100 Days of Solitude: Notes from southern Spain - Week 4
WEEK FOUR
Sunday 6 April
Heading into Week 4 of the Great Seclusion which is also ‘Semana Santa’ or Holy Week here in Spain. Here there is less focus on Christ’s joyful resurrection on Easter Sunday, rather, a darker homage to his Passion, his last hours and Crucifixion. In the many solemn processions that take place during this week, the lifelike Jesus figure is often depicted as hollow-eyed and hollow-chested, bedaubed with scarlet wounds, and usually followed by his despairing mother, both dressed in exquisite velvet and gold.
Semana Santa is also the week every year when even the smallest towns and one-bar villages in the Alpujarras region of Granada are ‘resurrected’ from their winter hibernation. Although it is often showery, there is usually plenty of sunshine too. Hotel, bar and restaurant doors are flung open to welcome the crowds of visitors from Granada and abroad, and our eco-tourism season starts with a flourish.
Not this year. Was there ever a Semana Santa like this one in modern times? No firecrackers, no church bells, no processions. Just a heavy silence and empty streets under sombre skies.
On 3 April, Spain recorded 950 deaths from the virus in 24 hours. Meanwhile, to date there are more than 10,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Andalucia alone, with 800 deaths. The outlook for lives and livelihoods is gloomy. Resurrection is officially postponed if not cancelled outright.
Monday 7 April
For nearly four weeks, I have only spoken face to face with Fred. Even my friend and faithful dog-sitter comes to the door in a mask now. The first week, shopping in town was an adventure. Now I’m starting to dread turning the corner into our sparsely-peopled main street. I don’t know most of the faces behind the masks and in any case, casual chats seem out of place. You must process purposefully round the little supermarket and get out as soon as you can — the next six customers are queueing outside, and the six after them. My town is turning strange on me, and getting home is a relief.
Wednesday 9 April
At the beginning of the shutdown, I made great plans to get fitter, thinner and smarter before we were liberated. I carefully allotted time to become eloquent in English and fluent in Spanish, to read important books and work out. After all, I’d have all day! Instead, we often get up at the unheard-of hour of 9.00 am (after going to bed at 1.00 am). At 11.00 am I’m still in my pyjamas at the uncleared breakfast table, messaging and answering emails. Domestic pottering, washing and dressing brings us to lunchtime. After lunch, I oversleep my nap alarm, and wake with a pounding heart to rush to the screen and get some writing in. Exercise is rushed if done at all, Spanish garbled or shelved. When we can all go out again, the days will be even shorter, and so will my list of sketchy accomplishments plucked from the jaws of apathy.
Friday 10 April
Housework today is (literally) cursory. Anything larger than dust motes has to be coaxed into the pursed lips of the vacuum brush attachment, and I have to stop at least once to prise soft tubes of compacted dust from the long pipe where they have no business to be.
I’m also texting and responding to messages the whole time. I find a cache of photos in my phone and share them with the family: Mum carefully sorting onion skins at the dining room table, for the last time, to colour hardboiled eggs a deep lacquer red…every year they would go into a decorated basket with Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Mum and my sister’s partner Alan beaming over their gold-foiled chocolate bunnies…Mum plaiting the sweet yellow dough for the Armenian Easter choreg bread flavoured with mahleb, an aromatic spice made from crushed cherry seeds, and with masdak, pine nut resin. The air of anticipation in the run-up to Easter Sunday and its foodie celebrations. These bright scraps of memory pile up against the global grey reality until it is all too much and I leave the phone in another room for the afternoon.
Easter Sunday 12 April
“Krisdos haryal i merelots!” Christ is risen from the dead! I would hear Mum on the phone greeting relatives in the traditional Armenian phrase on Easter morning, or replying: “blessed is the resurrection of Christ!” (“Orhnyal e harutyun Krisdosi!”)
There is no-one I can say it to now, but in our family clan WhatsApp today, nearly every household posts photos of their excellent version of doughy choreg or coloured eggs.
In the absence of Easter eggs to break my four month-long chocolate fast, Fred bakes deeply delicious double chocolate brownies. In the evening we watch the 1959 version of Ben Hur, starring Charlton Heston. As kids, we’d watch this every year, along with Spartacus and maybe even The Robe, whatever was on the three channels we could choose from.
Ben Hur was our favourite. Every year we’d shout for revenge when Messala’s wickedly barbed chariot wheels shaved scarily close to Ben Hur’s chariot and his four sweet, brave white horses. We were horrified at the sight of Messala’s bloody wounds after the race. Our skins crawled when Ben Hur descended into the Valley of the Lepers to rescue his mother and sister. And most of all, we would be in bits during the Crucifixion scene, each of us dashing away furtive tears to avoid being jeered at.
And so to bed, three thrilling hours later, comforted by memories and scattering a faint trail of double chocolate crumbs.
