Water and Freedom

A few years ago, the city authorities renovated the outdoor swimming pool near our home in Strasbourg. The investment was considerable, and the result looks dazzling at first sight, not least because of the stainless-steel walls of the pool, which, although outdoors, is open every day of the year. So when global warming bared its teeth again this April and temperatures rose to almost thirty degrees, my family and I went for a swim. We were not the only ones. A long queue stretched in front of the pool, and inside the crowd was even more indescribable. But while the people waiting, despite the crush, were in a typical holiday mood, inside the complex, fenced in by panels and patrolled by a crowd of uniformed staff armed with whistles, the tension was palpable. The trouble started soon after we arrived. Having lived in France for more than twenty years, I was sure we had come properly prepared. Tristan and I had swapped our usual swimming trunks for tighter “Speedo” models, since I know from experience that they won’t let you into the water in looser swim shorts, which are far more suitable for middle-aged men. For reasons of hygiene, apparently. I wasn’t worried about Maša and Tara. As long as they don’t jump into the water in a burkini, I thought, they’ll be left in peace.

First they came for me. I heard a piercing whistle, and then a patrol of two lifeguards approached and demanded that I take off the T-shirt that, because of my sensitive skin and on medical advice, I always wear when swimming. My medical reasons met with no understanding whatsoever from the Alsatian Bademeister, who lectured me on the safety and hygiene risks that my individual concern for my own health posed to the common interest and well-being of all bathers. If, despite everything, I wished to insist on exercising my rights and freedoms, they went on, I would have to obtain a medical certificate on a special form and send it to the city services, which, after careful examination of my application, might allow me to dip myself, in a T-shirt protecting me against skin cancer, into the pool under their jurisdiction.

“You’re lucky it’s only April,” one of them joked good-naturedly, “you might get the permit before the end of the swimming season.” “But you’ll need a new one next year,” added his less jocular colleague. So I crouched at the edge of the pool with my back unprotected, shielding my eyes with my hand to keep an eye, among the mass of bathers, on my children, who were desperately trying to have fun in the overcrowded pool. Sunglasses, you see, are not allowed.

At that moment someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Sir,” said an attendant dressed in white, “there are a lot of families here.” Since it was obvious I wasn’t following, she explained that my trunks were too small and that I was showing the people at the pool more of my backside than the statutes and rules of the Strasbourg city administration allow. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said, trying coquettishly to soften this new attack on my individual rights—an attack caused by first forcing me into trunks I had last worn a decade ago, and then making me take off the T-shirt that would otherwise have covered the sinful display of my curves—“but it’s about the children.” She waited patiently while I pulled my trunks up as far as they would go, then marched on, unaware that the maneuver had caused an even greater assault on family values on the front of my body.

I slowly began to regret the decision to make a Sunday outing of it. To lift the family’s morale, I went looking for a snack bar. In vain. The worthy renovators of the pool had, intentionally or not, overlooked the fact that swimming makes you thirsty and hungry. You cannot buy so much as a bottle of water at the pool. When I pointed this out to the staff, they told me that food and drink could be bought outside. “But once you go out, you can’t come back in,” they explained. People in this fortress of chlorinated authoritarianism are condemned to deprivation; the only solution is exile with no possibility of return.

The regime slowly began to achieve its aims. I started to accept further episodes of law enforcement with a certain resignation, with the bitter realization that my freedom had been sacrificed in the name of safety, order and family values. When Tara came running out of the pool in tears, having been chased out because her hair wasn’t tied up, I just stroked her head somewhat absently. When I was told, while photographing my own children, that taking pictures was not allowed, I just smiled and put my phone away. I lay helplessly on my towel and stared at the European Parliament building, separated from the pool only by a road and a fence. During sessions, the pool is apparently very popular with MEPs and Eurocrats, who swim to ease their back pain.

Suddenly a siren sounded over the loudspeakers, and then a voice warned us, in three languages, that the evacuation of the pool would begin in half an hour. Given the circumstances, the choice of words seemed particularly apt. We quickly gathered our things and went home, crestfallen. I wanted to spare the children the experience of the evacuation as well. I don’t know why I imagined they would carry it out with German shepherds. After all, the English used to call this breed Alsatians. Welcome to the age of illiberal recreation.