recuperation

It had been one of the longest short breaks in my life. Billed as four days by the sea, it involved much of everything: drink, drugs, skinny dipping, sex (not for me), dancing, barbeques, being lost in nowhere, and famously smelling like a pig. It had also involved sunburn, windburn, a destroyed stomach, and profound exhaustion.

Getting out was no easier. I staggered back to Jorge’s flat after a bus journey from Hunteresque hell. The after effects of that morning’s caipirinha, consumed only a few hours ago, kicked in savagely. (I had dropped a half bottle which the kids had given me on the rocks, as we talked in the language of drunks about sealions and London.They didn’t care. Just fixed another one.)

I had been less than a month in the country. Could not speak the language. Had no money left, and nothing to do. The days before laptops and email. I prepared my classes and read the play again. Fiends never called, both presumably recovering from the same ordeal. Jorge was away for the week. For four days I lived off pasta, water and tea. I went for walks around the Ciudad Vieja and sat in the sixth floor window bay, legs dangling over the edge. looking at a church spire and the oblique view of the Cerro.

When Jorge got back, he asked what had happened to me. When I told him I’d run out of cash he got annoyed and said there were pesos in a pot in the sitting room. I had known about them. I hadn’t needed them.

Starting from a point where I felt almost exactly like I do now, eleven and a half years later, those isolated days in Jorge’s flat had cleansed me. That first visit to Polonio might be part of folklore, but the secret time that followed it at the end of that week was just as important.