XII - Wanderer

Almost two months have passed since Leonardo left Leeds, embracing adventure and craving new discoveries. Since then, many things have happened: He met many interesting people and he had the opportunity to see some old friends again; He has contemplated several beautiful landscapes, some old and some new; He has found some answers to some of his questions. Yet despite all of that, he has arrived at Lisbon with even more questions in his mind than the ones he had before leaving England. 

     He left that country driven by the inexorable desire to discover new realities, which could possibly enable him to find some answers to those questions that plagued his mind. He left without knowing his destination, embracing the uncertainty of his future. He was proud of himself for having the courage to follow his heart instead of giving up to the pressures manufactured by family and society alike. He hailed towards his destiny as a free man, determined to let free will, and not faith, be the one to determine his fortune.

            When he left Leeds, Manchester was his destination at first. There was no specific reason behind that choice. It was an arbitrary decision, a first step, and necessary, despite the absence of deep meaning. It was necessary to leave Leeds behind above all things. Since Manchester was close and he had never been there before, he decided that it would serve as a first landing place.

            The town itself didn’t offer much interest. In many ways, it was like a perfect clone of Leeds (or the other way around). It’s strange how the majority of the big English cities, like Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool or Manchester look like clones of one another. In other European countries, such as France, Italy or Spain, every city has its own personality.

Paris and Marseille, for example, are completely different from each other. Paris is elegant and refined, a perfect representation of the European civilization. Marseille, by contrast, presents itself to the visitor as an extension of the Mediterranean world. It’s dirty, chaotic, noisy, violent and flamboyant. Its population is almost equal parts Arab and European. If not for the fact that French is spoken in both cities, they would hold nothing in common.

The same can be said about the cities in the Italian peninsula: Roma, Città Eterna, in eternal ostentation of majestic ruins of a glorious past of gladiators and emperors, where it stood as the centre of the world; nothing to do with the equally proud Florence, switching the imposingness of classic architecture for the beauty of Renascence art; or old Venice, standing between land and sea, city-museum enchanting tourists from all four corners of the world yearlong. It’s as beautiful as it is unique, with its charming water channels and its old white and grey buildings that transport the visitor to a long-gone era, when a sovereign Venice rule the seas through both commerce and war. Venice, that like every important Italian city retains to this day its unique personality that distinguishes it from others.

Go to back to England only to find cities without spirit. They’re like franchises ruled by franchises. It doesn’t matter if you are in Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool, streets have the same names, just like squares, parks and public buildings. The architecture is identical. The people look the same. Traditions and customs do not vary. And, most alarmingly, even discos, bars, pubs and restaurants, nine times out of ten, are part of big chains that can be found in any of those cities. Prêt-a-Manger, McDonald’s, KFC, Domino’s, O’Neil’s, Subway… you can find them all in any city in Britain. The same goes for clothing shops and even food brands.

Maybe that was precisely what he found most impressive in Manchester. The fact that, while walking along its streets, while having lunch at a restaurant, when buying a refreshment in a food stand or even while having a drink at the evening, he went to the same places and walked along the same streets and consumed the same brands. He felt as if I he was still in Leeds. The only difference is that now he was alone, he was sleeping at a hostel and that a new, completely different, stage of his life had just begun.    

Leonardo only stayed one night in Manchester, since it didn’t make a lot of sense for him to stay any longer than that. When he arrived at Liverpool, the following day, he soon realized that it was yet another clone-city, virtually identical to Leeds or Manchester. With the exception of the port, or the Beatles museum, there was very little to see or do.

            And yet, although he was feeling a bit disappointed, he was also starting to feel something else. At first, he couldn’t comprehend exactly what was going on with him. Nothing extraordinary had happened; nevertheless he was felt as if something had changed inside of him. He felt different, even though he didn’t know exactly what was different about him.

The truth is that, simply put, he felt free. Truly liberated, for the first time in his life, now that he had finally taken the decision to ignore social pressures and set himself free. Although he knew that he couldn’t live like that indefinitely, at least in that moment of his life he was a free individual. Liberty had taken over his soul, contaminating every single cellule of his being. He had taken the first step towards his future. He had had broken the chains that imprisoned him and he had drunk from the chalice of freedom.

            The first step had set him free. He had fallen into the void, only to learn how to fly. The second step promised steeper difficulty. He knew how to fly. Now he had to find out where to flight.

            After spending a few days at the city of the Beatles, where he stayed at a youth hostel, he took a bus from Liverpool to London where he met a friend from Lisbon who was now living in London.

            ‘You know Leonardo your phone call really caught me by surprise. How long has it been? Five, six years?’ He told him when we met at his place in London.

            ‘Actually, I think it was seven, Bono. We haven’t talked since we finished school.’ His real name was Francisco, but he got the nickname of Bono because he was totally crazy about U2. When he turned 18 Leonardo and his other friends got together and bought him a ticket for a conveniently timed concert of the band in Lisbon. Boy was he happy when they finally gave him that ticket! He even kissed a couple of them in the euphoria of the moment.

            Leonardo and Francisco were good friends at that age, but they hadn’t seen each other since they finished high school. Back then Leonardo had gone to Spain to study while Francisco had migrated to England in order to pursue his musical education. Now he was working for a recording studio in London and, perhaps most surprisingly, he had recently gotten married to a blonde English girl called Rita!

            Leonardo stayed at their house for almost a week, crashing on the comfy sofa in the living room. They had rented a comfortable one-room apartment together in Kensington a few months before that. Both were fine hosts. In fact, Leonardo’s initial intention had been to stay only a couple of days at their place, but at Bono’s insistence he ended up staying almost a week. ‘I don’t know when the next time will be when we can spend some time together,’ he had said to convince him. He was right. Leonardo had no idea of when he was going to go back to England.
       After several days spent telling and hearing stories of their shared adolescence over a few beers at a variety of London bars, Leonardo thanked him for his hospitality and got ready to, once again, hit the road.

            ‘So where you’re heading next, cowboy?’

            ‘Paris, I think, at least at first.’

            ‘That city is pretty expensive, like London. Do you have anyone you can stay with there?’

            ‘Maybe…’

Leonardo had spent a good part of the last summer in Paris, the reason for it being love. The name of the girl was Margot and she was a student at the Sorbonne. Leonardo had met her in Leeds in his first year, when she was an Erasmus student there. After she returned to France, they kept in touch, and by the end of Leonardo’s second year Leonardo went to Paris and he ended up spending the whole summer there with her, by the end of which he was even more in love: an unwise thing to do, as he was soon to discover. Completion of his last year of studies in Leeds pending, he returned to England, and saw her affection meager as the weeks passed. One day she finally said the words. ‘I don’t want anything serious, I’m sorry. Maybe we can be friends.’ Leonardo had given her his heart, only to see it returned torn in a thousand pieces: a foolish thing indeed, to fall in love.

Yet, in spite of all that, Leonardo decided to see her as he went back to Paris. His mind knew it was a bad idea all along, but his irrational heart was taking the upper hand. In a last attempt to choose mind over heart he sat at a Parisian café, and ordered a “café au lait” in the pursuit of coming to a smart decision. ‘Should I see her or not?’ For one full hour he tried to convince himself that it was not wise to see her again. ‘I should just ignore her existence and spend time by myself visiting the Eiffel tower and walking along the banks of the Seine, like any other tourist.’ And yet, no matter how much he tried to talk sense into it, his foolish heart persisted in its madness. So he paid the bill and walked out of the café, knowing all too well that he was making a mistake, but incapable of stopping himself.

At nightfall when he knocked, a guy opened the door. Bad sign. Apparently she was in the shower, and thus, unable to come to the door.

‘Qui êtes-vous?’ The guy asked; a tough question considering the situation.

  ‘Un ami,’ Leonardo finally answered. The suspicious expression stamped on his face was revelatory enough. It was a bad idea after all.

‘Tu t’appelles comment?’

‘Leonardo. Tell her I decided to come to Paris for a few days and I decided to pass by her house to say hi… maybe next time.’

‘Maybe.’

He shut the door in Leonardo´s face, visibly upset. So Leonardo descended the stairs of the old Parisian building and walked along the slender streets bathed by the moonlight and he shed tears of jealousy, and rage and sadness and he took the subway to get to the train station. What an idiot he was.