News — SPACE CADET

He left London behind, just like he did Zanzibar and India, Munich and Montreux. Is he anywhere to be found?

by Julia Wollner

When we arrive in London on that Saturday in September 2019—my teenage-self and I—there is a metro strike. Getting anywhere is a challenge. But we are on a mission. In order to visit the West End, I need to walk for a few miles, take a couple of trains, then walk further. The affluent district of Kensington is buzzing—streets are filled with loud football fans crowding in front of pubs where an important match is being shown. Majestic horses dressed in policemen march on sidewalks, and young people sip beer while sitting on the white stairs of elegant little houses.

A few more steps ahead from Kensington High Street I find Logan Place—a small residential street that lies off of Earl's Court Road. It welcomes me with the peace and quiet missing from the main thoroughfares of this affluent neighborhood. I see someone placing flowers by a high brick wall; a few tourists are taking photos of a door covered by protective glass, quietly commenting on the warning signs that scream from it: "Graffiti is a crime!", "CCTV in operation!", "Private property!". The high wall is adorned with spiky razor wire. I should go back to Kensington High Street. We are not too welcome here.

The once-famous inhabitant of the beautiful house hidden behind the wall, the rock star Freddie Mercury, has been gone now for 28 years and would be celebrating his 73rd birthday that September. After his death in 1991, the building passed to his ex-girlfriend and assistant, Mary Austin, who did not wish to turn the area surrounding the property into a pilgrimage destination, upsetting Mercury's fans. They long for a place to show affection to their idol. In fact, a very vivid imagination is needed to feel Freddie's presence here, among the cameras and barriers. I find myself asking teenage me, Should I continue forward? Take another complicated journey and try to get to Feltham, to the modest house where Freddie lived as a teenager? Or maybe catch a plane to Munich, where Freddie lived and worked in the '80s, while enjoying the night scene a bit more than the day one? Or maybe Montreux, where his last songs were recorded? Should I plan an exotic trip to Zanzibar in Tanzania, where he was born as Farrokh Boulsara in 1946? Go and discover India, where he went to a boarding school?

Freddie hardly mentioned his childhood, as if his early years were not something he wished to remember. His parents—Zoroastrians whose ancestors came from Persia—lived on the African island, where Bomi Bulsara, Freddie's father, worked for the British Government. Farrokh was sent to India at the age of 8 and came back at 18, moments before the local revolution, which made the family flee to England. Very little is known about Freddie's boyhood. While in boarding school, he dearly missed his parents and sister. He was different and an outsider wherever he went—not African, not Indian, not British. His funny teeth made him subject to jokes, and his sexual identity, even before it became a certainty to himself, must have been a heavy burden to carry, and not only because of his family's conservative Parsee views. In Zanzibar, Islam is the predominant religion, and gay sex is illegal, to the extreme that even in 2006, the media reported the fierce outrage of a Muslim group when it was rumoured that gay tourists were making their way to the island for a beach party to mark Mercury's 60th birthday. Apparently none of these childhood places felt like home. Freddie never returned to them.

Was London a change for the better, then? An improvement, a salvation for a young, sensitive boy with an otherworldly gift? In many ways, yes. This is where his talent flourished, his star rose and his being different, while still a challenge, received cheers rather than boos. Even if we keep in mind that life in England in the 70s and 80s was different from what we can experience today, it was undoubtedly easier for a flamboyant personality like his, when compared to the suffocating atmosphere of India and Tanzania. All this being said, we know of his difficult relationship with critics, who seemed to never appreciate his work; with the press, who followed his every footstep, depriving him of almost any privacy; and with friends who turned into enemies after selling whatever remained of it. Now after his death, he left London behind, just like he did Zanzibar and India, Munich and Montreux. Is he anywhere to be found? In his songs and in the hearts of many—where he lives on. I see a recent picture of Mary in a British tabloid—a once beautiful, modest woman turned millionaire by the inheritance he left her, enough to fill her imagination to the end of her days, unless she misses the one life making it complete. Austin's eyes speak without words, and I hear her... I miss him too.

My time in London is up. During take off, I make a promise to my teenage-self: next time I will take her to Feltham, to an unpretentious house in the London suburbs where in 2016 a special blue plaque was unveiled to commemorate its once famous inhabitant. I was told that now a young girl occupies the bedroom that used to belong to my Freddie, and that, despite being more into Justin Bieber's music than Queen's old hits, she is aware of the inspiration she should find in the group's late singer. "He showed me that you can start out just right here and get ANYWHERE YOU WANT," are her words quoted in one of the British newspapers. I hope he finally did get to where he wanted.