Chapter 22: Future Conditional

As we made our way home from the DELE A2 exam on our “walk of shame,” the numbness subsided enough to both commiserate and comfort each another. We felt that if we could turn around right then, walk back to the testing center, and do the orals over — even without prep and even with a new set of topics — we would have done much better. And with just that small bit of distance from the experience, I believe we would have. But upon this silver lining of optimism was a layer of tarnish that could never be rubbed out.

In the days that followed, the role play part of the exam — in which the interviewer and I were supposed to be roommates shopping to set up our new apartment — would play over and over again in my mind, and I’d wonder why I’d stupidly clung to the cleaning theme. I now had new roommates from hell, always lurking about, never leaving: the daily household chores that we could not escape under COVID-19 lockdown taunted me. The countertops, the floors, the dishes, the laundry all took their turns mocking me. “Try narrating this, Ms. Tareas del Hogar — or should I say ‘Ms. Household Chores’ so you know I’m talkin’ to you?” they’d jeer.

Nor was there any relief in leaving the apartment. There are cleaning-supply stores everywhere in Madrid, often in the most unexpected places. Imagine exiting Carnegie Hall on 57th Street in Manhattan but, instead of the Russian Tea Room, you see an ornate leaded-glass display window chock-a-block with every cleaner your contractor/repair person/mother told you to use for your floors/countertops/oven/shower tiles plus countless other foreign brands you’ve never heard of. It was impossible for me to escape the constant reminders of my linguistic failings.

Before the week was out, I signed up to re-take the exam on November 14.

Kate and I made a marriage-saving decision that she would not retake the exam with me. Instead, she volunteered to support me in my quest, whether by quizzing, cooking . . . or cleaning. After all, Kate couldn’t apply for citizenship until I first obtained mine, so her need to pass the DELE A2 exam was years away. However much it made sense to go through the ordeal together the first time, we knew that to try to do so again would fray us. We were emotionally exhausted, and we had to prioritize.

Like a bird that goes off to die alone, I went off to study by myself. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about the exam, not even Kate. I deleted Twitter from my phone and installed Toggl, a time-tracker. I reviewed all the DELE A2 materials on my computer and all the DELE A2 books in my possession. As penance, I bought an official Spanish grammar book, studied all 28 lessons, and answered 1,473 questions, grateful the publisher had decided against an even 1500. I started to retake all of the audio practice exams.

Back home in the U.S., the headlines blazed “Trump Won’t Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power if Loses,” and the disastrous first debate proved that four years after he’d stalked Hillary Clinton on stage, neither the media nor debate commission would tame him. On my November calendar, two ominous deadlines were circled; they felt too far away and yet perilously close. Election Day was a constant reminder that Kate was depending on me to get my Spanish citizenship, and Exam Day represented the lap I would have to successfully complete before passing the baton to her.

In early October, I was coaxed out of my shell by my new friend Pilar’s husband, Eusebio, who offered me a place to study in an unused room in his rented office suite. His generosity enabled me to reorient myself. Going off to Eusebio’s office each morning, which was only two blocks from Kate’s and my apartment, was like going to work — something I’d happily thought I’d left behind when I retired but now found myself relishing. I outlined topics, memorized key vocabulary that might come up in the orals, and practiced my verb conjugations. And during breaks, I had a great colleague. An athlete, with an at-ease-but-ready-to-spring-into-action energy, Eusebio spoke fluent English but challenged me with intermediate Spanish. Our exchanges on politics and economics, books and music made me long for a future in which I too could express more abstract ideas in two languages.

But as I continued to study and the calendar pages continued to flip, the confidence I had expressed on the walk home from the exam with Kate began to flag. I googled “Is there a limit on the number of times you can take the DELE exam?” (Answer: No.) I redoubled my efforts on listening exercises, as that was where I needed a high enough score to compensate for the orals.

Although I wasn’t quite ready to call in the reinforcements of my former teachers, Irene and Hernán, I knew I had to do more, and answered a “my Spanish for your English” ad on a virtual bulletin board in Spain, LingoBongo. This was way out of my comfort zone. But with the encouragement of my first chat — charlar — partner, an accountant in his mid-forties named Zid, I stepped further out of my comfort zone and posted my own ad. Soon I was inundated with so many chat requests from people of all ages, professions, and locations in Spain that I had to create an Excel spreadsheet to keep track. I spoke with grad students, engineers, a computer programmer, a lawyer, and two people who were temporarily unemployed. The conversations — intercambios they are called, a half hour in Spanish and a half hour in English — were surprisingly easy, owing to the geniality of these Spaniards and perhaps the loneliness of lockdown. They were a forgiving bunch because not one of them spoke English as poorly as I did Spanish. My easiest conversations turned out to be with Roberto, a young man less than half my age who worked full-time in the aerospace industry while studying for a master’s degree. I chuckled when his mother came into his room to tell him dinner was ready, and I wondered if she was as surprised as I was that her son was chatting with the likes of me and not playing video games in his leisure time.

When Biden was finally declared the winner of the election, our Spanish friends cheered as loudly as we did. They knew the stakes all too well, even as we discussed the continuing challenges of the anti-democratic Senate, systemic racism, and Trump supporters armed to the teeth.

Still, getting past the first circle on my November calendar was a positive outcome for the world and relieved some of the pressure I was feeling about the exam. I allowed myself to say to Kate, “Maybe we’ll get two good pieces of news this November. Maybe we’ll find out that we passed the September exam!” And that felt so good that I added, “If I passed, maybe I’ll get a red-and-yellow stripe in my hair or a windmill tattoo!”

But what wasn’t feeling good was the escalating COVID rates in Spain. New cases per day were double what they had been in March, and Madrid was among the worst regions. The pride I experienced in the spring and early summer over our new country’s stoicism and strict adherence to the lockdowns had given way to dismay over the pandemic fatigue and attendant carelessness that was obviously setting in. When we walked outside, we felt like giant pinballs ricocheting from side to side in the narrow streets in order to avoid the ubiquitous smokers with their masks down. We read about dance clubs operating illegally. I began to wonder if the improving political situation in the U.S. meant that I didn’t have to return to a dangerously crowded exam room so soon. But I resolved to retake the exam the following week as scheduled because Kate and I both knew that the future of the U.S. was still a question mark.

It had been more than eight weeks since we had taken the exam in September, and there was still no word from the Cervantes Institute about our results.

By November 10, four days before I was to retake the exam, I was despairing. I had made it this far and had no interest in catching COVID now.

I emailed La Directora of one of our Spanish-language schools and asked her whether she could make an inquiry of the Cervantes Institute, focusing on the COVID situation as an extraordinary circumstance that might merit releasing the September scores before the November exam. She readily obliged.

We waited.

I continued to study as best I could, including a last-minute Zoom session with my former teacher Irene to practice the orals — both of us wearing masks.

The next day, at 11:32 a.m., as Kate sat in the bedroom reading and I sat at the kitchen table studying, I heard the ping of an email alert. The subject line read “Diplomas DELE.” It was the Cervantes Institute announcing the “calificaciones,” the qualifications from the September exam. I was afraid to open the attached PDF.

“Kate?” I called. “Check your email. It’s Cervantes.”

“I passed,” said Kate. She was subdued, and I knew this was out of well-placed concern for me.

I was so relieved. I had never seen Kate as miserable as she had been studying for that exam — the worst of her life, she had said at least a dozen times.

I opened my PDF.

“NO APTO” — literally, “unsuitable” — appeared in 24-point type, extending along the entire width of a scoring matrix. I had failed.

My stomach did a somersault.

I wasn’t in shock, so much as I didn’t want to tell Kate. I couldn’t really argue with such a result.

But then I glanced higher on the screen to more closely examine the page, and I could see that something was amiss.

On the right side of the scoring matrix appeared the letters NP under the auditiva, the listening section. The section I had heeded Hernán and Kate’s advice about, practicing listening to radio announcements, train announcements, airport announcements, voicemails, and conversations over and over for hours, for days, for weeks.

NP. It wasn’t spelled out, but I knew what it meant in English or in Spanish: Not Present.

I called Kate into the kitchen.

“You know it was because you changed seats for that part of the exam,” she said, without missing a beat as she looked at the screen over my shoulder.

Forget my stomach. Now my body was spinning in some vortex down a drain. I thought I was going to pass out.

We pored over the PDF some more. I had eked out a high enough score on the orals so that all I needed was 16 correct answers out of 25 questions on the auditiva to pass the whole exam. That knowledge buoyed me. The feeling of helplessness crushed me.

This time, I didn’t email La Directora of our school. I picked up the phone.

I wailed rhetorical question after rhetorical question at the poor woman: “Why would I return six hours later to take the orals if I was a no-show for the listening? What kind of masochist would do that? Doesn’t Cervantes have quality control to see that that makes no sense?” And then I proclaimed, “I’ve never been a no-show in my life! In all my schooling and all my years as a lawyer, I never even handed in or filed a paper late. It may be ugly, but I always show up and I always get the job done!”

“Slow down, please,” pleaded La Directora. “Everyone assumes I am fluent in English because I own a Spanish-language school but I am actually not. Send me the sheet and I will call Cervantes.”

And so began another wait.

“The Cervantes Institute is not your enemy,” a blogger had stated on one of the many websites I had consulted about the exam. It was sure feeling like an adversary or, at best, a hapless ally.

I didn’t know what to do with myself as the hours ticked by. Kate used the time by finding a photo of me at age four — wearing corrective lenses — and inserted a cartoon speech balloon, “Do I look like a kid who would skip an entire section of an exam?” This cheered me. We sent it to La Directora.

At 4:48 p.m., I received another email from Cervantes. It stated that it had “detected an incident” with my qualifications. I opened the attached PDF to find a document worthy of Isabella and Ferdinand, citing royal decrees and laws. My heart skipped a beat.

I calmed myself and continued translating.

The document went on, “upon reviewing your qualifications, an error has been corrected in the reading of your answer sheets.”

Buried at the end of a paragraph was the statement that I had “achieved a qualification of APTO.”

I had passed the auditiva with room to spare. I had passed the whole exam. I would not have to return to the crowded classroom to retake the DELE A2 exam as I had long feared. I will never know the journey my answer sheet had taken or why I had ever been designated “NP.”

That evening, Kate said, “I’m never taking another exam as long as I live.”

I put on my corrective lenses and responded, “Tomorrow I think I’ll sign up for the Spanish driver’s license test.”

©2021 Kay Diaz