Existential Angst in a Swiss Hotel

When we flew into Switzerland there was rain everywhere and I thought, naturally enough, of A Farewell to Arms, that novel that I’ve taught generations of Honors Sophomores to mixed reactions. Switzerland is where Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley flee, hoping to find peace, rest and succor from the war in the mountains. Their idyll is cut short by rain and death.

I do not fly easily and so rain and death were on my mind as we slalomed through the mountains. My youngest son, watching the wing apparatus jounce and shiver, turned to me and said very simply, “Dad, I’m scared.” These are the parenting moments you always wonder about. I turned my pale face to his and smiled blandly. Forcing my hand to relax its white knuckled grip on the seat in front of me, I patted his shoulder. Everything will be all right, I told him; and by saying it I made it so – for both of us.

I’ve been to Switzerland two other times, and each time the mountains presented a different mood based on the weather and light. This year the clouds drifted over the peaks like torn bridal trains, the rain absorbing the light. There were rich medieval possibilities everywhere.

Just last week at soccer practice I shared the narrow shade offered by a field-light stanchion with a woman who had, coincidentally, just come back from Switzerland. Standing there together in the thick humidity and searing heat of a Georgia summer, we marveled at the possibility that we might have crossed each other’s paths while dashing through the rain to the Chapel Bridge through dense crowds of Chinese tourists. But though we were in the same location, at the same time, we were never in the same place. Her husband is an anesthesiologist and their hotel was commensurate with his greater earning power, there on the shores of the Lake itself.

As a teacher I’m at the whims of a Free Market that values anesthesiologists somewhat higher and so our hotel was somewhat less luxurious, but not without its own charms. As a Poor Wayfarer I’m more drawn to the rustic and quaint, anyway.

Our hotel was outside of Lucerne, in a far more bucolic setting. It was one of those four star places that cater to student travelers – with elevators the size of closets and iron keys attached to enormous fobs that you present back to the desk clerk each time you go out. Our wooden stairs creaked as we climbed them and the ceilings of the corridors were high and full of shadows. Previous guests had left books in bins at the stair landings and I briefly considered borrowing a French graphic novel about the battle of Gettysburg. Motion operated footlights came on as we pulled our luggage down the long corridor, and then faded as we passed on.

The room itself was clean and spare and utterly Swiss and, after stowing our luggage in the corner, I threw open the windows and went about the process of logging in to the hotel Wi-Fi so I could check my emails. For all its charm and sophistication the one thing Europe can't yet offer the traveler is consistently high speed Wi-Fi. Downloading emails can make you feel nostalgic for the dial-up of yesteryear when you clicked "download" and then walked away from the computer the way one walks away from a washing machine after loading it.

Behind me my youngest son was reading in his bed, the down comforter pulled up to his chin, his headsets on – the very picture of “cozy”.

Outside the window rain was sifting down again and the air was cool enough - even in July - to be sweetened with wood-smoke.  We were high enough in the Alps to be up in the weather, if that makes sense: the clouds were all around us, obscuring the peaks that surrounded our valley. I could hear but could not see the cattle as they made their way down the mountains across the valley, coming down from their afternoon pastures in the rain. They wore bells that tolled a sweet, mellow tone that inexplicably captured the very essence of nostalgia. To this day I cannot hear Swiss cowbells without mourning something lost that I can not define. I own one – it hangs on my backyard gate and every time someone goes in or out I feel an ache in my heart.

Despite the rain, birds were calling their evening songs.

The email finally down-loaded, an introduction to our faculty of our newest assistant principal - Ms. S. Twenty years ago she and I attended a new employee informational meeting at the high school, mandatory for new faculty and staff. We were new teachers squeezed out of a collapsing school system nearby, our eyes fiery with enthusiasm. True Believers! What a span of time twenty years represents! My oldest son, currently on a different of floor of this very hotel, was not yet born - and now he was within a short month of leaving for college.

Ravens croaked to each other like co-conspirators as the rain outside doubled in intensity, drumming the roof. I thought about Ms. S. and that day twenty years ago. It occurred to me that of all the people I had begun teaching with all those years ago, I was the last one left still in the classroom. Some had quit, others had gone into administration. The only one of that original group that was still in front of a classroom was me. There’s a sense of inchoate dread one feels when one is The Last One Left – am I a survivor? Or am I the slow member of the herd?