You congratulate yourself on your choice of honeymoon. Here no one knows the dreary circumstances you’ve traded for these happy ones: the dying mother you’ve exchanged for a lively husband, the predictable future you’ve exchanged for a chance to begin again somewhere, anywhere, else. Shortly after she witnessed your marriage at the Sauk County courthouse, your mother had her final emergency, and Ricky kept his promise and swept you away.

  Now here you are enjoying this anonymous freedom: the city, the beach, the kitchen, the mirrors. You spend your alone time lounging in cafés, nibbling on exotic tapas, shopping on the street markets, and buying interesting local foods to prepare for dinner. You wander into gothic cathedrals and watch the pigeons flutter among the grisly old relics and colorful mosaics. When Ricky comes home from language training, early in the afternoons, you go straight to bed. Afterward, you go to the beach and watch the pounding surf and the nudist sunbathers, or else you take short day trips into the sun-dappled countryside by train. It’s springtime. The countryside is green and hilly, not unlike Wisconsin. Each Basque village seems to have its own specialty in cheese or beer.

  Exactly ten days into your month of bliss, you detect some itchy red spots on your shoulder. You wake up scratching them. It was only yesterday that you told yourself to watch out: you’re thirty years old, and you know enough about unadulterated happiness to be wary of it. Here is one area where you and Ricky differ. He’s from California, where sunny days last for months on end. Ricky moved to Wisconsin for graduate school. He hasn’t lived long enough in your home state to have his character permanently altered by the weather. You’re like most Wisconsinites in that sunny days unnerve you. On sunny days, you know there’s always a storm ready to blow in from somewhere, whereas, in poor weather, you have nothing to long for but the sun.

  So, when you find the spots that morning in bed, you’re not exactly surprised. You’re even a little relieved, but anxious too, considering your history of rashes and allergic reactions. Your former job with the county parks required you to be often in the field, and you bore the physical effects, what your mother called your “usual pox and palsy.” But despite the frequency of these outbreaks you never grew accustomed to being constantly itchy and scabbed.

  Until today, you thought you had left all that behind. Now, you can see the familiar spots in the big mirrors that line the closet doors next to the bed. They’re in a straight line on your shoulder, perhaps a dozen raised red bumps. You turn over to see Ricky’s wild head of hair on the pillow beside yours. He’s still sleeping at 10 a.m., his long white torso uncovered. He doesn’t have any bumps on him. None you can see, anyway. Even now, at this innocent stage, a small part of you suspects he is to blame, but you’re able to rationalize this feeling away.

  The rash is likely a reaction to poison ivy, or the Spanish equivalent. Three days ago you went hiking in the Pyrenean foothills around Ordizia. You picked wildflowers in a grassy meadow. You made love against a tree. You must have gotten into something. This rash will be uncomfortable, you realize, but it shouldn’t linger too long.

  You wake your shaggy husband and show him the spots. He inspects them, carefully poking you with his fingers. You watch in the mirror. He stretches the skin so the red spots turn white, shrugs, and says, You’re fine. Probably sand fleas. Or a hungry spider.

  This from the man who lived in a mud hut for a year during his Peace Corps days a decade ago and suffered all manner of indignities, including goiters, of all disgusting-sounding things, from a lack of iodine. You’ve noticed another difference between you two that seems at odds with the first: that is, Ricky doesn’t seem to mind discomfort, or rather, he doesn’t expect always to be comfortable. He must have developed this attitude from traveling so much abroad, and you hope that you can develop it too, a thick skin like Ricky’s. Now, however, you’re distressed about having bumps on your delicate skin. This is your honeymoon, after all. Not only do the spots itch, but they’re unattractive.

  The next day, when you count more spots, you decide to visit the farmacia. The first prescription, a topical anti-itch ointment, succeeds in stopping the itching for several minutes at a time, and you apply it generously. But three days later, after a second pharmacy visit and a second tube of greasy ointment squeezed empty, you find that your rash has spread. You have spots on your shoulder and around your shoulder blade, a new crop of bumps on your hands, as well as a few groupings on your stomach. The bumps seem to be cropping up willy-nilly. Anywhere you have bumps, the skin is raised and red and itches like mad. You can barely keep yourself from tearing into these angry patches with your fingernails. It’s as if each of the red patches has a heartbeat of its own, pulsing under the surface of your skin.

  You make a third trip to the farmacia, and this time you show the pharmacist your afflicted arm. He suggests a visit to the doctor. The doctor can give you a stronger prescription, he says, but this will make you soñoliento. Drowsy, your pocket dictionary says. Not even Ricky knew that one.

  You want to avoid soñoliento. This is a new life you’re starting, and you want to be alive to it. You’re already sleeping more than usual, sometimes ten or eleven hours a night. And then you wake up tired. Ricky, too, is sleeping more. But he says it’s probably normal, gives his litany of reasons honeymooners need more sleep: unrelenting sex, sun, the salt sea, decadence, wine. Did he mention sex?

  So, you hold out two more days with the new maximum-strength medicated cream, staying in the apartment as much as you can and applying the cream every two hours as directed. But the rash worsens, throbbing mercilessly. It’s become unbearable to be in the sun at all. This ruins your daily trip to the beach. Now you have to wear a long-sleeved shirt, especially conspicuous because so many of the Spanish women go topless at the beach. You’re irritable and quarrelsome. You chastise Ricky for gawking at the women and their bare breasts. Ricky explains that he’s a Third World traveler. This is his first trip to Europe, so of course he’s not suave enough to enjoy bare breasts in public while appearing as blasé as a European. Give him time to become more sophisticated.

  Your new husband has an asinine streak, you’ve noticed. You’re in no mood for his brand of humor. It’s time to see the doctor, you say, f
inally. This isn’t a normal reaction to marriage. You extend your blotchy arm as proof.

  Fine, Ricky says. He gathers up the beach towels. Let’s get this taken care of now, before we waste any more of our honeymoon with the mopes.

  You try to lighten the conflict. You say you have the measles, not the mopes. The ointment appears to be merely a gateway drug. You need some stronger dope. But despite your wisecracks, Ricky walks back to the apartment ten steps ahead of you.

  The next day you spend the entire morning learning how a doctor visit works in Spain. Instead of sitting for hours in a waiting room as you would at home, you stand for hours in several long queues. At the end of each long queue, a bureaucrat waits to be apprised of your affliction. At home, you could whisper demurely to the receptionist that you have a rash on your shoulder. The Spanish translation, Tengo una erupción, is difficult to whisper. Tengo una erupción! seems more like a pop song and begs to be shouted. Four hours after arriving at the hospital, you finally see the doctor. Ricky offers to come in with you, but you decline. You’ll not have two experts examining your pock-ridden body.

  Your doctor is a woman, which is good. But she’s a little too pretty, like a doctor you would see on TV. The first question she asks, after her brief examination, is something like ¿Dónde estás durmiendo? which you translate, Where are you sleeping? This a rude question. She sounds like your mother. Does she think you’re a prostitute? Some American floozy living in Spain? You mention that you have an apartment on Calle Teatinos, near the cathedral, and that you rent from Doña Ester, who lives next door. This, you hope, will sound Catholic. The apartment is very clean, you say, and Doña Ester fastidious. You realize as you’re saying this that San Sebastián isn’t that small—the city sprawls well beyond the confines of the village-like Parte Vieja, where you feel self-contained, safe from the degradation of freeways and concrete tenements.

  The doctor asks you another question which you’re not sure you understand. You translate, What are you doing here?

  This doctor seems more a customs agent than a doctor. You answer the question anyway, again trying to show you’re an upright citizen. I’m with my husband, you say in your best Spanish. Mi esposo nuevo. You try to think of a translation for honeymoon: Luna sucre? Luna dulce? Instead of telling the doctor you’re in Spain on a sugar moon, you point to the hallway, where the waiting room should be. In English you say, My new husband, of the U.S. Foreign Service, waits out there.

  The doctor stares at you with a look your mother would describe as knowing. What her look insinuates is that Mr. Foreign Service, waiting there in the hall, is causing your skin to break out. But you’re not ready for this drastic diagnosis, so you change the subject to poison weeds. You’ve been hiking in the woods. You’re allergic to poison weeds. You must have gotten into something. You need some strong medicine for the weed rash.

  The doctora prescribes a strong narcotic-based antihistamine and walks you out of her office. The medicine will clear up the erupción, she says, standing in the doorway, but it will make you very soñoliento. If it doesn’t completely take away the bumps, you may have to . . . to what? You didn’t catch the last part. To go to sleep someplace else? You’re confused, but you find that you’ve been ushered to the door. You have no choice but to thank the pretty doctor and go find Ricky. There he is, sitting on the floor in the hallway like a schoolboy sent out of class.

  What did he say? Ricky says, still sitting down.

  She.

  Oh boy. What did she say?

  Poison ivy, you say. Or something like that. You wave the prescription.

  She said poison ivy?

  Well, not exactly. I told her poison ivy. She gave me the prescription.

  Christ, Ricky says. He gets up off the floor. You should have let me come in.

  Why?

  What did I say? I told you don’t go in there and diagnose yourself. You let the doctor do that. Doctors love it when you diagnose yourself. They don’t argue, they just send the little idiot home with the wrong medicine.

  Little idiot? Look, I’ve had this sort of thing before. Besides, you seemed pretty confident in your diagnosis. Sand fleas? A bitsy spider? Have you seen my body?

  But we’re not doctors! Ricky’s shouting now. We’re in a foreign country!

  To that, what response but silence? People are staring, people who don’t speak your language, people who know you have an erupción.

  Ricky must realize his asinine streak has shown through. He looks around, embarrassed at his public outburst. Like most men, Ricky often loses his temper, but unlike most men, Ricky is naturally humble, and he won’t hold a grudge for long. This is one of the reasons you agreed to marry him. He’s quiet now.

  Ricky heads off to the Foreign Service office and you walk the other way, toward home, finding a farmacia on the way. Walking the six blocks to your apartment, you notice that the streets in the Parte Vieja seem noisier and more crowded than usual. This could be a local holiday or a bus strike. It’s so difficult to keep track of special occasions in a foreign country. You’re already very tired, and the loud voices of the people grate on your nerves. By the time you get home, you’re ready for a nap. But you encounter Doña Ester in the hall. She’s an officious, aproned woman who seems always to be just around the corner with a feather duster. She’s just cleaned your apartment; it’s included in the cost of the vacation rental. You exchange pleasantries. Yes, our apartment is very clean, thank you, but, say, isn’t the Parte Vieja rather noisy today?

  Es Semana Santa, Doña Ester explains, looking startled.

  Oh, yes. Sí, sí. Semana Santa. Holy Week. You had forgotten. How stupid. You had read about Holy Week in your Lonely Planet. In Spain, they celebrate the whole Easter week instead of just the weekend. The people from the provinces flock to the cities to witness the medieval processions. You and Ricky, both recovering Christians, try to ignore religious holidays. But since the religious holiday is in a foreign country, it seems somehow more authentic and worthy of respect. You’re embarrassed to have forgotten Holy Week in the presence of Doña Ester.

  Tengo sueño, you say apologetically, but Doña Ester is still affronted. She lifts her feather duster to squash a spider.

  Hay mucho alboroto durante la Semana Santa! Doña Ester exclaims, shaking the duster. As if her country is too rowdy for frail Americans. She shuffles off to her own apartment next door. You go to take a nap. The noise from the distant streets doesn’t bother you in the least.

  For most of Holy Week you are either sleeping or sleepy. Ricky is often gone from the apartment when you awaken, either at work or out with his coworkers. You wake up to take another pill and go back to sleep. The red spots have faded to pink, but they’re still tender. Lying in bed, you count the spots. This counting makes you sleepier still. On your left hand alone you count fifty pinkish spots. On your groin, some eighty. There are hundreds on your left arm and shoulder. For some reason, your right side is all clear. The affected areas aren’t nearly as angry as they were. The medicine must be working. Another day passes. Three days?

  Ricky doesn’t want you to be alone, so he invites a trio of his fellow Foreign Service initiates over for a potluck. Don’t worry, he says, he’s told them about your illness, and they’ve promised to treat you gently. His friends are all American, vegetarians by the looks of their potluck contributions, but they have designer Spanish names, as if this were Spanish 101 and you had to choose your name from a book. Too, they’re all given to gab. You’re soft-spoken, and all your life you’ve attracted people who talk too much. You’ve never been more thankful for this trait than now. You’re so sleepy. You make one comment, about the doctor visit and the doctora’s strange question, Where are you sleeping? and the dinner conversation sustains itself. Wary of your delicate condition, your exotic dinner guests are very polite, sticking to their conversation cue but still managing to wedge in their own life stories. You doze and listen, itchy and sleepy, delirious from the narcotics and th
e burning pulse all across the surface of your skin.

  Adrianna says she’s sleeping alone in a double bed. She calls herself a recovering anarchist, her new job with the government akin to an ex-rummy running a liquor store. The anarchy was her ex-husband Kristof’s idea, she says. Now, with Kristof and all that anarchy behind her, Adrianna could really use a single bed. A double bed with one person suggests incompleteness. Adrianna is complete in herself. At least she’s trying to be. She doesn’t need a double bed gaping at her every night and every morning to suggest she’s incomplete sleeping without Kristof.

  Gregorio, the lovelorn linguist, agrees. He, too, has been sleeping alone in a big bed. But he would just as soon keep it. He has half a bed saved for his Malaysian sweetheart, Simone, whom he met in graduate school in Athens, Georgia. She has another year of graduate school, and then, when she graduates, Simone owes her country two years of service. He wants Simone with him here, of course, not in godforsaken Malaysia, where the language—of some three hundred characters—could reduce even the most gifted linguist to gibbering. Would you believe, Gregorio says, two lovers stuck in separate countries, one in the Domestic Service, and one in the Foreign?

  Gabriella, the eldest of the group, has been sleeping just fine in a single bed, thank you very much. She has sworn off men in favor of culture. Whenever she has a hankering for a man, she treats herself to a good meal or a gallery visit. Gabriella says she doesn’t consider herself American. She’s a dual citizen of France and California. Califonia, she says. She’s come to Spain to escape those bourgeois Califonians and their lack of culture. She doesn’t find the Spanish very cultured either, mind. They make her feel superior, which was how she felt in Califonia among the bourgeois millions. In France she always feels inferior. The French have so much culture and good taste, and the Califonians have so much money. It’s easier to be in Spain.