Before long the inevitable happened. One day in March I went to the bank to take out money to pay for my next week’s dance classes and saw the message flash: Transaction Denied.
I’m pretty good at calculating how far I can get on a tank of gas, and I’d thought I had enough for one more week of classes. I tried taking out a hundred euro, then eighty, then fifty, but each time the message came up: Transaction Denied = No more toma que toma. The money I was making teaching English was enough to cover my rent, metro tickets, and food. But now that my Australian savings had been exhausted, how was I going to pay for dance classes?
It was a sad trudge back down the road. I could work more and take on more students, but then I wouldn’t have time to dance. The thought of walking away from the Amor de Dios after all I’d done to get there was unbearable, but I could see no alternative. I told myself that it was only temporary, but temporary until when?
I’d come to Spain to study flamenco, and if I couldn’t do that, what was the point in carrying on? But how could I go back to Australia so soon? Was I going to head home after just two months, slip in the back door, and hope nobody noticed me? And when people asked, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be living your dream in Spain?” I’d have to look confused and say, “Spain? Oh right! Spain. Yeah, about that…”
I hadn’t come all this way to just give up. After all I’d been through—my first nights in the old elevator shaft, shivering under the blankets at Miguel’s house, those morning train rides, jetés in Jiffies, bursting into tears at the price of towels—was it really going to end like this?
I didn’t feel like going back to the apartment, so I wandered, looking for a place to sit for a while. There aren’t many parks in Madrid, just busy roads lined with sad, struggling trees that look like the celery you find at the bottom of the crisper when you’re cleaning out the fridge, so I stepped into an old stone church. At least I could sit there without having to pay the price of a cup of coffee. I slid into a pew in the darkest corner and sighed.
There were a few people seated in the other pews, and soon two priests came out through the old wooden doors to the side of the altar and started to set up for mass. This was usually my cue to leave, but I wasn’t ready to face the world just yet. So I stayed there in my dark corner, hidden behind a wide stone column. And when the service started, the droning monotonous voice of the Spanish priests didn’t interrupt my train of thought. The church was steadily filling up with people, and every few minutes or so they would all stand up and mumble something inaudible in Spanish, then sit back down again. But hidden in my corner, I could just sit and stare into space.
I thought about calling my parents, but how could I ask them for money? If they gave it to me, it would probably come with the proviso that I get on a plane back home and into a university course.
In front of me there was a painted statue of a woman in a fabulous flowing gown. She was very beautiful in a silent movie kind of way. Her long auburn hair was arranged in perfect ringlets and her impeccably painted eyebrows were drawn together in an expression of intense emotion. Was it anguish or ecstasy? I remembered reading somewhere once that the difference between the saints and us regular people is that the saints have already seen the happy ending to the story. Perhaps that was what she was looking at. I wished that I could see mine.
The priests stepped down off the altar swinging gold incense burners. How theatrical, I thought, and remembered the incense during Semana Santa in Seville. Maybe I should go back there…
Just then, a flamenco guitar began to play. The congregation rose to their feet, and this time I joined them, looking out from behind the column to see where the music was coming from.
A flamenco guitarist was standing at the altar. His head was bowed as he plucked the strings of the guitar. Then he lifted his head and sang to Mary. There were actually five priests at the altar, I saw. They stood with reverently bowed heads listening to the flamenco singer.
And then, as if on cue, the entire congregation sang out with the guitarist the chorus of the song:
Cheer up, Mary.
Don’t look so sad, Mary.
Why won’t you smile, Mary?
Even the priests had raised their heads and were singing along.
Flamenco-singing priests? Is this what the Spanish do in mass? Every time I’d come into the church, I’d always left before they got started, so I never knew that I was missing the toma que toma. And I remembered the tear-streaked face of the old man in the crowded street in Seville during Semana Santa who had told me that Jesus was dancing.
Only in Spain.
Only in Spain could a bloodied and tortured Jesus dance a bulería while nailed to a cross. Only in Spain could a congregation sing and clap their hands and tell the Virgin Mary it’s not so bad after all.
After the mass I walked back home through the flea market. I passed the old men who sat every day out front of their stores in the sun, clapping compás to the flamenco music on the radio. I stepped around old lace fans and castanets and faded postcards of flamenco dancers that were laid out on display on the footpath. It occurred to me that every day I was surrounded by flamenco. I hurried past it every morning on my way to work, and it was always there to greet me as I made my way home. I even had to step over it on the pavement.
I reminded myself of why I had come to Spain. I’d come to live a passionate life. I’d wanted to feel and smell and taste life, and live like that dancer on the stage in Seville, risking that triple turn, never sure she wouldn’t spin right off the stage. I’d come because I wanted to learn to live with toma que toma, and it seemed that in Spain this was one lesson I couldn’t avoid. Even during my darkest night of the soul, when I wanted to sink into the oblivion of self-pity, I’d found myself at the back of a church in the middle of a musical number.
When I reached Mariela’s building, I could hear the sound of salsa music coming from the second-floor window. I knew what that meant: the couch had been pushed back and there would be a calimocho waiting for me. I could use one. I didn’t know when I’d be able to afford to go back to dance classes, and I was going to have to take a break until I saved up some money. But there’s no time for feeling sorry for yourself in this country. Not even Mary could get away with that.
• • •
That night I was woken by the sound of someone singing flamenco. A lone, high voice, it sounded like that of a child. I sat up in bed and leaned across to the window, pulling back the curtains.
A group of teenage boys were walking up the street. They were slim and wore suit jackets and collared shirts. The group clapped compás as one boy sang flamenco. I poked my head out the window and watched as they passed beneath the yellow light of the street lamps. The boy threw back his head and belted out his song to the night sky.
“Olé…” one of the group said.
They continued down the street, and their voices faded and were replaced by the sound of traffic.
I lay back against the pillow and asked myself: Were they…gypsies?
The boy who had been singing sounded like a gypsy. He had that same high yet raspy voice I was used to hearing on my flamenco CDs. And really, wouldn’t you have to be a gypsy to be walking the streets at night singing flamenco?
I lay in bed hoping to hear them come back down the street, but they didn’t. Perhaps they were gypsies, I thought as I eventually drifted off to sleep. I wonder if they’ll let me run away with them…