97 Flat Earth in Times of Coronavirus

In the 16th century, there was no Flat Earth Society because almost everyone in the world, except Galileo and colleagues, was a Flat Earther. So, in the cosmic belief system, Flat Earth was the default value. Fortunately, times changed, and the pendulum eventually swung the other way. Even though it is difficult for people today to agree on anything, most of us believe that the world is a sphere. Incredibly, even Donald Trump and Joe Biden seem to agree on this point.

Nevertheless, there has always been a dissenting faction. The International Flat Earth Society (IFES) was born in 19th century England. Its founder was Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1884), who claimed that Earth was a flat disc centered at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice, Antarctica. Even though Rowbotham died (as all of us must), his ideas have lived on. From England, the headquarters of the Flat Earth Society eventually migrated to California (where else?), and at one time, had as many as 3500 members. 

Finally, the IFES found its niche on Internet, where it flourishes today in vivid proof that the human race has progressed very little since the 16th century. In fact, belief in flat Earth has become a creed, which has even garnered its heroes and martyrs. The most illustrious flat-Earth martyr is Mike Hughes, who was killed on 22 February 2020 while piloting a home-built steam-powered rocket in an attempt to prove his firmly entrenched belief in terrestrial flatness. (He had survived the crash of a previous experiment.) However on his second try, the rocket impacted on the Earth’s (flat) surface after falling from an altitude of several hundred feet. Not surprisingly, Mr. Hughes was killed instantly.

Now in Times of Coronavirus, flat Earth has once again come into the spotlight. Thanks to metaphorical extension, the term now refers to any sort of fringe belief or conspiracy, such as the assertion that 5-G telephone networks spread Covid-19, or that the coronavirus is a gigantic hoax invented by the government to control the population.

In various places in Spain, there have been protests against wearing masks as well as restrictions on nightlife, large gatherings, and smoking in public. Covid-19 has put a serious damper on Spanish social life, and many of Spain’s inhabitants are going into a decline. In Madrid (not the city of the same name in Iowa), there was recently an anti-mask protest of about 3000 people, who claimed, inter alia, that the coronavirus pandemic was fake news and merely a cover for a plan by Bill Gates to implant trackable microchips in everyone.

Even more recently, there have been other protests in Germany, France, and England against coronavirus restrictions implemented by national governments to stem the rising number of contagions in what appears to be a second wave. My sole comfort is that I personally do not know anyone in Spain or in other European countries, who is a Flat Earther (though they doubtlessly exist). In contrast, I do have various acquaintances in the USA, who rejoice in this belief or at least in its metaphorical extension.

This is hardly surprising. One rather expects people to protest masks and social distancing in places like South Dakota, Wyoming, and the White House. However, I am disappointed because I had expected a little more intelligence from people here on the other side of the ocean. But no, in today’s world, it is an inalienable truth that stupidity is exponentially contagious.

96 Ghosts in the Corridors in Times of Coronavirus

There is a widespread custom in times of plague that has persisted over the centuries. To avoid contagion, many leave the city and escape into the country. The Italian writer, Giovanni Boccaccio, lived through the Black Death as it ravaged the city of Florence in 1348. The experience inspired him to write “The Decameron”, a story of seven men and three women who escaped the disease by fleeing to a villa outside the city. His introduction vividly describes the effects of the epidemic on his city. 

“Others again held a still more cruel opinion, which they thought would keep them safe. They said that the only medicine against the plague-stricken was to go directly away from them. Men and women, convinced of this and caring about nothing but themselves, abandoned their own city, their own houses, their dwellings, their relatives, their property, and went abroad or at least to the country round Florence, as if God's wrath in punishing men's wickedness with this plague would not follow them, but strike only those who remained within the walls of the city…”

And so in Times of Coronavirus, and following the time-honored (though harshly criticized) tradition of many others before us, my husband and I took the decision to leave Granada and travel to a village two hours and various worlds away, where it was possible to at least pretend that the pandemic did not exist. 

Alhama de Almería is a town of about 3,500 inhabitants. It is so small that in a 30-minute stroll, one has seen everything there is to see. Anyone interested in painting the town red (or even a pale shade of pink) is out of luck. There is zero nightlife of any sort. In any case, this hardly matters because practically all discotheques, cocktail lounges, and nightclubs in Spain have closed anyway. 

The government has even announced its intention to shut down the houses of prostitution, given the difficulty of tracing clients in the case of an outbreak. Apparently, few men wish to admit that they are obliged to pay someone to have sex with them. So a number of itches will not be scratched until the pandemic recedes.

Alhama de Almería, however, is a paragon of sobriety. It is so tranquil and boring that the coronavirus has not even bothered to visit it. The town is renowned for three things:

1. It is the birthplace of Nicolás Salmerón, university professor and president of the First (though short-lived) Republic (1873-1874), who wisely abandoned power when he realized that Spain (and Spaniards) were impossible to govern.

2. It is the site of the Balneario de San Nicolas, a natural hot springs that has been around since the times of the Romans and Arabs, and, quite miraculously, has not closed down because of the coronavirus. 

3. Since the pandemic began, there has been only one recorded case of Covid-19 in the whole town.

So, given these specifications, we decided to visit the spa there, especially since the hotel has implemented the new draconian protocols to keep all guests and employees disinfected and reasonably safe in these difficult times. Nevertheless, coping with Covid-19 in the New Normal is a somewhat daunting experience.

When we entered the building, there was hand sanitizer and a temperature machine. After registering at the desk, we were given an antibodies test for coronavirus (results in 15 minutes). Not surprisingly, the test came out negative. Of course, masks have to be worn all of the time except when one is actually in the spa water, eating a meal, or in one’s own room. The capacity of all public rooms in the hotel is strictly limited. Elevators can only be used by one person at a time. In the dining room, tables are two meters apart, and buffets have disappeared forever. The server must bring all food to the tables.

This is all rather different from the last time we were here five months ago. We had visited the town in February just before the world went to pieces. At that time, the hotel was filled with almost 100 people, mostly groups of retirees who joyfully took part in card games, domino tournaments, sing-a-longs, and memory workshops. The spa was bustling with (mostly ancient) life, but still filled with a great deal of conversation, gaiety, and laughter.

Now in August, the hallways are empty; there are only about ten guests in the hotel. The hotel bar is closed. Everyone keeps their distance, and people only talk with each other from afar. This morning at breakfast, I interpreted for an English family, who did not know how to tell the server that they wanted to eat fried eggs and bacon (an alien type of breakfast). However, everyone used masks and social distance, which transformed the exchange into a kind of show.

After breakfast, I asked the receptionist behind her plexi-glass shield if she knew what had happened to the former guests. She told me that many had died during the first wave. Those that survived are now afraid to leave their homes.

And so, the hotel is now a very solitary place, quite different from the way that it used to be. However, if one looks close enough, one can see the people or at least their ghosts in the lobby, dining hall, and chapel. Indeed, the spirits are everywhere: Don José, who used to tell everyone endless stories about his childhood during the Spanish Civil War, Doña Encarnación, who would begin to swear like a legionnaire when she did not win at cards, or Señor Liñán, who was prone to drink a few too many glasses of wine in the evening. These and many others amicably haunt the corridors now. Many are not aware of their presence, but they are sadly visible to those of us who take the time to look and remember.

95 Vacation in Times of Coronavirus

 

August is vacation month in Spain. It is when the whole country shuts down and life grinds to a temporary halt. The administration closes, and the only services available are those required for law enforcement and healthcare emergencies. It is thus a good idea not to sue or file for divorce in August. Nor is it smart to suffer any kind of medical problem ranging from a toothache to hemorrhoids because most dentists and doctors are at the beach. The medical experience of those who might substitute would fit in a thimble with room left over. Consequently, one must avoid falling ill in August, when little or no medical help is available.

However, it is also August for Covid-19, who needs a change of venue, and so, the coronavirus has taken a vacation of sorts. Since nursing homes were boring, the virus has begun hanging out in the discotheques, nightclubs, and cocktail bars along the beaches all over Spain. Young people who are drunk and/or high are almost as easy a mark as the elderly in nursing homes. The only drawback is that they are harder to kill. Nevertheless, even though they do not die (at least not so frequently), they become harbingers of doom because they carry the virus home to family gatherings, where their parents and grandparents are more vulnerable.  And so, the deaths go on.

This has made the contagions in Spain skyrocket again. Yesterday, there were 3715 new cases in the last 24 hours, with figures that have been systematically rising by over 1000 cases each day. For all of the skeptics out there, yes, more people are being tested, but now more people are also dying (127 yesterday, when not so long ago, deaths used to be counted in single digits). Hospitals have begun to set up field tents again, and are preparing for the worst because no one can know what will happen in September when school supposedly begins (collective shudder).

And while all of this is happening, where are our courageous leaders? They are, of course, off the radar because August is also vacation time for politicians. President Pedro Sanchez does not play golf but he and his wife have gone to the beach. Since he is young, reasonably fit, and still has all his hair, he does not have to hide from photographers when wearing a swimsuit.  He is sufficiently narcissistic to enjoy showing off his suntanned biceps if the occasion arises.

However, even though he does not hide from photographers, he is certainly hiding from something else. He is hiding from responsibility. When things were going well, he appeared on the television screen so frequently that we all became saturated with the twitching muscle in his manly jaw. Now, that the situation has worsened, he has totally disappeared from the spotlight. 

The implicit message is that he is not to blame for the bad statistics. The fault lies with the regional governments, who, like the keystone cops, are scrambling to do their own thing. They are desperately trying to shore up the leaking dykes, but they are making a mess. We all know that none of this is going to end well.

The grand plan of our government was for everyone to learn how to amicably live with the virus, but the plan has failed. Co-habitation with Covid-19 has become difficult if not impossible. No one wishes to be in an abusive relationship with a virus (feminism taken to a new level.)

So now at some point, when Pedro Sanchez has acquired a Coppertone suntan and is sufficiently rested, he will return to Madrid and start being president again. No one can hide out at the beach forever. (Or can they?) Perhaps when he at last appears on the radar, he will have a new and hopefully better plan.

94 Fascism in Times of Coronavirus

In Times of Coronavirus, terms such as Fascism’, ‘Socialism’, and ‘Totalitarianism’, are being hurled from one end of the political spectrum to the other and back again in the same way as lexical mud balls. Yet, most of the people who use these words have never directly experienced what they represent and have little idea of what they are. I have a somewhat better idea of their meaning because my first five years in Spain coincided with the final five years of the last Fascist dictatorship in Europe.

As many of you know, General Francisco Franco was leader of the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. After three years of bloody massacre (on both sides), the war at last came to an end. After overthrowing the Second Republic, Franco then proceeded to rule over Spain for almost 35 years (1939-1975) with more power than any Spanish leader before or since.

During World War II, Spain supported Germany, but officially remained neutral, largely because its resources were exhausted. Otherwise, Franco would have doubtlessly entered the war whole hog. In 1940, Franco and Hitler had their one and only face-to-face encounter, lasting seven hours. Hitler wanted Spain to join the war, but Franco’s demands were so extortionate that Hitler refused them. Hitler later stated that he would rather suffer a toothache than talk to General Franco again.

By 1970, when I arrived in Spain, the Civil War was long over but its effects still lingered. The population was divided into two groups: those who loved Franco and those who hated him. Spaniards knew that nothing would change as long as Franco was alive, and so they wondered what would happen when he died. Half the country hoped he would live forever whereas the other half spent their spare time sticking pins into his wax effigy.

Although most of my in-laws had fought on the Nationalist side, there were some who had been with the Republicans. As in the case of all Civil Wars, both sides were guilty of excesses. Apparently, when the enemies are your neighbors, the desire to annihilate them is even more intense.

My husband’s grandfather was imprisoned for almost three years in the hold of a ship, where each day, the Republican forces would randomly choose three or four prisoners to execute. Miraculously, he survived, though on his release, he weighed 90 pounds. Another of my in-laws fought on the Republican side. He was sent to a concentration camp, where he had to work in a quarry and almost starved to death. When he was finally allowed to return home after the war, he was unable to work. His wife, who was a schoolteacher, supported the family.

My husband’s uncle, who was a doctor, witnessed Republican soldiers and prisoners left to die in the hospital. There was little food for anyone, and they were at the bottom of the food chain. Life was not easy. In fact, the 1940s were known as “los años del hambre” [the years of hunger].  An estimated 200,000 people died of starvation.

In 1970, however, Franco at 77 was only a watered-down version of his dictatorial self. However, his totalitarian regime was still very much in place. I first realized this when I innocently asked a taxi driver what he thought of the government. I still remember the look of terror on his face. I learned that no one ever discussed politics in public or dared to voice an opinion about the government. Freedom of speech did not exist, and the secret police were ubiquitous.

Of course, there was a resistance movement. At the time, the University of Madrid was a hotbed of subversive activity. One morning, I was in class, tranquilly assimilating a boring lecture on medieval Spanish history (the university was still recovering from the exodus of good professors at the end of the civil war). A student suddenly burst in, and announced that the police had entered the building. He told us to run as fast as we could. (The teacher was the first to exit.)

I asked a classmate if this was really necessary since we hadn’t done anything. He said that no one wanted to get arrested. People who were rounded up and taken to the police station sometimes did not return.

As we ran out the door, I saw policemen with batons hitting students, who were bleeding in the hallway. There had been an anti-government demonstration outside the law school. Since discretion is the better part of valor, I decided to return to my residence hall. On the way back, a policeman stopped me but I began to talk to him in English. Speaking another language was the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.

In those days, democracy was a chimera. The only elections were held at the municipal level, and the outcome was never a surprise. Those of my (non-Republican) in-laws who were allowed to vote never bothered because the winners had always been decided ahead of time. At the national level, Franco’s government was not elected but rather composed of the people that he appointed. They were chosen because they had promised to do what he wanted them to. It was as simple as that.

Everything was strictly controlled, and there was a great deal of censorship. The censors were members of the Catholic Church (the only legal religion), who regarded cinema as the art of the Devil. They targeted ‘sexual immorality’ and subversive political ideas, such as Socialism. Of course, the film, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, was banned. In the Spanish version of “Casablanca”, Rick had not fought in the Spanish Civil War, but rather had served as a mercenary in Ethiopia. Also cut was a scene from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, in which James Steward explains what democracy is to a group of schoolchildren.

Nevertheless, censorship sometimes backfired. In “Mogambo”, in order to hide the fact that Grace Kelly was committing adultery, the dialogue was changed so that her husband was her brother. However, a later scene showed them sleeping together in the same tent. This was worse since adultery was replaced by incest.

At that time, Franco considered Spain to be “the spiritual reserve of the Western World” and ordained what everyone in the country should think and believe. Most of the progressive legal initiatives passed by the Second Republic had been revoked and replaced by repressive measures that reflected Franco’s devotion to militarism, hypermasculinity, and the traditional role of women in society. There was no longer anything that even remotely resembled equal opportunity.

After a minimal education, a woman was expected to reside with her family until marriage. After her wedding, she then harmoniously co-existed with her husband for the rest of their natural lives (there was no divorce). During Franco’s regime, very little domestic violence was reported, mostly because a husband had the right to “discipline” his wife.

A man was expected to marry. (Homosexuality was a crime.) Of course, it was preferable for him to choose a Spanish wife. Nevertheless, if he was so headstrong as to insist on marrying a foreigner, then his wife automatically acquired Spanish nationality on the day of her wedding (foreign males with Spanish spouses were not accorded this privilege).

Women were expected to produce as many children as God saw fit to bless them with. All birth control devices were illegal and could only be obtained on the black market. Pharmacists could only sell condoms, one at a time, with a doctor’s prescription.

Each year there was a Natality Prize, which was given to the woman with the most living children. I had a classmate who was called Ciriaco. When I asked him why he had such a weird name, he told me that he was the 24th sibling of 26, and by the time that he was born, his mother had run out of names.

Women had less access to education. (Both Mrs. Neanderthal and Mrs. Sitting Bull only studied until the sixth grade.) This was all triggered by Franco’s firm belief that biologically, women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men. A lot of people (including women) actually harbored this belief. Precisely for that reason, in the 1970s, only 36% of all university students were females, and many of these women viewed their studies purely as a means to catch a husband.

In my residence hall, about 40% of the girls would go to class in the morning, and then spend the afternoon embroidering tablecloths and/or crocheting bedspreads for their hope chest. Then, in the evening, they would go out with their friends to see if they could meet someone who qualified as good husband material. Once they found a fiancé, it was no longer necessary to continue studying. However, the struggle was still not over since they could not surrender their virginity to him until their wedding night. If they gave in to temptation beforehand, their fiancé would often break off the engagement because they were no longer ‘pure’.

Oddly enough, for certain people, this was a comfortable world because roles were clearly defined, and no one was obliged to think very hard. Everything was very black and white. If a woman was out on the street after 22:00, unaccompanied by a man, and she suffered physical aggression, she got what she deserved for her risky (and risqué) behavior. If people were arrested for anti-government remarks and propaganda, and got tortured and imprisoned, they also got what they deserved because they should have known better.

The most important thing was law and order. Protestors were severely punished because the government was always right, and everyone was aware of the penalty for breaking the rules. Franco maintained that he was the only one capable of keeping the country in line, and most people believed him. It was not until he died that people finally realized that none of this was true.

93 Ancient Aliens in Times of Coronavirus

I do not watch a great deal of television, but I have a few favorite programs. For example, reruns of “The Mentalist” are an ideal context for correcting papers, revising texts, or doing the first version of translations. However, because I turn on the television ahead of time, I sometimes end up inadvertently viewing stuff that I would not otherwise watch.  

On Sunday afternoon, the program preceding “The Mentalist” is a documentary series titled “Ancient Aliens”. As reflected in its name, the program presents highly speculative hypotheses of extraterrestrial astronauts. It proposes that our historical texts, archaeology, and legends contain evidence of human-extraterrestrial contact that occurred in the distant past.

Over the years I have been informed that, among other things, ghosts and angels are actually extraterrestrial visitors from distant planets, the work of Leonardo da Vinci was inspired by alien technology, and that George Washington had an alien visitation at Valley Forge. 

The series has taught me a great deal about how fascinated people are by the possibility of extraterrestrial life. However, until recently, the show was only a tiny footnote in my life. The only time that I have ever pleaded to be kidnapped by aliens and spirited away to another planet was when I had four small children ill with chickenpox.

Nevertheless, facts about Ancient Aliens suddenly became relevant when Dr. Stella Immanuel MD, alumna of the University of Calabar in Nigeria, appeared on the political scene as an “important voice” in America.  Dr. Immanuel is affiliated with America’s Frontline Doctors, a coronavirus-skeptic group of medical professionals, who are against masks and social distancing. Instead, they advertise hydroxychloroquine, Zitromax, and zinc as the best way to treat Covid-19 and combat the pandemic. President Trump describes this group as “very respected” and Dr. Immanuel as “impressive”.

Some years ago, Dr. Immanuel immigrated to America from Cameroon and now works in a private clinic in Houston. Evidently, her overriding virtue in the eyes of the president is that she is one of the few medical professionals in the world, who agrees with him. So, it is only natural that he should admire and applaud her perception and intellectual acuteness.

When asked directly about Dr. Immanuel, President Trump responded, “I thought she was very impressive, in the sense that, from where she came — I don’t know what country she comes from — but she said that she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.”

Unfortunately, the president was too occupied with other matters to check out her stance on other issues. He forgot (if ever he knew) that one of the Ten Commandments of Research Methodology 101 is “Know thy sources”.

And it was at that moment when my knowledge of “Ancient Aliens”, peacefully drowsing in long-term memory, was suddenly activated. Thanks to my osmotic relation with this series, I have absorbed various tales of gods, monsters and strange beings of all types interacting with humans. 

When these galactic invaders are not busy imparting wisdom and technology, they spend their free time impregnating women to create demigods, who are supposedly the result of human-alien unions. These offspring are invariably smarter than we are (though this is hardly a difficult feat). Their presence explains the occasional oases of intelligence in the immense desert of human stupidity.

An often cited text in this regard is “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, an ancient Sumerian poem written 4000 years ago. One of its myths is the possibility of a demon (incubus) appearing in the night to disturb and seduce women in their sleep, sometimes producing a child in the process.

 Over the centuries, this myth has persisted as a trending topic, and was avidly discussed by St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and King James. Certain sources even indicate that an incubus can be identified by its unnaturally large or cold penis. (Don’t forget this, girls. The information might come in handy one day.)

Like the ancient Sumerians, Dr. Immanuel also believes in “astral sex” with witches and demons. Indeed, this practice is the source of endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages and STDs, which are “evil deposits from the spirit husband.”  As a survivor of two miscarriages and thus presumably the recipient of more than a few evil deposits, I can only agree with her that spirit husbands are bad news and should be avoided at all costs.

Dr. Immanuel has also expressed a belief in the involvement of space aliens and Illuminati in the manipulation of the government. The “Ancient Aliens” series also conjectures that extraterrestrials have been among us for decades, centuries or millennia. However, the government has shielded the public from the knowledge of this secret alien invasion.

These infiltrators have even shapeshifted into human form and move freely through society. They now fill key government positions (hopefully, they have not been fired) and are in the final stages of their plan to take over the world. Given the current state of affairs, this cannot happen too soon.

In the opinion of Dr. Immanuel, alien DNA are now being used in medical treatments, and scientists are plotting to develop a vaccine to make it impossible to become religious. However, given the current mindset of the religious right in the USA, this might not be an entirely bad thing.

Though Dr. Immanuel has not expressed this view, ‘Ancient Aliens” also hypothesizes that some plagues and diseases, such as the Justinian Plague, Black Death, and Spanish Influenza, were presumably brought on by pathogens of extraterrestrial origin. All of these pandemics have been accompanied by reports of unusual celestial phenomena, the appearance of strange creatures and objects in the sky, and ancient carvings of figures dressed in hazmat suits.

So, it is entirely possible that the coronavirus has been sparked by pathogens of extraterrestrial origin brought to Earth in the form of cometary dust. Hopefully, at some point, Dr. Immanuel, the new and important voice in American Medicine, will weigh in on this topic and enlighten us all.

92 The Pot and the Kettle in Times of Coronavirus

Lately in Spain, things have not been going so well. Even the government’s efforts to improve the numbers by not updating statistics on the weekends have not been able to hide the gloomy truth.

Given the Spanish cultural mindset of “carpe diem”, not to mention the nationwide adherence to the dictum, “eat, drink, and be merry”, this outcome was predictable. Nevertheless, it is still somewhat disappointing to observe the widespread temporal amnesia that currently afflicts much of the general population.

Spain is composed of 17 regions, three of which have their own language. To a greater or lesser extent, Cataluña, the Basque Country, and Galicia conspire and aspire to a state of independence in the not-so-distant future. However, this vision of independence is relative, such as when teenage offspring move out of the family home but expect their parents to pay their rent in exchange for the relief of not having them around.

As we all are aware, when the pandemic hit last March, the situation became so desperate that President Pedro Sanchez was obliged to declare a State of Alarm. This meant that regional governments had to take their orders from the central government. All regions in Spain were obliged to do the same thing and coordinate their actions with Madrid. After a somewhat dodgy start, this drastic measure eventually gave positive results.

Even those of us who criticize the government have to admit that it finally worked. For whatever reason, the president did not shrug off his obligations and suggest that the pandemic was a hoax or that it would simply disappear. Nor did he claim that it was not his responsibility, and whine that there was nothing that he could do about it.

He did not say that fighting Covid-19 was the individual responsibility of each region and go off to fry other fish that were more in line with his own political interests. If indeed he had allowed every region do its own thing, the situation would have degenerated into chaos because viruses do not respect borders.

Instead, all regions were obliged to impose the same restrictions despite gloomy mutterings from the Basque Country and Cataluña, who claimed that Spain had regressed into a dictatorship. Nevertheless, there were no protests in the streets. Too many people were dying for the population to get out their (figurative) guns. (Real guns in Spanish households are a rarity.)

The State of Alarm finally worked. The death rate dropped spectacularly. The stacks of coffins gradually began to disappear. In fact, the last 59 (unclaimed) bodies from that dark period have recently been put to rest in a small corner of the cemetery, courtesy of the Community of Madrid, who paid for each individual burial. There were no mass graves, as occurred in New York.

Eventually, the State of Alarm was lifted, and the regional governments regained the authority that they had temporarily lost. Now the responsibility of controlling new outbreaks has once again fallen on the shoulders of governors and mayors. Each region is doing its own thing, rather like the current strategy in the USA.

And so almost every region has thrown caution to the winds because the populace was suffering from confinement fatigue. Hotels, discotheques, bars, and restaurants wanted to get swinging again and try to recover their losses. Young people wished to party and to drink themselves into a stupor.

In Navarre, for the first time since the Spanish Civil War, there was no running of the bulls, but that did not matter. People decided to informally celebrate anyway. One of the uninvited guests was Covid-19, who crashed the party. Some flat encephalogram with a macabre sense of humor even thought it would be fun to have a soccer game between a team of coronavirus-infected players and another team of uninfected players.

After three months of isolation, families also wanted to forget confinement. They wished to reunite and celebrate. And everyone did. They forgot that the virus was still around. Each region thought that it could return to normal and carry on as usual. But they were wrong.

Outbreaks began popping up, one after another (360 as of this morning). Regional governments, many of whom do not have sufficient resources for contact tracing, are now engaged in playing Whack-a-Virus (“The Coronavirus Carnival”, www.timesofcoronavirus.com). Selective restrictions do not seem to be working because it is only possible to fight a pandemic if the country works together as one nation, not as a dystopian balkanized bedlam (i.e. the USA).

Despite the fact that everyone in Spain wears a mask (non-mask wearers are ridiculed), Covid-19 is rapidly advancing in the Basque Country, Aragon, and Cataluña, and slowly progressing elsewhere. Largely thanks to their geography, the places in Spain that are doing the best are the Baleares, Canary Islands, and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast. But hospitals are gradually filling up again. Unfortunately, people travel from one region to another, especially in the summer, and they carry their germs with them.

Even though new infections were below 300 early this month, in the last week, the daily average has topped 2000, and, as in many places, experts say the real figure is higher, with many cases going undetected.  It is not necessary to have a degree in Virology to see what is happening.

So this weekend, without previous warning, the British government abruptly imposed a quarantine on anyone arriving from Spain (with the exception of the Real Madrid soccer team). This was quite a blow to tourism in Spain since a very high percentage of tourists here are from the United Kingdom, and they spend a lot of money when they are on vacation (143 euros per diem). Since the quarantine happened from one day to the next, it came as a surprise to many Britons peacefully getting a suntan on the beach in Mallorca or Lanzarote.

Those interviewed claim that they feel safer in Spain than they do in the UK since everyone here wears a mask, and all establishments are obliged to disinfect premises between clients. However, an important charter airline has canceled all flights to peninsular Spain. This has left many disgruntled Britons without beach, sun, and sangria. 

British tourists who are already here are calling their employers to tell them that they will be unable to go to work after returning because they must spend 14 days at home. Most will not be paid during the obligatory quarantine.  (“The Daily Mirror” has had a field day with all of this.)

This is not to say that the quarantine is not justified. Indeed, it would be coherent if it were also accompanied by other measures that were geared to improve the situation in the UK from within. Paradoxically, despite the spike in cases, many areas of Spain are still in better shape than the British Isles.

However, the British government also has economic worries, and Boris Johnson would prefer for people to vacation in the UK. England also has a certain history of blaming many of its ills on foreigners and immigrants, when Britons (like Spaniards and Americans) are quite capable of singlehandedly making a mess of their country with little or no help from the outside. 

England’s coronavirus infection and death rates seem to indicate that it has a long way to go before it can do a victory dance. So, once again, it is a question of the pot and the kettle, and of determining shades of blackness.

91 Having a "Querida" in Times of Coronavirus

With all that has happened lately in Times of Coronavirus, it has been a while since I have written about the Neanderthals, who live in the apartment across the hall for me. Worthy of an anthropological study, they are an endearing couple, who are a monument to past times. Their pristine mindset has been preserved in formaldehyde and still remains as it was in the 1960s.

Over fifty years ago, after seven years of chaste engagement, they married on 8 December, the Day of the Immaculate Conception, which Mrs. Neanderthal regarded as the most suitable day to solemnly surrender her virginity to her newly wedded husband. Since then, they have walked in lockstep through the complicated labyrinth of marital life. 

Their three children are living testimony that they finally managed to overcome obstacles such as anatomical fumbling, puritanical modesty, and an embroidered flannel nightgown (as white and voluminous as Moby Dick) to come together in blissful conjugal union, reproduce, and multiply.

 The last time I mentioned the Neanderthals was in ‘The Best Laid Plans’ (www.timesofcoronavirus.com). Unfortunately, just after confinement had ended and despite successfully escaping infection, Mrs. Neanderthal fell and broke her hip as she was on her way to visit one of her sons. For many reasons, this was an unmitigated disaster for her and for all of the family.

She was taken to the hospital and given a hip replacement. The operation was a success, and after ten days, she was sent home to convalesce. The doctors affirmed that with a bit of physical therapy, perseverance, and will power on her part, she should eventually be able to stand up and move around with the help of a walker. But this has not as yet happened.  

Mrs. Neanderthal, whose pain threshold is so low that a beetle could skateboard over it, claimed that her leg hurt too much and flatly refused to get out of her bed. Her refusal was accompanied by an impressive number of moans, groans, and lamentations interspersed with various theatrical sighs. 

This meant that Mr. Neanderthal, who is a retired electrician, was obliged to confront one of the greatest challenges of his life, namely, changing his wife’s diapers. Since he had never changed a diaper in his life, not even those of his own children, this became an insurmountable obstacle.

In fact when our children were babies at both ends of the hallway, Mr. Neanderthal was loath to believe that my husband uncomplainingly changed diapers. Since both men belonged to the same (unevolved) generation of Spanish males, he asked me what I had done to transform my husband into a shamefully diluted version of Celtiberian manhood. I told them that reformatting his hard disk had not been an easy task, but I had managed, thanks to a few devices on display at the Inquisition Torture Exposition in the Palacio de las Gabias.

In a doomed effort to help her parents, the Neanderthal daughter came to visit for a week to give her father a crash course on diaper-changing, but he had little motivation, not to mention a slow learning curve. When I went to visit the Neanderthals, their daughter was at her wits’ end. I took a look at Mrs. Neanderthal lying on the bed in her best imitation of a beached whale, and told them that in my opinion, if they could afford it, the only answer was a nursing home.

My suggestion sent Mrs. Neanderthal into a fit of hysterics for various reasons: (1) Her daughter was abandoning her; (2) She would be sent off in exile to some unknown and strange venue in the middle of nowhere; (3) Her husband would assuredly die of starvation without her to cook for him.

However, my suggestion was the only viable solution, and Mrs. Neanderthal finally went to live in a private nursing home a little outside of town. Since then, I have not been able to see or talk with her because in Times of Coronavirus, nursing homes have become sanitized parallel universes. 

Given the extremely high death rate during the first wave of the virus, all personnel now wear protection equipment. PCR tests and masks are obligatory. The premises are periodically disinfected. Visits are restricted to one family member once or twice a week, and when there is an outbreak nearby, sometimes not even that.  

For the last few weeks, I had not seen Mr. Neanderthal around the neighborhood either. So, yesterday I knocked on his door to ask how things were going. By his face, I could see that he was not happy. He admitted that at first, his wife’s departure had been a relief because he was finally able to sleep at night without being periodically awakened by her moans and groans. Furthermore, he did not have to worry about changing her diapers and cleaning her.

As expected, at first she had not taken well to her new life. However, now the problem was exactly the opposite. After decades of culinary and domestic servitude to her parents, in-laws, husband, and children, Mrs. Neanderthal has now discovered how delightful it is to be catered to. She does not have to cook or clean. Her meals are served to her, and she has even made a few friends at the nursing home. She feels that at long last, she is receiving the consideration that she so richly deserves.

She is also benefiting from some ‘feel-good’ physiotherapy that does not make her suffer, but which will never make her walk. Evidently, the English expression “no pain, no gain” has not caught on here in Spain. “Sin dolor, no hay beneficio” loses a lot in the translation and does not even rhyme. She enjoys being pushed around in her wheelchair. In short, she has discovered that there is life without Mr. Neanderthal and does not want to return.

So, Mr. Neanderthal is seriously displeased because he is obliged to live on his own, not to mention the added expense of a nursing home. He now must forage for his food in small restaurants though his daughters-in-law occasionally send him pots of stew and soup. But that is hardly the same since Mrs. Neanderthal is an incredibly good cook and could have worked as a chef in a three-star Michelin restaurant.

Again, my advice was requested, and I was asked what he could do to lure her back home. I told him that for every problem there is always a solution, and suggested that he tell her that if she did not return, he would be forced to look for a “querida” to fulfill his “manly needs.”

In Spanish, "querida" is the feminine participle of the verb "querer", which means "to want" (in the sense of desiring). In the bad old days when there was no divorce in Spain, many married men had a “querida”, a light-skirted mistress who would satisfy their sexual cravings since it was impossible for a “good” woman to actually crave, much less enjoy, sex.  

In this binary world with no shades of gray, any female who delighted in fornication was not a good woman, but rather a bad one. (Mrs. Neanderthal once proudly informed me that at no time had Mr. Neanderthal ever perceived enjoyment on her part when they were engaged in carnal union.)

Mr. Neanderthal’s eyes lit up when I mentioned a “querida” because as he informed me, he might be old but he certainly is not dead. However, he said that he didn’t have sufficient funds to rent an apartment for a paramour. I told him that I didn’t mean for him to actually go through with the plan. It was only necessary to subtly inform Mrs. Neanderthal (who is a very jealous wife) that she can no longer linger in the nursing home or he might fall prey to temptations of the flesh.

Stay tuned for the next episode.

90 A Gothic Tale in Times of Coronavirus

As we all learned from Vincent Price, if not from our high school English teacher, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer of fiction, who was and still is famous for his dark poems and short stories. He is best known for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. 

Like most, I had read Poe. However, I had little idea of the international scope of his work, until I studied at the Sorbonne in the early 1980s. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Poe was even more revered in France than in the USA. This was largely due to Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), the great French poet, whose masterful translations of Poe’s work enshrined Poe in French literature.

Baudelaire was so impressed by Poe’s aesthetic use of language that he even learned English in order to translate him. (This was like my son in Texas who so wanted to marry a Russian girl that he learned Russian for that purpose.) Both in his poetry and prose, Poe focused on producing a single effect in order to reveal some important truth. The goal of Poe’s poetry was to create beauty for the sake of beauty. However, in many of his short stories, his objective was different. It was focused on creating a single unified effect of horror.

This is exactly what Poe did in one of his most famous Gothic tales, “The Masque of the Red Death”. The tale, which is about a deathly illness that attends a masquerade as an unexpected guest, has no real characters or precise location, and is meant to be an allegory. However, now in Times of Coronavirus, this tale has become eerily relevant. The story begins with the description of a scene that by now, we have become quite familiar with.

 “The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.”  Like Covid-19, the Red Death is also a disease of the blood. “Blood was its Avatar and its seal – the redness and the horror of blood.” Once infected, victims succumb very quickly and many die. “And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.”

Paradoxically, the country of the Red Death is ruled by Prince Prospero, whose name is indicative of a healthy and booming economy. Despite being “happy and dauntless and sagacious”, the prince does not seem to care that his subjects are dying in great numbers. 

In fact, he does not think that the disease or the deaths caused are important at all. (‘It is what it is.’) As long as the prince and his cronies are safe, that is all that matters. And so he devised a plan.

“When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.”

This castellated abbey (the White House) has strong, lofty walls and "gates of iron." Prince Prospero has very carefully provided entertainment of all types (possibly a golf game or two), for his guests. Meanwhile, outside the sealed abbey, the Red Death is rampaging.

“The abbey was amply provisioned” (perhaps with Big Macs). “With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself […]. All these and security were within. Without was the Red Death.”

After five months of merry seclusion, Prince Prospero decides to entertain his guests with a masked ball “of unusual magnificence” (Republican National Convention). This masquerade will be held in an imperial suite of seven circular rooms, each decorated in a different color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black.

This is a bit difficult to reproduce in real life. Nevertheless, the state floor of the White House has a Red Room, a Blue Room, and Green Room whereas the Jacksonville Convention Hall has six large exhibition halls (no colors mentioned though the walls could be chromatically decorated as appropriate).

Of these rooms in the castellated abbey, the most important is the seventh and last one, which is "shrouded in black velvet," with scarlet windowpanes. "The effect of the firelight upon the blood tinted panes is ghastly in the extreme". This frightening room also has a gigantic ebony clock, which represents the passing of time (perhaps until the elections).

The masquerade (Republican National Convention), however, is “a gay and magnificent revel” on a grand scale. Prince Prospero has a fine eye for color and effects. “His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not.”

It is the prince’s taste that has guided the costumes of the masqueraders. “There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”

However, at some point during the masquerade, the revelers (7000 delegates at the scaled-back convention) gradually become aware of a tall and gaunt masked figure, “shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave”. His mask is that of a corpse that died from the Red Death and his entire outfit is sprinkled with blood. "All the features of the face were besprinkled with the scarlet horror."

Prince Prospero also notices him. He calls him “blasphemous” (nut job, dummy, dope, clown, etc.) and orders him to be unmasked (fired and sent home). However, when the revelers try to seize the intruder, who stands “erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock”, they find that his shroud and mask are “untenanted by any tangible form”, like the coronavirus.

The Red Death, which could not be tweeted away, had come like “a thief in the night”. One by one, the revelers, as well as Prince Prospero, then drop to the floor beside the ebony clock of the great black hall with scarlet windowpanes, inevitably vanquished by the mysterious guest that unexpectedly appeared at the masquerade.

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

In his poems and stories, Poe’s strived to create a single, unified effect of unmitigated horror. Even now 200 years later, his stories are still able to strike a chord. This is the hallmark of a great writer when his literary production is timeless. And Poe’s gothic stories have never been so timeless (or timely) as now in Times of Coronavirus.

89 The Faces of Bélmez in Times of Coronavirus

In 1971, a few months before my wedding, the town of Bélmez de la Moraleda (2000 inhabitants) in the region of Jaen became big news. Mysterious faces suddenly began to appear on the kitchen floor of one of the houses there. When the first face emerged, the lady of the household (In the time-honored tradition of Spanish housewivery) tried to scrub it away with bleach. 

When this did not work, her husband and son, who favored more rough-and-ready methods, proceeded to obliterate it with a pickaxe and then lay new concrete. However, the persistent face resurfaced a week later. The family was on the verge of attacking it again when the mayor intervened and ordered them not to because the floor was to be excavated.

At a depth of about nine feet, two headless skeletons and a jumbled mass of other human bones were found. As it turned out, the site of their kitchen had been a Roman, then Arab, and then Catholic graveyard for over a thousand years before the house had been built. The remains were thus carted away and given a more satisfactory burial. The assumption was that this action would appease the restless spirits.

However, contrary to all reasonable expectation, the removal of the skeletons only intensified the facial apparitions. This time the faces appeared and disappeared quickly, sometimes within a time span of a couple of hours.

This allegedly paranormal phenomenon became an important tourist attraction, and people travelled to Bélmez from all over Spain to see the faces. Since Jaén is not far from Granada, my husband and I took a day trip there and paid a small fee to go in and look at the rooms where the faces intermittently appeared.

 When I entered the house, the paranormal activity was unfortunately experiencing a certain lull. There was only one face on the kitchen wall, but it was in the process of fading though no one quite knew why. Apparently, this strange activity had its ups and downs, and it was impossible to predict when a face would surface. Faces could be of either gender, and those that consistently reappeared were even given names such as  pava [silly woman], fraile [monk], pelao [bald man], etc.

This phenomenon was the focus of a great deal of research. Ghostbusters even came from other countries, such as Germany, to study it. Some people wondered if the faces were a hoax whereas others believed that they represented people that were trying to send a message from beyond the grave.

Although no one really knew why this was happening, there were a lot of crazy theories. It was sort of like when Covid-19 first appeared on the scene. Everyone had his/her own explanation and cure. Like the Faces of Bélmez, Covid-19 also materialized as mysteriously as an unpleasant face on the wall. Many people also thought that it was a hoax and tried to strenuously bleach it away (both externally and internally). They also tried to destroy it by chiselling it out and isolating it. However, like the Faces of Bélmez, the virus has stubbornly kept returning though in different guises.

The first face of Bélmez surfaced on the kitchen floor, followed by a second face on the kitchen wall. In Spain, the first wave of the coronavirus surfaced in Madrid in March.  Recently, it has been followed by a second appearance (possibly a wave) in the region of Catalonia, where infections have suddenly quadrupled.

Just as no Bélmez face is exactly the same, there is now a slightly different version of the virus. In this second wave, fewer people are dying though this is perhaps because the most vulnerable have already been creamed off. Even though younger patients have a higher survival rate, in Lerida (which is part of Catalonia), the hospital system is beginning to crash and patients must now be sent elsewhere.

The Spanish government does not know quite what to do because it had erroneously relegated the coronavirus to the category of issues that had been satisfactorily dealt with. Spain now has other fish to fry. President Pedro Sánchez is currently attending an important EU reunion in an effort to obtain unlimited (no-strings-attached) funding for economic recovery. Quite understandably, more frugal countries such as Denmark, Austria, and Holland don’t think that this is such a good idea.

That is at least one of the reasons why President Sanchez does not want to hear about disagreeable topics such as the infection or mortality rate. There are already too many dead, both counted and uncounted. He does not want any uncomfortable resurrections now that all of the coffins in the skating rinks and subterranean parking lots have been buried and put to rest.

However, sometimes the dead begin to talk. Apparently, they did in Bélmez. At least two famous Spanish parapsychologists hooked up hyper-sensitive microphones to pick up electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) from under the famous kitchen floor. The microphones detected an array of mysterious voices. Although many of the sounds were inarticulate cries, groans and whispers, some very clear phrases were picked up, such as the following:

§   I am still buried.  [An evident observation.]

§   She carries on with all the men.  [Is there sex after death?]

§   Hell begins here.   [Proof that someone did not lead a saintly life.]

§   Bitch!   [Death clearly does not improve one’s mood or language.]

§   Fuck yourself!  [ An anatomical impossibility, which indicates a need for post mortem anger management.]

If it were possible to use EVP to recover the words of the 28,500 (really 45,000) Covid-19 victims in Spain, It would be interesting to hear what they had to say. Most of them died alone in hospitals and nursing homes. Would their phrases convey the same level of anger and despair as those of the anonymous skeletons buried under the kitchen floor in Bélmez?

If life were indeed fair (which it is is not), the faces of the coronavirus dead would intermittently materialize on the walls and floors of government buildings, offices, and agencies. They would appear at judicious intervals to haunt our leaders. At the very least, the faces would be a permanent reminder of their lack of foresight, callousness, and ignorance.