Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 298 - 2,599 words
Columns :: I move – in a “hurricane”

Galicia, Northern Spain, March 7, 2010 -- Comments:   Ratings:

Fiesta Queen



Galicia, Northern Spain, March 7, 2010 -- I’ve moved. I’m in my new apartment, and I like it very much. I especially like the price: 170 euros a month – about $ 230. Add 125 euros ($ 170) for the school rent, 50 euros ($ 68) for meds, 40 euros ($ 54) for my mobile phone, 200 euros ($ 270) for groceries and household stuff, and that totals 585 euros ($ 790), leaving about $ 300 for savings, travel, etc. The reality is that I’m going to spend more than $ 790 every month; but in any case, it definitely leaves me more than enough to survive on my social security pension.

If you add money from my students, which right now amounts to about 300 euros a month – about $ 405 – that puts me in the upper middle class.

(I’m using as an exchange rate 1.35 dollars to the euro, based on the reduced euro value as a result of the Greek government/monetary crisis, which has reduced the dollar exchange rate for the euro from $ 1.45 to $ 1.35 over the past two months.)

Okay, what’s the down side? My new apartment isn’t as nice or as large as my old one, and it’s further from the center. It takes me about 25 min. to walk to the school instead of the 5 min. it took from the old apartment. (That means at least an hour’s walking every day. But the increased exercise does me good!) I can’t have classes here, which I could in my old apartment, but if things go well, I won’t want to have lessons in my apartment anyway.

There is no oven in the stove here, so I can’t make the scalloped eggplant recipe my ex-wife Elaine gave me. On the other hand, there is a microwave, which my old apartment didn’t have. And if I really want an oven, I can probably buy an electric one.

Now, I’m thinking in terms of staying here for a long time. A couple of months ago, I was beginning to think of moving back to the U.S., and was planning to use my forthcoming trip to the States to scout out possible places to live, which would not be easy because my relatives – particularly my nephew Dennis, whom I always figured I could live with if push came to shove – have hinted that they don’t really want me to live with them, and I’ve thought of no friends that I could or would impose upon.

But now, my feeling is to hell with them. I’m quite content here.

I moved last Sunday, with which José helped me with his mother’s Mercedes. I don’t like to ask favors of José because he’s not a gracious and unselfish person. He’s glad to help out when it costs him no effort or when it’s something he enjoys. For example, he arranged my trip to Andorra next week because he was able to do it on the computer and he enjoys working on the computer. But when I asked him to call a delivery service to arrange to move my household goods from his father’s factory to my new apartment, he said I could do it myself.

I can’t. So Drushka is going to call and arrange the delivery week after next, because I will be in Andorra Thursday and Friday of next week, and Drushka’s parents and his so-called “girlfriend/wife” Lena will be here.

And that’s another story: Drushka is as queer as I am, but he can’t afford to admit it to his parents or to his friends here in Spain. Although the Socialist Spanish government is rather enlightened on the subject, and has in fact legalized gay marriage, this part of Spain is painfully Catholic and painfully reactionary, as was Russia (Russian Orthodox instead of Catholic, which in many respects is even worse). Although Drushka lived here with José as his boyfriend for several years, neither he nor José admits to their business contacts, students, friends, or family, that they are gay – somewhat like my own situation in Orlando, Fla., 45 years ago.

Add to that the fact that Drushka desperately wants a child – though why, I can’t imagine unless it’s in the Russian/European and to some extent American, tradition of providing for your old age by having children and grandchildren to take care of you. Lena also wants a child, probably for the same reason combined with the fact that she’s a woman, and most women want to be mothers.

So Lena of course doesn’t know he’s gay and writes endearing pressure messages to him almost daily – “I want my loving husband here by my side in Moscow,” etc. (“Husband? But I’ve explained that Russian boys and girls/men and women often live together as husband and wife without being married because of the high costs of marriage; although they may be strict Russian Orthodox, they accept living together as a normal part of life, not as a so-called Western “sin.”) Of course Drushka doesn’t love her. He feels comfortable with her, but he doesn’t love her – probably something like I felt towards Elaine in Orlando.

So he finds himself between a rock and a hard place. She is coming next week. It will, or should be, showdown time for him: I’ve advised him to tell her the truth and let her deal with it as best she can. The problem is also that she is getting to be “an old maid” in Russian terms: She will soon be 28, and any woman over 25 and not married in Russia is considered “on the shelf” and not marriageable material.

He wants my advice, but I refuse to advise him. I’m not going to be responsible for what happens to him for the rest of his life. Besides, I advised Fred Brewster not to marry Nancy. He did anyway, and after 35 years they’re still happily married in suburban Wash. D.C with grandchildren. With this in mind, I refused to advise my Moscow friend Basil not to marry Olga, because I loved him; I didn’t think she deserved him, but couldn’t sort out in my mind whether I was being selfish or objective, so I kept my mouth shut. Now they’re unhappily married with a child.

So my record is not very good. I refuse to advise Drushka.

But what I suspect will happen is that he and Lena will split, she will leave his apartment in Moscow and move back with her parents, and he will rent out the apartment for a guaranteed income, which will allow him to remain in Spain, much as I am living with a guaranteed income from my pension.

And if he doesn’t? That’s really his problem.

I moved to my apartment at the tail end of a Spanish “hurricane.” But it wasn’t much of a hurricane. One woman was killed, according to news reports, northwest of my city when her badly constructed hovel collapsed on her amidst the wind and rain; but I never observed any winds of hurricane force. I grew up in Orlando, where we had real hurricanes almost every fall. I can remember the wind blowing at 112 mph while my whole family huddled without electricity around candles hoping for the best.

According to news reports, the wind on the Atlantic 50 or so miles from here was at most 100 mph. But all bus – including local transit -- and train travel was cancelled through my city, and plane flights were cancelled in Madrid and much of the rest of Europe. The park in the center of the city was roped off with police tape to keep people from being killed by falling trees. But I never saw wind strong enough to fell any trees.

There was lots of rain, and Drushka and I carried my stuff through rain from my old apartment to José’s mother’s car and from the car to my new apartment. It was a pain in the ass, but certainly not life threatening.

When I went to pick Drushka up at our school on Thursday night, he had been giving a lesson in Spanish and English to Natasha, a native Russian village girl who has been “adopted” by José Manuel and his wife Mercedes. José Manuel is a successful banker here and a very pleasant and gracious man.

Drushka and Natasha were speaking animatedly in their native Russian tongue, which even after 12 years I can’t comfortably follow. Finally Drushka turned to me and said, “Natasha says she saw the devil.”

Oh, Christ, now what?

“Hallucination,” is all I could muster.

They continued talking animatedly as we went the two blocks down the street to Natasha’s and her adoptive parents’ apartment. I heard Drushka mention “the Bible” a couple of times.

After we left her safely inside the apartment, Drushka said again, “She says she sees the devil, what do you make of that?”

“As you know,” I replied, “I don’t believe in the devil. I’m an agnostic at best and an atheist at worst.”

“But she says she sees a black figure with greenish-yellowish eyes and sometimes he blocks her path. She stood in front of her apartment building till 5 in the morning one time because he was blocking her path and wouldn’t let her enter. She says sometimes when she’s eating an ice cream cone or smoking a cigarette, he takes it out of her hand and throws it away.”

“My god,” was all I could muster. “She needs to see a good Freudian psychiatrist in her own language. But I don’t think there is such a thing even in Russia.”

“Not in her native village. In Moscow, yes,” Drushka replied.

“I don’t think you’d even find one in Moscow.”

But Drushka thinks Moscow has everything, even good Freudian psychiatrists.

Whatever. I’m not going to argue with him. Most things you can get in Moscow if you have the money. A good psychiatrist, however, I have serious doubts about. They don’t even have a good psychiatrist training program in all of Russia, to the best of my knowledge, and no Western psychiatrist is going to give up his good life and his freedom to live in Moscow. It’s simply too risky. Only rich Russians have the money for a psychiatrist, and if you have money, you have power. You don’t like what the psychiatrist tells you? You talk to a few powerful friends and he winds up in prison.

In any case, psychiatric counseling in her own language is not going to happen. She’s living in Spain with a good, solid, wealthy Spanish couple. They’re not going to send her to Moscow under any circumstances.

Drushka and I agreed that she is treading on mentally and psychologically dangerous ground. She obviously believes that she is seeing the devil. She comes from a very poor background, is very religious —as are most Russian Orthodoxers from the villages – and has no education. She didn’t even know that the capital of Russia was Moscow, and thought the capital of Spain was Galicia. Madre de diós. Drushka thinks she is stupid. At first I defended her: “She’s from the village with no education; what do you expect?” But now I think he’s right. She’s stupid; dumb.

She probably has lots of guilt issues. She had a boyfriend in Russia who got her pregnant; she miscarried. Now she is ga-ga over boys in Spain. (And what’s wrong with that, you may well ask; I, too, am ga-ga over boys in Spain. The difference is that I don’t act on it; she does.) For 10 years she has been coming to Galicia from Chernobyl-affected south-central Russia and living with José Manuel and Mercedes as her foster parents. Her parents are still alive and well in Russia, and she must feel some sense that she is abandoning them by leaving them in Russian village poverty while she lives comfortably and happily in Spain, although they realize that they can’t really afford to keep a teenage girl, and like all good parents, they want her to have the most opportunity in life.

In any case, the devil is very real to her. Drushka suggested carrying a crucifix or a Bible. She understands that, and if it works for her, great! If it doesn’t, then what? Drushka advised her to see a priest. Yeah, that’s okay. It gets him away from being responsible. He’s the only one she’s told so far. He’s clearly got a mental case on his hands. Let’s see what happens next.

I jerked off by myself Friday morning -- with no help from pretty young boys, Russian or Spanish. First time in several years that I’ve jerked off without a young Russian body next to mine. And the last time even that happened was the week before I left Russia in mid-December – nearly three months ago. Since I’m convinced orgasms help prevent prostate cancer, I was getting worried.

Anyway, Zhorik said he wanted to have one last night of sex with me before I left Russia for good. What a nightmare! I jerked and sucked his pretty little cock till 5 in the morning when he finally came – two or three hours after I did. It was enough to make me glad I was leaving Russia. Pretty boys there were getting less numerous and less accessible and less accommodating.

But even so, it was Shangri-la compared with what I’ve experienced in Spain. I’ve seen lots of pretty boys here, but none who looked like they wanted to go to bed with a 76-year-old American. Drushka thinks they’re age conscious here, which they weren’t in Russia. Maybe he’s right.

Speaking of pretty young Russian boys, I had an e-mail yesterday from Sasha, now 20 years old but still looking 14. It’s good to be in touch with him. How I miss his pretty little piska. But I will in all probability never see him or his piska again. I also had an e-mail from Igor #2. He’s getting married in May, and I probably will never again see him or his big piska, although I very much miss them both (the boys and their piskas). Así es la vida (look it up or ask your Spanish teacher; oh, okay, it means “Such is life.”)

Anyway, having an orgasm Friday was so much fun I jerked off again yesterday. Two days in a row! It’s been a long, long time since that happened! So imagine my surprise when I was able to jerk off again today – again without porn or pretty young boys! Incredible! There’s hope for me after all! Or maybe it just proves that in the absence of necessities, we innovate.

Now if I can just find the Spanish boys in this Catholic and reactionary part of Spain!

Oh, yes, I’m taking Spanish lessons now -- from Elvira, my “landlady,” who is also a Spanish and English teacher, though she speaks English very badly. I have lessons twice a week for 60 euros a month. That’s just a little more than what I was paying for a single lesson in Moscow, so I can afford it.
The problem here is finding a text book. Elvira finally found the name of an English-to-Spanish textbook, but in the one book shop in this small city, I can’t find it and they can’t order it. Diós mio. She says she will find another. How I miss my old “El Camino Real” textbook from 60 years ago!

(P.S. They did have it. Drushka found it.)

Oh, well. Así es la vida. Hasta luego, amigo.


See also related pages:
Chapt. #299 - Renewing my visa (maybe) in Andorra
Chapt. #297 - Settling into Spain