Thirst

I was two when the Berlin Wall fell and just a few weeks older when the grown-ups in my former communist country took to the streets to claim their destinies. Yet I didn’t quite understand why people would take a bullet for freedom until I was nineteen – and the thirstiest I’ve ever been.

It happened in a football stadium on a late afternoon. Fifty thousand people were making their way in, eyes on the prize: a spot as close as possible to where Depeche Mode would perform. Anne, my closest friend to this day, and I walked among them, holding hands.

Black t-shirts were the dress code, but we had missed the memo. Flowery dresses were all we could bear – hers, white with orange tulips; mine, yellow with blue irises. Both from our small hometown’s flea market, both paid for in loose change.

We must have looked so innocent. Anne more so, with her flushed cheeks and blond curls, me, a chain-smoking pale brunette, likely less. Our harmless appearance – and Anne’s confident pull – was why we slipped past security into the VIP space at the front of the stage. We couldn’t believe our luck but also understood the trade-off: if we left for any liquid needs, be those in or out, there’d be no getting back in. Two hours until showtime.

Summers in Bucharest are torrid and merciless. The endless concrete softens under footsteps, its smokey scent mixing with the fumes of a million engines and thickening into whiffs of roasted tobacco. The blinding light blurs the edges of shapes; on occasion, it made me trip into visions of ghosts. My dress stuck to me like glue, and the thirst started to settle in. 

The chaotic and bitter city I had moved to for my studies was confusing at the time. I grew up in a home of strict patriarchal discipline, where the words ‘good girl’ might as well have been printed on my forehead, leaving little room for outlets. 

But on that day, the city’s usual deafening honks and permanent rush faded into the background. I was surrounded by a growing crowd that felt like peace and sounded like pure joy. People were hugging. Anne and I chatted with everyone around us about our favorite songs and why we loved them. My thirst deepened.

Behind us, three men, the ages of our fathers, practiced holding their banner, which read: ‘We’ve been waiting for you for 25 years’, written in thick layers of marker. I imagined them at nineteen, buying LPs on the black market, hiding them in long raincoats, and gathering at the one friend who owned a record player to listen together. Not too loud, though, not to get caught.

As the thirst took over, I fell silent, trying to stand still and conserve energy. Still, my body kept moving with the vibration of the crowd, caught in waves of clapping and chanting. The evening crept in, banners rose, the lights dimmed. 

The first riff traveled through my body like an electric current and fifty thousand people erupted. At that moment, my thirst for water was eclipsed by a different type of thirst – one for more of this. More of everything life has to offer, really; everything that freedom had made possible.

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