Von Don­al McLaugh­lin - Also! Uf Wieder­luege! Mer­ci — It’s almost time to use that phrase oft over­heard on the Num­ber 5 tram. My final days in Bern are approach­ing. Six weeks ago, it felt like I’d pulled the plug in a rather full bath: the water sink­ing slow­ly around me, though there was plen­ty still to enjoy. Now, it’s a mat­ter of time before that rude gur­gle & slurp that pre­cedes the dis­ap­pear­ance of the lit­tle water that’s left.

Once upon a time I was a keen pho­tog­ra­ph­er. I’d car­ry the bag, the equip­ment; foot­er about with lens­es. Nowa­days, I leave all that behind.

I’ve tak­en a sin­gle pho­to­graph here.

What fol­lows are some of the oth­er images, episodes, I’ll take home:

ROMANDIE

* lost in the blues, mauves, lilacs; the haze & mist oppo­site: FRANCE
*  from the Lau­sanne train: what look like black chick­ens across the ter­races on every hill­side each Wein­stock cut right back
*  from Glion: the topog­ra­phy of Mon­treux below & Lau­sanne ahead; France impres­sion­is­tic oppo­site
*  the haute école de valeurs humaines pour jeunes filles we pass by car; girls play­ing net­ball, in white blous­es & skirts; us laugh­ing at the French for it
*  sun­rise over the Rochers-de-Naye 150 mil­lion years ago (cap­tion beneath a pho­to)
*  above us, the first wasps, feast­ing on pussy-wil­low, as we read a descrip­tion of the Escu­lape Grass-Snake; its pen­chant for lizards & rodents
*  Good Fri­day in French; the long read­ing in which the Bish­op, bless him, played Jesus; me long­ing for more Scar­lat­ti

BERN

*  the infor­ma­tion pan­els I keep approach­ing which turn out to be 15 lines on Parko­rd­nung; 10 on Ver­bot
*  the dis­man­tling of the Frauenwache at the Bun­de­shaus: a huge red F, blue R & green U tilt­ed against the side of their van
*  the first splash­es of cher­ry blos­som on the hill­side below the Rosen­garten
*  that stun­ning view: the Alt­stadt from the Rosen­garten
*  out­side LOEB: heav­i­ly armed police pro­tect­ing a win­dow-full of rab­bits (it looked like) on what was the first anniver­sary of the War against Iraq start­ing (I learned sub­se­quent­ly)
*  2am, Gerechtigkeits­gasse: out from under the Lauben, a guy, mid-pee, unaware of the police car arriv­ing over his shoul­der; the syn­chronic­i­ty of his zip going up & the win­dow wind­ing down
* East­er Sun­day in Ger­man; the Aufer­ste­hung erst recht ser­mon in which Ger­man sound­ed ancient unlike Mozart’s Agnus Dei as we turned for ‘Peace be with you’ — ‘Der Friede sei mit dir beziehungsweise Ihnen!’
* my five-year-old nephew ask­ing: ’Why is Switzer­land always so peace­ful??‘
* the same boy exclaim­ing (at 10 on a week­day morn­ing): ‘There’s nobody in this place, except us!’
* the same boy vow­ing to learn Ger­man, and then ‘the aliens’ lan­guage’ so that when he meets them he can say, ‘Calm down, calm down, it’s only a com­mer­cial!’
* Lan­gen­thal: spon­ta­neous­ly, halfway through my read­ing, the pupils sing the Swiss Psalm for me
* Lan­gen­thal: the ques­tion from the girl at the front: ‘What’s your rela­tion­ship to the Vir­gin Mary nowa­days?’
* from the train back to Bern: der Schim­mel ohne Reit­er
* out­side LOEB: a bear attempts the tightrope above the tram­lines while two legs all that remains of the last per­son to fail step off Per­ron 2 *  Marzili: clouds of dan­de­lion seed fill the air; the cou­ple on the bench too engrossed, sure­ly, to be play­ing she loves me (not)
*  the pedestal with­out a stat­ue, just off Rathaus­platz; the iron stair­case to help you climb onto it & pose
*  the cathe­dral by night the tow­er lit, as if from with­in
*  the cathe­dral by night that great blue light as, slow­ly, the lanterns dim
*  the cathe­dral by night in that first mag­ic moment of dark­ness
*  the thought of liv­ing oppo­site; of read­ing ‘Mach’s na’ dai­ly

ZURICH

* the queue of May-the-First rad­i­cals at the hole-in-the-wall of Post­Fi­nance
*  near the Ganymed stat­ue (Bürk­li­platz): the fran­tic flap­ping of seag­ulls, inch­es above the water, as here, there & every­where (but not where the gulls are), fish small fry leap out of the water. the ele­gant supe­ri­or­i­ty of the swan
*  out­side the Gross­mün­ster: the punk with the Mohi­can hair­style, shout­ing: ‘SURPRISE Strassen­magazin: die intellek­tuelle Antwort auf Playsta­tion!’
*  bus-stop at Cen­tral: a 50-some­thing with pig­tails dis­turbs my enjoy­ment of Wil­helm Tell: ‘Dein Schweiz­er Staat hat die Dame aufge­fordert, das Land zu ver­lassen.’ She nods in a direc­tion where I can see nobody. ‘Das ist deine Schwest­er!’
*  Sprüngli: a moth­er lifts her tod­dler from a barstool at the win­dow & turns towards the bar. we hear some­thing crack. the saucer beneath the sil­ver cream-jug is now in bits on the floor. what mum doesn’t see is the cream spilling silent­ly from the jug the boy still holds and I don’t tell her

SOLOTHURN

*  the Lit­er­aturtage: the read­ings, the chitchat, the book-stall
*  the riv­er, the cathe­dral, the cafés
* but also the Seil­bahn from Ober­dorf to Weis­senstein; those won­der­ful wide-open two-seaters (‘bist du schwindel­frei?’); the wait­ing-your-turn at the Mit­tel­sta­tion; the whoosh before off you go; the views across to the moun­tains; the mar­vel­ling at the tech­nol­o­gy of yes­ter­year; tech­nol­o­gy for which you feel fond­ness

WEG DER SCHWEIZ

On the eve of the EM in Por­tu­gal, I walk the Weg der Schweiz, togeth­er with anoth­er Scot. It’s not the most chal­leng­ing longdis­tance walk we’ve done, but we do it for the sym­bol­ism. Inau­gu­rat­ed in 1991, to cel­e­brate 700 years of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion, the trail goes round the south­ern­most part of Lake Lucerne. From the Rütli-Wiese, it leads via Seel­is­berg, Bauen, Flüe­len, Sisikon & Morschach back to Brun­nen. The 35km are divid­ed into 26 sec­tions, designed to cor­re­spond to the 26 can­tons with each allot­ted a length of path pro­por­tion­ate to its pop­u­la­tion. Every 5mm of the trail rep­re­sents a Swiss cit­i­zen.

I sensed before we start­ed that I might write some­thing; that I could use the route as a frame­work. Sure enough, a draft now exists. It’s not fic­tion. More a trav­el­ogue. 50,000 char­ac­ters (or 8,000 words) I wouldn’t have writ­ten oth­er­wise. A bonus.

FOOTBALL

From the Platz der Aus­land­schweiz­er in Brun­nen, the offi­cial end of the Weg, we head straight to a pub for the Croa­t­ia game. Pre­dictably, the bar has the Swiss flag every­where; the staff are in Swiss-style Tshirts. All we need’s to paint our faces.

Some moments I remem­ber:
* the nation­al anthem: the play­ers hold­ing hands, the fans arm-in-arm; that get­ting a laugh, for some rea­son
* a ref­er­ence in the com­men­tary to your man­ag­er (72) insist­ing he’s 71!
* Jakob Kuhn: ‘unser Vater’, a fan tells us, point­ing to a close-up on screen
* that long high ball, 20 min­utes from the end, where it’s come from’s unclear, even in the replay on its way towards an emp­ty Swiss goal; Stiel, real­is­ing he’s been caught, out, sees it bounce before him & over his head, still goal­ward. us freez­ing as we watch his fran­tic chase, too far away to be able to help; even when he gets a hand on it & vague­ly stalls its momen­tum, the ball con­tin­ues ago­nis­ing­ly — next thing, we’re laugh­in & cheerin, though, for we can see the danger’s clear; Stiel, hav­ing stum­bled for­ward, is now behind the ball; flat out on the ground, just about, he halts the ball with his fore­head.
* ‘Foot­ball not a game for a girl’s board­ing school!’ (SF2 com­men­ta­tor)
* Eng­land-France in Zurich: a big screen in a sta­tion bar (IMAGINE), Eng­land a goal up; watch­ing France score twice in injury time
* Eng­land-Switzer­land on Neuen­gasse: folk gath­er­ing round any Strassen­café with a tele­vi­sion; a bar-own­er with CHAPUISAT across his shoul­ders try­ing to clear the road; threat­en­ing to turn the game off
* an hour into your sec­ond game & anoth­er player’s red-card­ed: the hard­ly bru­tal Swiss now prop­ping up the Fair Play league; the Swiss the tournament’s bad boys!
* read­ing Fuss­bal­lerisches with Beat Ster­chi, up next to the Rosen­garten; the two tel­lies in the court­yard: Switzer­land-France on top of Eng­land-Croa­t­ia
* the fan spot­ted at the Zyt­glogge that night: his huge met­al con­trap­tion sup­port­ing nine flag poles & three huge cow­bells
* the clos­ing stages against France & the Swiss dream fades. we shrug & pon­der what might ‘ve been, espe­cial­ly with Eng­land win­ning.
* Aber wenn etwas im Fuss­ball keinen Platz hat dann der Kon­junk­tiv (SF2)

PEOPLE ON TRAINS

* the girl oppo­site, read­ing ABITUR WISSEN Deutsche Lit­er­atur (viel Spass, Mädel!)
*the yelp as the buf­fet trol­ley runs over a dog’s paw; the blue of the trol­ley; the blue of the poor guy’s uni­form; the blue of the air as the dog swears
*the woman oppo­site, on the train to Zurich, falls asleep over the speech she’s prepar­ing (Liebe Kol­legin­nen -); her back­ground material’s enti­tled: Finn­land — Land der Emanzen, I see

BIFERTENHÜTTE

With a Swiss friend I climb to the Bifer­ten­hütte & cross fields of snow in July! We arrive in Brigels / Breil to see (my first) street­signs in Romansh. The long walk in & steep climb up — but there are but­ter­flies & flo­ra to reward us.
* the Bifer­ten­stock; its V; the slo-mo cloud drift­ing over that V
* the last of the snow, now lit, now not, by the lit­tle sun that gets through

TRANS SWISS TRAIL

Not con­tent with the Weg der Schweiz, we walk part of the Trans Swiss Trail: Days 29 & 30. From Lugano to Men­dri­sio. Not con­tent with that, we return the fol­low­ing week­end & walk Isone-Lugano & Men­dri­sio-Chi­as­so. From Chi­as­so, we cross the bor­der and head for Como.

LUGANO

* the thrill of the veg­e­ta­tion: the entire­ly wood­ed hills; the green of any mead­ows * the palmtrees; the cypress­es; the warmth of the evening air
* look­ing across at Monte Brè; the one build­ing atop it lit by the last of the sun * the stat­ue of one Gior­gio Wash­ing­ton; the thought of one Gior­gio Bush
* lizards scoot­ing off, scarper­ing into the under­growth, as we climb San Sal­va­tore * from there via Carona to Mor­cote, at the tip of the Cere­sio pensin­u­la: view after spec­tac­u­lar view onto the lago, the hills

MORCOTE

* the descent: look­ing onto San­ta Maria del Sas­so as we nego­ti­ate end­less steps; the palm trees & cypress­es lin­ing our path; the ter­ra­cot­ta roofs, the swim­ming pools
*  that evening, the bats under the Lauben, swoop­ing & swerv­ing as we stroll
*  the fer­ry across to Brusi­no, to approach the next morning’s ascent
* a grasshop­per with bril­liant green mark­ings set­tles in posi­tion on my boot; shares my per­spec­tive, as — feet up on the rail­ings — I look down on the place where we slept

MENDRISIO

* in the shade: a dozen or so old ladies, lined up in their patio chairs, the full length of the old folks’ home; the only sound a piti­ful lament — what sounds like a slowed­down ban­shee wail

TESSERETE

* the church tow­er: against the back­drop of moun­tains

 SAN CLEMENTE

*sur­re­al: 14 or 15 walk­ers — with 7 cud­chew­ing lla­mas in tow!

SAN BERNARDO

* the fur­nace of 6pm sun­shine & the view down onto the lake as we emerge after hours in the for­est

PARCO DELLE GOLE DELLA BREGGIA

* 80 mil­lion years of geo­log­i­cal his­to­ry: gorges, water­falls, amaz­ing rock for­ma­tions. teenagers pre­pared to tack­le what are nat­ur­al flumes

FURTHER FURTHER IMPRESSIONS

My first impres­sions (back in April) includ­ed a sec­tion ‘Slo­gans. Graf­fi­ti. Lan­guage’. Here’s what’s caught the eye (or ear) since:

Graf­fi­ti

* BIG BROTHER FUCK OFF
* ‘Teach­ers lie!’
* ‘Feminism’s our min­i­mum demand!’
* ‘War is ter­ror­ism with a big­ger bud­get!’ * WAS WÜRDE JESUS TUN? (scratched on a wall of the Bun­de­shaus)
* WIR BRAUCHEN KEINE (RELIGIÖSEN) FÜHRER (down by the riv­er as the Pope’s due)

Head­lines

* Welche Aus­län­der wollen wir? (FACTS)
* Kranker Papst begrüsst Jugend (at air­port)
* Die Angst der Schweiz­er Fans: Kroat­en machen aus uns Cepavci­ci (Blick)

Quo­ta­tions (over­heard)

* ‚Spezial­ist hat gsagt: Aspirin ist gut — für Herz und Dings‘
* in the queue for Zurich in Luton: ’What‘s 16% of 4.5 mil­lion??’ The younger of the two slips his cal­cu­la­tor out as his supe­ri­or con­tin­ues: ’Imag­ine: one cus­tomer is 44% of your busi­ness! I‘d want to know every­thing there is and play every angle’
* the Lit­er­aturtage, at the uri­nals: ‘aber das heisst nicht, das es moralisch richtig ist. Das ist immer das Prob­lem-‘

Quo­ta­tion (read)

* ‚alles, was nicht auto­bi­ographisch ist, ist ein Pla­giat‘ (Almod­ovar quot­ing Paco Umbral in the Son­ntagszeitung)

Virus Eng­lish

Back in March, I start­ed receiv­ing strange emails. For weeks on end, mes­sages arrived from folk I didn’t know. One famous writer sound­ed furi­ous with me. Anoth­er we called at her work­place. Turns out: such nui­sance emails are elec­tron­i­cal­ly gen­er­at­ed. I could believe it — not least when some­one called

Don­al McLaugh­lin wrote to Don­al McLaugh­lin, ask­ing ‘do you have an orgasm in the pic­ture?’ Write about it! var­i­ous folk urged. I might yet. For the moment, let’s ridicule the (not-)English.

Eng­lish for Spam-mail­ers.
* ‘do you have an orgasm in the pic­ture?’
(Cor­rect ver­sion: are you hav­ing an orgasm in the pic­ture?)
* ‘do you have sex in the pic­ture?’ (Cor­rect ver­sion: are you hav­ing sex in the pic­ture?)
* ‘is that yours?’ (mean­ing wife)
(Cor­rect ver­sion: might this pos­si­bly be your lady wife?)
* ‘are you the naked one?’
(Cor­rec­tion ver­sion: is that you with­out any clothes on?)
* ‘you can­not hide your­self’
(Cor­rect ver­sion: you can­not hide)

and final­ly: LITERARY MATTERS

*the joy of find­ing fel­low Scots in book­shops: A L Kennedy, Also bin ich froh; James Kel­man, Spät war es, so spät ; of see­ing reviews in major Swiss papers
* the plea­sure of read­ing Swiss writ­ers & work I didn’t know: e.g. Walther Kauer’s Spätholz; or Fran­co Supino’s Ciao amore, ciao, dip­ping into antholo­gies to get some sense of range
* Ander­sch: the excite­ment of dis­cov­er­ing that Gesam­melte Werke are due (10 vol­umes, Dio­genes, Novem­ber); being remind­ed even by the broschure of the man’s huge influ­ence on me
* in a rail­way sta­tion book­shop: Ander­sch, as described by Frisch in a let­ter to Uwe John­son; an Ander­sch ‘trans­formed’ (by ’76); with whom Frisch can con­verse with ease; in whose com­pa­ny laughter’s pos­si­ble; a devel­op­ment which ‘opens up the val­ley’ in which the two men lived
* Ander­sch: an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from his learn­ing from the past
* Dür­ren­matt: being gripped by ‘labyrinthis­che Erin­nerun­gen’ in Loetscher’s Lesen statt klet­tern
* Frisch: all these years lat­er, final­ly read­ing the Nachrufe

MERCI

Ich möchte mich bei den fol­gen­den Per­so­n­en sehr sehr her­zlich bedanken. Alle haben zum Erfolg meines Aufen­thaltes beige­tra­gen — und ich weiss ihre fre­undliche und grosszügige Art sehr zu schätzen:

Peter Schranz und seinen KolegIn­nen in der Abteilugn Kul­turelles (für alles, wirk­lich alles); Beat Ster­chi (für das Dichter-Essen u. die Ein­ladung zu lesen); Yeboaa Ofu­so (für u.a. Solothurn); Fran­co Supino (für Solothurn & Umge­bugn); Eng­lish Dept der Uni­ver­sität Bern (für die wun­der­bare Auf­nahme — and a dream audi­enece!); Mar­gret Pow­ell-Joss & Writ­ers’ Works Bern (fort he kind invi­ta­tion to read); Gym­na­si­um Lan­gen­thal (fürs Zuhören zur frühen Stunde!); Reg­u­la Fuchs (für ein tolles Gespräch für den BUND); Bar­bara Mosca (British Coun­cil, Bern) & John Cardie (Vis­itBri­tain, Zurich) — two gems pro­mot­ing Britain abroad (con­tact via www.britishcouncil.org/switzerland, bzw. www.visitbritain.com/chde, & see for your­self!); und last, not least: Stephan & Lukas & Gere von ENSUITE (danke für die Ein­ladung, eure fre­undliche Auf­nahme, sowie den Umgang mit den Tex­ten!)

Bild: Christoph Habich (München)
ensuite, August 2004