Chapter 7: Love in the Time of Coronavirus . . . or, The Wedding Registry We Never Had

We settled quickly into our new apartment in a 150-year-old atrium building, located in the Malasaña neighborhood within the original ninth century borders of Centro Madrid. Malasaña is known as a lively neighborhood filled with hipsters, but the COVID-19 lockdown rendered it silent.

In the nineteenth century, Spain was ravaged by the world’s cholera epidemics; over 230,000 Spaniards perished during 1854–55 alone. By the time Spanish physician Jaime Ferrán developed a vaccine in 1885, millions more had died worldwide. I suspect that the courtyard in our new residence was required by public health reforms of that era mandating light and air.

We face an unexpected challenge when learning to write out our new home address. We must label our apartment as “2° Dcha Ext” — second floor, right, exterior. However, after attempting to unlock the wrong door, we discover that our apartment is only on the right side if we take the stairs; when we take the elevator, our apartment is on the left.

Before we left New York, we looked into the cost of shipping our belongings to Spain. It was prohibitively expensive: over $4,000 for a small number of boxes. In a state of sticker shock, we packed only clothes, cameras, and computers, deciding that we would purchase everything else we’d need from Madrid’s welcoming storefronts once we arrived. Of course, we made that decision in a pre-COVID-19 world. Now, with the once-busy shops shuttered, we would have to rely on e-commerce.

The largest department store in Spain, El Corte Inglés, is located not far from our apartment, and it delivers. We quell our objections to online shopping, and console ourselves with the knowledge that our purchases will help support local employees who may otherwise be out of work.

When Kate and I met and married in our forties, we already had everything we needed. As such, the invitations to our wedding included a request that, in lieu of gifts to us, our guests make donations to named advocacy groups. A wedding registry was the furthest thing from our minds.

Fast-forward 11 years. Kate and I spend our first afternoon in our new home sitting side-by-side on the couch shopping on our laptops for all of the items newlyweds long for. One of us looks up translations while the other searches the Corte Inglés website: “Home and Decoration,” “Kitchenware,” “Home textiles,” “Tableware,” and “Spaces” (whatever that means). In no time, we had selected 47 items that we absolutely, positively needed to function in our new apartment — lockdown or no lockdown. Sheets, towels, a cotton quilt, a stove-top espresso maker, a pan, pots, plates, glasses, and eating utensils. Since it would now be a long time before any of our friends or family would be able to visit us, we opted to purchase only two coffee cups.

We marveled at our level of cooperation, congratulating ourselves on the speed with which we could agree on design, composition, and color — with some discussion, but no acrimony. There was a reason we got married those 11 years ago! We proceeded to the checkout screen with all the items we had amassed, pleased with the reasonableness of the price for so much loot. We pressed “submit,” with happy expectancy. In came the error message: “You have exceeded the limit of five items.” Even in e-commerce, European restraint was apparent. As to the 42 other items we had selected, we had not saved any of our search results. We had to start over. We were starting over.

©2020 Kay Diaz