The afternoon that I moved all my belongings from the room with no window in Callao -- the heart of the red-light district -- to the piso in the barrio of Puerta del Angel, Claudia welcomed me with the familiar saying, “Mi casa es tu casa, tía.” The very next morning she scolded me for leaving my shoes under the coffee table overnight.
Claudia was just nineteen, away from her hometown of Gijón, Asturias for the first time. Her parents were traveling prison guards who bought the flat to live in once they retired to Madrid. Until then, Claudia was acting as tenant and landlord, and seemed fearful of any mistakes she might make as her parents’ proxy. We reached the rental agreement in English, but after that we spoke only Spanish. No, it was more like a stutter somewhere in the meta-language of communication, something akin to Spanglish but a distant cousin at best. I only heard her English on cleaning days – she was frugal and tidy like a good Spanish daughter -- when she cranked up Bob Marley and sang, “Stiir it up, leetle darleeng, stiir it up.” She was a model: 5’10”, no fat, no curves, with smooth caramel skin, almost melted. She spent her days smoking porros, joints, while reading on the couch, waxing her upper lip and eyebrows, or talking on the phone to her model boyfriend, Gregorio de Alicante. Sometimes she sunbathed in the local park only to return complaining about the old men who should have shame or verguenza.
Madrid is a city of four million people that welcomes the intense summer heat in the middle of spring but is inhospitable to Americans looking for work without legal papers. I’d spent weeks plodding her long avenues and circumnavigating enclaves of barrio cafes, boutiques, and bars with my curriculum vitae under my arm, trying to sell myself as an English teacher. The day I finally landed a job, I returned to the Puerta del Angel apartment exhausted and hungry, the sound of the Metro on the rails squealing in my brain. Claudia was already in the kitchen, preparing her model’s brew. She called it “bio-nutrients,” but it looked exactly like overcooked vegetables to me.
“Hola, Claudia,” I said as the door closed and echoed in the hallway. I took off my shoes to feel the cold relief of the wall-to-wall tiled kitchen floor under my feet.
“Tía, que pasa?” she responded, not in the low range typical of both Spanish men and women, but her higher-pitched Northern Spanish voice.
“Obtuvé un trabajo hoy! En la escuela que se llama American Language Academy.” I had been offered a job at the American Language Academy, a private school for adults and children.
Claudia did not look up from her vegetables, but said, “Que guay, tía!” How cool. “Van a pagarte por usar tu mente. Está muy bien, verdad?” Of course they were going to pay me to use my mind, and I’d never considered the alternative. As I searched for an answer to her strange comment, I felt something touch my toe. I looked at my feet, then took a quick step back in horror and surprise.
“What is that? Qué es esto?” I asked her.
Claudia squealed. “Ay, es Palmira, mi tortuga.”
I’d been living there a week and she’d never mentioned the turtle nor had I seen it. But here it was, at my feet, in the kitchen. Palmira stretched out her long scaled and rubbery neck as if in introduction. I suddenly lost my appetite.
In the months that followed my surprise introduction to the turtle, I rarely saw Palmira. But, I often thought of her. I’ve always lived with more obvious creatures, the dog who barks, pounces, and licks when you arrive; the parents who ask you to take out the trash as soon as you open the front door; or, Claudia de Gijon who announces she’s home with the sound of Bacaloa (not the codfish but an unrelenting techno) bouncing off the lacquered floor, a marijuana storm cloud filling the living room. I was, in fact, so aware of Palmira’s invisible presence that while walking from the Metro to the apartment, I often reminded myself to look out for her. “No pisa tortuga! No pisa tortuga!” I whispered to myself in beginner’s Spanish. One time I did forget about her existence and brought a cold foot down onto her fast-retracting head. Though I admit I was a little frightened by her reptilian nature and her house cat status – yes, she roamed free – I soon began to admire her. She was, after all, living as I was trying to live: mobile, home on back, easy retreat, waterproof, and just a bit lazy.
One day, my waiflike, glowing roommate announced that she was going to Milano, Italia for a bona fide modeling gig. With the apartment to myself, I’d finally have a silent refuge from the constant struggle to communicate; I couldn’t wait! The night before her flight, we shared un porro and went over the basics: water the houseplants on Mondays, bring in the mail, be careful when changing the butane gas. I smiled. Nodded. I’d come halfway across the world all on my own without a job or a place to live and had managed this far; I figured I could handle living alone for a month or two just fine. Until, I remembered the turtle.
“Y la tortuga? Va a quedar con una amiga tuya?” I asked, hoping she would leave the turtle with a friend.
“No. Es facíl cuidar una tortuga. No hace falta nada.” She said. Easy to take care of a turtle? I wasn’t so sure. I’d never seen Claudia do anything special for the turtle, that part was true, but I was certain she had reglas, rules, and I began to doubt this rental agreement. But, her instructions were simple: once or twice a week, fill up the bidet halfway, put Palmira in the water and then toss her a spoonful of tuna straight from the can. Let her soak a while and then, let her go free again.
Unlike Palmira, I had very little free time. With a teaching schedule that began at eight o’clock in the morning, spanned the siesta hours, and finally ended at nearly ten in the evening – dinner time in Spain – there were only a few moments left in the day to enjoy having the flat to myself. I’d been so busy with my students, in fact, that it was several days before I realized I’d not seen Palmira since Claudia left. I searched the apartment for her, in her favorite kitchen corner, under my bed, behind the bureau, under the couch cushions, on the window ledge. Where was the turtle?! The only place I had not looked: Claudia’s bedroom. It was locked. Luckily, Claudia had left her key in the doorknob, but our cohabitation was one of tests and trials. Trust was not easy between us, and for a quick minute I debated unlocking the door and proving to Claudia that I’d invaded her privacy or leaving the door closed, the turtle to die.
Of course, I unlocked the door. There was Palmira in the middle of the hardwood floor, her head tucked into her body. Her skin had dried out since the last time I’d seen her, white flakes collecting around her collar, at the knees (do turtles have knees?). Xavier, my boyfriend, visited on the weekends and ventured more frequently than I to pick her up, look her in the eye, and whisper the same cursi sweet nothings in Spanish that had lulled me into love with him. As much as turtles move, she would nearly run to him when he arrived. When he noticed her flaky skin, he carefully bathed her in the bidet and sang to her in Spanish.
Several days later, when my love had left, I saw a small puddle of blood on the floor. It wasn’t my blood, and no one else was there. It had to be turtle blood. I thought of Xavi, wished I could find in me his ease with Palmira, his sense of resourcefulness, of knowing what to do. I could not convince myself to ignore the mess, nor could I pretend Palmira was okay, that she did not need picking up, nor singing to, nor special baths in the bidet.
Unwillingly and thus clumsily I picked her up, put her in a small box, and tried to balance the unhappy turtle inside as I walked hurriedly down la calle of Puerta del Angel to the veterinarian’s office next to the panadería, the bakery. Even as I walked forward, I wondered how I would walk through this situation. I felt frozen in my novice Spanish, all my previous language success escaping. Each step I took became a word of rehearsal, a path to communicate. Four sporadic years of classroom Spanish had not prepared me for this!
I arrived at the vet’s office but was unable to coordinate opening the door and holding the box, so I kicked the door with my foot. The vet himself, a surprisingly tall man, opened it for me. He had thick dark hair, speckled with grey, which ended in a loose wave over his forehead. He wore a medical smock and suddenly I felt like the patient.
“Pasa. Pasa.” He said to me, ushering me through the door.
“Please help me. Ayudame, por favor,” I pleaded. “Yo sé que ya es tarde, pero ella es la tortuga de mi compañero de piso que está muy lejos.” I told him Claudia was far away and I knew it was late.
He smiled. I wondered if he was silently laughing at my poor Spanish, the way I was carrying the turtle, or something else I was totally unaware. I was the extrañjera, foreigner, a word related to ‘strange.’
“Damela.” I gave him the turtle like he asked. His hands were big but gentle, nearly enclosing Palmira into a fist. I’d never seen her so fully retract into home. Even her legs were securely hidden. She looked more like a puck than an animal. The vet stuck his thick fingers under the turtle shell and pulled out her appendages as flakes of skin fell to the stainless steel surgical table.
“Ella está enferma,” he said.
“Yes, she’s sick,” I responded in Spanish.
Then I searched for the words that had not come with my steps, the words that I did not know to explain what had happened at the piso. I couldn’t find those words, in the right register, the right tone for speaking to a doctor. Instead, I remembered two months earlier when it was I who had the medical emergency, a bladder infection, and all I knew to tell the doctor was “Me duele miar” – it hurts to piss – when I meant “Me duele orinar” – it hurts to urinate. Now, I could only harvest words from the street, from nightlife in Cheuca, from telenovelas, from the dirty magazines Xavi and I read on the boat to Morocco. I wanted to believe I’d learned more than this.
Afraid of his reaction, I began, “Cuando regresé a mi casa esta noche…”
I paused. I noticed his forearms, the backs of his hands. They weren’t delicate like most doctors', but had a toughness of years spent outside. I found safety in the landscape of his knuckles.
“Y luego?” The vet prodded, interrupting my search.
“He encontrado sangre por el piso, pero no sólo por el piso. Había sangre en la mierda y en su culo.” There’d been no other way to say it.
He was smiling, and I couldn’t blame him. I told him there’d been blood in the turtle’s shit and ass.
He gave Palmira an injection for the supposed infection. But it was I who wanted to tuck my head and appendages into my body, so full of shame – verguenza, the word Claudia taught me so early on – for not knowing more simple and polite words. I was twelve years old again testing the waters of foul language, though this time unwillingly.
I quickly took the rest of the vet’s advice, to feed the turtle turtle food, to buy her an aquarium and let her soak her parched skin, paid him for his time and kindness (after all, he did not correct my Spanish), and like a tortoise sloped back to the flat.
Claudia returned weeks later. She never reimbursed me for the trouble, never thanked me, and said simply as she rolled the next joint, “Tortugas viven para siempre.”
Turtles live forever.
Claudia was just nineteen, away from her hometown of Gijón, Asturias for the first time. Her parents were traveling prison guards who bought the flat to live in once they retired to Madrid. Until then, Claudia was acting as tenant and landlord, and seemed fearful of any mistakes she might make as her parents’ proxy. We reached the rental agreement in English, but after that we spoke only Spanish. No, it was more like a stutter somewhere in the meta-language of communication, something akin to Spanglish but a distant cousin at best. I only heard her English on cleaning days – she was frugal and tidy like a good Spanish daughter -- when she cranked up Bob Marley and sang, “Stiir it up, leetle darleeng, stiir it up.” She was a model: 5’10”, no fat, no curves, with smooth caramel skin, almost melted. She spent her days smoking porros, joints, while reading on the couch, waxing her upper lip and eyebrows, or talking on the phone to her model boyfriend, Gregorio de Alicante. Sometimes she sunbathed in the local park only to return complaining about the old men who should have shame or verguenza.
Madrid is a city of four million people that welcomes the intense summer heat in the middle of spring but is inhospitable to Americans looking for work without legal papers. I’d spent weeks plodding her long avenues and circumnavigating enclaves of barrio cafes, boutiques, and bars with my curriculum vitae under my arm, trying to sell myself as an English teacher. The day I finally landed a job, I returned to the Puerta del Angel apartment exhausted and hungry, the sound of the Metro on the rails squealing in my brain. Claudia was already in the kitchen, preparing her model’s brew. She called it “bio-nutrients,” but it looked exactly like overcooked vegetables to me.
“Hola, Claudia,” I said as the door closed and echoed in the hallway. I took off my shoes to feel the cold relief of the wall-to-wall tiled kitchen floor under my feet.
“Tía, que pasa?” she responded, not in the low range typical of both Spanish men and women, but her higher-pitched Northern Spanish voice.
“Obtuvé un trabajo hoy! En la escuela que se llama American Language Academy.” I had been offered a job at the American Language Academy, a private school for adults and children.
Claudia did not look up from her vegetables, but said, “Que guay, tía!” How cool. “Van a pagarte por usar tu mente. Está muy bien, verdad?” Of course they were going to pay me to use my mind, and I’d never considered the alternative. As I searched for an answer to her strange comment, I felt something touch my toe. I looked at my feet, then took a quick step back in horror and surprise.
“What is that? Qué es esto?” I asked her.
Claudia squealed. “Ay, es Palmira, mi tortuga.”
I’d been living there a week and she’d never mentioned the turtle nor had I seen it. But here it was, at my feet, in the kitchen. Palmira stretched out her long scaled and rubbery neck as if in introduction. I suddenly lost my appetite.
In the months that followed my surprise introduction to the turtle, I rarely saw Palmira. But, I often thought of her. I’ve always lived with more obvious creatures, the dog who barks, pounces, and licks when you arrive; the parents who ask you to take out the trash as soon as you open the front door; or, Claudia de Gijon who announces she’s home with the sound of Bacaloa (not the codfish but an unrelenting techno) bouncing off the lacquered floor, a marijuana storm cloud filling the living room. I was, in fact, so aware of Palmira’s invisible presence that while walking from the Metro to the apartment, I often reminded myself to look out for her. “No pisa tortuga! No pisa tortuga!” I whispered to myself in beginner’s Spanish. One time I did forget about her existence and brought a cold foot down onto her fast-retracting head. Though I admit I was a little frightened by her reptilian nature and her house cat status – yes, she roamed free – I soon began to admire her. She was, after all, living as I was trying to live: mobile, home on back, easy retreat, waterproof, and just a bit lazy.
One day, my waiflike, glowing roommate announced that she was going to Milano, Italia for a bona fide modeling gig. With the apartment to myself, I’d finally have a silent refuge from the constant struggle to communicate; I couldn’t wait! The night before her flight, we shared un porro and went over the basics: water the houseplants on Mondays, bring in the mail, be careful when changing the butane gas. I smiled. Nodded. I’d come halfway across the world all on my own without a job or a place to live and had managed this far; I figured I could handle living alone for a month or two just fine. Until, I remembered the turtle.
“Y la tortuga? Va a quedar con una amiga tuya?” I asked, hoping she would leave the turtle with a friend.
“No. Es facíl cuidar una tortuga. No hace falta nada.” She said. Easy to take care of a turtle? I wasn’t so sure. I’d never seen Claudia do anything special for the turtle, that part was true, but I was certain she had reglas, rules, and I began to doubt this rental agreement. But, her instructions were simple: once or twice a week, fill up the bidet halfway, put Palmira in the water and then toss her a spoonful of tuna straight from the can. Let her soak a while and then, let her go free again.
Unlike Palmira, I had very little free time. With a teaching schedule that began at eight o’clock in the morning, spanned the siesta hours, and finally ended at nearly ten in the evening – dinner time in Spain – there were only a few moments left in the day to enjoy having the flat to myself. I’d been so busy with my students, in fact, that it was several days before I realized I’d not seen Palmira since Claudia left. I searched the apartment for her, in her favorite kitchen corner, under my bed, behind the bureau, under the couch cushions, on the window ledge. Where was the turtle?! The only place I had not looked: Claudia’s bedroom. It was locked. Luckily, Claudia had left her key in the doorknob, but our cohabitation was one of tests and trials. Trust was not easy between us, and for a quick minute I debated unlocking the door and proving to Claudia that I’d invaded her privacy or leaving the door closed, the turtle to die.
Of course, I unlocked the door. There was Palmira in the middle of the hardwood floor, her head tucked into her body. Her skin had dried out since the last time I’d seen her, white flakes collecting around her collar, at the knees (do turtles have knees?). Xavier, my boyfriend, visited on the weekends and ventured more frequently than I to pick her up, look her in the eye, and whisper the same cursi sweet nothings in Spanish that had lulled me into love with him. As much as turtles move, she would nearly run to him when he arrived. When he noticed her flaky skin, he carefully bathed her in the bidet and sang to her in Spanish.
Several days later, when my love had left, I saw a small puddle of blood on the floor. It wasn’t my blood, and no one else was there. It had to be turtle blood. I thought of Xavi, wished I could find in me his ease with Palmira, his sense of resourcefulness, of knowing what to do. I could not convince myself to ignore the mess, nor could I pretend Palmira was okay, that she did not need picking up, nor singing to, nor special baths in the bidet.
Unwillingly and thus clumsily I picked her up, put her in a small box, and tried to balance the unhappy turtle inside as I walked hurriedly down la calle of Puerta del Angel to the veterinarian’s office next to the panadería, the bakery. Even as I walked forward, I wondered how I would walk through this situation. I felt frozen in my novice Spanish, all my previous language success escaping. Each step I took became a word of rehearsal, a path to communicate. Four sporadic years of classroom Spanish had not prepared me for this!
I arrived at the vet’s office but was unable to coordinate opening the door and holding the box, so I kicked the door with my foot. The vet himself, a surprisingly tall man, opened it for me. He had thick dark hair, speckled with grey, which ended in a loose wave over his forehead. He wore a medical smock and suddenly I felt like the patient.
“Pasa. Pasa.” He said to me, ushering me through the door.
“Please help me. Ayudame, por favor,” I pleaded. “Yo sé que ya es tarde, pero ella es la tortuga de mi compañero de piso que está muy lejos.” I told him Claudia was far away and I knew it was late.
He smiled. I wondered if he was silently laughing at my poor Spanish, the way I was carrying the turtle, or something else I was totally unaware. I was the extrañjera, foreigner, a word related to ‘strange.’
“Damela.” I gave him the turtle like he asked. His hands were big but gentle, nearly enclosing Palmira into a fist. I’d never seen her so fully retract into home. Even her legs were securely hidden. She looked more like a puck than an animal. The vet stuck his thick fingers under the turtle shell and pulled out her appendages as flakes of skin fell to the stainless steel surgical table.
“Ella está enferma,” he said.
“Yes, she’s sick,” I responded in Spanish.
Then I searched for the words that had not come with my steps, the words that I did not know to explain what had happened at the piso. I couldn’t find those words, in the right register, the right tone for speaking to a doctor. Instead, I remembered two months earlier when it was I who had the medical emergency, a bladder infection, and all I knew to tell the doctor was “Me duele miar” – it hurts to piss – when I meant “Me duele orinar” – it hurts to urinate. Now, I could only harvest words from the street, from nightlife in Cheuca, from telenovelas, from the dirty magazines Xavi and I read on the boat to Morocco. I wanted to believe I’d learned more than this.
Afraid of his reaction, I began, “Cuando regresé a mi casa esta noche…”
I paused. I noticed his forearms, the backs of his hands. They weren’t delicate like most doctors', but had a toughness of years spent outside. I found safety in the landscape of his knuckles.
“Y luego?” The vet prodded, interrupting my search.
“He encontrado sangre por el piso, pero no sólo por el piso. Había sangre en la mierda y en su culo.” There’d been no other way to say it.
He was smiling, and I couldn’t blame him. I told him there’d been blood in the turtle’s shit and ass.
He gave Palmira an injection for the supposed infection. But it was I who wanted to tuck my head and appendages into my body, so full of shame – verguenza, the word Claudia taught me so early on – for not knowing more simple and polite words. I was twelve years old again testing the waters of foul language, though this time unwillingly.
I quickly took the rest of the vet’s advice, to feed the turtle turtle food, to buy her an aquarium and let her soak her parched skin, paid him for his time and kindness (after all, he did not correct my Spanish), and like a tortoise sloped back to the flat.
Claudia returned weeks later. She never reimbursed me for the trouble, never thanked me, and said simply as she rolled the next joint, “Tortugas viven para siempre.”
Turtles live forever.
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