Novel of Life: Madrid, Spain

He nearly fell backwards, startled by the piercing sounds and boisterous voices. The building reminded him of an overstuffed aviary of screaming, menacing birds. Instead of going to class, he panicked and ran into the bathroom. As the clock struck eight, a monastery silence reigned over the building.

Staring so deep and hard at his reflection drew an excessive amount of strength and soon Lethe was overcome with fatigue and needed to sit down. He pressed the stall door, which opened like a confession booth.

"What's wrong with me?" He asked.

As he waited for an answer, he stared up at the birds walking along the parapet.

"I'm living in a city without a single person who speaks my language."

But it wasn't true what he was saying. There were plenty of people in Madrid who spoke English. His roommate spoke English. The students in his classes spoke English. Even his Senora spoke English.

The walk from the Senora’s apartment to the International Institute took approximately thirty-five minutes. It was not uncommon for this walk to produce great strain on Lethe's delicate emotions. A tide of anxiety swelled up inside him and threatened to drown his face in sweat. Would he lose his way looking for the International Institute again? Obstacles grew out of the empty air, like the large flank of a church which pushed him off the shrinking sidewalk. Or the giant cavity in the road which opened its mouth right under him.

Construction workers, gruff and greasy, appeared all around, suffocating him with their dirty looks and manly shoulders. Cigarettes burned in between their teeth as they shouted orders back and forth. Then came the jackhammers with the crescendo of shrill intensity.

Amid the urban battleground, Lethe followed a winding path into a wide-open plaza. Set apart from the whirlwind of city madness, a cluster of old gentlemen sat with their legs crossed, reading the morning newspaper under the blue fresco dome of the sky. A lazy dog slept underneath one of the chairs.

Lethe stood next to the fountain, debating whether he should go to school this morning. The taut underbelly of the lazy dog rose with each somnolent breath.

"What's wrong with me?"

One of the old Spanish gentlemen smiled wistfully at Lethe. He seemed remember something from his past.

Lethe glanced at the dog and saw how delightfully lazy it was.

“Que Vida! Que Vida!” The old man proclaimed.

The other Spanish gentlemen hardly moved. They were like figures in a block of marble.

"Que Vida! Que Vida!"

It was too late now. Lethe would stay here until the dog woke up.

Donte

Lethe met Donte at the airport where they split a taxi to get into the city. They dragged their suitcases up eight flights of stairs; the metal cage of the elevator in the Senora’s apartment building was jammed.

A robust woman in her early seventies greeted them at the door. Her dark Spanish complexion resembled an old woman from a fairy-tale. Rugged and manly-looking, she had short grey hair and a strong, bony frame.

Lethe was concentrating on the floor. Where to put his suitcase? He felt the initial choke of not being able to express himself in Spanish. Donte smiled graciously, making a proud, sweeping glance of the apartment. The Senora’s daughter, a woman in her late twenties, rushed over to explain the circumstances. She had a flighty voice that took off around the corners.

You had to follow her around when she was talking. She said that while she didn’t live here anymore, she wanted to help her mother out with the new guests.

They followed her into the kitchen. She’d just gotten married a few weeks ago; the wedding was beautiful, she said. Animated with memories, a certain expectant energy grew inside her as she bustled between the rooms. Perhaps she was thinking of the future. Perhaps she was imagining her life as a married woman. She said she had to make sure there was clean linen on the beds and fresh towels on the racks.

The Senora stood off to the side, watching her daughter prepare things. The old woman had a composed, taciturn nature. With a single gesture, she encouraged Lethe and Donte to rest on the couch. They must have taken a long trip to get here.

“Would you like some coffee?” The old woman asked.

“No, thank you,” said Donte.

“Yes, please. I’ll have some coffee,” Lethe said.

Antique side tables and embroidered chairs filled the Senora’s cozy, dim living room. A Persian carpet covered the hardwood floor. Little metal ashtrays were scattered throughout the apartment. Vine-leaf plants hung over the couches. It was late afternoon and the balcony doors were open. Little gusts of air blew inside, rustling the heavy-hanging drapes. The Senora sat on the other couch and took a cigarette out of her pocket.

Donte’s dark-olive complexion made him look like a Spaniard. He had perfectly sculpted jet-black hair, and a cheerful face. The Senora causally lit the cigarette she had been holding in her hand. She asked her guests about the colleges they attended and their families back home. Lethe stumbled over his words; Donte maneuvered the language with ease and fluency.

In the hallway, as they were going into their separate rooms, Lethe asked Donte, “Excuse me, but how do you know Spanish so well?

“My father's Cuban.”

“Oh."

Lethe stood out on his balcony, smoking a cigarette. The sun washed over the pastels of the stucco buildings; flower-filled patios evoked an old-world splendor. Were those mountains out there? It was a bright, quaint spot, the Senora’s street.

You looked out and saw pretty, young maids hanging clothes up to dry. In the cobbled alleyways a few cars parked. Pensive old men sat in the corridors of their shops, taking short breaks from the heat.

Maybe Donte wanted to go for a walk.

Two minutes later, the Cuban came out wearing a heavy serape sweater, tan shorts, and a hemp purse slung around his right shoulder. He looked like he was ready to hike up the Andes Mountains.

There were about a dozen souvenir shops on the street running perpendicular from the Senora’s building. Lethe had never seen such gnarled, decrepit people. Stony-eyed vendors hawked lottery tickets outside old convents and churches. Gypsies rattled plates as their children tried to peddle heaps of brightly-colored fabrics. Mixed into the fray were chic, well-dressed Spaniards who rushed along the sidewalks in self-important haste.

The signs, written in a language Lethe barely understood, denoted everything from national banks to telephone companies to fresh vegetables and lottery tickets. Everywhere he turned, the signs were flashing with indecipherable content. The buildings had baroque facades, and small, mysterious porticos leading to inner courtyards with grille windows. The streets were narrow, labyrinthine, and wound through the city like criss-crossing snakes. Verdant parks were separated from the busy enclaves of the urban areas. In the parks, vendors sold fried pastries and rode bicycles with chiming bells.

The Spanish women startled Lethe with their provocative style. An anonymous Spaniard wore black pants that showed through to her panties! He tailed her for awhile, entranced by her sculpted behind which was being offered to the world.

“You know what I want to do before I leave this place?”

“What?” Donte asked.

“I want to see a bull fight."

"Yes."

"And have sex with a Spanish woman.”

“The first one shouldn’t be a problem.” Donte smiled cheekily.

Dinner with the Senora

The Senora cooked a delicious meal that night. The three of them sat down together at nine o’clock. She poured herself a glass of wine, and hesitated over whether to offer some to her new guests. She didn’t want to set a standard for serving up wine every night. Between the three of them, they’d probably go through six bottles a week.

The basket of fresh bread went around the table. The bread in Spain was baked just right. Lethe lingered over the crust in his mouth as if he'd never tasted bread before. Steam rose from the soupy bowl of creamed broccoli. The thick potato-and-egg tortilla shimmered with blotches of oil. The Senora had left open the balcony door and cool air was coming in, mingling with the heat from the oven.

At an unexpected moment, the Senora dabbed the corners of her mouth and projected her voice across the table. The great curio cabinet trembled behind her. With regal self-assurance, she announced to her young squires that she was reading a "wonderful little fable" called The Alchemist.

"The Alchemist is about a young man who leaves his homeland in Spain--" She said conspiratorially, "To seek a buried treasure in Egypt."

The Senora and Donte exchanged fond memories of the thin book, the Senora chuckling and Donte's eyes sparkling.

"This stupid book is actually bonding them together," Lethe thought, growing indignant.

The full force of their sympathies was revealed when the Senora remarked, "Donte, since we met, you struck me as being wise for your years. Of course, it's because you're so well-read."

"We're reading Don Quixote for my Spanish Literature class," Donte replied.

The gay, winsome Cuban was incapable of offending the Senora. The more that came out of his mouth, the more he fell into her favor.

Lethe seemed to break out into a sweat of jealousy.

The Senora swooned. "Don Quixote de la Mancha. Now if you haven’t heard of that one, then I’m going to give you a smack upon the head," she said, directing her comments to Lethe.

Donte nodded in gleeful assent. His sculpted hairdo bounced up and down as he went on to justly praise the work. He'd read the tome at twelve years old and found it "wild and antic". Since then, he read it every couple years just to remind himself not to take life so seriously.

"There is something to be said about comic intent," Donte remarked.

The Senora smiled aggressively. They were like two dogs feasting on each others' praises. Lethe couldn't comprehend the level of camaraderie.

In an effort to include him in the discussion, the Senora urged Lethe to take the book out of her curio cabinet. "I want you to use my copy," she said.

With the giant book in his hands, Lethe thumbed through the first pages. The only thing he could think about were the little black sketches at the beginning of each chapter.

About the words themselves, he said, "But I can't read all those words in Spanish."

"Then buy a copy in English. There’s a little bookstore on el calle de Felipe."

Donte appeared to be having a conversation with himself. "Cervantes was the greatest author who ever lived," he asserted relentlessly.

“But why?” Lethe asked, surprising both the Senora and Donte with his curiosity.

“Because nobody knows when he’s joking or when he’s serious,” Donte put a smirk on his face.

"And that’s what makes him great? Because he confuses people?"

"Oh, no, you don't understand," The Senora said. "You're never confused while reading that book; you know exactly what's going on. You just don't know what it means. It's like life."

The Senora continued, “Nobody can figure out exactly what his tale is about. It is not a simple tale. Each person comes to the story and finds something different.”

She brushed some of the crumbs off the table into her hand, and stood up. Lethe and Donte stared at each other for a moment and then went to their separate bedrooms.

In the classroom

The next day at the Institute, Lethe was sitting in the back of a classroom on the eighth floor. There were twenty four desks crammed into a tiny room and the air was stifling. It occurred to Lethe that if he wanted to escape during the middle of the lecture, he would probably attract a great deal of attention to himself. This would defeat his purpose of not wanting anyone to look at him.

Everyone was paying close attention to the professor as she explained to the class the guidelines of a project they would have to complete by the end of the semester. Lethe gathered something about interviews and talking to Spaniards. It was a cultural project, an investigation into the way of life in Spain. The professor was speaking so fast he could barely put the whole thing together.

Did she want him to interview the Senora? Or maybe she wanted him to talk to people in the street? He remembered all of the commotion in the city on his way to school. The buzzing jackhammers, the bustling pedestrians, the swarming traffic. The idea of carrying out interviews in the street, especially if he had to roam through the numberless plazas, alarmed him greatly.

His thoughts returned to his face and how it was mottled with acne. He already checked the mirror five times today. Wasn’t that enough?

He told himself to calm down. If he didn't calm down, his face would get much worse. He'd begin to sweat and if he began to sweat, his face would turn red, and if his face turned red, his pimples would shine all bright and glossy.

"I need to find a mirror," Lethe thought.

If he didn't find one right away, he was sure something terrible would happen. He turned to the right, then to the left. Everyone seemed to be paying attention the lecture. But he couldn’t follow what the professor was saying anymore because of his obsessive thoughts. All he wanted to do was go downstairs and look in the mirror. He calculated the straightest route to the door, and then sprang into the air.

The professor stopped her lecture to address him.

"Todo esta bien alli?"

The heads at the front of the classroom turned simultaneously.

Lethe looked down, pretending to take notes. The class broke into a storm of snickers. The professor straightened her shoulders at the podium and said in a formal accent, “La cultura Espanola tiene una riqueza de personalidades y tradiciones. Es tu trabajo a encontrar las puertas de descubrimiento . . .”

Going to classes would become a real torture for him, he could see it already. He wanted the day to end before it had even begun. He dreamed of the lazy refuge of the Senora’s apartment.

Juanita comes over for lunch

Around two o’clock Lethe and Donte came home from school and the Senora served lunch. Her sister, Juanita, lived on the floor above them. She had a small, elderly person’s body and a large, egg-shaped head with puffy grey hair. Her right eye no longer opened and she went around squinting at everything with the left. She also had a hunchback and leered at you whenever you were talking.

From the moment that Lethe met Juanita, he could sense an icy hostility. She seemed to be judging him. It was obvious that she favored Donte. Lethe often sat through an entire meal without uttering a single word. Juanita found this habit rude, something only an idiot would do.

Why did Juanita, even though she favored Donte, prefer to sit beside Lethe?

Because of the bread basket. She guarded the bread basket with all her life. Lethe was un trapero, a greedy little boy, and Juanita wouldn’t allow for such extravagance. The old lady had lived through the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, when bread was scarce. She doled out bread as if they were living in 1938. Of course, when relatives came over, they took more bread anyways. But Lethe was a separate case; a questionable American who needed to be monitored daily.

Lunch was the biggest meal in Spain. The Senora usually made soup, vegetables and a meat dish. As the dishes were brought closer to the table, distressful thoughts began to nag at Lethe. He wanted to eat, but he couldn’t. His bites became smaller, his preferences narrower. Could the Senora’s traditional Spanish cooking be disfiguring his skin?

“Nino, have some more food.”

“No, really, I’m fine. I’m not that hungry today.”

“Is that why you rummage through my refrigerator at night? You don’t think I can hear you. I hear your stomach growling too!”

She’d never had a boarder who refused to eat her meals. Her boarders loved her food, especially the boys. On the first night, Lethe devoured everything on his plate. Since then he'd been acting strange, picking the food apart, pushing it around or hiding it underneath the potatoes.

Juanita was nonplussed about the food issue. She lectured her sister in private about how to deal with Lethe. In her opinion, Lethe was a "wayward child" from the United States and he ought to be "trained properly". But the Senora argued on Lethe’s behalf, saying that she suspected he was having some "problemas de la cabeza," or psychological problems.

“De la cabeza?” Juanita parroted back.

"Nothing psychological about eating the food on your plate. Donte does a fine job of eating. But what about the other one?”

The Senora made a sympathetic face. “Lethe is having trouble here in Spain. I live with these boys year round, I see how they handle living abroad. Donte is infinitely more comfortable with it.”

“Comfortable or not, one should eat the food on his plate."

“Please, sister. Lethe needs some time to adjust. I can't rule over them with an iron fist; they'll just rebel."

A noise from Lethe’s bedroom

Later that night, Donte sat in the living room with the Senora. They were watching NASCAR on television. The Senora enjoyed American car racing; it gave her a sudden thrill to see the bright metallic cars zipping around the course. The engines droned and the announcer added his veteran commentary.

The camera panned in on two cars racing neck to neck as they squeezed each other off the course and then bam! Suddenly one of the cars flipped into the air, landing on its side. The other car pirouetted through the dust. A team of medics rushed over to the upturned car and the driver slowly pulled himself out of the window.

The Senora and Donte sat braced to their seats when an even louder noise sounded, but this time, from inside the apartment. It was coming from Lethe’s bedroom. It almost sounded like furniture was being rearranged, and then they heard a loud thump against the wooden floor, like somebody had fallen. “What’s going on over there?” The Senora said. “Go to his room. See what’s the matter?”

The boarder went down the narrow hallway and knocked on Lethe’s door.

“What?” Lethe called out from inside. “I’m busy.”

“Maria Angeles wants to know if everything’s okay. We heard some furniture being moved around.”

“Everything’s fine. I wanted to move my desk, that’s all.”

“You better ask the Senora before you go moving things around.”

“I’ll move it back, I promise.”

Donte looked at the door. “I think you should come out now, Lethe.”

“What do you mean? This is my room.”

Donte could smell the cigarette smoke from behind the door. Lethe always smoked when he was nervous.

Donte was stymied by Lethe’s responses. “Do you mind if I come inside?”

Lethe squeezed his body into the door crack so that Donte couldn’t see anything. Lethe’s face was flushed red with a puddle of sweat between his dark eyebrows.

“What are you doing in there?” Donte asked.

“I told you, I wanted to move my desk.”

“What for?”

“What does it matter? I’m allowed to move the desk, aren’t I?”

“You didn’t ask permission from the Senora. Now she’s upset.”

“I apologize for being such a horrible human being.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic Lethe.”

“I’ve already tried to hang myself tonight. I hung the sheets on the ceiling fan and moved the desk to get up there.”

Donte looked over Lethe’s shoulder.

“Get out of the way,” Lethe said, pushing Donte back. “No, don’t come in! Who gave you the right to come in here?!”

Lethe fell backwards.

A bed sheet was tied to the ceiling fan, just as Lethe had said. Donte looked puzzled, “"This isn't real, is it?”

“It was until you came in.”

“You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?”

“It wouldn’t work anyways. The fan almost came out of the ceiling. It wouldn’t hold.”

“Come into the living room. We’re watching NASCAR.”

“I hate NASCAR.”

“Watch it with us anyways. The Senora’s smoking. You can smoke with her.”

Lethe meets Veronica before class

Once a week, in the evenings, Lethe saw a friend at the Institute. Her name was Veronica and they’d met during the first week of the foreign exchange program when their college sponsored a ten-day excursion through the Pyrenees Mountains. The idea of the trip was to do a little sight-seeing before the students came to Madrid. A group of over fifty students stayed in small hotels and inns along the way. They visited picturesque villages and hiked through green mountains. They relaxed on white sand beaches and saw old churches.

Veronica was a short, prickly brunette with a small mouth and dwarfish torso, who pouted when she didn’t get her way. But she could also be extremely loud and abrasive. Overall, the two had a playful, teasing relationship that sometimes lent itself toward Lethe’s immaturity and overt male chauvinism.

They'd had sex on the third day of the excursion. The floors of the inn were warped from age, and the ceiling slanted down over the bed. Afterwards Lethe acted proud and unfriendly. He ignored her for a couple days, and then she wouldn't talk to him for the first couple weeks of class--until they bumped into each other one evening.

The basement level of the Institute had a cafe where students could spend their money on pastries. Besides the heavy stone walls and the shortage of light, a light-hearted, chatty atmosphere prevailed among students and professors. Lethe liked to pick a spot in the back where the lighting was dim.

Veronica casually observed Lethe come into the cafe. He appeared sullen, over-anxious perhaps. She didn’t feel any obligation to cheer him up. In fact, it gave her pleasure these days to see Lethe overwhelmed with sadness and confusion brought on by his own self-absorbed nature. She felt as though he deserved it.

“What’s wrong with you?” She said sarcastically.

“Does my face look okay?”

“It looks the same as it always looks.”

“I wish you'd be a little bit more helpful sometimes.”

“Relax. It looks fine,” Veronica said, with a hint of compassion in her voice.

“Why did you stop talking to me?"

"Why do you think butt-head? It's because you're a jerk, like every other guy. You don't have any respect for women-"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't. How could you? You’re too obsessed with your own personal problems."

"And you're obsessed with yours! So how does that make you any better or worse than me?"

"It's because my personal problems have to deal with you. And your personal problems have to deal with your obsessive-compulsiveness."

"I stopped talking to you because I thought things were over between us." Lethe paused to look around, "Look at this place. It reminds me of a dungeon. Don't you feel like we're trapped down here?”

“Fine go ahead and change the subject."

Her voice was as shrill and annoying as metal whistle. People could probably hear them at the other end.

Finally Lethe stood up and said, “I can’t deal with this place. All these students from different schools, everyone’s piled into one building like a herd of cattle. And they’re all freaking Americans. That's the worst part. Aren’t we supposed to have more contact with the Spaniards? Where are the Spaniards? The Spanish don’t even like us, you know. It’s humiliating even being here.”

“What’s your problem, Lethe? If you don’t like it here, then leave. Nobody’s keeping you here.”

“I actually do like it here. I like my senora and I like the place where I live. I just don’t like these freaking Americans. They’re just like the kids we go to school with in New York.”

“These 'Americans' have just as much of a right to be here as you do. And remember, Lethe, you're an American too.”

Brooding silently, Lethe finished the dregs of his coffee and lit a cigarette.

Un Chein Andalou

One minute after six o’clock, he stepped into his classroom on the eighth floor. “Sit down,” the professor ordered him, “We’re about to begin.”

An old film projector was perched on a wooden stand in front of the room. Students were whispering to each other and sharing cell phone numbers. Someone had pulled down the window shades and a dusky twilight settled over the plastic chairs and desks. Then, there was a hushed silence and the students glanced at each other mischievously, expecting the machine in the front of the class to breakdown. But the machine began clicking and grainy images sputtered onto the white screen. It was a relief for Lethe to be submerged in darkness. He knew that if the lights were off, nobody was looking at him. The credits ran for a short time and then the title, “Un Chien Andalou” appeared on the screen.

Nobody in the room knew what to expect. Of course they'd heard the name "Salvador Dali" before and most of them had seen his surrealist paintings. But this movie they were watching seemed more like a crappy home video. And some of them jeered at the film, as if to say "What's this old-fashioned crap you're showing us?" The professor told these students to be quiet. She said the movie was made in 1928.

The first scene showed a man and a woman in hotel room.

The man has a razor blade. He lifts the razor blade up to the woman’s eyeball, and the woman screams. You can't hear the scream because the movie is silent, but by the expression on the woman's face her shrill voice echoes through your mind. Then the man starts slicing up her eyeball.

It turned out that the "old-fashioned" film was powerfully disturbing, and those students who had been mocking it were now watching with enrapt attention. Dali's film caused a riot of emotion in the class. Lethe, in particular, had a hard time with it. To begin with, the scenes didn't connect. For example, why were ants are crawling out of a human hand? This bothered Lethe intensely, that the movie was made up of disjointed images, mostly gory and violent.

And then, presumably the same hand rests in the middle of a city street. Nothing happens; the hand is just sitting there as if it has a mind of its own. Out of nowhere, an old woman comes across the street with her cane and pokes at the severed hand, attempting to move it. Another second goes by and she is hit by an oncoming car.

Lethe didn't understand how these scenes related to anything in real life. Am I supposed to be learning something here? He asked himself, sarcastically. His professor would probably say that this short surrealist film is a piece of cultural history. But the only thing he was aware of while watching it was that his anxious paranoia about his face got worse. He wanted to check the mirror nearly six times during the movie. He was sure his skin was breaking out right there.

Unable to suppress his urges, he jumped out of his chair, and scurried out the door. His professor caught him in the hall, and yelled, "Lethe, what's wrong? Where are you going?"

Panic-stricken, he turned around. He felt humiliated. About what? Could he really say that it was a movie which made him feel this way?

“What's the reason for this strange behavior?" The professor asked, emphasizing the word "strange" in Spanish. "You also haven't handed in your assignments, you know? Tell me, is there anything I can do?”

He looked down to his feet and then at the hall. The hallway was empty. “I don’t feel well, that’s all.”

The bedroom shrinks

“You’re home early.” The Senora said.

Lethe hung his head, looking sickly and pale.

“Nino, go lay down. I’ll make you some leche con mile.”

She brought the warm milk to his bedroom. He climbed into his bed with only a thin pair of underwear to cover him.

He sat up, drinking the milk. His head was still reeling from the scene in the classroom. The surrealist images proliferated in his mind, and for a moment, the bedroom shrunk. Was he looking at the Senora or just the trace of endless images he witnessed earlier? The movie had over-stimulated him to a dizzying pitch and now he was drowsy and experiencing a sort of sea-sickness.

The Senora loomed over him with a halo of garlic radiating off of her shoulders and arms. She continued to stand over him as he sipped the warm, sweet milk. Flecks of garlic tumbled off her shoulders like rocks in an avalanche.

"I've prepared a meal," she said. “Why don’t you eat something with us later?”

When later came, Donte was setting the table with a calm, benevolent expression on his face. Ever since Lethe’s histrionic suicide attempt, the Cuban was treating him like an anguished mental patient. Lethe went out onto the balcony to have a cigarette; he smoked two puffs when the Senora called him back inside.

Donte carried the creamy garlic potatoes to the table and the Senora followed closely behind with a bowl of spicy gazpacho.

“I made your favorite soup,” she said to Lethe.

“I can’t eat anything," Lethe whimpered.

"What about bread? You can always bread. You love bread."

She was right. Bread was the only thing that Lethe ate in Spain. Such a basic food, and yet one that has nourished civilizations for centuries. During times like these it seemed like bread was Lethe's sole salvation.

"I'm going to Valencia this weekend," Donte announced.

“And with whom would this be?” The Senora replied.

“Some friends of mine.”

It was miraculous how it happened, but once Donte uttered this news, Lethe felt better. He felt ecstatic, in fact, and suddenly desired some soup to go with his bread.

The Senora comforts Lethe

The next day Lethe stayed in bed. Every couple hours the Senora would come to his room with a glass of orange juice or a plate of crackers. In the evening, Lethe was feeling strong enough to get out of bed. Covered in a blanket, he sat in the kitchen as the Senora cooked dinner. He was like a frail cat that sits by the window of a well-lit home, waiting to be let inside. He gazed in admiration at the Senora.

She handled the cooking with a singular dexterity. Zipping from countertop to countertop, slicing vegetables, opening cans, washing potatoes, she was immersed in an energetic flow and guided by purposefulness. For the first time, Lethe was witnessing her powers and he sat in astonished silence, drinking in the youthful spirit of this mysterious woman. She grew in his eyes from a hardened, simple widow to a robust saint. Just as his strength was coming back to him, the Senora herself was being revealed in his eyes. How could he have overlooked her or taken her for granted?

Her cigarettes were constantly burning which imbued her face with a glowing intensity. Either she had a cigarette between her lips, or one that was burning nearby, on the edge of the countertop, for example, as she rushed to empty the trash can.

Both of them smoked. Lethe watched her and wanted to smoke more himself. She chided him for smoking so much, especially when he wasn't feeling well; but it was hard to chide the adolescent for something she also indulged in. Smoking bonded them; they were both addicts. Due to the inordinate amount of smoking that went on in the Senora's house, the rooms became hazy and she frequently complained about their "nasty habit". But it was all for naught, because the next day the two of them would smoke just as much, which generally came out to be a pack a day.

Lethe regarded the Senora with a sort of divine authority. When she recommended Don Quixote to him for a second time, he vowed to read the book and learn what he could from it. "If the Senora considers it to be the Spanish bible, then at least I should understand why." The novel by Cervantes became Lethe's goal and he resolved to buy a copy of the book at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, the Senora told lots of stories to Lethe, some from the novels she had read, some from the tales of Don Quixote; but mostly it was her deep, gravely voice which moved Lethe. He admired her stern wisdom, her stoic sensibility, and equally, her light, frivolous chatter. After dinner she handed him the dishes to dry, and they did other household duties together, becoming like a pair.

One time Lethe blurted out some thoughts while they were cleaning. “I don’t want you to think I’m lazy,” he said.

“I don’t think you’re lazy,” the Senora replied.

“Donte seems to get more done than I do. I mean if I help you it's not that big of a deal because I'm not going to class. But Donte is taking four classes, reading six books, and he still helps around the apartment.”

“Donte likes to help out. That’s his personality. Don't begrudge yourself for another person's character.”

“But I like to help too!”

“I know you do, nino. So if you want to help, then help. Nobody is stopping you. But don’t compare yourself to others. You have a different personality. Just be yourself.”

Lethe felt confused. He wanted her to simply love him, not give him any lectures.

After dinner, she invited him to sit with her on the couch. Rain had just fallen and with the balcony doors open, a sweet breeze was circulating in the room. Both of them lit cigarettes.

“Are you afraid to go back to school?” The Senora asked.

“No, not really. I just don't like the building.”

She could tell that he was lying to her. That was one of her abilities: to see through his white lies.

“I'm lost in that building. It's cold inside and I don't know where to go.”

“Don't you know where your classes are?”

“I do, but . . . I'm in the bathroom a lot."

“Why the bathroom?”

“That's where I do my thinking. I can't think in class. There are too many people I've never seen before."

And then she shunned him for a moment with a look of disbelief, but quickly changed her attitude to one of greater acceptance. She was clearly trying to understand him.

Lethe continued to tell the story about the bathroom. "I don’t really have to use the restroom, you know, I just sit in the stall and stare at the tiles. I'll stare at the mirror too, for twenty minutes sometimes. I can’t stop looking at myself. It's like a trance. All that I can see is a horrible amount of acne. My face is disgusting and I want to die.”

The Senora responded to these colorful words with full composure. He didn't manage to get a rise out of her. Instead, she took long drags off her cigarette and appeared pensive for a few minutes, as if trying to figure out a solution. At last she seemed to have an idea.

“Nino, you’re sensitive, that’s all. Lots of people are sensitive. I remember when I was a little girl my mother had to take me out of school. This was very traumatic for me. I remember feeling afraid, like I had done something wrong. If you showed me where the bathroom was I probably would have hid there. You have no reason to feel ashamed. Living in a foreign country is a great challenge not only for a young person, but for a person of any age. It forces you to look at yourself in ways you wouldn't normally have to. I was lucky that my mother didn't want to punish me for my fear; instead she whisked me out of the classroom and came up with a plan to teach me the lessons herself.”

Lethe wanted to ask her if he could stay home from school.

“What if you had a broken leg? Would you go to school? No, of course not, you would stay home.”

“So you're saying I should stay home.”

“It wouldn't be a bad idea. You need to get better, nino.”

Lethe sees a psychiatrist

It was decided that Lethe would see a psychiatrist. The Senora recommended the British-American clinic in the historic district of Madrid.

As the cab sped around a circular street, Lethe looked out at the mist hanging over the fountains. Few people were in the streets. It felt strange not to be going to school this morning; he felt torn from his routine, alienated by this emergency. He stared at the moist, grey streets, thinking about his parents and their problems, and his false suicide attempt.

At last he was dropped off at a Gothic building on a narrow side street. He climbed the stone steps and entered a dark foyer. The door to the clinic was made of glass. A secretary directed him to a salon-like waiting room with a fireplace.

Patients, old and young, sat in chairs against the walls. Lethe picked up a magazine and retreated into a corner. With the magazine in his lap, he looked up at the patients' faces, imagining their problems. A nurse appeared, holding a clipboard. She called his name.

She held his wrist loosely, counting to sixty.

“Do you smoke?”

“A pack a day."

The nurse wrote down a couple numbers on the board and led Lethe out of the room.

A tall woman with birdlike features greeted Lethe at the door. She was wearing a silk tunic around her neck, and a polished copper belt around a black dress. She had long, tan fingers and a lively appearance.

Lethe sat down in an oversized armchair. Giant red curtains hung down in the back of the room. The walls were wood-panelled.

“I spoke to your father on the phone,” the psychiatrist said. “I need your permission before I can give him any more information.”

“That’s fine.”

“Your father just wants to know how you’re doing. If there’s something you prefer to keep secret, just tell me.”

“No, not really.”

“Just tell me if you want to keep things confidential. I have no problem with that . . . ”

Senorita L. was a woman in her middle forties. Her effervescent briskness captured Lethe's attention in the same way an energetic school teacher might capture the attention of her students. In addition, she wanted to be very clear on certain matters.

“No, it's okay, tell my Dad whatever he wants to know.”

"But if I tell your father whatever he wants to know, then you give up your rights to privacy. Are you sure about that?"

"Yes," Lethe replied somberly. "I never cared too much about privacy anyways."

"Okay then. I'll give your father a full report whenever he wants it."

“That's fine. I just don’t want to go to school anymore.” Lethe slumped back in his chair.

The psychiatrist took out a pad of clinical stationary. “Tell me about your family.”

“Do you want me to tell you my life story?"

"Not your life story. Just tell me about your mother."

"My mother’s sick. She has some disease like Parkinson’s.”

“How long have you known she was sick?”

“Most of my life. I’m used to it by now. She's gained a lot of weight."

“What about your face? It says here that you look in the mirror a lot.”

“Yeah, I'm obsessed with mirrors," Lethe sat bolt upright in his chair. "It's hard for me to ignore them, like if I'm in the bathroom I usually have to stand in front of the mirror for at least half-an-hour. That's why I'm so late to class.”

The psychiatrist arched her left eyebrow. “What about the Institute makes you nervous?”

“It's the students. They're indifferent, you know."

"No, what you mean by 'indifferent'?"

"They don't see me in the hallways; they ignore me. They move in herds and chatter with their friends.”

“I thought you didn't want people looking at you. Because of your face.”

Lethe hesitated. He wasn't sure how to respond to this.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insinuate anything," the doctor said in a remorseful tone. "I don’t see any acne on your face.”

“It's too dark in here anyways. And it gets worse when I look at it.”

“Do you think you could go to class in the morning without checking the mirror?”

“No way. I can't.”

Senorita L. glanced down at the clock on her desk. “I’m going to prescribe you some pills for anxiety.”

“What I really need is a dermatologist. Is there someone around here you can hook me up with?”

"Yes, we can make an appointment."

Lethe talks to his mother

That night Lethe called his parents to tell them what was going on. He went into the Senora’s bedroom because it was the only place where he could have any privacy on the phone.

“Mom?”

He heard his mother’s wail on the other end. She always had to breathe deeply before mustering the energy to speak. Her sighs were pained and lugubrious. She sounded like a muffled, bleating lamb.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Lethe said. “I’ve been having panic attacks. I don’t think I can go to class anymore.”

As he waited for his mother to form a response, he looked around the Senora’s bedroom. There was a bag of eucalyptus leaves on the floor near the dresser. The whole room reeked of the invigorating plant. He pictured the Senora falling asleep each night in a cloud of eucalyptus.

His mother wailed deeper on the phone and he knew she was about to speak. At last she uttered, “I want you to come home Lethe--”

“But no, Mom, I’m alright here. I met the psychiatrist today and she said she can help me. Really, things might be better if I stay here in Spain. I can get some help.”

His mother sighed loudly into the receiver. “Your father wants a divorce.”

“What?”

“A divorce.” She sighed, and then her voice dropped off.

“How could he?”

Lethe felt a sting in his eyes. The eucalyptus thickened all around him. He felt as though he was suffocating in the rawness of its scent.

“I don’t understand. When did this happen?”

“Last night.” Her voice was barely audible. She couldn’t talk anymore.

“No, I'm not coming home. I'm definitely not coming home then."

He sat on the edge of the Senora’s bed. The coolness of the eucalyptus was rising from the bag and dissolving all around. Images of his mother and her illness swam through his mind. But the aroma of the intoxicating plant was strong enough for him to relax forgetfully, obliviously. His father was not an evil man. He didn't want to think about the kind of man his father was.

Hung over the Senora’s tall dressers, lace spread like tiny baby clothes. The comforter had the softness of an aged, worn blanket used for decades and the pillows were hand embroidered. She kept no religious imagery on the walls, but then again, she was not a religious woman. Only a stern woman who believed in herself, who believed in her decisions and did not complain about life.

After he had been sitting on the bed for some time, the Senora came into the room.

“I don’t know if I can go to class anymore.” He said.

The old woman rubbed her hands together. Her eyes were clear and moist.

“Do you mind if I live here with you?”

“You can stay here, nino. You can live with me.”

Returning to the Clinic

Instead of taking a cab, Lethe decided to take the metro. The metro was an underground subway system with echoing platforms and moist tunnels. Crowds plodded through the cavernous walkways as street performers shouted and played their rickety instruments. Mostly, the flowing masses ignored the animated faces of vendors and winos. Gypsies vied for the attention of the commuters as well, crouched against walls, begging for change, but nobody noticed them.

The Senora was surprised that morning when Lethe told her he wanted to take the metro. It was a bold move for Lethe to re-enter the city, and he felt proud of himself as he sat in the waiting room and looked at the faces of the patients in the British American clinic. They didn't seem as hopeless anymore, or perhaps it was Lethe who felt more confident.

During Lethe’s session with the psychiatrist, Senorita L. told him that she had spoken to his father over the weekend. “I was able to convince your father that you’re better off in Spain.”

The lady with the aquiline nose opened a brief case and removed a couple papers for him to sign. “Your father and I have come up with a contract. This is so we all agree on the same thing. All the contract says is that you will come to see me twice a week. In exchange you will receive five-hundred dollars as an allowance.”

“Each week?” Lethe asked, surprised.

“Let me look. Here it says, 'each month'. In addition, your father wants me to send him monthly reports on your improvement.”

“I’m guessing your father is under a lot of stress with the divorce. He probably thinks it would be easier for everyone if you stayed here in Madrid.”

“I can't see her right now. I can't," Lethe shook his head.

"You don't have to, Lethe. I just said that you're father thinks it would be best if you didn't go home."

"I mean who's really responsible for this mess? If not my father, then me."

The psychiatrist watched Lethe regretfully as he mumbled to himself.

After their session, Lethe decided to walk to the end of the block. Once he got to the corner, he turned down another street and once he got to that corner, he turned down another. There was no way he could return to his mother. He wanted to be here. He wanted to live with the Senora.

Spaniards passed through the squares with their extended families. Grandchildren hugged the arms of their grandparents. You got the sense that everyone was taking care of each other.

A Pasty Shop and a Bookstore

Lethe meandered into a pastry shop and was awestruck by the glistening tiles and reflective surfaces. The clicking heels of gaunt, middle-aged Spanish women and their chattering maids bewitched him and soon he was following an ultra-chic mommy down the black marble aisle. She paused to look into a shiny casement and he hung over her, also peering into the glass.

"Perdon," she said, feeling his breath nearby.

"Lo siento," Lethe replied abruptly. "I was only looking--"

She gave him a snooty expression and moved away from the display case. Her maid stood next to her with blond curls spread across her forehead.

Chocolate pies were laid out on a silver platter, and bemused salesgirls in white aprons walked around offering samples of miniature pastries. Where Lethe had stopped to look inside the glass display, there was a crowd forming, all of them with deep red lipstick and a good layer of makeup. The pastries looked more like works of art than edible foodstuffs. The colorful jellies oozed out of puffy morsels and rich glazes dripped onto white doilies. Almond cake, brandy truffles, flan, tiramisu, and crème-filled rolls nested in decorative paper.

Lethe nibbled on a tarta de platano as he exited the pastry shop and headed toward a rumbling plaza. A sculpture by Picasso stood thirty feet tall at the center of the square. Lethe would have liked to meet Picasso and ask him how he became such a genius.

Cherishing the afternoon, Lethe wandered a little farther, strolling wherever his curiosity took him, until he reached a small bookstore.

Some bookstores are vast open spaces with lots of light and numerous aisles of books. Other bookstores are more like garrets with their books stacked to the ceiling and every inch of the room being put to productive use. This quaint Spanish bookstore belonged to the second category. Typically Lethe would feel claustrophobic in such surroundings, but in this case, he sensed the peculiar atmosphere of his father's library. The bookstore was like the den where his father retreated to; it was cloistered and dry, it smelled of leather and wood. Lethe felt nostalgia for home even though home was the last place he wanted to be.

As with many of these quaint bookstores across Europe, there is very little space to put books and therefore the booksellers must build a second platform above the room. Lethe climbed a small ladder to get to the top where he contorted his body and balanced on a plank of wood.

He had to bend down to avoid knocking his head against the ceiling; it was the most challenging position he had ever been in, physically. Scanning the titles from Dickens to Dostoevsky, Lethe realized that most of the books were in Spanish. The Senora had recommended Don Quixote a couple weeks ago and had told him to read it in Spanish. Now was his chance. He reached for the holy grail of literature, and felt his greasy shoes slip on the narrow plank.

The enormous book with the shiny red jacket came tumbling down with our clumsy protagonist. The book slammed louder on the floor than Lethe did and drew more attention from the shopkeeper. The customers however shared a natural sympathy for falling children and huddled around Lethe, shouting words at him in Spanish which were meant to be compassionate. His mind was absolutely quiet for about fifteen minutes, and during this time, he was suspended in another location. Transported to his father's library, among the lemon-scented wood shelves and the dry leather books, Lethe stood in this dark and empty room for a long while, awaiting his father's imminent arrival, for he was sure that the Doctor would arrive at any moment.

But the Doctor did not arrive and instead Lethe woke up to a hoard of beguiling faces, peering into his eyes, studying him, and asking all sorts of questions in Spanish. Next to the crowd, the shopkeeper cradled the enormous tome, Don Quixote. With a sullen and aggrieved expression, it looked like he wanted to charge Lethe for damaging the corners of the book. That's why he had put it on the top level, to keep it from the hands of dangerous American tourists.

Lethe’s Happiness

During the week the Senora was busy cleaning the apartment and preparing meals. She had a maid come in the mornings to help out. Usually, at about nine o’clock, when Lethe was having his coffee, he saw Catalin and engaged her in a conversation she didn't quite feel comfortable having. For example, Lethe wanted to know whether she had a boyfriend or not.

"No, I'm single."

"Good, then you'll come with me to el museo del Prado tomorrow."

"El museo. Oh no, I can't. I have an appointment with my girlfriend."

"An appointment. That sounds so formal. Why don't you bring your girlfriend along? We'll all go together."

The maid smiled under her green eyes. She had a fresh, young-looking face with auburn hair. Lethe had always been attracted to her, but now he felt confident to talk and ask her questions.

The Senora however was not happy with their intermingling, and she sought to separate them by asking Lethe to leave the apartment during the day.

People had jobs to do and schedules to keep. Lethe would never understand this. The Senora worried about what would happen to the student with too much time on his hands. Now Catalin shied away from Lethe in the mornings and applied blank concentration to the task at hand. She feared losing her job.

Lethe waited for the maid and her girlfriend, Rosa, to show up at el Plaza del Sol. He waited for a half an hour and then went into a sandwich shop to sit down. He blamed the Senora for making it hard for him to get to know Catalin. Maybe Catalin didn't like him after all. Maybe it had nothing to do with the Senora. Maybe it was his acne.

After these events, Lethe returned to the Senora's apartment and kept himself in his room. The view from his balcony was magnificent, the rooftops, the church spires, the mountains in the background, but all he could think about was how he was alone here in Spain. He smoked nearly a pack of cigarettes thinking of Catlin. She had already left for the day, and he pictured her meeting another guy and going with him to el museo del Prado.

The balcony was his only refuge, the sharp, cool air and the mountains in the distance.

He looked into people's apartments as he was sitting on the balcony. In one apartment, a little boy was practicing piano. Lethe was reminded of himself as a child, studying under his father's tutelage. The blond curls of the little prodigy bounced up and down as he struck the keys.

On the balcony, there was no sense of time. Or endless reams of it, so endless time had no meaning. Lethe was living in Spain without a job, without a social life, without a girlfriend. He hated living in this vacuum and yet he couldn't escape it. He didn't have the motivation to escape it. He tried talking to Catalin but she rejected him, and so meeting new people, he figured, wasn't worth the effort. He had always been left on his own, to play by himself, as it were. Lethe's happiness resided within the gates of a fortress, hidden and locked away from the rest of the world, but also from himself.

Now he pictured his hero, Don Quixote, the gangly, emaciated body, the tattered clothing, the smell of antique books in his ramshackle house, and friends who complained that he spent too much time reading. Lethe was in another world.

His bed slipped forward and his butt fell into the gap between the wall and the bed. Pulling himself up, he noticed the poster on the wall:

To wish for too big of a happiness makes it difficult for that same happiness.

The Senora

Although the Senora tried to conceal her emotions, she was a nervous woman who thought a great deal about her responsibilities. Her biggest responsibility was to the study abroad program that paid her a monthly income. For the most part, the students who stayed in her apartment could take care of themselves. In the first couple weeks of having a new boarder the Senora was always a little nervous. Then she got to know the college kids and there were fewer and fewer concerns. Generally speaking she found that American students were well-behaved and self-sufficient. In the last ten years, only two or three students were totally incapable of adapting to the Spanish culture. Typically these students went home.

She could remember a Chinese girl one summer who after the first week began to have nightmares. The incident passed over rather quietly, but the Senora understood that living in a foreign country could produce great strain on an adolescent.

The fact that Lethe did not want to return home made his situation all the more complicated. On the one hand, the Senora wanted to accommodate him. He repeatedly declared that he loved living with her, and he loved Spain. So why should he have to go home? On the other hand, she was not exactly enthusiastic about him staying home from school. When Lethe first came to her about his problems she told him a story about her childhood. Now she regretted it. With a teenager sitting around her house, doing nothing all day, she was tense.

Although her initial reaction to Lethe's suffering was one of empathy, now she was having some reservations. She disliked how he woke up late every morning, waited until four o’clock to take a shower, and never left the apartment. She disliked how he flirted with Catalin and tried to make conversation with the young maid, even when the Senora expressed her disapproval of their relations. To counteract her anxiety, she busied herself with the housecleaning.

Lethe saw her in the hallways pushing dust into piles. The same patch of floor again and again. She pushed the mop with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. There was no more dust, but she kept dragging the mop. This was the Senora's form of meditation. Was she thinking? No, she was trying not to think.

She needed to clean the ash trays. He smoked just as much as she did and it annoyed her. He reminded her of herself, his compulsiveness, his nervousness.

Catalin was a good maid. She wouldn't let Lethe bother her. The Senora watched Catalin turn a cold shoulder to Lethe. Even though the Senora didn't want Lethe's feelings hurt, there were some things he just didn't understand. Such as work. Lethe was incapable of understanding the concept of "work". All he wanted to do was lounge around her apartment and read Don Quixote. Fine if that was his choice, but then he shouldn't disturb the others. And about his illness, maybe he really was sick. But in Spain, a person attempts to get well. Lethe, on the other hand, showed pleasure in being sick. Sickness was a vacation for him.

If the youth hadn’t doted on her so much, then it would have been easier to kick him out of her apartment. But no, she couldn't be so severe with him. His favorite tactic was to ask if she wanted to have a cigarette and a cup of coffee. How could she say no to that? So they would sit down on the couch together and he’d begin to ask her all these questions about her sons and daughters in Portugal or her late husband. He seemed genuinely interested in knowing about her life. He was a curious young man, and sweet too, but she always felt herself being sucked into his gloomy, lethargic world. And she fought against it. She tried to sympathize--but never too much.

He flattered her with his blind attachment. It was like he needed an old woman to comfort him. She tried to resist giving too much of herself, but she enjoyed the attention, it was true. So they both helped each other in unhealthy ways, and thus became entangled.

The Senora’s family comes over

The voices of the Senora's relatives rumbled through the thin walls of the apartment. Outbursts of laughter. He could hear them cracking pistachio nuts and the children running in the halls. The men were playing cards and accusing each other of cheating. The women were helping in the kitchen and gossiping. Juanita lurked in the hallway with her patched eye. She was probably looking for him.

The poster said not to wish for happiness. But that was impossible. Lethe expected the Senora to take care of him. Now she was ignoring him. And yet, he didn't want to go home either.

The children were screaming in the living room. Their little feet padded up and down the hall. Later the Senora would clean the hallway with her dust mop. She would go over the same spot where those children played. It would calm her to do this.

Yesterday he felt so comfortable and secure with his situation. Yesterday he wrote the first pages of a short story about his childhood. He described the ponds around his home, the Canadian geese covering the lawns. He recalled the ease and fluidity of that day. How he seemingly floated through it without a single irritation.

He came in from the balcony and sat down at his desk. Then, there was a knock on his door.

"Lethe, it's me."

"What do you want Donte? I'm busy in here."

"The Senora wants you to come out for the meal. Her relatives want to meet you. You know, Lethe, the Spanish people, they're social. They don't understand it when somebody is hiding in their room."

"I'm not hiding, Donte. I'm just not hungry." Lethe slammed the door and cursed under his breath.

"Lethe?"

"What Donte?" Lethe asked with growing irritation.

"Remember the night you tried to kill yourself?

"No, I don't. Please remind me."

"You felt much better once you came out of your room. Even though you didn't want to, you were glad you did it."

"I did it to appease you. I didn't feel much better, actually."

Lethe heard some more voices in the hallway. Two people were arguing with each other.

Somebody turned a key.

Two well-built men in their early forties stepped into Lethe's room. They had full beards and autumnal, hand-knitted sweaters. Their large presence in the room dramatically altered the mood.

What happened to Donte? Lethe thought.

The two men were roused by each other's speech. Lethe couldn't make out what they were arguing about but it sounded serious. Finally, realizing they had stepped into the wrong room, one of them said,"This doesn't look like the guest room."

"No, it's not. This is my room." Lethe shot a look of confusion at the brothers.

"My brother here was telling me that Americans watch futbol. Is that true? Or are they mainly obsessed with baseball?"

"Some Americans like soccer. But they tend to be the ones who play soccer." Lethe reached for an unlit cigarette on the dresser.

"We just had a bet about what sports Americans are least likely to watch. I said 'soccer'. My brother said 'handball'."

"I don't think we even have handball in the US," Lethe answered.

"By the way, we're the Senora's sons. You won't see us very often but once in awhile we take the train with our families and come here for a big meal. You know how good mama's chorizo is."

"Yes," Lethe replied with a note of sadness in his voice. "Her food is delicious."

Hashish

A long, long time ago in an artificial suburban hamlet called Barclay Park,

beside a high stucco wall covered with ivy,

behind a flowering bush (Calochortus nudus),

Lethe smoked his first cigarette.

Tasting the harsh fumes of death, Lethe grew hardened and ambitious to continue smoking each week. He slipped out of the house when his parents weren't looking and he ran to the end of his street to smoke. He knew the people who lived in the house at the end of the cul de sac, he played soccer with their son. Nevertheless he pretended they couldn't see him going into their backyard and hiding behind their flowering bushes.

He was born into a gated community. Smoking, being the great rebellious act of any adolescent, instilled him with a sense of expansive liberty. He was saving a corner of himself for misdeeds, a part of himself which his father couldn't influence.

The dark deed of smoking was repeated over and over like a ritual. When he entered high school, he could say that he smoked, not once, but often.

The shadow of his youth became like his double. When he wasn't studying to get good grades to earn his father's approval, the shadow took full possession of him. At times, the shadow felt more real than anything else.

The neighbors down the street never saw him scurrying into their backyard. They never came out of their house to evict him from the flowering bush, the site of his early transgressions. And if he wanted to jump the stucco wall, he did. He threw his bicycle over it and rode across the highway where there was a hotel and a golf course.

Sometimes he spent whole afternoons wandering through the hotel. He sat on the couches and drew in his sketch book, like a dandy. He made doodles and graphic symbols with meanings only he could decipher. He pretended he was a guest in the hotel, or the son of a well-known politician.

His father was a doctor. A prescriptive man by nature who communicated to his son mainly through lectures.

Cigarettes tasted like the harsh fumes of death. He grew used to the taste, but never completely. There was always the residue of something bitter and coarse.

During his senior year he smoked every morning while driving to school. He drove his father's Oldsmobile; he was never given a car of his own. In the neighborhood where he grew up this was unusual.

If he wanted to escape Barclay Park, which he often did, he had to climb the stucco wall. When he got the car, he roamed the leafy suburb at night, smoking cigarettes one after the other.

On the balcony of the Senora's apartment, Lethe removed the tobacco from one of his cigarettes. He kept the paper.

It was three o'clock in the morning. The night air had a wavy, moist feel. The stars in the sky fell under the horizon like lost buttons and pins. You had to search for them. Directly above him there was nothing. Only a gulf of darkness.

He filled the cigarette with the hashish he had bought that night. Moroccans sold it to him. You could find Moroccans in almost any park after 11:00 pm. They clustered around benches and stone steps, drinking whiskey and shouting gleefully. You simply had to approach them and they understood what you wanted. Lethe learned these things from living in Spain.

The leader stepped up to Lethe. He pressed his body against Lethe's and took his cash. Then he removed a little piece of clay wrapped in plastic and tore it in half between his teeth. Muttering something in Spanish, he put the hashish into Lethe's hand.

Lethe caught sight of the Moroccan's mouth. It was the dirtiest mouth he had ever seen in his life. The Moroccan was missing all but four of his teeth, and those teeth were yellow and stumpy.

The rest of the Moroccans had pockmarked faces and greasy hands. They grinned whenever you were communicating with them. They couldn't stop grinning.

The joint tasted like his first cigarette: overpowering, dirty, coarse. But he sucked on the end of it until his head was full, and his senses lazily unstrung.

It was like slipping out of the house, and running to the end of the street. It was like hiding beside the flowering bush, and taking those first drags off a half-smoked cigarette. It was like jumping the high stucco wall.

The neighbors wouldn't notice a thing.

The early morning pleased him in a disorienting way. It was somewhere between morning and night and this was a comfortable place for him. He liked how the trees below the Senora's apartment grew out of their little concrete squares. He liked how the storefronts gleamed in the oily moonlight. He noticed the fruit seller's wooden cart which had fallen on its side from the wind.

Hashish was weird. It didn't fill him with ecstatic energy. It just sort of dulled his senses and dropped him onto plateaus of vacant emotion. There was nothing immediately pleasurable in the effects. But having spent so much time in the Senora's apartment, doing practically nothing, any difference in his well-being seemed to satisfy him greatly, to remind him of his youthful transgressions, smoking behind his neighbor's house, and to transport him back to a feeling of defiance.

"What are you doing out here?" The Senora asked suddenly.

Lethe looked at his watch; it was almost 4:30 in the morning.

"Oh, I came outside to have a cigarette . . . I must have fallen asleep."

"When Don Quixote fell asleep, he was attacked by highway men."

Lethe smiled. "Are you a highway man?"

"Not tonight."

They laughed together. "Go to bed, nino."

Senorita Lorenzo’s red chamber

Senorita Lorenzo, Lethe's psychiatrist, was encamped in her office all day long. She rarely left for lunch, preferring instead the red-chambered privacy of the British-American clinic. She savored the time that she had alone and usually allowed herself to relax and forget about her patients.

It was a narrow window of pleasure, and she had to be careful not to impinge on the delicacy of these moments with her mundane, daily preoccupations. She was not a particularly indulgent woman, but she knew how to indulge herself and was precise about it.

She could give herself a small piece of chocolate, a single glass of wine, or a few crackers with goat cheese, and she was happy. Without this ritual of self-gratification, she was likely to pay less attention to her patients. Her patients demanded her full sympathy and this was an exhausting practice, listening to someone tell you about their problems. She only required a small portion of the day for herself; the rest she could charge for.

She knocked off her shoes underneath the desk, and dropped a fresh cherry into her mouth. The juice spilled down the sides of her chin, and she laughed at herself for being so messy.

She thought of an older man who she'd been spending some time with lately. She went back and forth on whether this was a good idea. The man was recently divorced. Moreover, he worked in the same clinic.

The soft, fresh goat cheese coated the outsides of her teeth. Before she brought the wine glass to her lips, she savored the bitty chives with self-abandon. The minutes were ticking away and soon she'd be working with a client (she glanced at her schedule). At least she had her fifteen minutes of pleasure. In the right frame of mind, fifteen minutes could seem longer, like in a dream.

She rubbed her feet anxiously against the carpet. Perhaps the dream was ending soon.

Lethe frantically ran though the underground metro, sweat soaking his underarms; a continuous huffing threw him into an athletic trance. Finally, he arrived, bursting into Senorita Lorenzo's red chamber with lackluster appearance.

The psychiatrist stashed a couple things into her bottom drawer. Her shoes went back on. She straightened her collar.

"It smells like alcohol in here--" Lethe remarked.

"Sometimes I have a glass of wine with my lunch."

Lethe situated himself in his chair, looking around suspiciously. "What do you do in here all day?"

"I talk to patients like you."

"Don't you get bored listening to strangers all the time?"

"No, I actually find it quite interesting. I want to learn more about my patients."

"That sounds so scripted. What do you really think about me?" Lethe flashed a look of provocation.

"I think you have a lot of potential, Lethe. I've read your writings. You're a talented young man."

"Then what's my problem? Why can't I connect with anyone?"

"You can connect. Look at your relationship to the Senora, it's strong."

The darkness and red silk upholstery inside the psychiatrist’s office attracted Lethe's attention; the office lulled him into a fantasy. He pictured his doctor giving him presents on top of her bed. The lavish Italian bed had soaring columns and a gauzy veil hanging over a canopy.

"I spoke to your father." Senorita Lorenzo announced.

"Did he send you my allowance?"

"He says he won't send you a dime until you find a job."

"But that wasn't part of the deal. And anyways I'm in Spain. How am I supposed to find a job in a place where there's thirty-five per cent unemployment?"

"You won't find one if you never leave the apartment."

"But wait, that's not true anymore. I leave the apartment. I leave the apartment every night."

Lethe thought of the Moroccans.

"Have you been taking those pills I gave you?" She tightened her scarf around her neck.

"Yes, I think they're working. I'm much calmer than I was before. Can't you tell?"

"You seem a little calmer . . . maybe."

"I'm reading a mammoth book. Of course you've heard of it, you're Spanish."

"No, actually, I was born in Italy."

"Huh, that's funny. You look like a Spaniard."

"Roma." The Senorita squinted her eyes and smiled. Then she looked at the clock on her desk. "You know you have a lot of talents, Lethe. I've read your writing, it's excellent."

He changed his tone, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I am talented. I'm not just going to sit around the apartment anymore. I'm going to do something!"

A broad smile appeared on Senorita Lorenzo's face. She wanted to hug Lethe, but then she dismissed this impulse and stayed close to her desk as he was leaving.

Lethe ventures out into the night . . . again and again

It became a nightly ritual, slipping out of the Senora’s apartment after she had gone to bed . . .

The damp metro station. Dirty air; sooty, humid. A creaky turnstile with a single homeless person sleeping on the granite. The solitary tram car. Loud, metallic vibrations through cavernous tunnels.

Two police officers usually stood at the top of the stairs when he came out of the Metro. It seemed as if they were guarding the empty plaza with four trees and a couple stone benches. Tall cups of coffee in their hands, each with a cigarette burning, the officers barely noticed him. They were having their nightly conversation.

Above the officers, the sky was rounded, black and studded with stars. The palpable air woke him out of his slumber and filled him with a subtle appreciation for the universe. He passed the officers nonchalantly, trying not to make eye contact. He remembered to take a different train on the way home.

The Senora must be sleeping now. In fact, the whole city of Madrid must be sleeping. It was a week night, after all.

There were some voices from the bars; a couple strolling arm in arm, half-drunk.

The comfort of being alone contrasted with the comfort of having a lover, or even a friend to pass the time with. Lethe looked at the lovers jealously. The female was French and extremely attractive. Her boyfriend looked Austrian and aristocratic, like he belonged to the Hapsburg family. Lethe strolled through the plazas, swinging between moods, swinging between his subtle, giddy appreciation, and his resentment of others.

The Reggae bar, a hot spot on the weekends, had the shutters open and a few tables under a canopy. But the bar stools were empty and shadows crossed in the center of the room. Jamaican beats filtered a laid-back rhythm through the speakers, and the high pitch of the steel drum rang out. Lethe sat in the front of the bar, beside the sidewalk and the street, and bobbed his head as he waited for the delinquent waitress.

The waitress was some post-punk chick with green and blue dreadlocks and a stud in her chin. Lethe ordered a drink and waited for her to disappear so he could lite up his pipe. He was sitting in a sort of cubbyhole, where the shadows still crossed the tables and disguised him in patches of darkness. Occasionally, he turned his head to blow smoke into the streets.

Lee "Scratch" Perry came on through the 70's speakers mounted in the corners of the room. The sound quality was horrible but it heightened his sense of detachment. The bartender wore hemp bracelets and stacked boxes off to the side. The post-punk waitress smoked a cigarette at a table by herself, occasionally throwing bitter glances at the bartender. There was nobody in this bar except these three, until a Moroccan sauntered inside.

He was gangly and emaciated but he held himself well and stood proud in a jeans jacket slightly torn at the arms. From the moment he appeared in the bar, he seemed to set his eyes on Lethe and walk toward him. He kept staring, until finally he sat down at Lethe's table. There was a cigarette hanging vertically from his mouth.

"Do you like this place?" he said, his cigarette flapping up and down. "It seems kind of empty to me." Then he moved closer toward Lethe and whispered, "I can get you whatever you want."

"I'm cool," Lethe replied. "But thanks."

The Spaniards

The Senora’s apartment building sat on a cobbled street with a couple boutique shops and an open plaza across the way. During the weeknights, it held a serene, moonlit absence of sound. On the weekends, one heard the youthful crowds stirring; friendly pairs flirting with each other on stone benches.

There was no need to buy any more hashish. Lethe's regular visits to the other side of Madrid was creating an oversupply of the drug in his bedroom. Not only that but hashish didn't appeal to him as much anymore; he was growing tired of it. He looked over his balcony and saw the bars opening at nine o'clock. There was some activity but he felt too shy to cross the Senora's street and simply walk into a bar and introduce himself to a bunch of strangers.

Instead of crossing the Senora's street, he walked down to the end of her block, passing clusters of Spanish teenagers. The attractive couples, the young, the fashionable were out tonight. He passed them with the weight of his longing to connect and yet his footsteps carried him farther out, away from them, because he was separated, by language, by culture, and as any two strangers are separated.

The city smelled like a tobacco pipe. He kept the hashish in his jacket pocket but what he smelled was the tobacco pipe of Madrid and the robust flavors of wine and love. The plazas were becoming more crowded. What began as a trickle after 9 o'clock had turned into a buzzing stream from all directions. But Lethe avoided the popular hangouts.

At the end of the Senora's block, he noticed a crumbling wall he hadn't seen before. The wall seemed out of place and presented an ugly contrast to the pretty boutique shops a couple feet away. As he came closer to the wall, he saw a little dirt trail that wrapped around it. He climbed the trail, ducking under some bushes and hoisting himself to the top.

Lethe liked exploring and tonight was no exception. Whereas some adolescents might back away from trespassing in a foreign city, Lethe went forward with feverish curiosity. Three and four story houses burrowed under massy branches and stood silent behind stucco walls. He glimpsed fancy driveways through wrought-iron gates but saw nothing more.

After walking up the hill for a while, Lethe sat down on the curb to smoke some more hashish. The houses behind the stucco wall now seemed to have a presence. He ignored the eyes in the darkness which were really lights on in the houses.

From another direction, a gaggle of voices became audible and Lethe hid his pipe in his pocket. Stepping away from the curb to see what was happening, he approached the voices until he was ten feet away. A gang of university students, all male, were gathered in a circle, telling stories. They had drinks in their hands and were smoking cigarettes under a glowing street lamp.

Lethe, the outsider, was touched by their genial spirits. The Spaniards seemed to have a unique and powerful bond to each other. Just by watching them, Lethe grew passionate and interested in their revels.

The Spaniards: Part Two

Their festive exuberance struck him as odd. He'd never seen university students so open, loving, and free. They embraced like brothers and kissed on the cheeks; they cavorted around the cul de sac, chasing one another. They had fiery, engaging conversations.

Lethe approached them without freezing up or running off. The hashish he smoked earlier removed his inhibitions and he walked right up to them and said, "Hello. I have some hashish here. Care for any?"

The Spaniards were surprised by his obvious American accent. Soon smiles appeared on their faces. One of the Spaniards answered cheerfully, "Let's see what you got." Another stepped forward to introduce himself. The glimmer in his eye persuaded Lethe that he was interested in making friends.

"Have a drink," Ricardo said, while reaching for the whiskey and Coke.

Ricardo was a tall fellow with wire-rim glasses and a narrow face. "How are you enjoying Spain," he asked.

"Spain? Oh, I love Spain. I have a Senora who I live with . . . and another roommate but I don't talk to him very much."

"What about school?" Ricardo asked.

"I've just quit school." Lethe laughed.

"You what?" Another Spaniard entered the conversation.

Lethe chuckled. "I don't like your International Institute here; that's where they send us foreigners. The funny thing about the International Institute is that's it's filled with Americans. I can't stand Americans now. They drive me crazy."

Lethe spoke fluent Spanish. How it happened was a mystery. Suddenly the words, the expressions, the phrases, were released from some deep place inside of him and once he began talking he couldn't stop. The Spaniards stood amazed at his energy for talking and his manic enthusiasm and the constant flow of ideas brewing inside of him. Soon they had gathered around him and were asking all sorts of questions.

A beam of confidence shot through Lethe. Speaking Spanish was really a cinch. All you had to do was open your mouth and let the words carry themselves. He didn't know if he was making sense or not, but the Spaniards were laughing and showing signs that they understood him. All Lethe needed was the confidence to say the next word and everything was fine. Suddenly he'd become popular. Suddenly he'd become the center of attention.

And then, wanting to wield his newly discovered gift, Lethe posed some questions of his own. "What's it like to go to school in Spain? Is it anything like the International Institute? Do you have a lot of homework?"

"We don't have any homework," Javier answered, the round-faced, handsome Spaniard in the middle. "In three weeks we will have our final exam. That's why everyone is out tonight. This is one of our last weekends to party."

"How many tests have you had this semester?" Lethe asked.

"Tests?" They chuckled. "There's only one test at the end of the semester. Most of us haven't even opened our textbooks yet."

"What about papers? Surely you've had some papers to write?"

"No papers, either."

"But attendance is required of course. You have to go to class don't you?"

This last question really cracked them up. "No," a short, bald guy answered. "I haven't been to class in eight weeks."

"Either have I," another Spaniard shouted. "We study the night before. That's the best, proven technique."

"You study the night before your final exam and it's your only grade the entire semester?"

They found Lethe's skepticism amusing. He seemed to take life so seriously.

Javier explained, "College is free in Spain, but you have to pass your tests or you can't move on."

"And doesn't that worry you? Not passing my tests scares me to death. I quit school because I was afraid I wouldn't get straight A's. My language was never this good, I assure you. Just tonight it seems to have dramatically improved."

"If we don't pass our tests, we'll all become plumbers!" The Spaniards cheered.

Lethe was still perplexed by how they managed to enjoy themselves and keep from worrying about the demands in life. But after awhile he simply went along with the festive spirit and drank more whiskey and Coke. They taught him some national songs and toward the end of the night Lethe walked home thinking maybe there was another way to look at reality.

An Energetic Morning

Lethe Bashar woke up the next morning feeling . . . marvelous!

He got out of bed and looked at the wall, the same wall he looked at every morning when he woke up. Except today the poster of the clown with the funny-shoes on and blousy shirt made complete sense to him:

To wish for too great a happiness makes it difficult for that same happiness.

Well, of course, it does, Lethe thought. If you expect things to change then they most definitely will not!

But if, on the other hand, you sink yourself into gloomy despair and tell yourself how you’ll always be stuck in this ugly place, then you might have a chance at seeing miracles.

It’s all a matter of perspective. (And here, Lethe truly felt as though he were getting at the core of life’s mystery.) Last night, I hardly expected to meet a group of friends. I carried out my usual routine of wandering the streets and looking for a dark alley to smoke hashish. The hashish does nothing for me, you see, it gives me no real pleasure, but plunges me deeper into whorls of dull sensation and confused torpor.

His face brightened upon recollections of the din on the hill.

They called me “El Americano,” my new Spanish friends. They respected me and even showed signs of admiration toward me. Well, then, for three long months I have been brooding here in Spain, locking myself in my room and writing this Novel of Life. I needed to find somebody, I needed an escape. Then they appeared like magic helpers, my Spaniards, Javier, Ricky, Alejandro, Damian, and all the others. They surrounded me with their cups of whiskey and cheered to our new friendship. My God, I would have never expected this to happen to me. At last, I am loved by the Spanish.

Thus ran Lethe’s exuberant thoughts. The mere anticipation of meeting his friends for a second time sent shivers down his legs. He would meet them again tonight on top of the hill. They told him to be there, they repeated themselves in order to make sure he heard them. Yes, yes, of course he would be there tonight. But first he had to buy an outfit to wear. He would buy a pair of black shoes and black pants, just like them.

But wait, he was getting ahead of himself. It was only (he looked at the clock on his nightstand) 10:06 am. He still had to drink his coffee in the kitchen and greet the Senora before he left the apartment.

The Senora worked silently, alone with her thoughts, preparing the meals for the day. She sliced vegetables, organized the spice cabinet, and cut up the chorizo for soup. The maid ironed clothing next to the pantry. It was crowded having the three of them in one space but Lethe hardly noticed this fact. Every morning, waking up late, he strolled into the kitchen and poured the remaining coffee. The Senora secretly despised him for coming into the kitchen so late. They were busy now, couldn’t he see that? But Lethe had a certain unconscious attitude about him, aloofness prevailed. It was very difficult to get Lethe to imagine that there were other people in this world who might have feelings and objectives of their own.

The Senora grew talented at hiding her agitation with Lethe. This morning she saw that he was brimming with confidence and she replied to his contentment with a sort of restrained pleasure.

“And what’s the occasion for your merriment?” She asked.

“If I seem cheerful this morning Maria Angeles, it’s because I am cheerful. Last night I met a group of Spaniards my age. At first they saw me walking along the sidewalk by myself and then they called me over to have a drink with them. Before I knew it we were all partying on the hill at the end of your street, you know where the wall is . . .”

“Yes, I know where you’re talking about. Those boys who live up on that hill are the sons of doctors and lawyers and politicians. Be careful what you say to them. Remember you don’t live in this country.”

Lethe barely paid any attention to what the Senora was saying. Instead he poured out his grief to her, “I’ve been alone for three months. I quit school because of anxiety attacks. Up until a week ago, I was practically living in my room. You always wanted me to go out and meet new people. Here’s my chance.”

The Senora turned to the spice cabinet and whiffed a half-empty bottle. “Six months old,” she muttered, tossing the bottle into the trash.

“I’m going out this morning to buy a new outfit,” Lethe said.

“Now that you’ve meet these lads, you have to keep up an appearance.”

“That’s right, I’ve got to look my best.”

The Senora chuckled to herself. There were certain things her boarder would never understand.

“Don’t forget you have an appointment with your psychiatrist today. El Retiro Park.”

“I completely forgot. What time was it again?”

“3:30.”

In two gulps Lethe downed his coffee and ran into the bathroom to get his towel. Then he rushed to his bedroom, peeled off his night clothes, and ran back to the bathroom. He jumped into the shower and squirted some of Dante’s strawberry shampoo on his head. Lethe’s showers could take as long as twenty five minutes, another habit that secretly enraged the Senora. But today Lethe was in such a hurry that he showered in less than fifteen.

As he scurried out the door, the Senora flashed a knowing smile to the maid.

Lethe meets the psychiatrist in the park

Lethe appeared much happier than Senorita Lorenzo recalled. The last time she saw him in her office, he was insecure and tense. There was also some awkwardness between them that caused her to consider finding him a new therapist.

Today Lethe was wearing brand new clothes and a confident grin. What caught the psychiatrist off guard was when he sat down next to her and immediately reached for her hand, as if to kiss it.

She recoiled from her patient while forcing a smile. "Is everything okay, Lethe?"

"Things couldn't be better. I've met some new friends . . ."

The psychiatrist covered up her nervousness with, "Oh, I'm so happy for you. That's wonderful."

"Do you mind if I have a glass of your wine?" He asked boldly.

"I'd prefer if you didn't." Then she looked at the half-empty bottle and said, "Fine, go ahead, but don't drink too much." She came to the park about twenty minutes ago and had been sitting here eating goat cheese on crackers before Lethe arrived.

Lethe drank at his psychiatrist's approval. He loved the fact that his psychiatrist was so young and vibrant. "I think I got some of your lipstick on my mouth," he said, chuckling to himself.

Senorita Lorenzo looked embarrassed and intervened. "Give me that," she said, "You shouldn't be drinking wine during the middle of the day. Now tell me about your new friends."

"I was outside last Friday night taking one of my walks and lo and behold I met a group of Spaniards my age." He reached for the wine glass again, but she held it away from him. Their bodies touched on the bench and the psychiatrist was starting to become visibly nervous. Lethe grew in confidence and felt like maybe his doctor was attracted to him.

Three pigeons plopped into the fountain across from their bench. Wings flapped merrily against the surface of the water. A busload of children was letting out by the entrance to the park.

"I don't know what it is," Lethe said, "But I've changed my perception of things."

"How so?" The Senorita arched her shoulders and placed her hands on her lap.

"Well, for example, I don't need to see a dermatologist anymore. You can cancel the appointment."

"I can?" She'd never made an appointment in the first place.

"You're gonna think I'm crazy, Senorita. But when I look in the mirror, my face looks fine. I don't see any acne anymore."

The psychiatrist smiled. Maybe he was getting better.

"You still need to find a job, don't you? Otherwise your father won't send your monthly allowance."

"I found a job. My Spanish friends want me to help them run their mini bar at a local discotheque."

The psychiatrist responded with a look of skepticism. "Do you think you're father will go along with that?"

"You're not going to tell him anything, right?"

"But that wasn't the deal. The deal was, remember, that I would tell your father everything. I made this very clear at the beginning of our sessions."

Lethe stared at his psychiatrist in juvenile irritation. Senorita Lorenzo cast a glance across the park and noticed one of her colleagues. Immediately she scooted away from Lethe and covered her legs. The colleague then looked in her direction and waved. She waved back.

"Who's that?" Lethe asked.

"Just someone I know I know from the clinic," she said, watching the man disappear behind the parade of school children.