Chapter 20: Danger and Delirium

When I found out that the Spanish proficiency exam would be on the morning of September 11, I sighed. As much as we love Madrid, New York is never far from our minds.

We set three alarms but awoke before the first one rang. Kate prepared a sturdy breakfast of eggs, jamón, and toast. To summon a feeling of competence and show some respect to the proctors, I donned a suit jacket from my days as a lawyer. We packed our sharpened #2 pencils for the multiple-choice parts and the pens we had carefully selected for the essays: Uni-ball Eye for Kate and Uni-ball Signo for me. On the advice of our friend Clinton, a Brooklyn doctor, we took time to put on, adjust, and tape our masks — two medical-grade each. And on my way out the door, I grabbed two talismans from other friends back in New York: a string of Greek worry beads from Fay and a wedge of crystal from Trinh.

When we arrived at the test site, a hulking building on a too-narrow sidewalk, we were met by an array of people of all shapes, sizes, and shades shifting nervously from one leg to the other, passports in hand, double-checking their registrations. I did not hear the hum of British accents I was expecting; perhaps Brexit-loathing Britons were lined up this morning in the Costa del Sol near Gibraltar, but they definitely weren’t here in Madrid. Then again, a work crew was jackhammering the sidewalk across the street, and hearing anything was a challenge. Abandoning my former vocation rooting out municipal fraud and waste, I wished the road crew would take a coffee break and never come back.

We showed our passports at two different security points and were then ushered into a ground-floor classroom where we were directed to the very back. We were elated that no one would be behind us breathing COVID vectors in the direction of any rear-facing gaps in our masks.

But much to our disappointment there were no adult-sized desks — only row upon row of tiny student armchair desks, each bearing a uniquely numbered yellow Post-it note. Perched on top of the face-down exam papers was a single eraserless pencil next to a hacked (chewed?) remnant of a once-square eraser. Not wanting to touch the pencil or the eraser, I wriggled into the seat hoping I wouldn’t knock either onto the germ-ridden floor. I told myself to get over it — and fast — as it was 8:53 a.m. and the exam was starting in seven minutes. Still, I wondered if I’d get in trouble for reaching into my bag for my own pencil and eraser. Unsure, I squirted sanitizer on my hands and considered the horrible smudges the eraser would make if I doused it too. I glanced nervously at the other examinees successfully folded into their little desks. They were decidedly not a meter apart.

Then, GRRRAHKKAKKAKKAKKKAGRRAHKKKAKKAKKAKKKA KKAKKAKKAKKAKKAKKAKK came streaming into the open window. The road crew was energetically not taking a coffee break. Our proctor appeared. She was a substantial woman of substantial height with substantial amounts of frizzy gray hair. She spoke only Spanish, and I caught only half of what she was saying. Others seemed to understand her every word, and even ask her questions at a rapid, well-accented clip. It then dawned on me: they’d probably been living in Spain for a minimum of ten years, the normal path to citizenship. The test has no curve but I found myself uncharitably thinking they were going to ruin it anyway. I also noticed some people taking peeks at and others unabashedly reading the test booklet before the exam started.

“Just worry about yourself!” Kate’s harsh whisper startled me, echoing words my late father, also a several-time valedictorian, had said to me often. I questioned whether Kate’s enjoinder extended to worry about the test-takers whose masks dipped below their noses.

“¡Empezad!” cried the proctor. That, I understood; the test had begun. And so I dove into the reading comprehension — my comfort zone since third grade — eagerly filling in the 25 bubbles without a hitch. I didn’t even notice the jackhammer.

When the proctor, who now was looking kind and maternal in her substantiality, announced that time was up, I was almost feeling content. Instead of proceeding to the next section of the exam, however, she paused the proceedings to hand out large envelopes on which we were to write our addresses and seat numbers (her visual aid on the whiteboard proving helpful for this task). She said that our certificates would be mailed to us in the envelopes, which we passed up front. It was either a nice vote of confidence or an unwitting act of cruelty.

Now it was time for listening comprehension, the part maestro Hernán gave us the imperative to pass with room to spare if we were to survive this trial by fire. Unfortunately, the jackhammer had started again. GRRRAHKKAKKAKKAKKKAGRRAHKKKAKKAKKAKKKA KKAKKAKKAKKAKKAKKAKK. Our proctor was apologetic. Whatever the language barrier as she continued her explanation, it was clear to me that we had a choice: we could have the windows open and risk failing because we couldn’t clearly hear the recordings on which we were being tested; or, we could have the windows closed and risk a lack of COVID-preventing air flow and die. Whatever the proctor heard in the commotion that ensued, she opted for closing the windows. Perhaps she reasoned that a sufficiently clear broadcast of the listening exercises would be immune from immediate challenge while causation related to any transmission of COVID could be debated for years. But then she turned on the A/C, and this presented its own problem: a noticeable hum. Moreover, I worried that it was it actually blowing virus particles more efficiently to the back of the room where we sat.

The proctor motioned to some empty seats toward the front of the room and invited anyone who cared to do so to move up. I’d been nursing a clogged ear since we landed six months before and, thinking that for once in my life I’d be savvy about test-taking, I bolted to the front of the room, plopped into a chair closer to the speakers, and plunked down my answer sheet and exam book. But not only had I abandoned Kate, I had also abandoned my common sense, as it meant that now there was someone behind me to breath those aerosols forward. I pressed my hands to the sides of my masks and thought that perhaps I should have augmented the tape with some toothpaste caulk.

Suddenly, my anxious thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice.

It was the same baritone we had heard in dozens of practice exams instructing us to answer a total of 25 questions over the course of 4 auditory exercises in 40 minutes. But hearing is not the same as listening, as anyone who is married can attest.

“You do know that you can’t get lulled into passively listening and then thinking you will be able to answer the questions like a native speaker, don’t you?” Kate had warned (reminded?) me at breakfast. “You must be hyper-alert and translating,” she continued.

And so I was, and I did. I felt almost content again with the first two exercises — train announcements, advertisements, radio clips. I easily gleaned the necessary information because each audio clip was short and played twice. But then, the third exercise — a conversation — began without the usual pre-instruction and sample audio I remembered from the practice exams, time I would use to read over the answers in advance. In a flash, the first listen was over and I had no clue how to answer the six questions, which were configured in a matrix: Did Pablo say it? Did Paula say it? Or did neither say it? I experienced equal parts relief and anguish that I couldn’t glance over at Kate. But because I was thinking of Kate, my mind went straight to the math: Six questions equaled 24% of the test. If I got zero correct, my odds of passing were virtually zero. Then I remembered her morning warning against getting lulled into thinking I could understand the recordings without translating. But now I had no time to translate.

I took a deep breath, visualized myself as more Spanish, and listened to the conversation a second time. I gave it my best shot. From what I could tell, it was between two coworkers, one just back from vacation and another who hadn’t vacationed in a year. I knew that wasn’t good enough. Then, either by providence or by having married sinfully well, I remembered another of Kate’s test tricks: when in doubt about two answers, fill in the same bubble for both questions to increase the odds of getting one correct. I did so, and hoped it would work. Pencils down, I gathered my answer sheet and booklet and returned to the chair next to Kate.

The proctor shooed us out to prepare the room for the third and final part of the morning’s festivities: writing. When we returned, the pencils and pathetic erasers had been collected and replaced with old-school Bic Cristal pens. The Bic Cristal may be iconic, and it may be the world’s best-selling pen, but it is a pen that Kate and I had both considered and emphatically rejected when arming ourselves for the exam. We gave each other a resigned smile and doused the pens with sanitizer.

Soon I was back in my comfort zone for 45 minutes. The first assignment was a godsend: write a short essay about your use of mass transit. I wrote about the subways of New York, and I couldn’t resist dipping a bit dangerously into my time for the second assignment, which was to respond to an email from a friend. The friend had been sick and wanted to know about a party she had missed and when we could get together now that she recovered. This was a little too on the nose in COVID times. I remember little about what I wrote, except that I struggled to achieve a balance in conveying sufficient worry for my imaginary friend’s unspecified illness and meeting my obligation to cover all the required points with correct grammar and spelling. I wrote that the party guests were nice, the food was good, and yes, let’s get together at Café Comercial next Saturday at noon.

Pens down.

Kate and I shuffled wordlessly out of the classroom with the others and returned to the narrow sidewalk where the ordeal had begun. It was 12:30. We were due back for the orals at 6:45 and 7 p.m., respectively.

On the walk home Kate helpfully asked, “Did you notice that the answer-key bubbles for the multiple-choice questions went across the page by each exercise, and not up and down?” As if I hadn’t understood the significance, she added still more helpfully, “Did you fill it in correctly?”

“Of course I did!” I spat out, convincing no one, while my stomach did a somersault.

Then, I volunteered, “Well, I thought I did okay except for the conversation between the coworkers,” regretting it the second “coworkers” left my lips in case I had gotten that wrong too. To my relief, Kate readily agreed and said she had the same feeling about being more rushed than in the practice exams. This made me feel better, even if I felt guilty that it was coming at Kate’s expense . . . though not too guilty because I was still irritated by the answer-key scare she had given me.

When we got to the apartment, I collected myself while Kate made tuna salad. It was a comforting throwback to lunches of my youth with all its attendant test-taking. We didn’t talk a lot, and Kate repaired to the bedroom after eating. Then, as I washed the dishes, I heard the sound of paper ripping and crinkling and went to investigate. Kate was removing the dozens of sheets of paper she had taped to the armoire. Down came the verb conjugations. Down came the indirect and direct objects. Down came the demonstratives and miscellaneous grammar rules.

But Kate didn’t stop there. She dragged the ladder from the utility closet in the kitchen into the bedroom, climbed it, and then peered over the top of the massive armoire. Silently and compliantly, I followed her, gripping the tippy ladder and handing up rags, paper towels, and cleansers as she dusted and scrubbed. Looking up at Kate, I wondered if I should be cramming for that evening’s oral exam. But Kate slid down the ladder, lifted the bed’s pneumatic spring and threw notebook upon notebook into the storage space beneath. As far as she was concerned, it was done. Cramming for the orals was pointless.

I gave in to the spirit.

We moved from work to play. And soon we were dancing around the apartment. We blasted the 5th Dimension’s Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, Dionne Warwick’s Then Came You, Stevie Wonder’s You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Miriam Makeba’s Pata Pata, and a dozen other odes to joy.

We circled and sashayed around each other. We did head nods and head bobs. We careened with airplane-wing arms. We did jazz hands and cross steps. We shimmied and shook. We swung each other. We held each other. We clung to each other. We were delirious.

We had done no such thing since our wedding day, and here we were — more than eleven years later — taking a similar leap of faith together in Spain. Soon it was 6 p.m. — time to leave for the final and most difficult part of the test: the orals.

©2021 Kay Diaz