“I’ll take it, of course,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Me too,” Trudi said.
After that they went out for coffee in a bakery next door, and traded a bit of their stories. Trudi watched her curiously, as if trying to correlate her with the minister she had known in the office. Mary resisted an impulse to explain herself.
So she had a place. Her Swiss security team helped her to move, checking out her room as they did so. Priska and Sibilla were none too impressed. Thomas and Jurg thought it was funny.
Once settled in, she tried to form a new rhythm for her days. No more going to work; she didn’t want to intrude. She hoped they might ask her for help in some capacity or other, but in fact, now that she had seen how things had gone at the meeting in San Francisco, she realized that there was probably little help she could give. The authority of her position had been a big part of her effectiveness. That was a little chastening, but no doubt true. Now that she was a private citizen, it was an open question what she could do to help them, or anyone.
Well, she could always get her habits back. Up in the morning, tram down to Utoquai, walk to the schwimmbad, into the locker room, go to her locker, into her swimsuit, kissing the ghost of Tatiana, so beautiful, feeling the pain of her death and then encysting it again, chilling it off by stepping down the metal steps into the water, brr! and out into the lake. Thinking of someone gone kept them just that tiny bit alive, maybe. The Zurichsee, blue and calm, cool and silky. Offshore swimming freestyle, until she could look back and see the near shore properly; then a few circles of breaststroke, to see the whole city, now looking so low and far away. It was a big lake. If she felt strong enough, she could join the swim across the lake at the end of the summer, see what that felt like. It felt good to be out there. Of course this part of her habit set would only work from May or June through October. In the other months both water and air were just too cold. But as a summer thing, a beautiful way to start the day.
Then back up to her place, join the communal lunch in the co-op, talk to people, if they wanted to, but it was important not to impose English on them, and as the talk around her was usually in Schwyzerdüütch, guttural and sing-songy, she didn’t start conversations much. She liked being in the midst of their talk without being part of the conversation, it was soothing. She could feel her body, relaxed from her swim, slope down into her chair like a cat, satisfied just to be among people, unconcerned with the content of their chatter.
Later that year she began to go to the UN Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, which was headquartered in Geneva but had a small office in Zurich. Issuing UN passports to refugees, closing the camps, or rather opening them, emptying them, had made for a lot of work. Naturally the Swiss were intent to get it done, so when she presented herself at the Zurich office they were happy to give her things to do. In fact they wanted to use her fame to rally more volunteers, and she agreed to that, but only if she could do some basic work too. The local work also kept her carbon burn low. Because that too was a project she wanted to pursue.
Almost everyone in the co-op was part of the 2,000 Watt Society, so staying low-burn was not that difficult. The communal meals were vegetarian for the most part, and calculations were made for everything they did, so that she could keep a personal count easily enough, and always had people around to answer her questions. If she stayed in Zurich, if she traveled in Switzerland, in Europe, even around the world— they had all these rated for energy costs and also carbon burn, though the latter was getting lower and lower, especially if you stayed in Switzerland and used public transport. Together the occupants of the place owned one electric car, and there was a sign-up sheet for it, often almost empty, but not always. Most of the people living in the co-op actually traveled quite a bit in Europe, but factoring that in they still came to the end of the year having used well less than the amount of kilowatt hours the 2,000 Watt Society was calling for. The whole country was getting closer to hitting that usage goal; the world would then have a model to follow. Her housemates were sure other countries would then match them.
Mary was not so sure, but did not argue. She just lived the life. Quickly her habits clicked into place, day after day the same. She lived through the week trying to feel if she liked it, trying to figure out how to do more at the UNHCR, and so on. Day after day, week after week. Never had she been so immersed in Swissness. Before she had been an international person living an international life. Now she was a foreign-born Zurcher, living in Zurich.
Recognizing this change, she added a German class to her days. Turned out that would be easiest in the evenings. The city offered free classes, the people who signed up for them were from all over the world. She joined a class that met nearby on Monday nights. The language was wicked, the teacher kindly: Oskar Pfenninger, a white-haired man who had lived in Japan and Korea, and knew English among other languages, but would not speak any of them with his students, at
