The English Cellar

On the second Friday of August, 2011, I landed at a second-class airport, north of London. That is the airport normally used by the cheap airlines I had chosen. During the flight, air-hostesses, who spoke with heavy Irish, Spanish and Scottish accents, tried to sell us newspapers, orange-juice, sandwiches, even lottery tickets, causing silent panic attacks among the passengers. One cannot help but wonder about the aircraft the cheapskates were using, let alone the kind of pilot who would work for a company like that. Nevertheless, we landed smoothly and the brakes miraculously worked. Personally, I was not scared at all. I was mostly bored. I never worry about the things I am unable to control.

I found the railway station underneath the airport. I boarded the first train to Hampstead Heath, the site of the riots just two days before. I got there at 10:00 at night and had to wait for half an hour for the next train. I was practically alone in the underground station. There was an Italian couple sitting near me, probably thinking that my presence would protect them. I was not particularly worried. With the skinhead haircut that the new English Master had made me get, I do not think that any rioting Englishman would ever think about harassing me.

At 11:00 at night I arrived at King's Cross, in the center of London. It was full of tastelessly dressed men with pointy shoes that turned upwards like Turkish slippers, pale women with freckles and flimsy cardigans, dark-skinned beggars who were walking about shuffling their feet. I sat at a bench near a handsome black lad and slowly enjoyed a fabulous chicken sandwich by Burger King, which I had missed so much, and drank a lousy black coffee, for which I paid the exorbitant amount of 5 pounds. I used the public toilette for 25 pence, washed my hands and my face and at midnight I boarded the train that would take me to the city in the North, where the English Master, the one whom I called the Elder, because he was well past his prime, was waiting for me.

At 2:00 in the morning I arrived at my destination. I called the Elder telling him I was there and took a taxi. The ride lasted for about ten minutes. I got out of the taxi, opened the garden gate and approached the house, dragging my suitcase behind me. I fumbled for the doorbell in the dark, unable to find it, so I waited patiently in the rain for the Elder to open the door for me. Indeed, he soon realized I was there and opened the door. He let me in and we embraced me awkwardly in the hall, next to some shoes scattered on the floor. We said a few formalities, "welcome", "hello" etc. A heavy musty smell soon became apparent. I decided to ignore it. I was too tired after my long journey. This time, the quest for the ultimate pleasure had caused me to travel more than 2000 kilometers!

The Elder took my suitcase and carried it upstairs to the first floor. My room was next to his. Nice bed, though I pointed out jokingly that I would prefer a four-poster canopy bed. Of course these little jokes usually turn into boomerangs and hit me on the head, which is something I am bitterly aware of. That is the reason why I always advise submissive girls who are new to all this, to be careful what they say. The Elder showed me where the bathroom was, said goodnight and went to bed, closing his bedroom door behind him.

I could not help but notice that the two armchairs decorating my room were very old and torn, so old that personally I would have thrown them away years ago, let alone place them in the guests' room. A wooden dresser with mirror was also in pretty bad shape. Alright, I thought to myself, the guy is just not so well off. So what?

Yet I could sense something was wrong. When I went to the bathroom, I realized that my thoughts were not groundless. Next to the toilette stood a very old chair with a hole gaping in the seat, a hole large enough for a hand to fit in. Under the chair a cardboard box was serving as a toilette bin. Perhaps there is not an ΙΚΕΑ in the area, I thought. On the other hand, anyone can buy a proper bin. With an ever-growing suspicion that this was no ordinary house, I decided to get some sleep. In the morning I would figure out how to deal with the situation.

I slept pretty well; the bed was soft and did not creak at all. In the morning I was the first to wake up. I went to the bathroom, laughed with the ingenious improvisation of a bin, threw the toilette paper into the box via the chair and then went down to the kitchen to make coffee. The kitchen was in a chaotic state. The sink was filled with dishes and pots and cups, all standing in some filthy water inside a red basin that had gone moldy. On the countertop next to the sink, there was a towering stash of frying pans, cheese graters, Tupperware, bottles of vinegar, cans of food, spices, bills and what not. It was an immense clutter of things, which would have driven me to desperation, if I were one of those women who despair easily.

There was no coffee in the house, so I made a cup of tea. I used a cracked teapot, which had probably never been washed, and waited for the Elder to come downstairs. Soon he appeared. He was wearing an old beige robe de chambre. Instead of slippers - I had abandoned the dream for pretty feet in brown leather slippers - he was wearing a pair of very old, torn trainers. They looked very comfortable though, I must admit.

His appearance was not bad at all for his age. He possessed a youthful body, notwithstanding the somewhat bloated belly, which I discovered later was due to beer consumption. He had beautiful blue eyes, very much to my liking. I noticed that he liked to suck on his upper lip on the left side, as he was missing a few teeth. When I asked him, in one of the following days, why he did not get a small bridge implanted, he said that he was opposed to all cosmetic interventions. He also said that he would prefer me with my hair in its natural color, half gray and half brown, and with my nails unpolished and cut short, so I cannot accuse him of any hypocrisy. Of course, if I stopped shaving my legs, my armpits and my pubic area, I bet I would score a point. Perhaps I would convince him then to visit the dentist and I do not want to hear anything about topping from the bottom. That is the violence of logic; it works just as well from the bottom upwards as it works from the top downwards.

I asked him for permission to clean up a bit in the kitchen and he gave it to me. I noticed he was a little annoyed, because he told me he had already cleaned up for my arrival. I could not imagine what the place looked like before.

"What are those black things under the table?" I asked with my little girl's naïveté.

"Mousetraps," said the Elder.

Ah, indeed. Stay calm my girl, keep cool. There are worse things, aren't there? How about getting fucked by a middle-aged man dressed in a red peignoir? Or being used as a toilette by a young Dom and his buddy? How about being betrayed by the man who you trust with your life?

I immediately felt better. This was a piece of cake. I pulled up my sleeves and started cleaning the kitchen. I asked him to get rid of the red basin, which could not possibly be cleaned and though he frowned, he agreed to throw it away. Of course, the next day I noticed that the basin had simply been placed in the garden, next to the dustbins, possibly with the intent of placing it back in its rightful position, as soon as the obsessive-compulsive Greek girl went back to Greece. No matter. I threw away most of the spices and the tins and the sauces and pretty much everything on those kitchen shelves. Most things had expired since 1996! This is no joke, these things had been standing there for fifteen years! It is clear to me that this novel I have been working on, about my quest for the ultimate pleasure, has long since developed into a sociological treatise or a novel of manners about the beginning of the 21st century.

I ended my work using bleach on the mosaic floor. My shoes finally stopped sticking to the floor with small squeaky sounds. At last, I was done!

What now? Should I stay or should I go?

I stayed. I stayed mostly out of curiosity, just to see what else was going to happen. It is really amazing how I go through this life, from day to day, from week to week, from one adventure to the next. I always believed that I do not possess enough imagination to write books. But with this type of life, who needs an imagination?

The Elder lived in a village outside the large city of the North. That morning we went shopping to the village. Not to the super market, but to small shops with delicatessen and meat and vegetables, where everyone knew him. He bought the best things, smoked bacon, free range eggs, minced meat, mushrooms, pork pies garnished with apple jelly (this tendency of the English to mix meat with something sweet comes from the Middle Ages, from the exquisite blancmange). He would open his wallet and pull out hundreds of pounds. I could not understand what the hell was going on. He did not seem to be stingy at all. He loaded me with all the shopping like a beast of burden and I carried everything without complaint. The only thing he did not buy was fruit and vegetables. "Ι never eat them," he said, but if I wanted any he would get me some. I said, no, it did not matter. Then he took me to a charity shop, one of those stores that sell second-hand objects, clothes, shoes etc and the proceeds go to charity.

"This is where I buy all my clothes," said the Elder.

He bought me a pair of pink sandals for 3 pounds - less than the Burger King chicken sandwich. I thanked him and took the shoes. I am not conceited at all. If the Master condescends to wear second-hand clothes, then who am I to complain? They were lovely - still are.

Back at home we cooked eggs and mushrooms and bacon. We cooked the meal together and we were a good team. Then we ate together in silence. I could see that he did not like to talk much and that if I did not talk, we simply would remain silent. This did not bother me in the slightest. My thoughts are usually great company. Feeling alone is for people who do not possess a solid self where it should be, standing right in the middle of their being, smiling in the knowledge of near utter ignorance and the acceptance of near utter loneliness. So I did not disturb the blessed silence and I could tell that the Elder really enjoyed the quiet meal.

Then we went to the living room to watch some TV. He sat in what was obviously his favourite place on the couch, on a cushion empty of cotton. I thought it was cute, the way he actually seemed to find it very comfortable. The cushion next to him was gutted, with the cotton half-hanging out. The back of the couch had lost its color in patches, but it was difficult to determine if it had gone moldy or if it had been in a fire. The other couch was half-covered with a piece of cloth. I did not have the courage to lift the cloth to see what was hiding underneath. The curtains were hanging limp from the ceiling. One of the windows was supported with a wooden beam. The plaster on the ceiling above the curtains had frayed horribly, in a surrealistic design, having lost the battle with dampness a long time ago. Perhaps this explained the musty smell in the house. In the middle of the living room there was a site for a fireplace and in there stood a gas heater, from which hung a label with a single word on it: "Condemned".

"What does this mean?" I asked.

"The gas company does not allow me to use it, because it did not come up to standard, the chimney was too narrow or something. So I left it as it was, condemned."

Sure, why change anything in our environment? Let it collapse around us, what difference does it make?

I could not sit on the couch, I found it quite impossible. I sat on the floor, next to his feet, on some dusty odd pieces of carpet, which seemed preferable. He was watching an indifferent program about a journey to India. I never watch television; I use my own thoughts to amuse myself. So I surrendered myself to my thoughts.

I was in a very peculiar house, chilling in my monumental sang-froid, having discovered again the symmetries that move the strings of my life. I did not feel bad anymore. For right above the condemned gas heater, on the two living-room walls, loomed the Garden of Earthly Delights, the fabulous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch. Huge posters, glued to the wallpaper, depicting the pains and pleasures of humanity, in a painting that was incorporated into the house for ever, just as it had been nailed in my heart, with the force of unrequited love, so long ago. And so I found myself at home, everything was fine. Home, sweet home...

All the Masters of my life had a screw loose, all of them, not a single one was alright, not one was tout-a-fait normal, as my mother always says, criticizing my choices. Perhaps it was precisely the fault in that vital screw, a different screw in each one, that turned them into sadists. It is possible that sadism is a substitute to the screw, it may be the only thing that keeps them together in a sense, so that they are not given over to absolute madness. That is why it is so important for them to have an object for their sadism. And when they do not have any, they start fretting in their clothes - whether they are second-hand or not...

Soon I asked permission to go up to my room, where the musty smell was fainter. Disregarding the summer chill of Northern England, I opened the window to allow in some fresh air. The window overlooked two back gardens. The garden to the right belonged to the house next door. Half of it was paved with large stones and the other half displayed fabulous flower beds and well manicured grass. There were small lanterns along the edges of the garden, wrought iron furniture, wooden bird feeders filled with seed and small ponds with water for the birds. Underneath the window of my room there was "our" garden. This had never been cleaned, the stones were black with slime, the grass was interspersed with weeds. There was something like a chicken coop in one corner but it was full of garbage. Two ponds with stagnant water, covered with moss, were home to a dozen frogs. Three large plastic dustbins were in the middle of the "garden", one of them fallen to the ground, with its top off, as if decapitated. The red basin was standing next to the dustbins, like a silent accusation.

In the bookcase in my room (all the rooms had a bookcase, even the kitchen), I found about half of the 40 books written by the Elder. I picked up the most recent and started reading it. It was not bad at all, I soon became engrossed in it. The "bad guys" were truly bad, they were not kidding. They invented the most awful torments for their victims and the most terrible vengeance for their enemies, displaying a complete lack of inhibition. They were what we call sociopaths. I went on reading until I fell asleep.

Two hours later, the Elder came into my room and woke me up.

"Will you come with me to the pub?" he asked me.

Sure I would. But I wanted to take a shower first so I asked him for a towel. I had not brought a towel with me, because the cheap airlines only allowed 15 kilos per passenger.

"There are many clean towels, here, in the box," said the Elder and showed me an old cardboard box in a corner, on the bathroom floor.

I took a towel with the English flag. I showered, using a cup to rinse off. From one of the taps flowed burning water and from the other tap the water flowed icy cold. Soon I managed to calculate how to use warm water to wash up. I finished the shower and dried myself up, my body starting at once to smell musty too. The towels had not been dried properly after they had been washed. Their being kept in a cardboard box did not help either. I thought of my own fluffy towels that smelled of lavender, folded neatly in the wardrobe back at home and sighed. Accept, I kept saying to myself like a mantra, accept.

I dressed somewhat simply to avoid looking out of place next to the Elder. He wore a shirt that had not been ironed and a pair of old jeans. A dusty Panama hat, gone yellow with time, completed the outfit. For myself I chose a black skirt, a black top, a pink corduroy jacket, no stockings and the new old pink sandals. Dressed like that, we finally exited the 19th century residence, which was being allowed to crumble around the Elder.

We took the bus, as he did not have a car. He did not have a cell phone either, but nor does my mother, so it is okay. The last time I had gone on a bus was the eighties. I liked it though. We took a double-decker bus and sat upstairs. I enjoyed feeling somehow connected to the rest of humanity. I also liked the fact that at the bus-stop, all the passengers who got off, one after the other, turned and said "thank you" to the driver. They were thanking him because he had given them a ride! It was almost touching. Of course they were all utterly mad but that did not matter. The Elder and I were of course the maddest of the lot.

He did not take me to the pub which he usually frequented, because he said he had fallen out with the proprietor, who had sold him flat beer and would not admit it. In a few days, he said, as soon as the incident was forgotten, he would put some glue in the lock of the pub door! That would show him! I realized then that his mind worked with the seductive playfulness of a child. And I could not help but remember what Steve Jobs had said: "Stay hungry, stay foolish." I did not know which one of us was more foolish, but as far as the hunger went, I could easily devour the entire universe and still it would not be enough...

He took me to a pub housed in a 1625 mansion, which had been converted to a luxurious hotel. It had a lovely garden, with an immense yew tree, under which the Elder and I took a selfie with my cell phone. We were a very matching couple, I must admit. He looked a bit like Hemingway and I looked a bit like his heroine, Lady Brett, the nymphomaniac who had fallen in love with a sexually impotent man. We sat in the pub, which was in the old stables of the mansion. He ordered warm beer for both of us and it was not bad at all. We ate Yorkshire pudding, the traditional dish of the region, with a few boiled vegetables on the side. He kept quiet throughout the meal but I discovered I was able to draw him into conversation. When he got tired with the pressure of the conversation, he would start talking to himself. He would suddenly burst into an indignant "Jesus", followed by some unintelligible stuff. It seemed that he was angry with someone. The discussions he had with that imaginary person were quite intense and of great interest to me. When I asked him who it was he had these discussions with, he said it was mostly with his mother, who had been dead for years. It was a woman who had never accepted him, had never allowed him to come emotionally close to her, had no real interests, no desires, she was just simply impenetrable, a closed circuit. Perhaps that was the reason he had become a Master, I thought to myself. Perhaps he felt the need to enter the closed circuit of a woman, because he had been unable to do that with his own mother.

He did not limit himself to the imaginary discussions but also gesticulated with his right hand. I had noticed he made these movements on the bus and in the street when we walked, though he took care to be as discrete as possible, perhaps so that I would not consider him mad. The movements consisted of making the tips of his fingers dance through the air, in a delicate, circular manner. It was as if he was caressing the past with his hand. I said nothing more about it and let him go on doing it without any reaction on my part. Soon, as the days went by, he became bolder and started having regular conversations, accompanied by large gestures, directed at his dead mother.