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Travel Writers: Something that sounds like loca

Location: Madrid, Spain

The first time I lost my older sister was in Madrid. "Off to find a grocery store" was the last I’d heard. Two hours later she was nowhere to be found so I was forced to sit in bed, shovel paprika Pringles in my mouth, sob, and dwell on the hideous things that must be happening to her. With no Spanish in her vocabulary, and a penchant for yelling, "JOO HELP ME, NO?" in a pseudo Pakistani-French accent, she was doomed.

Eventually, someone came and pounded on the door. I hesitated to answer it, certain the conversation was to go:

Me: "Hello?"

Person On Other Side of Door: "Hola! Your sister is muerta: check-out by tres."

Me: "Do I still have to pay double occupancy?"

Instead it was an older man spouting off in Spanish, holding a ten-person, seafood paella.

"I didn’t order that," I say as he shoves me aside.

He stops for a moment and studies the bill. "Si, señorita," he says, throwing my suitcase off the desk.

"No comprendo," I say, proud of such grand thinking.

"Diez. Estaré detrás." He taps his watch then stands very still, examining my face.

My excellent Spanish threw him off, I think. He thinks I’m a local… but he won’t stop staring. Unsure, I bow. Deeply. "Much thanks," I say on the way up. Thailand wasn’t that long ago – there, a random bow was the cure-all for any social ill.

He puts a fist to his mouth and shifts towards the door.

After he leaves, I slide the paella onto the bed and hunch beside it, inhaling its seafoody scent and resuming my sobs. How can I eat some family’s massive dinner while Trisha’s being chucked in a dumpster, screaming "JOO HELP ME, NO?" Because I can’t help her, no. Nor can I help that poor family – French, American, Portuguese, whatever – now sitting in their room, forks in hand, saying, "I’m famished. I do hope our el grando paella arrives soon."

I have no other choice: I pick shrimp off the top and wonder how close the ocean is to Madrid.

Ten minutes later, there’s another knock. I inch towards the door, peering through the peek-hole – and, oh yes, it’s him, with a tuna salad.

"No English," I yell.

There’s a moment of silence. Crap.

"Abierta!"

I open the door and poke my head out. "You no English, "I say, "me no Spanish. Not my food." I point at the tuna. It looks good.

He throws the door open. I grab my phrase book off the desk and we language tango all over the room:

"No, no, señor."

"Si, si, señorita."

"Food-ola not mine-a, you no understando."

"Si, si. Ella está loca, loca, loca."

Before he leaves, he throws the bill on the bed: Trisha’s writing is all over it.

Forty-five minutes later Trish returned, fresh off the metro, drenched in sweat, holding three bursting bags of groceries. I was lying in bed, blowing my nose and translating phrases: only child, high blood pressure, potential angina.

She stopped at the door. "You look awful."

"You’re supposed to be dead," I said, throwing tissue off the bed.

"Dead?" She peeled off her shorts and sat beside me.

I nodded and crammed tuna in my mouth, one eye on the bullfight on channel dos. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the bull.

"Are you crazy?"

I could be, I considered, as she stocked our mini-fridge with her findings. Absolutely loca.

© Jaclynn Gereluk