I like the mix of caffeine and alcohol, Mary confessed.
He nodded. I like the warmth.
A group of men dressed as American cheerleaders burst into the big room and leaped up onto the tables. The band accompanying them was Swiss traditional, and yet with the cheerleaders on the tables they began to play marching songs from America, John Philip Sousa no doubt. On the Swiss instruments this didn’t work very well, nor did the men in drag manage to coordinate their can-can dancing with any precision, but everyone cheered them anyway; it was guggenmusik again, with guggendanse too, moustached bankers in pleated skirts and cashmere sweaters, arm in arm, high-kicking precariously overhead, it was too ludicrous not to cheer. Art shouted in Mary’s ear that all this was sign of a syndrome, that when an orderly culture like Switzerland finally let loose it was inevitably even wilder than more relaxed cultures. It’s a matter of venting, he said loudly so she could hear him. Lots of pressure through a small aperture kind of thing.
Like a French horn mouthpiece, Mary joked.
Yes exactly!
I’m like that myself, Mary shouted, she didn’t know why.
Art grinned. Me too!
Let’s get out of here before someone gets hurt! Mary said.
Sounds good!
They wandered on though the crowded streets. From the Tonhalle’s opened doors they could hear the city’s orchestra charging through the end of Brahms’s Second Symphony, trombones leading the way. Brahms’s own guggenmusik, the best of all. After that the orchestra was going to do the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth, it wasn’t a night to be subtle.
At midnight there would be fireworks over the lake.
How will people get home after the fireworks? Mary wondered. The trams stop at midnight no matter what day it is.
We can walk up to your place, right?
Yeah sure. I’d like that. Work off some energy.
And warm up a little.
So they made their way slowly through the streets and alleys toward the lake. A string quartet was screeching out something by Ligeti, or maybe it was Stockhausen, transfixing a crowd around them, except for the people singing along with it, or shouting abuse. A passing clown gave Mary and Art slide whistles, hers small and high, his bigger and lower, and Art made her stop by a pair of green and orange lions, assurgent affrontée, Art said, and in the colors of the Irish flag, so they could stand on one and become their own band, him leading her through “Raglan Road.” The Gaelic name for the tune, Art told her before they started, meant “Dawning of the Day.” Very apt, she replied, trying to focus on the music. Slide whistles were simple but hard, as she was now remembering from her childhood; every micrometer up or down the slide changed the tone considerably, it was impossible to hit the notes right, one had to adjust mid-note with minute adjustments, so it was guggenmusik again for sure. Possibly it was the same for trombones, which was why they liked to play out of tune on this night, being out of practice and thus making a virtue of necessity. But Art could carry a tune on his bigger whistle, and she did her best, and some people stopped to listen; Mary saw all of a sudden that they had stopped because no one on this night was to be allowed to play without an audience. This was so touching that Mary almost cried, she blew hard into her little whistle and squealed a looping descant that almost worked, guggenmusik indeed. Sloppy Irish song, the anthem of St. Patrick’s Day, on Ragland Road in November, I saw her first and knew. When they finished she took Art by the arm and dragged him off, saying, Come on we’ll be puncturing their eardrums with these things. He only laughed.
Many of the corner bands were also school reunions, people pulling instruments and jackets out of the closet, happy to be reimmersed in their mates and their old songs. The Swiss never gave up on music, Art shouted, everyone still learns to play something in school, and even if they stop doing it afterward, tonight’s the night. Mary nodded as she looked around; people were red-faced and ecstatic with the joy of playing music together. Playing: music was adults at play.
The sound spheres in this part of the city overlapped, but as long as that didn’t confuse the players, or even if it did, the listeners took it as part of the experience. Down near the lake it got more and more crowded, it was the place to be, and here they could always hear at least three tunes at once, often more. Cacophony, she shouted to Art.
Polyphony! he shouted back, grinning.
Mary nodded, smiling back at him.
Midnight was approaching. Ash Wednesday would soon be here, with its discipline and fasting. It was time to let loose. Fat Tuesday. Even more than New Year’s Eve, it was time to let loose: winter’s end was in sight, and though it wasn’t spring, it was the promise of spring. Spring would come. That knowledge was always the real festival night.
They reached the lake. The Zurichsee, her summer schwimmbad. Mary recalled the big conference in Kongresshall just down the shore, the clot of trends, the
