They pick me up in Montevideo, I get in the car and as soon as it starts, the conversation that will unfold over the next few days begins, almost without stopping or stopping just to see the sea and stay that way, looking at the sea, in a kind of hypnosis or in a mantra.
This is the third year that the three of us have been walking together, some days, somewhere. We became friends in high school, so our conversations can span more than thirty-five years to these days, these nights on a beach in Uruguay. Cloudy, windy, cool, rainy, stormy, finally when we leave: sunny. As broad as the spectrum of our conversations is, so is the climate. Small beach. Luckily the little house we rented has a good view.
We quickly got used to being together again. Maru and I like to cook. It’s nice to share the kitchen with her: we don’t clash, we don’t give each other orders. We both want a clear area, so we clean up after ourselves. Although Ivana is responsible for washing up afterwards. Meanwhile, he’s reading a novel in the armchair and every now and then he interrupts what we’re talking about and adds something while we peel, chop, add to the frying pan, which screams and the house is filled with the smell of onions and garlic. We fill the glasses and toast. We knead, we stretch, we cut cheese, we turn on the oven. We remember old colleagues who we never saw again, but a while ago someone had news. We comment on them as if they were fresh, even though it has been about ten years since this news. Some of them mention the boyfriend the other had and who left her over the phone: We laugh at everything she cried about back then. Girlfriends, husbands, sons and daughters join in the entertainment. But also mothers, fathers, brothers, nephews. Friends of others we don’t know personally. Instagrammers we follow, series we have watched, books we read, films we have planned, bizarre news we read on the networks.
Authoritarians don’t like that
The practice of professional and critical journalism is a mainstay of democracy. That is why it bothers those who believe that they are the owners of the truth.
It came at night and mate at any time during the day, more than all the mate I drink in a year.
We make a fish that we’ve never made before, we look for a tutorial on YouTube, we collect twigs to make a fire, a nice, tall fire that we keep going even after the fish is done because it’s nice to keep going outside at night. Two of my friends are also nearby and invite us for a snack, and one of the gray afternoons begins: there is brownie and pasta flora, a huge window with a view of the sea and these friends’ dogs and cats and also another friend of theirs.
One day we see the sunrise, not because we got up early, but because we haven’t gone to bed yet. We coordinate the bathing shifts because the hot water tank is small and takes some time to heat up. The first person to enter the shower warns that the shower enclosure is broken and needs to be handled carefully, that it is difficult to find the right temperature, but that she has left the faucet more or less on the right side. Unknown showers are also a topic of conversation.
We crossed the border into Brazil into Chuy to buy whiskey and nonsense in that town’s free shops, where we agreed that life must be pretty ugly. In the perfume department we left dizzy after trying the Arabic perfumes that are now in fashion. On the way back we passed the caves: ancient geological formations from the time when there was still a sea in this part. They are not as impressive as the photos we had seen. But there is silence.