North wind

by Barbara Anderl (Austria)

Making a local connection Azores

Nothing is in the way to stop the wind coming all the way down from Greenland to hit the Azores Island. When it blows from the north over the Atlantic Ocean the volcano is covered with snow. And you know soon when Pico Mountain is wearing its white cap showering can be absolute agony. The boiler was playing its own game and you never knew whether the little flame would be strong enough to ignite the gas this time. The north wind enters through tiny gaps between the windows and the frames, swirls around my naked body and leaves the house towards the south side. Although it would be so necessary to heat up everything to avoid mold growing in the corners, only a few houses here have proper heat. Who does want to ride against windmills? The constant humidity of the Atlantic Ocean is something you have to live with. I am bravely holding my head under the icy cold water. Rarely wash my hair anymore since I am here. But when I do, I bend over so far that my body remains dry as best as I can. Only in the end I hold my breath and stand under the jet of water for seconds. When I look down on my hands, they don’t seem to be mine anymore. The skin is chapped and the dirt collects itself under my fingernails. Only the small rest of nail polish still sticks to some nails like an island in the sea on a map. It is the rest of my office hands, when I was back there, neat, dressed up, very important and stressed. Until I couldn`t go on. I remember very well when on my way to work in the tram, when everything was already just grey, senseless, I suddenly had the clear thought: I want to see whales! The moment when a whale appears on the water must have something magical, I thought, almost sacred. A sense of wholeness. And I was desperate to find something whole. While I am rubbing myself dry with a towel, I can hear José whistling and chatting with his dog on the other side of the wooden bathroom door. “Estamos a fazer um café. Não é? Right? Good boy! Good boy!” He does speak English very well. Many old men here do. Like many, he used to hunt whale in his youth. And like many, he went to Canada when Portugal joined the EU in 1986 and whaling was banned as a precondition for joining. Canada had good jobs to offer for all the fishermen. And now he is back. Old, divorced and boozy. And due to many detours my host. Nothing really matters for him. He laughed when I had the extension lead for the radio too close to the stovetop. It melted and I caused a short circuit. He laughed as I rescued the lizards from the bucket of milk that he had set up as a trap in the garden to drown them. We now have to continue living with at least twenty lizards in the room. They are everywhere here. He laughed when we had guests and I served a chicken that was unfortunately charred on the outside and still raw and bloody inside. I couldn’t do anything wrong. Coming from a place where everything seems to be regulated and the feeling of doing something wrong is a constant companion, serenity has suddenly become the most exotic feeling of all. It is a mixture of optimism, Portuguese serenity, and booze, which he lived through the day and I enjoyed being around. When I came out of the bathroom, José had already fallen asleep with his head at the table and the alcohol in this castling won the game once again.