Nos Vemos, Espana

Nos Vemos, Espana (We'll See Eachother, Spain)

Emily traced her finger along the coast of Spain. Starting in France, her fingers traveled the miles to Barcelona where the winds sung and cathedrals remained unfinished. What would it be like to live in a place like Barcelona? She couldn’t imagine calling such a beautiful and cultural place home. It was a dream she longed to live. The people in Barcelona still spoke Catalan, even though there are a part of Spain. They cared about their history and heritage. Perhaps that was why she felt so attracted to Barcelona, Emily always felt that caring is what people should do most.

Emily flashed past the unbolded towns like L’Ampolia and L’Aldea, whose names displayed their Catalan roots. Her thoughts raced as fast as her fingertip. Who lived in these little towns? Had they perhaps lived in those towns their entire lives, like she had in this town? Were they allowed to leave whenever they wanted - or were they trapped? Did the people of L’Aldea stay in L’Aldea because they loved it or because they had nowhere else to go? Emily brought her nose close to the map, almost touching it to look at the miniscule names. There was definitely a thin, almost transparent line leading out of the town. Emily breathed a sigh of relief. The citizens of L’Aldea wanted to be there.

Emily was finding it hard to comprehend that there were people living under her fingertips. Right exactly where she was pointing, someone was standing, laughing, and perhaps swimming in the sea. She put her hand flat over a large area of Spain. Surely, somewhere under her hand someone was looking at a map, dreaming of another place. She noticed that under her thumb was Madrid, smack dab in the middle of Spain. Emily smiled as she thought about all the people in Madrid, speaking rapid Spanish, staying up all night at clubs and bars on the Plaza del Sol before, exhausted, dragging themselves down into the metro which would take them home. Friends danced and students attended the university. Husbands loved their wives in Madrid.

The edges of the map were curling from the humidity of the summer, pressing in on Valencia who was located in the west of Spain. It would be humid in Valencia too, along the sea. Emily knew that people could sit out in the patios of the restaurants, eating the "menu del dia" which offered wine, tapas, salad, and a huge platter of paella full of seafood. She leaned close to the map, trying to smell the salt, but ended up only with the chemically odor of tape. How the meager pieces of painters tape were holding the large, thin map on the wall she had no idea. Vaguely, she wondered what had ever provoked her husband to put up the map in their den. Her thoughts took her back to years past, before their marriage, when he had suggested they take a cruise. It was one of the few times he had ever indicated that he thought about them spending their lives together. She thought the idea was one of the best she had ever heard.

They never went on a cruise, and they had certainly never traveled to Spain. But maybe that would change for her. Maybe she could sit in the sand in Almería and trace her fingers over a map of the United States and think about returning. Emily could almost feel the sun warming her cheeks, smell the bitter scent of fish and seaweed, and feel the gritty, wet sand stuck to her calves. Emily giggled into the region of Castilla La Mancha. She would never dream about coming back here.

Her finger itched to travel inward to Granada, but the pull of the tide was just too great and she found herself passing it by to arrive at Malaga. The small, quaint, narrow homes were white there - the sun bursting off of them in the sweltering heat. The flowers in Malaga would smell better than any others in the world. The first birthday present she ever received from her husband was a dozen roses. He had written little notes on each one – 12 reasons why he loved her. She dried one of the roses and it now hung above their bed, shriveled and brown.

If she were in Malaga she would drown in the scent of flowers. Emily planned that she would only stay one night, and maybe, just maybe she would fall in love with a Spaniard. For just one night he would show her around. They would eat tapas at the bar and drink sangria until her world spun. He would leave her politely at the door to her cottage that night and when Emily moved her finger on to the southern most tip of Spain, where she could stand and see Morocco, she would wonder if she had done the right thing by leaving so soon.

It would be nighttime by the time she reached Cádiz, a town surrounded by ocean. She would really enjoy those world famous beaches, nude and all. Emily only wore long sleeves now but maybe, maybe in Cádiz she would bare it all. There was no need for personal reservations in a place like Spain. Emily wondered if she would feel guilty – is it cheating on your husband if he doesn’t care? Would it be wrong to fall in love with someone else and walk nude on a beach if her husband wasn’t there with her, didn’t want to be, and never would be? Emily gave a long sigh and looking at the way her skin turned white under her fingernail as she pressed into the city. She cared not for the rules of right and wrong anymore. Judgments were flawed and though she had every reason for her actions, for her escape, she was sure no one here would understand her. But she had her hopes set in Cádiz.

Emily was surprised when she reached Portugal, like many Americans would be. Her head was tilted as she wondered how a county so small, so surrounded by Spain could have survived all these years to be its own place. She admired its courage. There were only two cities large enough to be more than dots in Portugal, Lisboa and Porto. Emily flushed as she realized she did not know which one of those cities was the capital of Portugal, or, frankly if either were. The legend in the corner of the map was written in Spanish and she found no indication that the capitals of the countries were marked at all. It was at her pit stop at the Ponta de Sagres on the very southeast tip of Portugal that she decided she would one day find out which city was the capital and go there personally to apologize for not having known how important of a city it was.

As Emily made the long journey up the coast of Portugal it occurred to her that in order to apologize to the capital she would have to first learn how to speak Portuguese. The idea was daunting and it scared Emily to think that she would possibly never have the time, or skills, to learn such a language. Had she really broken the first promise made during her freedom? Was this how she was starting the rest of her life? Discouraged, she moved quickly past Lisboa, her guilt building.

She thoughtfully trailed her way to up Porto. If she couldn’t learn the whole language, then she would at least learn how to say she was sorry. Surely she could do that. It seemed that the Portuguese would have to love her for that. Who wouldn’t love someone who wanted to come and apologize to their country for such a silly reason? She was sure she would be the first one to say she was sorry to an entire city. The thoughts made her feel welcomed and she moved right past Porto with a promise to return someday – capital or not – just for making her feel so good.

As she again reached the border between Portugal and Spain she wondered how two countries, two people, who lived so close to one another could be so different. They spoke a different language, lived a different culture. How could two people in this world feel so foreign to one another? If she hadn’t known better she wouldn’t have been able to believe that humans could hurt one another. It seemed so obvious to her that people were supposed to love one another and hold each other in their arms. Humans spend their whole lives looking for soul mates, partners, they dedicate themselves to one another. How could such a powerful vow be broken? How could such an internal instinct be violated so many times? She had lived her entire life with broken promises, but if she could go to where her finger was pointing (the city of Vigo) she could leave them all behind.

It was hard to see the city of A Coruña, located so high on the map. She stretched her hand up to the top of the paper, hearing the paper crinkle as she moved. She wondered how long Spain had been a country. How much had it seen? She knew that much of Europe had beautiful castles and ancient stories. It was hard imagining a place with so much history. She wondered how much of it had been lost. How many people had lived in A Coruña and Santender, only to be forgotten? It was a shame to think that great moments in time were forever lost but, really, how much should be remembered? Emily looked forward to the time when she could forget.

As Emily came to the end of Spain she looked over the border to France. Slowly, she lifted her hand away from the map, uncomfortable with how light it felt after being pressed so hard into the country in front of her. She was exhausted from her trip but she was not going to let her aches discourage her again. She had traveled the coast of Spain, and she would do it again.

Emily’s hand was still hanging in the air in front of Spain. Her eyes moved from her fingertips to the old bruises on her wrist that were slowly disappearing under the swelling and darkening of the newest set. It had been another night of pain. Just like Emily’s trip, it was hard to believe that it would be the last night. She was leaving it all behind. Emily took a few steps away from the Portugal, looking back to see faint streaks of blood on the map. She felt remorse; she had not meant to tarnish such a beautiful country. She would go there and apologize, to each and every one of the cities on the coastline. She would tell them she hadn’t meant to smear her husband’s blood over their white beaches. She just wanted an escape.

Emily looked down at her husband’s cold body on the floor. His blank eyes stared up at the ceiling. Emily reached down and rolled him far enough to one side so she could grab his wallet from his back pocket. She pulled out all the bills and credit cards as the sound of distant sirens drifted to her ears. Emily’s eyes filled with tears and as she gazed back up at the outline of that beautiful country, memorizing the spider webs of roads, Emily smiled.

“Nos vemos, España.”


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10/28/07