Libertad

I’m tired with a tender, summery fatigue that clouds my mind and makes my temples pulse with realisation “I am alive”. Today’s sunset is of a different orange tint than yesterday’s. Tomorrow’s sunset won’t be the same either. And I find it pleasantly melancholic that one cannot get to see all tints of sunsets in a lifetime. Or in a summer, as most truly valuable instants of a lifetime tend to happen in summer.

Summers in South France make you flowery promises of saccharine peach juice, delightful cool nights and purple  fields of lavender. They remorselessly make you believe they are for eternity, they attach you to their fragrances and colours, they leave you all at once emptied and overwhelmed by impossible dreams. Summers on the french coast are the opium of hopeless romantics, they are addictive. But not for locals like her.

Her name is Libertad. It’s a spanish name, she said to me, rolling an exaggerated french throaty  “rrr”. “Liberrrtad”. She’s the girl next terrace; her family lives near my friend’s house where I'm staying. She has oleander planted below her window and wears amber bracelets that look like shards of the Sun. Sometimes, I think she’s my hallucination. 

And when she pronounces my name – my name formed only of two repetitive letters that I hate for the  awful lack of originality – I hold my breath. «Anna!». «Anna, are you coming with us?». «Anna?». Oh, in how many nuances and accents do her exclamations come...

Summer here is a carnival of blossoms on yellow balconies, of street musicians roaming in the old town centre, of cafeterias updating their menus and adding new tastes of lemonades. We ride bicycles – “bicyclettes”, as Libertad pronounces it – from the beach villas of wealthy families to the local port market where fish is being sold right out of the boat. In the evenings, me and my friend group go to the beach disco where they play crappy synth music. And sometimes  – sometimes – we stay to sleep right on the sand and come home with the tender pink sunrise. 

And sometimes, sometimes there’s only Libertad and her linen hair. Libertad and her restless, inflaming  liberty. And as we go to the bars, as I stare at dancing strangers aiming to hide my gaze, I think she knows. But we are young and drunk and I would love to dance with every stranger in this loud room. I can’t hear the music anymore, but even the  air is agitated with smells of human sweat and mixing colognes. And I would love this summer to never ever end. Or, in case this demand is too high — I sacrifice myself to die right before it ends. 

***

Libertad is giggling in my ear. 

«Anna! I think I hit my toe!», she jokingly spits on a small sandstone that got in her way.

We’re running up and down sand mounds that line up like humps on a camel’s back. It was actually her who invented this odd camel comparison. She thought it would be fun  if we were running on a giant camel. 

Parallel to sand mounds, there’s a line of flat coast. And then, there’s the endless azure splendour of the sea;  not bluer, of course, than her clear sight, but as terrifyingly beckoning. 

This estuary, these sand hills and these wild beaches with seaweed and clams thrown by the azure waters on the sand — in my mind I claim this all to be our secret place. Even if we have only discovered it today, it has always belonged to us. Because if it takes a wild beach and caressing noon sunshines and mewing seagulls to make us free, that’s where we shall spend this summer.

In spite of ourselves, we’re running. Leaving our feet on the ardent sand for no more than an instant, breathing in the salty breeze as energy for our next movement. What is it that chases us? The winds, Nature herself. Yet I have a feeling that stopping would make Libertad vanish like Fata Morgana. Her light hair and her exultant laughter would evaporate and turn into clouds. 

It’s uniting with the wind that makes you realise you’re made from flesh and bones. But she... She’s a different being and she knows it. And if she giggles like that at me, If her linen hair gets into my face, she knows it. 

Our friends sent us to town for food and lemonade. I think that was in the early morning, now the sun is at its zenith. Libertad said that she forgot her money. «I really did!». Well, I pretended like I also forgot it, and now we’re here. One pull of my hand, one kindly insisting «Anna!», and we’re miles away from our houses, hours away from the time when we should have presumably returned with food and lemonades for our friends. 

Summers in south France are what you make of them. They are who you meet, who you share them with. But, for arrogantly demanding hearts, they present themselves in the most extravagant contrasts. Provincial towns with their naïve authenticity, ports with luxurious yachts that make you wish for just a little bit more, oleander gardens and lavender fields. And, as for us and our hearts, empty endless beaches and wild  sea breeze. 

We’re running, and I think that soon we will be falling. And if we’ll fall — this race against Nature herself will be lost. At which point are two isolated from everything but sun, sand and sea humans still friends and at which point do they become lovers? I don’t want to know but I would love to ask. 

The sun is everywhere: in Libertad’s ecstatic pupils, in my pulsing temples. The sun heats our bodies and clouds our minds. Each wave of blood, each Libertad’s unnecessary giggle, hits with the same realisation. We are alive. 

«Anna!»

«Yes?»

«I… Well, actually, I didn’t forget my money...»

«Oh! Ah! Neither did I...»

And I think, I just allow myself to think that this is what freedom is. Choosing to explore estuaries and chase breezes instead of buying food and lemonade. 

We’re running. But I think we fell. I don’t know and I don’t seem to feel my body. Only the heat, the sun, the sand under me and Libertad’s linen hair and her hot skin and her breath and her giggles. I would probably hide my gaze in the blinding vast skies, but I am 

now remorselessly staring at her.

«-Who are we…? For each other...»

«Anna! Two overheated unconscious bodies if we don’t hurry!».