LEAVING COMPOSTELA

Fourteen years earlier – 17 October 2002

Santiago de Compostela

Martín woke up with a hangover worthy of Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. He got out of bed too quickly and tried to remember how he’d got home. As he tried to piece together his hazy memories of the night before, he found his jeans on the floor of his bedroom alongside his shoes and a pile of material that had been a crisply ironed shirt only a few hours earlier. He couldn’t see his jacket so he got up and saw it had been dumped on top of his desk. He calmly checked he still had his wallet, mobile and keys. A little more at ease now, he sat down on the chair in just his underwear, which is how he’d slept too, and holding his head in his hands, he thought how lucky it was his internal GPS had got him home again. His grandmother had always said that drunk people have a guardian angel. If that was true, his would have more than enough work.

It had been quite some time since he’d been drunk like that and he thought to himself that he was no longer used to drinking how he had before, when he was young. For Martín, his “before” were those two years he’d been “matriculated” in the Maths Faculty (to use the word “study” for what he did during that time would be completely inappropriate). In the first term he didn’t pass a single class and in June, he managed to get four credits, which was enough to give him the right to still be matriculated the year after.

Martín carried happy memories of his “gap year” of parties and high jinks. The only bad memory was of how his parents had run out of patience when he got his results from the exams he’d taken in his second February as a university student. On some of his first nights out, Martín had met David de la Riba and the two of them quickly became friends. They would go out together every night from Wednesday to Saturday, saying yes to any drinks, birthdays or Paso de Ecuador celebrations that came their way.

But it had been some time since then. Over the last two years, Martín had taken a course in programming and he was about to start an advanced course in the administration of IT systems. Though he still went out from time to time, as you’d expect from a 23-year-old, the endless drunken nights, when he’d still been there as they switched off the lights in some of Compostela’s dingiest bars, were a thing of the past. The fun-loving David, on the other hand, was still living his life as he always had, though his father, a well-known and well-reputed cardiologist in Santiago with a seat in the Galician parliament, didn’t find it funny at all that his son was out there making a name for himself in this way. Martín and David were still good friends, if we take friendship to mean spending lots of nights and early mornings together in Santiago. Other than going out for drinks though, they didn’t spend much time in each other’s company, nor did they have much in common besides drinking.

The night before, Martín had decided to go out because it was one of the first Thursdays of the academic year and knowing Silvia was going to be out with some of her girlfriends, he was hoping to see her. Sat in his kitchen, he thought it was a shame they hadn’t ended up seeing each other in the end. “Or not,” he thought, remembering how drunk he’d ended up. He pieced together as best he could what he remembered from that night and images from pre-drinks outdoors on the campus came to mind. At the football ground there were loads of people, like there always were on Thursdays at the start of the academic year on nights when it didn’t feel too cold yet and the eternal Compostela rain afforded a moment of respite. The small groups of students got to know each other easily, lubricated by cheap alcohol. Asking for some ice cubes, a plastic cup or for someone to light your cigarette was enough to start to open up the circles of friends that congregated around the white supermarket bags. That night Martín, David, Roi and Lois were with Mariana and another friend and sat next to them was a considerable group of Erasmus students. Martín felt embarrassed remembering how he’d spoken to a girl from Austria, whose name he couldn’t remember, in the kind of English you’d expect from Planeta DeAgostini.

Shockingly hungover, Martín went into the bathroom and took a drink from the sink. As he bent down, it reminded him of David peeing in the bushes near the Esperanza health centre. From there they’d seen a girl disappear into the campus and its darkness. Martín was so drunk he’d vomited right on the spot:

“David, I’m going to call it a day. I’m off home.”

“What do you mean? You’re not going anywhere.”

“Yes, I am. You head out with the others, I’ll tidy up here.”

Martín couldn’t really remember how he’d got home or which path he’d taken, but it was clear he’d been capable enough to make it back.

Text © Lito Vila Baleato

Translation © Harriet Cook