Alone in Galicia, Week 2: Days of Invisibility
From the street the apartment looks like a balcony with a statue. Perhaps I can be seen as a shadow. Perhaps people think I am a ghost. Perhaps I am a ghost.
9 May 2019
The new wi-fi router won’t be delivered until tomorrow, but the city library across the street has free wi-fi and international periodicals. It also has indoor heating, much appreciated on this cold, damp day. I’m staying indoors, I don’t watch to catch a cold.
10 May 2019
It is likely that I have encountered racism in my life, I just didn’t notice. Perhaps if I paid more attention to my random interactions and interpreted the language and demeanor of the strangers I meet, I could conclude racism. For instance, this morning I went to the supermarket for milk and orange juice. I took my basket to the checkout counter and gestured at an old man to go ahead. He waved at me to go first. I handed my shopping bag to the cashier and paid for my groceries. She gave me change and put the orange juice in the bag, but left the other items on the counter for me to deal with. I did not mind bagging my own groceries, but there was something in her manner…Was it intentional and spiteful, or was she just too busy?
The wi-fi problem lingers, for the rule is that all internet providers must be assholes. I attempted to configure the router myself, to no avail; until the issue is resolved I will hang out at the library. I was watching too much TV anyway, instead of walking around this beautiful, orderly city and enjoying the light until the sun sets at about 10pm.
Yolanda informed me this morning (my iPhone being useless without an internet connection) that there are two excellent concerts this weekend: a contemporary classical concert at Domus museum tomorrow, and a performance by the Galician singer-composer Mercedes Peon at the theatre across the street tonight. I said I would attend both, and she arranged for complimentary tickets for me to pick up at the box office.
I stayed in the library and wrote until 2:30, then went home to have lunch and finish the Luiselli. Faces In The Crowd is impressive, formally daring, obviously the work of a fine intellect, but I felt nothing for its characters and did not care what happened to anyone. I suppose my requirements are considered quaint in the 21st century, as quaint as my insistence that the author is not dead. Luiselli employs science-fiction devices (time travel, parallel universes) without “stooping” to genre writing (in quotation marks because I consider science fiction and fantasy to be literary fiction, period). I admire it but don’t necessarily like it.
I was watching Federer vs Thiem at the Madrid Open on TV when the cleaning lady arrived, and I decided to take a walk before the concert. I ducked into the side streets of Calle Real, and at a store called Brujeria I bought a Celtic Galicia t-shirt. There were interesting dresses at Vintage and Coffee, and at a place called The Cott.
By 8pm I was at the theatre and the doors were still locked. I checked out the shops on my street—a lot of boho chic—and returned at 8.15. Still no movement, no queues, nothing. I asked the receptionist at the library when the theatre would open; he came out and tried all the doors and concluded that the theatre was deserted. Finally I used the library wi-fi to send Y a text, and we figured out that the concert is tomorrow. Y says time is not her best dimension: last Monday she urged me to attend a wine-tasting the next day, and I found out it would be held next week.
Eleven days I’ve been in La Coruña, and I’ve never taken a walk at night. I went to the harbor, walked along the water, then sat on a bench in Maria Pita Square and started reading A Heart So White by Javier Marias. By the second sentence I felt something: the pleasure of encountering recognizable humans on the page.
11 May 2019
Had to check my messages, and the sun is out for a change so I decided to soak up some Vitamin D and pay tribute to the retail gods. My first stop was Mango in front of the Obelisco—didn’t find anything I like, my aversion to fast fashion is growing. I crossed the street to the gardens along the harbor and kept walking until I found a Zara. It stands to reason that La Coruña has a better Zara than Makati does; I am not convinced, though its prices are lower.
There was a stall selling clothes in the alley by the Teatro Rosalia, the kind you find in Divisoria. My last stop was Vintage and Coffee, where I thought of buying a sweater—it’s colder than I expected, and I’d brought clothes for the summer. Then I happened on a beautiful off-white Aquacustum trenchcoat. I’ve always wanted a 1930s Hollywood- style trenchcoat; I’ve amassed coats over the years, but they’re not exactly what I was looking for. This one is perfect, fits me exactly, and cost 35 euros. I’m calling it Hitchens after a famous wearer of trenchcoats.
It’s so cold I’m wearing Hitchens indoors, over a woolen dress with a shirt and long underwear. Must be these stone walls.
At 7.30 I claimed my ticket at the box-office, then took a walk to test Hitch. It’s brilliant, I can now stop buying coats. The cafes on Avenida Marina were crowded with tourists from the cruise ships. I wonder what the people on the streets think of me, a lone Asian woman in a trenchcoat like Humphrey Bogart’s. If they think of me at all, they probably assume I am a resident from one of their former colonies; more likely they don’t think of me at all. I am invisible. I should call this journal Days of Invisibility.
The people who do see me are beggars. At the airport in Madrid a man asked me if I could spare some change. At Teatro Rosalia I was checking my messages with the public wi-fi when a man in a green blazer and a bowl haircut asked me for money. I said, No hablo español and he said, You do speak Spanish. Hablo ingles? Then he said he’d had some bad luck and could I help him out. I told him I didn’t carry cash and he threw up his hands and cried, I hate credit cards! So do I, actually—some years ago I maxed out my cards and was hounded by collection agencies. I’ve been living on a cash basis ever since.
Must resist giving money to every beggar with a dog. Idea: Buy little packets of dog food.
Teatro Rosalia is a small theatre with old-timey wooden chairs, high ceilings, red velvet curtains and an elaborate painted ceiling. It was less than half full. I settled into a central aisle seat in the early rows. The director of the theatre announced that there would be a Q&A after the performance.
The stage was sparsely furnished: a drum set and console on the right, two large metal equipment cases and two sacks propped against them on the left. Mercedes Peon, a lean, bald woman in a black t-shirt and knee-length black pants came out and stood behind the drums. She looked like the kind neighbor who sees the “ghost” in Volver by Pedro Almodovar. Sound of water, then a beat. The dancer Janet Novas, barefoot in a white suit and black bra, began to dance. Her movements were unstructured, spontaneous, as if the music were moving through her. Wild, uncontrolled dancing, some flamenco, hip-hop, some whirling like a dervish, and she flung her mass of curls around with an abandon that hurt my neck. The music was rhythmic, wordless, and then there was total silence but for the dancer’s breathing on the microphone. Peon crossed the stage and sat on the boxes while Novas began to sing—a traditional song, I gather. Her voice was good but she intentionally sang like an amateur, missing the high notes and skipping over the lyrics, sometimes asking Peon for instructions.
Peon played a tune on bagpipes—reminder that Galicia is Celtic rather than Castillian—then she put on what sounded like a dirge. Novas opened the sacks and spread out their contents on the stage: they were full of earth. Then she put up her hair, sat on the soil, grabbed handfuls of it and poured it over herself, smeared it on her face, stained her white suit. Then the music became faster and she danced like a resurrected shaman.
I didn’t know what was going on, but it was fascinating.
12 May 2019
From the street the second-floor apartment looks like a balcony with a statue and white curtains behind it. Perhaps I can be seen as a shadow. Perhaps people think I am a ghost. Perhaps I am a ghost.
I didn’t feel like eating at home today, and I had to connect to wi-fi anyway so I went across the street to Boca Negra, which is recommended in travel guides. Again I was thwarted: they don’t serve food between lunch and dinner. I had a coffee so I could read and reply to my messages. On my walk I saw a café named Asociacion de Artistas which looked interesting, but was full of senior citizens, probably from a cruise ship. Croquetas y Presumidas was closed until dinnertime. I really did not want to go to Burger King (I’ll reserve that for when I’m really homesick) so I ended up at Pulpo y Mas, where the English-speaking waiter asked me if I preferred seafood or meat. I haven’t eaten meat in a while, so when he recommended the sirloin steak I did not bother to decline. A slab of slightly bloody meat—delicious, and it cheered me up. After the waiter brought the check he assured me that I could stick around as long as I wanted. I sat and read the Marias, which I’m loving. Took me years to get his chatty, solipsistic, digressive style, but now I am hooked.