Live performance

Every day, Mon­day to Sun­day, we clap at 8pm sharp. In our case, from the ter­race of a sixth floor flat in the north­ern Barcelo­nan dis­trict of Nou Bar­ris. Our ap­plause is ded­i­cated to the health work­ers who are risk­ing their lives, Mon­day to Sun­day, to try and save those af­flicted with Covid-19 (though I also men­tally in­clude the clean­ers and staff in care homes, the phar­ma­cists, and the peo­ple who work in su­per­mar­kets and other food shops who are obliged to cling on to their un­der­paid jobs so that the rest of us – and they them­selves – can eat). And now that Madrid has au­tho­rised the re­turn to work of non-es­sen­tial per­son­nel, I sup­pose I should ap­plaud them too, as they are also risk­ing con­ta­gion on the newly busy buses and trains so that the wheels of com­merce can go on spin­ning – well, ro­tat­ing with a groan - and de­spite there being no shop open where we can buy any­thing ex­cept food (and drink) and med­i­cine. When the daily ap­plause started, spring was still a hy­poth­e­sis and all we could see of our neigh­bours was the shad­owy flut­ter­ing of their hands in the light from the street­lamps. A fort­night ago, dark­ness took a bow and all of a sud­den we were all out there in ever brighter twi­light, watch­ing each other clap and clap, heads and shoul­ders lean­ing over bal­cony rail­ings or win­dow sills, peo­ple of all ages and all sizes – the usual va­ri­ety wher­ever you go – and above us all, above the tallest of the tall build­ings that abound in Nou Bar­ris, was a pas­tel blue sky with yel­low­ing strips of cloud that seemed to be try­ing to spell out some kind of a mes­sage for all us ap­plaud­ing strangers: some­thing, per­haps, about the peo­ple we knew who had lost some­one they couldn’t visit and could barely mourn; or about the ever-hounded African street sell­ers who had turned to mak­ing pro­tec­tive masks; or about the SEAT car work­ers who were now churn­ing out res­pi­ra­tors; or about all our friends that we can’t see, can’t meet, can’t touch glasses with, and can’t touch, pe­riod; or about all the peo­ple with small busi­nesses and the peo­ple with no busi­nesses at all or about the peo­ple who used to ask us for money on the street; or about our el­derly rel­a­tives who had pre-empted the plague and about the ones who are now holed up in nurs­ing homes; and, last but not least, about the fif­teen non-vi­o­lent crim­i­nals who had been al­lowed to con­fine with their fam­i­lies be­cause they were on a semi-open regime called 100.2; and about the nine Cata­lan po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers – civic lead­ers, a Speaker of par­lia­ment, elected min­is­ters – who are also non-vi­o­lent and also qual­ify for 100.2 but who are being kept in un­safe prison en­vi­ron­ments be­cause they com­mit­ted the Orig­i­nal Sin of Self-De­ter­mi­na­tion (which is such anath­ema to those whose prin­ci­pal faith is the In­vi­o­lable Di­vine­ness of our Blessed Mother of Span­ish Unity). All this and more was lurk­ing in those shreds of flaxen clouds as our ap­plause popped out of the sides of the build­ings below; or maybe, if there was any mes­sage up there for us, it was quite sim­ply that we should use all this con­fined time to think, just think, about other peo­ple, about our own pasts, about every­body’s fu­ture, about the cur­rent virus that’s play­ing with us world­wide like a very large cat with 7.8 bil­lion mice. To think, with a view to draw­ing our very own con­clu­sions. Then act­ing on them.