As I blow more
snot and wipe the hot wet surface of my cheeks I hear Maybelle in the kitchen. She comes from Singapore, she is small, well tanned and somewhere in her mid
sixties. She’s lived here four
weeks and speaks terrible Spanish.
“Otcho saymanas,” she says in a
high pitched Asian accent.
And now the only
thing that bursts from my mouth out this wooden window is laughter. I can’t help it.
“Si, ocho
semanas,” repeats Encarni, the wild haired Spanish woman with a curvy spine and
an opinion on everything. God love her, for speaking so patiently
with May, correcting her bad grammar and her horrendous pronunciation.
And God love May, for up and moving
to Spain from her only ever home of Singapore, with the sole intention of
leaning Spanish.
“If you want to
learn it, you really just have to be surrounded by it,” she told me one day, as
if my question itself of
Why she had traversed Asia and Europe to learn a Latin language was more
outlandish than the reason she’d done so.
We are a crazy mix inhabiting this
convent-turned-residential house, restored from the 18th century original building. There’s American me,
Sarah the kiwi, a British girl whose accent impedes any chance of her seeming
humble, the Canadian Swede called Ky whom I’ve seen thrice and heard speak once
and a half; there’s Adrianna and Andrea the young Spanish girls who do
everything together and therefore are impossible to distinguish and there's Antony, the
English as England white haired English teacher who for some reason insists
on speaking to me in Spanish as he pulls pickles and onions from a jar in the
kitchen, his store bought sandwich steaming in the microwave.
Mercedes
And then there is
Mercedes. Somehow my favorite, yet least liked. She is the house mom, per se, she washes the sheets when
residents leave and prepares contracts with newcomers. She’s no more than 5 feet tall, has
heavy dark hair to her bum and scolds anyone and everyone for leaving things
out of place. Her face is old and
her brown eyes are big. Obviously was beautiful
once, but now a sour mood and an aura of exhaustion kill any beauty she may
have had. Mercedes opens a liter
of cheap beer at lunch and finishes it by dinner. I often mimic her deep low voice and matter-of-fact way of
speaking to make Sarah laugh. But
the truth is that Mercedes infuriates me.
I look at her and all I see is a flame burnt out, a blackened flower, an
inside turned to stone. What has
happened to her? What things has she seen? She came from Ecuador nearly 20
years ago and shows no fondness for her old homeland nor for the new. No food, films, music, or conversation
seem to ignite a flicker of emotion.
The only time I saw her half smile was when Sarah and I told her we were
lesbians and therefore should get the couple discount given to new
renters.
Roof Top Procession
Mercedes is the
first person I think of when I climb off the terrace and onto the shaky shingled roof. My mind’s eye sees her standing at the
window, glaring at me with her cat eyes and asking, in monotone, what the hell I
think I am doing on the roof at sunset. Luckily she wasn’t home on Sunday.
On Sundays she visits her sister and on Sunday I spent all afternoon on
the roof.
I climbed from terrace to roof to watch an unexpected religious procession. I heard its music first, then smelled the incense that always accompanies. Heavy drums. Musty air. I dash to the roof to see from where it comes, to find out where it's headed. Young uniformed men move up the street, carrying a bleeding
Jesus on a cross. A marching band proceeds it and neighbors gather behind.
The church next
door is called Aurora and from my rooftop view I can see as the wooden doors
under the stone arch open and the marching band slowly enters the church’s
courtyard while well dressed Spanish families gather, mobiles clicking pictures
of the Jesus figure and the young men hoisting his throne, young children tug on their parents’ pants and others ring small bells in their small hands.
The distant snow
capped Sierra, glossed in pink sunlight, watches us all. The Alhambra is tinted golden, and small
green and red flags wave on its fortress's top. Evening swallows swoop black against the sky, which changes
now from blue to gold to orange.
Children in the crowd look up
to find a girl, roof perched in house clothes, watching them from up high. The band’s drummers’ sticks
drones out behind the sound of the bells, which pierce and clang
in the tall white tower. In the tall white tower they turn, around and
around. Until they stop.
Again the world is
quiet. The birdless sky falls into one shade of blue. Boys remove their sailor style caps, cameras return to their
cases, the Jesus throne has been moved inside the building. Uniformed bearers
are now de-robed and congregate with their proud parents and restless younger
siblings. Sunday sets and the
weekend closes. And I’ve won one
more day on the rooftop, safe from Mercedes scolding, and once again reconnected
with a moment.
