In Spain, today is the beginning of Semana Santa [Easter week]. Instead of Easter bunnies and baskets, Easter here is a time of religious festivities and processions. Throughout the week, huge images of saints, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary as well as sculptures depicting scenes from the Bible are solemnly paraded through the streets on the shoulders of members of the various Catholic brotherhoods.
These processions are followed by large bands, playing traditional Easter music. In the forefront are Nazarenos dressed in long robes and coned hats. Despite their resemblance to those of the Ku Klux Klan, these robes date back various centuries to the time of the Spanish Inquisition, when they were worn as penance for transgressions.
This version of Easter is deeply ingrained in the Spanish culture. All Spaniards, regardless of their religious convictions (or absence of them), enjoy viewing the processions, which are a colorful spectacle and a cultural tradition. Easter is also a time for large family get-togethers, vacations, and generally a good excuse for celebrating whatever one wishes to celebrate. In the 50 years that I have lived in Spain, processions have only been cancelled for meteorological reasons.
A cancelled procession is invariably regarded as a great tragedy, which has been ordained by some capricious weather god. On such occasions, the television broadcasts scenes of heartbroken ladies in mantillas, sobbing uncontrollably under umbrellas outside the church because their image of the Virgin Mary was obliged to remain inside and could not venture out because of the torrential rain.
This year, the lockdown and current ban on gatherings, both large and small, means that there will be no Easter processions at all. Even Easter mass will be on the television. People will not be able to visit their hometowns to celebrate with their family. The holiday this year will be lost forever since Easter cannot be postponed until September.
The coronavirus is thus the new Grinch who, rather than stealing Christmas, decided to steal Easter instead. This year, reporters will doubtlessly capture images of quarantined people singing saetas [Flamenco sacred songs] from their balconies to invisible images of the Virgin Mary. Those who cannot sing will gaze down at the empty streets and glumly wonder if life will ever return to the way that it used to be. Their tears will not be so much for the cancelled processions, but rather for a way of life that has perhaps been lost forever.
Evidence of inherent national optimism, however, is the fact that all the huge events (festivals, concerts, parades, big department store sales, etc.) have now been rescheduled for September, currently the most overbooked month in the history of the universe. Even if things do return to normal in September (which is doubtful), the population will be so out-of-shape after the long quarantine that many will die from the exhaustion of celebrating everything from the spring sale in the Corte Inglés to the Feria of Seville to Gay Pride Day in the space of 30 days.
Today Pedro Sanchez, the president of Spain, solemnly announced that we would have another two weeks of confinement until 26 April. This came as a surprise to no one except one of my neighbors in the grocery-line social group, who lives in a kind of mental bubble-wrap. Although the confinement will doubtlessly continue far into May, our president insinuated that a few of the most drastic restrictions might be lifted if the evolution continued to be positive. For example, children might be allowed outside to go for a walk with one of their parents.
The return to normality would thus be gradual so that the entire population would not simultaneously rush out of their homes in an ecstatic frenzy and start wildly celebrating in the streets. According to my son, the coronavirus will not magically disappear. It will remain with us for some time and probably flare up periodically. Only we will eventually become better at treating it and understanding it.
So we will return to normal life little by little, like heroin addicts kicking the habit with periodic doses of methadone. Nevertheless, any level of normality that is finally reached will be a ‘new normal’.
When the president of Spain gives a speech, his stress level is always reflected in the way that one of the muscles in his lower jaw nervously clenches as he speaks. This was evident as he assured us that we are going in the right direction (at long last). Apparently, we have now reached the PEAK. Unfortunately, the peak has now become a PLATEAU that stretches out for some unknown and unspecified distance. Hopefully, when we get to the end of the plateau, we will not encounter a second peak, but it is impossible to say. We are traveling in an unknown and dangerous territory with no road map, and our guides are even more clueless that we are.
On the brighter side, Pedro Sanchez is more agreeable to look at than Donald Trump. He is excellent at avoiding any mention of the blame that he richly deserves. He does not directly insult anyone or use endless series of repetitive superlative adjectives, which are void of meaning. In fact, his voice tone is melodious, and his half-truths literally reek with sincerity. If it were not for the fact that the current national disaster in Spain was exacerbated by his insistence that Spain had the coronavirus under control and that only a few people would become ill, he would be almost believable.
Unlike Donald Trump, Pedro Sanchez never quarrels with the press, but rather answers the questions of the reporters with the same level of earnest sincerity. Of course, it is also true that these questions are previously filtered and selected as carefully as a mother orangutan picks the lice from the fur of her offspring. It is little wonder that two of the major Spanish newspapers no longer even bother to attend his press conferences.
The good news continues to be meager. As I predicted yesterday, we are now back to second place on the coronavirus blacklist. Nevertheless, today our coronavirus cases ’only’ increased 6%; the intensive care sections of the hospitals were filled, but they had not collapsed; and the daily number of deaths decreased from 961 to (only?) 850. It would seem that some sort of progress is being made. Unfortunately, there is also the well-founded suspicion that not all deaths are being counted. It is the government’s way of manufacturing good news, a bromide to calm the troubled waters of public exasperation.
And in an effort to momentarily forget Spain, I continue to watch the situation in the USA in awed wonder. The coronavirus continues to (exponentially) spread while various Neros merrily fiddle. Warnings from both near and far are ignored as a large percentage of the population seems to be living in a kind of bubble-wrapped La-La Land. I have been absent from the country for so long that I have become a foreigner in my own birthplace. Perhaps that is why there are so many things that I no longer understand, if indeed I ever did.
For example, I wonder how a country with 50 “united” states has become balkanized to the point where each state has its own set of coronavirus rules. It is a bit like the Land of Oz, where the Quadlings are red, the Munchkins, blue, the Winkies, yellow, and the Gillikins, purple. It is only natural that the Emerald City, where their ruler lives, is green, a color that does not coincide with any of the above. A friend of mine in Ohio (where the coronavirus rules are stricter) said that her state was contemplating the possibility of closing their border with other states that have a higher percentage of infection.
At the helm of this divided ship is Donald Trump, who doubtlessly celebrates the fact that in times of coronavirus in the USA, golf and guns are still open for business and are regarded as essential services on the same level as healthcare, food production and law enforcement. It seems that the nature of essentials has become a sign of national identity. In Spain, one of the essentials is wine, which is often the only way to cope with the incompetence of our leaders.
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