death in madrid

It is a bit like watching an elderly beloved relative slip away in intensive care.

The slowly-decreasing beeps record the ebbing of life. But you hang on to the belief that everything will be all right. It will all change. Or, as Mel Brooks would have it: "Hope for the best; expect the worst."

Last April, I told you I was planning an art trip to Madrid in October (getting parole). A month into the pandemic and I was already jonesing about the travel shutdown.

My thought was that by October the worst of the pandemic would have passed. Europe would be open, and my American passport would take me anywhere. I even managed to score a first class return flight on Emirates Airline. I should note that those suites are a rare find. It would cap off two weeks of building up my data base on Spanish art.

I have reserved my hotel (next door to the Prado) and I have hired an art professor to walk me through the Prado, the Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection -- all outside of tourist hours. It appeared the only factor was the passage of time.

Of course, it is not that simple. There are two problems that need to be resolved before I can fly next month.

The first is getting there. Spain currently allows tourists from only 21 countries to enter its borders: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Tunisia. Mexico and the United States, like most American states, are not on that list. For two reasons. Both have infection rates higher than Spain allows, and the United States excludes European tourists.

I do have an alternative method to enter Spain, but it is one of those options that, if used improperly, can get a name at the top of a "no-fly" list. Even though my tolerance for risk is high, a cost-benefit analysis tells me that path is not the best one for an art tour. 

The second problem is being there. Even though Mexicans and Americans are excluded from entering Spain as tourists, Spain is currently suffering a surge of infections and deaths whose rates rival both Mexico's and the United States'.

As a result, the Spanish government this week has requested Spaniards to stay home, but has not yet ordered a lockdown. That could easily change. And one of the first places to close will be the museums -- even for private tours.

That would be the great irony. Fly all the way to Spain, be allowed in, and then being prohibited from doing what I came to do.

So, like the relative who holds an advance medical directive, I may soon be reaching out to pull the plug on that beeping machine. I will put off the final decision until the first week of October. My trip to visit Mexico's former colonial masters and to see Spain's artistic masters will have to wait.

After all Velázquez's work has been hanging around for four hundred years. He will wait for my visit. I doubt he will notice I am not there.