September 2003 to June 2004, Madrid, Spain

By Anonymous

“No pasa nada,” they say. “Nothing passes.”

This makes little sense to me, and though I can admire with wide-eyed wonder the ancient angles of a church spire, though I can sigh with relief when I sink into bed for an uncustomary afternoon siesta, I still cannot understand this basic colloquialism, this small bite of culture: Nothing passes.

It begins immediately, albeit innocently. At Barajas Airport, I am inundated by the ebb and flow of taut-skinned Iberians, fashionably clad, pulling smart black suitcases on wheels. I am woozy from the long flight, the glass or two of wine gulped in between restless catnaps aboard the plane. I am rabid to begin my new life.

A sprightly young man approaches me, brightly blinking long lashes. He points at my luggage tag. “Eye-ee-essay?” he asks. I look dumbly at the blue plastic card on which I had carefully printed my first and last names under that of the study abroad program: IES. Eye … ee … oh. “Yes!” I gulp. “Uh … sí,” and I bashfully apologize for my broken Spanish.

“No pasa nada,” he smiles, brushing off my ineptitude. Nothing passes.

I move into a long, dark apartment, narrow as a coffin, where I live with an older woman and the youngest of her seven children, a surly girl my own age with a lip ring and dirty dreadlocks. In the mornings, we bump bodies awkwardly passing in and out of the bathroom, clutching towels to our bare chests. “Lo siento,” I apologize, my voice rusted with sleep and confusion.

She stretches her mouth to one long, flat line, a suggestion of a shadow of a smile. “No pasa nada,” she returns politely. Nothing passes.

Strange customs ensnare my fancy: The way a crusty simple sandwich of thick-sliced cheese on dirty bread settles my stomach after a wine-soaked night. The imperious scimitar sneers of ancient kings, and the ancient wives of kings, in the portraits that line the tall chilled halls of museums. The sound my new pointy-toed leather boots make on the cobblestones as I walk down misty streets to the university every morning. Pig shanks and the coy fluttering of fans. The brazen eyes of floppy-haired boys in tight jeans and jerseys on the Metro. The clasped, gnarled hands of dandified ancient couples on their afternoon stroll. I forget to miss the ocean; I forget to call my family. And for a while, nothing passes. No pasa nada.

Somehow, though, the old ghosts slip in among cracks left carelessly to splinter among the new ancient history that has consumed my life. My world collapses not with a bang, but a whimper, the extended half-moan of an old man bent low, his fingers plucking a flamenco guitar.

In September, I feel in every inch of my body the stark lines of Picasso’s Guernica when I see it in el Museo de Reina Sofia, its enormity in front of my insignificance. I nearly implode with its painful weight, with the jeweled tears that drip from marbled eyes and say so much more than I ever do.

In November, I write a term paper for my History of Spanish Painting course; my words (intelligent, eloquent, a touch insolent) cause the professor to squint at me in haughty peninsular respect. I accept this praise with grace but I attend the following class drunk.

Some nights I choose to stagger alone back to that narrow apartment, the scratchy feel of stubble tattooed on my cheeks by forgettable Spanish boys. I stumble silently to the tiny kitchen where my afternoon meal has congealed reproachfully. Disdainful by daylight of the oily sauces, the stringy meats, I hunch over a bowl of the stewed mess, using my naked fingers to pluck from its murky depths errant floating garbanzo beans. I use the other hand to hold open a guidebook, its suggestions circled in pen, dappled with gravy.

I plan out daytime trips between drips of bloody broth, sips of stolen wine from the jug on the sill. By day I see the city, yes, but by the time the leaves change I am falling fast. My body struggles against my iron will, and the voices from overseas seem surprised and a bit concerned to hear my flippant dismissal of past troubles; I insist glibly on a miraculous recovery, my own immaculate ascension above the things that had plagued me Stateside.

This, this new life, is my panacea, I claim. Spain has replaced bitter pills and earnest conversations on couches; it was all a phase, barely registering on the radar of this beautiful universe, and that was all, relax, no pasa nada.

I toast drunkenly by night, by nightfall, by a long lunch hour between classes, to my recovery. Spain, take this cup from me! I holler, I beg, proffering the dregs of a wine glass of unsolved woes. I gulp desperately at the last sips that cling to the sides of the tumbler, I gulp at anything to get rid of those staring eyes and the measured doses.

I allow the half-life of the medicine that remains in me to dwindle to a sheer leap of faith, and then I stop taking pills, stop dwelling on that which had happened. I refuse to see the landscape inside my own self, instead filling my vision, my palate, the caverns of my ears, with the geometrically haunting tones of the tango, the salty bite of briny olives that burned any lingering sense of yesterday from the roof of my mouth.

It is fine by me to live like this, a half-sentient being, more a blank blip of film than an actual working soul. It’s OK, I soothe myself occasionally, no big deal. No pasa nada, chica. Nothing passes.

Hushed phone calls, guilty kisses, the ever-dwindling bank account. Feeling like a foreigner, no longer an explorer, just simply at sea. Winter comes and stays; no, I haven’t been a very good girl this year. I move to a fifth-floor apartment. I always take the stairs. I begin to sense the insincerity that has crept, specter-like, into the “no pasa nada”s that volley around me like mosquitoes.

“No pasa nada,” pause, “pero …” Oh, those Mediterranean ellipses! Those mute Madrileño moments before moving forward with a harried sense of weary resignation, that indulgent smile masking scorn, repugnance, acrid distaste! That pause, imbued with a martyr’s patience! I feel the wet heat of shame, I know I have confirmed everyone’s worst fears with commendable regularity.

I am the high note in “pero,” I am the “but,” the “however,” the exception, the single glaring glitch. I have forgotten how to stop myself from falling. I have put my hand on a hot stove, dumbly, and I can’t remember how to move away from the flame.

Little details, like: waking up scared, and naked, and not alone. Like the jut of my ribs under my palms when I place them flat on the abscess of my absent belly. Like the lump in my throat that has taken up permanent residence, around which I stutter out garbled words, nearly incoherent. My professors wince to hear me speak.

Zombie-like, I stumble home after hazy afternoons, stopping to buy a ham sandwich, glazed with sweat and age, its crumbs biting into the corners of my sore, cracked lips. Night of the Living Dead. I limp out of the deli, unable to pay, unable to apologize, burly men shouting halfheartedly after my tiny frame, wracked by the effort of chewing.

The streets become a circus, though not spectacular. Only horror stories remain of the mysteries that I once yearned to uncover: a tiny girl child in a perfect pink party dress, alone in a crowd, tearfully crying out, with no one pausing but me. An old man on a park bench eyeing me as I passed, then grabbing lewdly at his swollen crotch.

I take a photograph of my sad little wasted self sitting on the edge of my bed. Instead of going to museums, I gaze dumbly at dusty slides of ancient iconography, the projector’s beam the only light in a cavernous auditorium where I sit among a handful of students, none of whom speak my language, none of whom seem to want to sit next to me. At one point I travel to the ocean, but I am too far gone to even care.

Lots of things begin to happen all at once, with an unprecedented buzz of activity in that idle ochre country of elegant loafers. Over tapas I am cautioned: You are out of control. Over a desk I am told: IES wants you to go home to the States. Over the phone, I am begged: Hang on just a little longer. I nod, already feeling the sting of failure.

These things block out the vestiges of flights of fancy that still lurk; the sound bytes serve as ugly black censor marks, straining to mute my darting imagination. All becomes sinister, my energy goes all to climbing up those one, two, three, four, five flights of stairs. Someone sobs, puts an arm around me, but I am not really there at all. Although the laws of physics dictate my world should crumble, the oddest thing occurs: Nothing passes. No pasa nada.

No, instead I finish out the term, my one year abroad. I pack my bags in a frenzy while a taxi honks its horn outside our building, idling on my quiet dead-end street. Into the suitcase goes my food-stained guidebooks, unopened bottles of wine, trinkets I barely remember receiving, clothing several sizes too large. I will myself down those five flights of stairs, take another flight home, and collapse on the cold sterile tiles of my mother’s kitchen floor.

Concerned voices float over me like echoes of what could have been. The air in America feels different to my clammy skin. I taste the last hints of garlic and vino tinto, try to think of the sun setting over the Casa del Campo. Worried voices do their best to bring me back: Are you OK? What’s the matter? What happened?

It’s fine, I struggle to say. No pasa nada, I croak out, and then I fall into a sound sleep for what turns out to be a very long time.

Anonymous writes, draws, and is currently absorbing a bit of Manhattan before finding yet another new city to call home. Her projects at the moment range from the fictional to the environmental, with some cinematic endeavors thrown in for variety and good measure.

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