Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner [48]
Teresa read and read and I sat there blankly and every twenty minutes or so would go and smoke. Arturo had reached almost all of the painters and everyone had said yes; he had sent Rafa out for cloth. When Rafa returned he said the streets were filling for the demonstration and I could see from his hair that it had started raining. Teresa tore a corner of one of the pages of a book she had in her purse, a novel I think, and put it in my notebook to keep her place, which I knew I would, in retrospect, find touching. The gesture made me think of giving blood, but there was no real analogy. It looked like there was a crowd outside the gallery and I wondered if these were people Arturo knew who were waiting for us to join them, but when we exited the gallery, I realized this was the demonstration, that as far as I could see, the streets were full. A current of people, some with signs or candles, was moving slowly toward Colón, the central gathering point; from there the plan was to process toward Atocha. Many people weren’t moving at all, as one was, wherever one was, already demonstrating. Teresa took my hand and I followed her into the current and we made our way to Colón, where the crowd was densest. Someone was speaking through a megaphone about peace and maybe about resilience. The rain intensified and umbrellas opened everywhere. I pictured how it must have looked from the helicopters. People were chanting that it wasn’t raining, that Madrid was crying, and I thought this was a complicated chant, especially since it appeared to be spontaneous. Teresa and Arturo and Rafa were chanting, so I chanted too, but my voice sounded off to me, affected, and I worried it was conspicuous, that it failed to blend. I couldn’t be the only one not chanting, so I mouthed the words. Eventually some portion of the crowd began to move in the direction of Atocha. We were walking slowly but it felt to me like we were standing still because so many people were moving in tandem. At one point I bent down, maybe to tie my shoe, and from my kneeling position I saw thousands of legs and I looked up a little and saw a more-or-less unbroken canopy formed by the umbrellas above me. Nearby some little kids were running around in this enclosed space formed by the bodies and umbrellas, maybe playing tag, hiding behind one pair of legs and then another. In retrospect, I would find this beautiful. When I stood up, Teresa was several feet away, other people between us. She was looking for but somehow didn’t see me. I could have easily caught or called her, but I just stood there, letting the stream of bodies bend around me.
When she was gone I resumed moving toward Atocha. It must have been dark by then. I tried chanting, but quickly stopped. When we got to Huertas I turned away from the current and walked toward my apartment. Every street, even the little side streets branching off of Huertas, was packed with people. I eventually reached my apartment and pulled myself through the skylight and looked down at the sea of umbrellas, some of them softly illuminated, I guessed because they sheltered candles. I was looking away from Atocha but the crowd was continuous.
I realized at some point that I was freezing, dropped myself back through the skylight, and checked my e–mail. I answered friends and family, then read through the various e–mails from María José. The first e–mails addressed to the group asked that all the fellows write her to confirm they were O.K. Then an