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.

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 Catalin. 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, reading from the Classics with his father. The blond curls of the little boy bounced up and down as he violently 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.

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.

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.

A Pastry Shop and a Bookstore

"Perdon," she said abruptly.

"Lo siento. I was only looking--"

She gave him a snooty expression and moved away from the display case.

Chocolate pies were laid out on a silver platter. Bemused salesgirls in white aprons walked around offering samples of miniature pastries. And the older Spanish wives mostly cheating on their husbands this afternoon watched the shiny casements with a kind of inappropriate quiver. The pastries looked more like works of art than edible foodstuffs. The women had bronze highlights in their hair and deep red lipstick, lipstick they never wore for their husbands. Colorful jellies oozed out of puffy morsels and rich glazes dripped onto white doilies. And how many of these women really had lovers? Maybe three or four. The rest preferred almond cake, brandy truffles, flan, tiramisu, and crème-filled rolls.

Lethe meandered from the pastry shop to a bookstore down the lane.

Lemon-scented air. Lethe awoke from his dreams of seducing the women in the pastry shop. The bookstore was like the den where his father retreated to; it was cloistered and dry, it smelled of leather and wood. Lethe felt a nostalgia for home even though home was the last place he wanted to be.

He climbed a small ladder to get to the top where he contorted his body and balanced on a plank of wood. It was a challenging position. 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 . . .

The fall caused a great clap on the floor and to top it all off, the book whacked our hero good, drawing attention from the entire room, the shopkeeper included. Words were shouted and exchanged; words meant to be compassionate.

A hoard of beguiling faces peered into his eyes, studying him, 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.

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 Lorenzo 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.”

Lethe was beginning to notice Senorita Lorenzo's good looks. She had a chin that tapered off into a perfect ball, and eyes that glowed fiercely when she communicated "important matters". Beyond that her tannish skin and dark eyeliner combined to put a sort of spell on him. To him, she was adult, exotic, and intelligent. He pictured what was underneath that olive suit she wore. He pictured her without her gold jewelry, without her ornaments and earings.

“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.”

“My father?” Lethe said.

“Yes, your father. We need his permission to do this. You know Lethe you're only nineteen years old. You can't just decide to live in Spain and forget about everything else. You're going to need me to help you work out the details. And the good news is you father has agreed. He says he actually preferred if you lived her for awhile."

"Divorce. I almost forgot."

Senorita Lorenzo ran her long finger down the contract. "Here it says, 'each month you will receive an allowance'. In addition, your father wants me to send him monthly reports on your improvement.”

I wonder what it would be like taking a shower with Senorita Lorenzo.

"You don't have to stay here, Lethe. It's just easier on your family if you do. They love you, but they need this time to figure things out."

She probably has a C-cup--no B, no definitely C.

"Lethe, it's okay. You can stay here. I can contact the director of the study abroad program if you want. Do you want me to tell him that you're staying here in Spain?"

"No, I'll talk to him myself. It's not necessary."

"Are you sure?"

Her breasts are so perfect.

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. These Spanish streets were infinite; and Senorita Lorenzo was beautiful.

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.”

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 Lorenzo was a woman in her early thirties. Her effervescent briskness captured Lethe's attention in the same way an energetic school teacher might capture the attention of her students.

“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 Lorenzo 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."

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 counter top to counter top, 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 counter top, 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 lecture 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. "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.

After dinner, she invited him to sit with her on the couch. Rain had just fallen on the tin gutters 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 just where I go. I can't think in class. It's hard for me to sit still and listen to the professor. There are too many people I've never seen before."

The Senora cupped her cigarette to her face. The ash accumulated loosely on the end.

Lethe continued to tell the story about the bathroom. He talked about it with a certain desperation, like the event haunted him, and the only way he could erase it was by talking about it more, but this was foolish because it could never be talked about enough; the bathroom story repeated and repeated and there were many other bathrooms in his life which served the same purpose as the one in the International Institute; and then he talked about how his mother used to spend so much time in the bathroom.

"And she still does," he said. "I don't know what's wrong with her. She has some sort of problem, I think. She says she wants to keep her privacy. But it's always been an issue with our family. I don’t really have to use the bathroom, Senora. I just sit in the stall and stare at the tiles. It comforts me.”

The corners of the Senora's mouth grew taut, and her forehead went back, exaggerating her dark eyes; but her mouth stayed pretty much the same, a pencil-thin line. She was listening intently while showing extreme detachment. This bothered him at first, and he was about to confess more, to tell her how horrible he'd been to his mother by not believing in her illness, but then a calm drifted over him and he held his tongue.

“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 myself. 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 punish me for my fears; 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.”

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 endless trace of 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 acting like a Jesuit priest and 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 eat 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.

Un Chien 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 1929.

The first scene showed a man sharpening a blade in hotel room.

He walks out onto the balcony, smoke from his cigarette pouring from his nostrils He walks back inside the hotel room. There is a woman sitting in a chair. He lifts the razor blade up to the woman’s eyeball and slices. Tango music is playing the background.

It turned out that the "old-fashioned" film was powerfully disturbing, and those students who had been mocking it were now watching with rapt attention. The short film caused a riot of emotion in the class. The scenes didn't connect. Why were ants are crawling out of a human hand?

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.

How was any of this related to real life? He could hear his professor saying that this short surrealist film is a piece of cultural history. But the movie frightened him and he didn't want to look at any more disjointed images. Anxious paranoia struck and Lethe Bashar wanted to run to the mirror. Now his skin was breaking out for sure.

"Lethe, what's wrong? Where are you going?"

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 to help?”

He looked down the hall. It was empty and silent. “I don’t feel well, that’s all.”

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 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 a 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.

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, Lethe. Are you?”

“Kill myself? 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.”

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 turned sympathetic with her eyes. “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."

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 swiftly returned to his favorite obsession; his face and how it was mottled with acne. He'd already checked the mirror five times today.

What's wrong with me?

Calm down. Calm. Down.

Calm down, goddamnit!

If he didn't calm down right now, his face would get worse. Not "so-so" worse, but "catstrophic" worse. Worse than that time he forgot his closing lines in that play about the Civil War in the third grade, worse than the time he tried to french kiss his wife in the same play, worse than . . . Sweat squeezed out of his tiniest pores and the underlying pimples threatened to surface.

I need a mirror. I need to find a mirror. I need to see what I look like right now.

He turned to the right, then to the left. With dumb, self-absorbed looks on their faces, everyone was lulled into complacency by the professor's lecture. But he couldn’t follow what the professor was saying anymore, and even her voice took on another pitch, not the soothing stream the students heard, but a death-rattle, an irritating clatter in his mind. All he wanted to do was go downstairs and look in the mirror. But that was obvious. So why didn't he do it? Why didn't he just get up and leave? It was so easy.

The professor stopped her lecture. The woman had a highly-attuned sense of bad-things-happening-to-people, common in women from Southern Spain, where she was born.

"Todo esta bien alli?"

The heads at the front of the classroom rubbernecked to the back.

Lethe glanced down in shame, pretending to take notes. The class tremored with whispers. The professor straightened herself at the podium and made the formal remark, “La cultura Espanola tiene una riqueza de personalidades y tradiciones. No es un trabajo a encontrarlos . . .”

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.

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 to seek a buried treasure in Egypt."

The Senora and Donte exchanged quotations they had memorized from the book. The Senora chuckled while Donte's eyes sparkled like polished gems.

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

"Donte, ever since we met, you struck me as muy sofisticado, con experiencia de la vida. Por supuesto, it's because you're so well-read."

"We're reading Don Quixote for class."

"The Spanish Bible!" The Senora exclaimed.

"My favorite part, Chapter 26, I've read it hundreds of times, when the Sorrowful Knight kills the puppets because he thinks they're real people!"

Hearty laughter erupted from the Senora. "Master Peter's Puppet Show. Master Peter's Puppet Show . . ."

The Cuban was incapable of offending her.

The Senora went into a rolling swoon. "Don Quixote wants to save the damsel, that's why he destroys the puppet theater. He's gone completely mad! I love it!"

Donte nodded in gleeful assent. His sculpted hairdo bounced up and down as he praised the work. "Cervantes was a genius. Ingenio, ingenio . . ."

Tears gushed out of Senora's eyes. They were like two dogs feasting on each others' praises.

"I can tell you haven't read it," the Senora turned to Lethe. "I want you to use my copy."

She handed him the book from her great curio cabinet. Lethe shamefully thumbed through the dry parchment. The only thing he could think about were the little black sketches at the beginning of each chapter. About the words themselves, he declared, "My language is poor. I can't read all those words in Spanish."

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

“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 crumbs into her hand and stood up. Lethe and Donte stared at each other for a moment and followed her out of the room.

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. An older woman with boxy shoulders and short grey hair greeted them at the door.

Lethe scanned the floor of the entry hall. Where to put his suitcase? He held his luggage for an unpleasant duration and felt the choke of not being able to express himself in Spanish.

Donte smiled too often, it seemed, making proud, sweeping glances of the apartment. With confidence, he placed his suitcase beside an umbrella holder and walked into the center of the living room. The Senora’s daughter, a larger woman in her early thirties, rushed over to explain a litany of important things. 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 out her mother with the new guests. They followed her into the kitchen. She’d just gotten married a few weeks ago; the wedding was beautiful; done with such taste! Animated and anxious, she bustled between rooms. 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 taciturn, self-restrained demeanor. Raising her arm, she ordered Lethe and Donte to relax on the couch. They must have taken a long trip to get here.

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

Side tables and chairs filled the Senora’s dim living room. Little metal ashtrays were scattered throughout and the residue of tobacco smoke lingered in the air. Her daughter brought in their cups of coffee.

"There are two separate bedrooms," the Senora's daughter announced. "One room has a balcony and the other has a larger bed. Maybe I should just assign your rooms--"

"No," Donte interjected. "I'll take the room without the balcony; I get chills at night. Mother used to say it was a result of my eating patterns, but I'm much healthier now and those chills keep coming back. So I guess there's no explanation . . ."

Impressed by Donte's rapid fluency, Lethe held an expression of mute terror.

The Senora lit her cigarette and casually let the conversation with Donte continue for some time. Lethe focused on Donte's perfectly-molded jet black hair, his dark complexion, his rolling r's . . .

As they were going to their separate rooms, Lethe asked his fellow boarder, “Where'd you learn how to speak Spanish like that?"

“My parents wanted me to learn a second language when I was younger. So I read from the classics, you know, Cervantes, el Cid, Lorca. I just devoured them.”

“If I could speak Spanish like that, I wouldn't bother attending classes."

"Cranely College has the best study abroad program. Dropping out of school here would be like turning down an invitation to Harvard."

The Senora's daughter was right; his bed was smaller. But the luxury of having a balcony made up for the child bed. The first thing Lethe thought of was to take out a cigarette and admire the view while smoking. Bright, stucco buildings leaned over crooked alleyways. Flower-filled patios perfumed the streets. Pretty young maids appeared in the windows, perfect figures in white aprons. And down below, pensive old men sat in the corridors, taking short breaks from the heat.

Maybe Donte wanted to go for a walk. Two minutes later, the delicate Cuban came out wearing a heavy serape sweater and a hemp purse slung around his right shoulder.

They passed about a dozen souvenir shops. Stony-eyed vendors hawked lottery tickets. Gypsies sat on heaps of fabrics, rattling copper plates. Chic, well-dressed Spaniards rushed through the crowds.

Everywhere he turned, an array of signs flashed unknown words. Everything from national banks to telephone companies to fresh vegetables and cheap cigarettes. Some very old buildings had porticoes leading to inner courtyards with grille windows. Narrow, labyrinthine streets wound through the city like criss-crossing snakes. Vendors sold fried pastries on every block and children rode bicycles with chiming bells.

The Spanish women startled Lethe with their provocative style. One woman 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.

Chapter One: At the International Institute

On the morning of September 5th, 2001, instead of going to class, a student panicked and ran into the bathroom on the first floor of the International Institute in Madrid, Spain. 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 the student was overwhelmed 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. I'm ignored by the world, overlooked by millions. I can't change my appearance. I can't miraculously communicate with these people. I don't have one Spanish word I can whip off my tongue to convince these people I'm real, I exist."

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. Obstacles grew out of the empty air. The large flank of a church nearly pushed him off the curb. A cavity in the road suddenly appeared underneath him.

Construction workers swarmed the sidewalk, 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.

Lethe followed a winding footpath 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 class this morning. The taut underbelly of the lazy dog rose with each difficult breath.

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

One of the Spanish gentlemen smiled wistfully, as if recalling his own foolish youth.

Lethe glanced at the dog and saw how perfectly content it was. Stupid dog. Lucky dog.

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

The other men in the plaza hardly moved; they were like figures in a block of marble.

"Que Vida! Que Vida!"

It was too late to make it to his next class. He decided to stay here until the dog woke up.