I awoke to a chorus of songbirds. Sunrise was just getting started behind the ridge at the rear of the hotel. Regatta Bay was still shrouded in darkness; scattered clouds glowed pink and orange in the indigo sky; a sallow near-full moon was sinking in the west. I imbibed the clean, crisp, salty air. I love that lonely, tranquil time when the night's reign is ending but the day is not yet upon you.
I heard a noise coming from below. On the lawn, the group with Emily and Caitlyn was getting ready to set off on their trek. In the half-light it was a wonderfully eccentric tableau. There were around twenty people. The males wore the standard hiking apparel. The females were (naturally) nude between their broad-brimmed hats and sturdy hiking boots; their bodies gleamed with sunscreen and their faces were streaked with zinc cream. Protected from the solar rays, the women were defenseless against a brisk breeze blowing off the bay. They were stamping their feet and swinging their arms. One of them uttered a reedy cheer when it was time to go. As they moved out, bare derrières wiggled beneath laden backpacks.
The wind was picking up and beginning to bite, so I retreated inside to make a quick breakfast of tea and toast in the kitchenette; but as I was about to sit down I heard voices from the direction of the balcony. For a second or two I was bewildered, and a little chilled. Then I reproached myself because the talking was obviously on the adjacent deck. I tried to be discreet, peeking through the latticework screen, but was greeted with a merry "Good morning!" in German accents from a man and a woman. I saw, to my shock, that
both
were naked, sitting in deck chairs sipping coffee, and apparently not minding the nip in the air.
They invited me to come over, and it was their turn to be startled when I said "Don't get up" and scrambled over the balustrade and around the partition. We were three storeys above the ground. Apparently Palmira has boosted my bravado.
There were no extra chairs so I leaned against the railing. Dieter studied my body so thoroughly that I wondered if an erection was coming. But he and Gabrielle are devotees of the
Freikörperkultur
, free body culture, and as an experienced naturist he knew how to control his responses. In the world beyond Palmira, nudism and naturism (there is a subtle difference) impose a form of equality on its practitioners. They reject the social conditioning which makes us regard clothing as a way of separating ourselves from nature, as a means for self-expression and a symbol of status. As Mark Twain wrote: "Strip the human race absolutely naked and it would be a real democracy." However, whatever they do in the privacy of their suite and balcony, when Dieter and Gabrielle go out he wears clothes while she does not and is not permitted to. Yet they embrace
la différence
. They take pleasure in it.
And although adherents of the free body culture generally deny that eroticism has any part in their lifestyle, the carnal connotations of what's called "cmnf" -- clothed male naked female (although I think "nfcm" puts the emphasis where it belongs) -- are unmistakable.
The most celebrated depiction of "cmnf" is
Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
(
Luncheon on the Grass
), the painting by Édouard Manet. I have loved it since I was a teenager when I kept a poster copy on my bedroom wall. It shows two fully clothed gentlemen enjoying the eponymous picnic with a naked woman. The figures are in languid poses. She gazes confidently out of the frame towards the viewer, expressing no embarrassment, let alone shame. Despite the one-sided nudity, indeed by virtue of it, she has emancipated herself to be on equal terms with her male companions.
Yet there is sexual tension and a power imbalance intrinsic to Palmira's nude-law culture, because not only is just one sex is naked, but that sex
must
be naked. And this dynamic appears to favour the male. But that's an illusion, because the women espouse it as much as if not more than their menfolk. Meanwhile, outsiders like myself have chosen freely to come to Palmira, to be subject to the nude law. Ours has been an empowered choice.
So having done my customary overanalyzing, I left Dieter and Gabrielle. I decided to take a stroll around the hotel grounds and to the shoreline a few hundred paces down the hill. I waited until I was outdoors before putting on my hiking shoes, and won a nod of approval from the doorman as I tiptoed across the ice-cold tiles. My footwear, cap and a layer of sunscreen were all I had on. The day was already heating up, but it was a pleasant walk.
On the spur of the moment I resolved to walk all the way to the centre of the town. I calculated it to be, at a brisk pace, about twenty minutes away. I would be back in plenty of time for my rendezvous with Ricardo. The road is steep at the beginning but levels out when you reach the coastal flats about half-way. There the Esplanade starts its run along the shoreline. On your way down, you sense the history of this island as you pass remnants of the serriform rows of fortifications that once snaked up the hillside towards the stronghold overlooking the harbor.
Régate's population is about three thousand, twice that in the entire conurbation of Régate, Robina, Grandin and proximate villages. The business and entertainment heart is bustling, noisy, in places gaudy but rarely tacky or seedy. The Palmirenes disdain the high-rise development which has tarnished the glamour of other resort communities, but there are nevertheless unmistakable signs of progress and prosperity. The weatherboard houses are modest but well-maintained. The overall tone is affluent but egalitarian, combining colonial-style elegance with modern glass and steel. There are no ornate villas, gargantuan mansions or opulent hotels.
The pedestrian traffic was relatively light until I reached Patrick's Emporium. Nobody seems to know who the eponymous Patrick was, but this has been the marketplace since when piracy and slave-trading were the mainstays of the Palmirene economy. The island's early history is apotheosized here in larger-than-life statues carved from coral aggregate concrete and placed on ornately decorated plinths. Staring, or glaring, at each other from opposite sides of the square are two men, the founding fathers of modern Palmira from the buccaneering era, Christophe Peyrefitte and Jonathan Rogers. Their hostile expressions can be accounted for by the fact that the former was murdered by the latter. Nearby but closer to the waterfront are two female figures, both naked of course but rendered on the same scale as the men. One is of an indigenous American, probably of the Arawak people, tilling the ground with a long-handled hoe. Though not the first population to settle on the island, the Arawaks introduced a sophisticated culture. The other monument is a European woman flanked by two males, sailors in old-timey garb, standing at the helm of a ship. The latter are portrayed slightly smaller than the woman, to emphasize her pre-eminence. She is Élisabeth Peyrefitte, the founder's granddaughter, who commanded her own merchantman in the mid-seventeenth century. These effigies represent the historical Palmirene economy and society before, during and after the age of piracy.
In the Emporium fish, fruit, meats and vegetables are sold, but the liveliest activity is focused on tourism, with a veritable maze of trinket stalls and dozens of roaming vendors. There are, surprisingly, women's clothing outlets, selling everything from bikinis to ball gowns. Because it's at the heart of everything, people were coming and going, in all directions, hunting for early-morning bargains, seeking breakfast or heading off to work. Some were leaving the beach, the only public place where male and female bodies approach any degree of symmetry. Yet even on the strand the difference remains. You are warned in the literature, and by shorefront signage, that male nudity is prohibited. Indeed, Palmirenes are rather prudish about this. Exiting the beach, men are expected to at least put on a shirt, and trousers or shorts are
