When everyone jokes like the Swiss do about each other, when everyone in the world has their dignity, we will be all right. In the meantime, here I am, an old woman, my life mostly lived in refugee camps, out on the street outside our little restaurant, early sunset as always here, in the shade at 3 PM. It’s a shady town so deep in its hole, a calm town, a sleepy town. Whatever happened in the past, whatever happens after this, today is today. In a little while I’ll go back inside.
106
The day before Fasnacht, Mary got a message from Arthur Nolan. He was getting back to Zurich in time for it, could he still join her?
Yes, she messaged back. The rest of that day she thought about him, wondered what it meant that he was back. She was pleased he would be there. Had he cut short a tour?
She went out to see The Clipper of the Clouds descend onto the big new airship flughafen in Dübendorf. When he emerged from their little Jetway he saw her and smiled. A slight man.
She accompanied him to his co-op, looked around curiously as he put away his small bag of stuff. Frank’s last place. Who remembered him now? Seemed like it might already be down to her. Maybe his parents were still alive. If so they would be so sad. Horrible the way mental illness spread its pain around, cut people off. Her Frank, she had done her best; and he had been a friend anyway, she had loved him in her way. Nothing to be done.
They trammed up to her place, and he laughed to see it. You took a place sized for me, he joked as he walked down the length it, farther to the left than she could have gone.
They dined in a nearby trattoria. Art told her where he had gone on his last trip: central Asia, mostly, circling the lower slopes of the various mountain ranges, where animals were doing very well. The Caucasus, the Pamirs, the Karakorums, the Altai, the Hindu Kush, the Himalaya. There was a Lenin Peak in the Pamirs, and Tajikistan was almost all a wilderness reserve, imperfect but real. They had seen a snow leopard, and black-faced langurs, and many other creatures. People had inhabited these mountain ranges for thousands of years, but the nature of the land meant it was a bit like Switzerland, only more so; some terrain was just too wild to make much of. His friends Tobias and Jesse were helping to create what they called the Anthropocene wilderness, a composite thing that was like the wilder wing of the Half Earth movement, and many of the governments there were cooperating in creating a vast integrated park and corridor system that included and supported the local indigenous human populations, as park keepers or simply local residents, part of the land doing their thing.
It sounds great, Mary said. I’d like to go on that one.
Would you? Because I’m going to do it again.
If I go, I’d like to spend more time on the ground, she confessed. Just stay in one place for a while, see what happens.
We could drop you off and pick you up again.
That sounds good.
After dinner he gave her another hug and headed off to the tram.
The next day was Fasnacht in Zurich. Shrove Tuesday, falling on February 14 of this year. Art came up to her place to meet her, and when she opened the door she found him wearing a silver lamé jumpsuit with a plastic red hat. You’re going to freeze in that, she warned him. She herself had on a long black cape and carried a Venetian domino she could put on when she wanted, a beautiful cat face, which restricted her vision too much to keep on all the time, but looked nice. She put it on to show him and he said, Oh I love cats.
I know you do, she said. Do you want to borrow a coat?
I’ll be all right.
They went out into the darkness of early evening. As so often, Fasnacht was going to be cold. On this night the air was particularly chill, temperature already well below freezing. This had a peculiar effect on the festival, because many Zurchers were like Art, dressed in costumes not really appropriate for such cold. But the Swiss were pretty cold-hardened people, and apparently Art was too. As they walked down Rämistrasse arm in arm, they saw people in grass skirts, Hawaiian short-sleeved shirts, bikinis and the like, also fur coats, band uniforms, national costumes from many nations, and every possible type of kitschy cantonal costume. And almost every person out there promenading carried a musical instrument. Fasnacht in Zurich was a musical evening. On every street corner, one or more musical groups were playing for small crowds surrounding them. For a while Mary and Art listened to a steel drum band banging away metallically at some spritely tune from Trinidad. Right behind the band, a fountain was gushing into the air, its water plashing down in time to the music. Bulbous ice knuckles made a thick white verge around the edges of the fountain’s basin.
Lower on Rämistrasse they strolled slowly by the luxury shops, looking at window displays. The shop that sold Alpine curiosities held them for a long time: polished facets of stone, geodes, burls and cubes of wood, all enlivened by a small menagerie of stuffed Alpine animals. Also fur pelts, stretched out like artworks against the walls to right and left. Art stuck his nose to the glass to see better.
What are they? Mary asked.
I’m not sure. I mean the stuffed
