“I’m trying to find a new place to live,” I told her. “When I find something we’ll move together.” This idea calmed Brigita down. I promised I wouldn’t leave without her and said that I was sure it wouldn’t take me long to find us a new place. Of course I wasn’t sure of that at all. I’d been stressed enough about finding a room for myself; now I had to find two rooms.
I lay in bed that night wondering how on earth I was going to do it. I needed an apartment that was warm and clean and safe, and cheap enough so that I didn’t have to worry about impending doom every time I made an ATM withdrawal. I decided that I’d ask absolutely everyone I met if they knew of anyone who had rooms for rent. Someone had to know of something.
I started out by asking Mariela when I saw her in the café the next morning. To my surprise she leaned across the counter and told me that she rented out rooms in her own apartment. She said she currently had a double room available with a view of the street, and another room with two single beds. I couldn’t believe it. That was exactly what I was looking for. I arranged to go and see it that day after class.
Mariela lived in a neighborhood called El Rastro. It was in the old part of the city, and the streets were lined with antiques stores and junk shops. Every Sunday there was a big flea market. It was the perfect place to go if you wanted to buy an old bullfighter’s costume, a rusty typewriter, a lace mantilla, or elaborate hair combs to wear to the feria.
Mariela’s apartment was above a Moroccan furniture store that had a selection of brightly colored tea tables and carved wooden stools set up on the pavement. I followed Mariela up the stairs to the second floor, and she opened the door to a dimly lit apartment. There was a narrow living area with a couch, a television, and a dining table. The kitchen was tiny with a small gas oven, and there was a little patio where they hung up their washing.
On the far side of the apartment was the double room. When Mariela opened the door, I immediately fell in love with it. It was large with a big bed pushed up against glass sliding doors that opened out onto a tiny balcony. From the window I could see down onto the street where all the shopkeepers had set up their wares to tempt passersby. Arranged on the pavement were oil paintings in gilt frames, old light fittings, and brass-capped walking sticks. The shopkeepers sat outside in the sun with their cafés con leche and cigarettes, calling out to each other across the street.
I came back later with Brigita, and she loved the place just as much as I did. The second bedroom with the two beds was ideal for her because her sister would be arriving soon from Brazil and there was plenty of room for both of them, and the price was perfect.
So Mariela had two rooms rented out, and Brigita and I had found a new place to live for a perfect price, in an apartment full of light and fun and beans and rice. It was a four-bedroom apartment, but with me and Brigita and her sister, there would be a total of eight women living there. Mariela lived in one room with her mother and two daughters, and then there was another Venezuelan woman called Andrea who lived in the room next to mine.
“Cómo te llamas?” Andrea passed me in the hall the day I moved in and asked me my name for the second time.
“Nellie,” I said.
She repeated it, struggling with the pronunciation. “Ne…ll…i…e… Ah! Nellie, como la laca?”
It took me a moment to translate laca to “hairspray” in my head. But then I remembered seeing bottles of hairspray in the bathroom with the name “Nelly” in pink letters.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m Nellie, like the hairspray.”
THE FIESTA
Or
Let tomorrow look after tomorrow
I got much more than I’d expected when I moved in with the Latinas. I’d been looking for a new place to live, but what I got was a whole new family, a great big Latino family, and they welcomed me into their lives like I was one of their own.
Mariela’s two daughters were called Andy and Mandy. Andy was fourteen and Mandy was ten, and they were both absolutely adorable. I was normally the first one home in the afternoon, and Mandy would always insist I mix her a glass of chocolate milk when she came home from school; then she would sit on my bed with her homework and try to convince me to do it for her.
Every morning Mariela’s mother, Consuela, would cook up beans and rice, which filled the apartment with a wonderful, homey cooking smell, not like the strange smell of the seafood stew that Miguel used to make. She insisted I help myself to whatever was on the stove, and more than once I got in trouble for making myself a sandwich when there was rice there for me.
Consuela made the most wonderful rice that always came out perfectly. I hung out in the kitchen one day to learn her secret. She showed me how to heat the oil in a big pot, add the rice, and stir it until every grain was coated in oil. Then she added water and crumbled a stock cube into the pot. When the water was absorbed, she told me to empty out the plastic shopping bag she’d just brought back from the supermarket and hold it out for her. She scooped all the rice out of the pot and into the plastic bag, then tied it up tightly and left it to sweat. That, she told me, was the secret to the perfect rice.
After seeing what her secret was, I regretted having asked for it. I’d been happier eating her wonderful rice before I knew that it had sweated in a plastic bag from Aldi. I tried to block the thought from my mind when it came time for lunch, but after seeing her technique, I was convinced I could taste plastic and other chemicals that I’d never detected before.
On Tuesday afternoons we all got together to clean the apartment, and I became the joke of the house when I admitted that I didn’t know how to use a mop. “We don’t have them in my country!” was my pathetic excuse, but no one believed me. I also had to learn how to whisk eggs without a whisk and peel carrots without a veggie peeler. The first time I tried, Mariela snatched the poor massacred carrot out of my hands and showed it to the whole house. The Latinas crowded around laughing hysterically at the hacked sliver of carrot. At least I keep them entertained, I thought, trying not to take it personally.
We were all poor, but it didn’t feel that way. No one behaved like we were poor or complained about money. No one went without anything, either, and the Venezuelans never spent their time talking about beautiful things they couldn’t afford. There was no talk of mink-trimmed gloves or Birkin bags.
When I first moved in, I had to buy linen for my bed. I’d never bought sheets or towels before, but I remembered seeing them on Level Six, Manchester. So I went to the big department store in the center of Madrid. I fell in love with the bed on display, which was made up with the most exquisite white linen. But when I added up the price of the sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers, it came to over seven hundred euro. Seven hundred euro…that was more than a thousand dollars! That was how much it would cost me to make up my bed? How was that possible?
I left the department store and stood at the traffic lights waiting to cross the road, feeling the weight of the world pressing down on me. This was why everyone had been telling me to get an education and a good job. This was why my teachers had shaken their heads when I said I didn’t care about money. They knew that pillowcases cost seventy dollars.
By then I was feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by everything. I’d dealt with a lot since arriving in Spain, but if I couldn’t afford to buy myself a towel, then maybe it was time for me to give up and go home. I bowed my head and started to cry, right there on the street. Part of me knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. I just felt like I wasn’t going to get anything right, ever. And now I was going to have to sleep on a bare mattress because I was too broke to buy sheets.
I walked back to the apartment in a whirl of despair. Mariela was in the kitchen, frying banana, and when she saw my face, she asked me what had happened. I told her my sad story, and she stared at me for a moment before she burst out laughing.
That afternoon Mariela and her two girls a
nd Brigita and her sister took me to a store up the road and helped me pick out sheets, blankets, rugs, towels, puffy embroidered cushion covers, curtains, even a cute tissue box cover, all for a hundred euro. The quality wasn’t as luxurious as the department store brands, but it was all a beautiful cream color. And we transformed my room into a charming boudoir.
How is it possible, I wondered to myself, that after years in retail I still don’t know how to shop?
• • •
Every Wednesday we all got together for a big family lunch. Mariela’s boyfriend would come over, and the Venezuelans made calimochos, red wine with Coca-Cola. And by red wine I mean the kind that comes in a box. “That’s an Australian invention!” I declared proudly as Mariela took a box out of a shopping bag.
I’d heard that boxed wine was an Australian invention, though I wasn’t entirely sure. In the past I’ve also tried to claim Tupperware and the Bee Gees as Australian and been proven wrong. Boxed wine was the only thing I had left to boast about to Spaniards, who in return could claim things like surrealism, cubism, bolero jackets, submarines, and the polka dot.
I come from a family of wine drinkers. My parents have a glass with almost every meal, and my father is what I would call a wine snob. He’s endeavored to teach me about wine ever since I can remember. Before I was allowed to drink, Dad would get me to smell the wine in his glass and identify the different odors. I would put on a little performance at dinner parties and make up things like “the smell of turned earth, of burnt vanilla, a hint of pomegranate, and a swirl of broken dreams.”
I thought about that as I helped Mariela mix the calimochos. If Dad could see what I was doing, he would be horrified. No daughter of his would drink boxed wine, and mixing it with Coca-Cola would be considered a mortal sin.
It occurred to me that this was the ultimate rebellion against my upbringing. As a child I’d found it so difficult to rebel against my parents. They were the ones who behaved like irresponsible teenagers, and I was always the one who felt like I had to keep everything together. I mediated disputes and turned out lights in empty rooms and tried to advise my parents on how to save money at the supermarket. I even forced my father to sit down and do a blind taste test of the pretentious imported tinned tomatoes he bought from a shop in Haberfield, which had them flown in once a month from Lucca, and the No Frills brand. But he ignored my attempts at economy and told me to relax and act like a teenager, to go out and get piercings and listen to some loud music for a change.
I always felt that my parents were disappointed with my attempts at being a rebellious teenager. It was as if I didn’t try hard enough. But now I’d finally found a way to rebel. I sent a text message to my father telling him what I was drinking. I’d barely hit Send when the response came back: YOU’RE DRINKING WHAT???!!! If only I’d thought of this at thirteen, my teenage years could have been so much easier.
• • •
Though I was happy in my new home, I still had my moments of gloominess when I would shut myself up in my room and stare out at the street, wishing that I was back in Seville. I missed the orange blossoms and the strum of a guitar from an open window. I missed dancing alone in the studio in the dusky evening light, and I missed Enrique. Though we had only had one kiss, it was still the most romantic story of my life. But I knew that it was just a fantasy. I felt like my whole time in Seville had been a dream. I’d been on a wonderful flamenco holiday and hadn’t had to deal with real life. Even knowing this, I still couldn’t help missing the toma que toma. Andy and Mandy played Venezuelan music at full volume in the lounge room, but I wanted to hear a live flamenco guitar.
“Nellie!” Mandy pushed open my door one afternoon while I sat there morosely. “Estás aquí!” she squealed, excited to find me home. She grabbed my arm and pulled me up off the bed, dragging me out into the living room where Mariela and Andy were pushing back the couch and rolling up the carpet to make a dance floor.
“Sabes bailar merengue?” Mandy asked. I shook my head no, I didn’t know how to dance merengue, but Andy showed me the basic steps. There were just two steps, one and two, one and two, kinda like walking to work. But if that sounds easy it was deceptively so, as I found when I tried it and sent everyone into hoots of laughter.
“No, no, no, Nellie!” Little Mandy showed me how to do the steps low to the floor with a swing in her hips. How did a ten-year-old learn to dance like that? I tried again, but everyone only laughed harder.
“Ay, mamí!” Mariela wailed, clutching the sofa for support as she laughed. I had to stop dancing for a few minutes because Consuela was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. Then Mariela took my hand and spun me around, telling me to follow her lead. They taught me merengue and salsa, and we danced until my head was so full of Latin beats that I forgot all about my depression. Because it’s hard to be sad when you’re dancing salsa in your socks on the living room floor.
Although I knew that my new Latin family loved to party, I was still surprised when Mariela came to my room one day and asked me if, instead of paying the rent for the next month, I could spend the money on alcohol for Andy’s fifteenth birthday party. Money was tight that month, because Brigita and her sister had gone back to Brazil, and the family hadn’t rented out their room yet.
The preparation for the party went on for weeks, and it was all anyone could talk about. It was going to be held at Andy’s aunt’s bar, which was just up the road from the café where Mariela worked. The family spent everything they had on food and drink and decorations. They wanted it to be a night Andy would remember for the rest of her life.
On the afternoon of the party, I struggled home carrying my own body weight in alcohol, bags full of bottles of rum, whiskey, and gin. The spirits were for the adults, not the children. But Andy already drank calimochos at the weekly family lunches. The bags were so heavy that every few steps I had to set them down and give myself a moment to rest and regain my strength.
When I opened the door, I found the living room full of women. Mariela, Consuela, and the girls were there, plus aunts and cousins I hadn’t met. Everyone was rushing around getting ready for the party. Mariela used the occasion to practice setting waves in her mother’s hair. Andrea already had her long black hair in giant rollers, and another cousin was giving Andy a pedicure while she waited for her mother to blow-dry her hair straight. When they saw me, they all shouted at me to go and get ready because we had to be out the door in less than two hours.
Two hours? Getting ready never took me very long. I didn’t have a big enough wardrobe to be able to agonize over what I was going to wear. As I waited for the girls to get ready, I lay down on top of my bed. I’d been working hard all week, and almost as soon as I closed my eyes, I drifted off to sleep.
It was almost midnight when Mariela finally knocked on my door and told me they were ready to go. Everyone had their hair done, either dead straight, bouffant, or in tight ringlets. Their eyes were perfectly outlined with eyeliner and glittered with fake eyelashes. I rubbed the sleep out of mine and quickly touched up my mascara.
We walked together to the bar where the party had already been going on for hours. Salsa music was booming and all the kids were dancing under streamers and a giant Venezuelan flag. One of Mariela’s cousins asked me to dance. He was tall and handsome and an excellent dancer.
I found it amazing that I had managed to surround myself with people who lived to dance. Mariela’s family had spent every last cent they had on one night of partying, and it was worth it to them. When I asked her how they could afford it, Mariela had just said, “Tomorrow will look after tomorrow.”
I’d seen people who had everything: money, time, privilege, a Birkin bag, and a Kelly. But I’d never before been around people who lived with such joy. And their secret was that they lived each day as it came and each night for as long as they could make it last.
I wished that I could be like them, but one part of my
brain was always reminding me of how little was left in my bank account and how early I’d have to be up on Monday morning. One thing that dancing does, though, is bring you into the present moment. I couldn’t drift off while I was dancing salsa, because every time I lost concentration I’d miss the beat and step on my poor partner’s feet.
I glanced up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was five a.m. “It’s already morning!” I said to my partner.
“No,” he said, swinging me around so my back was to the clock.
“Sí!” I argued back. “I have to get some sleep. I need to be up in the morning!”
He shook his head and smiled. “Tomorrow will look after tomorrow.”
THE HAPPY ENDING
Or
Cheer up, Mary
Before long the inevitable happened. One day in March I went to the bank to take out money to pay for my next week’s dance classes and saw the message flash: Transaction Denied.
I’m pretty good at calculating how far I can get on a tank of gas, and I’d thought I had enough for one more week of classes. I tried taking out a hundred euro, then eighty, then fifty, but each time the message came up: Transaction Denied = No more toma que toma. The money I was making teaching English was enough to cover my rent, metro tickets, and food. But now that my Australian savings had been exhausted, how was I going to pay for dance classes?
It was a sad trudge back down the road. I could work more and take on more students, but then I wouldn’t have time to dance. The thought of walking away from the Amor de Dios after all I’d done to get there was unbearable, but I could see no alternative. I told myself that it was only temporary, but temporary until when?
Only in Spain Page 15