Leo
It’s very early in the morning, and Eleonore walks along the pool’s edge. She moves with the elegance of good swimmers, a perfect combination of physical strength and delicacy.
She stretches her muscles, looks at the still water, and plunges into a rectangular immensity of blues and chlorine.
Now her body has mutated, and she is a fish.
The water slips over her skin, her hands drive her through the water, and her feet are now two perfect fins.
Eleonore studies Hispanic culture at the prestigious Trinity College in Dublin. After her classes at Trinity, she spends the whole afternoon writing essays at Bewley’s Cafe on Westmoreland str. Dublin 1. The establishment opened in 1894 and was a meeting place for artists and bohemians. In his time, a young James Joyce became a frequent visitor to Bewley’s Cafe.
Eleonore is consistently distant.
She always sits alone at the same table. There is some indifference and alienation in her way that makes her seem unfriendly.
But she is not.
She just needs an excessive amount of time on her own. When you talk to Leo, you better feel comfortable with long silences. Her almond eyes are elusive. They move to both sides and suddenly focus sharply on you. It’s a bit weird until you get used to how she looks.
Now she is ready for a flip turn. She approaches at a constant speed; a large T on the bottom of the pool helps her calculate the perfect distance to start flipping. Her chin comes closer to her chest; her body rolls up, and her legs go above the water’s surface while her arms stretch out. Then her feet touch the wall and push her off under the water.
Eleonore prefers to be called Leo. “Please, call me Leo, she says.”
Leo left Geneva for Dublin when her parent’s marriage became oppressive and decadent. A downhill of arguing and yelling. A degradation of luxuries and wellbeing. The day her father grabbed her mother by the arm and shook her, something broke forever between Leo and her dad. Her mum cried, her dad regretted it, and Leo left.
There was no way back.
Sometimes working as a barista at Bewley’s Cafe, I watch Leo from behind the bar, and she talks to herself. People think that’s crazy, but she doesn’t care too much. In her world, she imagines and visualises things that must verbalise.
Leo generally attracts everyone’s attention. She is unintentionally present in conversations and gossip.
Once, she told me that one night going home in the rain, her legs stopped walking. Her feet got heavy, and her shoes seemed fused to the ground. Leo told me that she didn’t know if she had suddenly forgotten how to walk or if the gravity had surprisingly become unbearable.
While standing there with her hair soaked, a full moon appeared behind the clouds. It was an impressive moon that took over all that rainy darkness. Then, she wrote one of her favorite verses on a wall.
“The moon is climbing through the sky
with the child by the hand.”
After a while, her feet walked again. She never quite understood that episode.
It seems too strange to be true, but if you go to Parnell Square, those words are still written on that wall.
After the impulse, her body slides parallel with the pool ground and rotates while her arms remain extended. Then her legs, hips, and chest coordinate in a fluid wave-like movement, returning to the surface. Leo keeps swimming at a constant speed leaving behind a white trail of bubbles and oxygen.
She lives in a double room in a sharing house at 24 Goldsmith St, Dublin 7. Her room is upstairs and has a cobalt blue carpet and a white chimney. On the mantelpiece, there are some candles and books. On the wall on top of the chimney, there is a Polaroid of her stack with black tape. She appears smiling, and her hair is tied back.
She usually doesn’t like her photos. But she loves that Polaroid.
Sometimes when she finishes swimming, she stops in the middle of the pool, dives to the bottom, and sits cross-legged on the ground. She likes to feel all that water above her. In the silence, she observes that world of blues and horizontal lines. Then she relaxes and closes her eyes. Her heart rate slows down, and tiny bubbles emerge slowly from her nose, moving vertically to the surface. Now she doesn’t feel the pressure of the water anymore.
Leo feels so much happiness down there; sometimes, she is afraid of falling asleep.
…..
-Can I get that Polaroid?
-Why?
-I like it. You seem sweetly joyful.
-…...
-Ok, keep it.
-I will
The other day, getting ready for my way to Glasgow, I looked between boxes and saw that Polaroid again. The photo was inside the book ‘Gypsy Ballads’ by Federico Garcia Lorca.
Leo continued sweetly joyful.
On the back of the picture, I could read:
“The moon came into the forge
in her bustle of flowering nard.
The little boy stares at her, stares.
The boy is staring hard.”
