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?

Counting Coup

There are few things more frustrating than losing your carefully collected change in a malfunctioning vending machine. Within three days of students arriving at our school the drink machine on my hall was dead. The next closest one, up the stairwell, looked okay - lights on, tiny marquee scrolling an enticing message  regarding the temperature of the drinks - but a closer look revealed bottles stacked up on the floor of the dispenser. I knew from previously putting my money in too hastily, without properly vetting the machine, that those drinks would block the mechanism and I would be left without money or drink, raging impotently at my smeary reflection in the shatter proof glass.

The only drink dispenser in this building that I'm aware of still holding Diet Coke is geographically the most distant machine from my classroom. It is upstairs and catty-corner from my cell down here in the catacombs, up the clogged stairwell and through the teeming halls where students walk four abreast at bovine speed and stop dramatically to add emphasis to their conversation. Sometimes their bodies shift left and right like schools of fish sensing the presence of a predator, frustrating my attempts to slip by on their margins.They seem to know instinctively that I'm feinting to the left and move in coordination to block my path.

I had six minutes.

A young man was standing before the machine I wanted to use, adjusting his ipod with swipes of his thumb. Making a  prod out of my first three fingers and thumb, pinky finger curled in, I pushed him gently aside and began fishing for my coins. In Europe they have done away with single denomination paper currency, it's all coins. How much easier if we didn't have to feed limp paper dollars into these slots, if we were given coins that rolled smartly into the slot, making complex mechanical noises indicating the working of invisible machinery and the inevitable clunk of the drink rolling out. You feed those sweat-limp dollar bills into the slot and you keep thinking about middle age and it's poignant and melancholy.

Perhaps cash-point machines have affected me more than I suspect, but whenever my drink or candy bar clunks down into the dispenser, I always look furtively over my shoulder to make sure a thug isn't standing by to beat me down and run off with my beverage. Or something like that. There was no thug this time, the usual crowd swirled around me and past me - but then two young men caught my eye because they were very obviously and flagrantly wearing ball caps. Usually students have a sixth sense about this sort of thing - they feel your eyes on them and they pull the hat sheepishly from their heads and hold them low, their body language proclaiming surrender. These boys did not - they swept towards me at low speed, insouciant and full of attitude.

"Hats, boys," I said. Usually that's enough. They know the game is over and they doff their hats and nobody cares any further - but these boys didn't even meet my eye. They certainly didn't make any motions towards taking the hats off. My fight-or-flight gland began pumping adrenaline into my system. My face was suddenly hot and my pulse jumped in my throat. They were right in front of me now and clearly not looking at me, but they were aware of me, clearly, because their mouths and eyes were turned up in contemptuous sneers. I stood up holding my cold bottle of Diet Coke and the crowd of students in the lobby faded into the background - like a predator, I was locked on my targets. They took their hats off just before going into the cafeteria for their Free Breakfast, but without haste or humility.

I know how these things work out. I was already moving through the crowd, slotting left and right. I could see them through the window of the cafeteria door and one of them was already putting his hat back on his head - but he never got it there. I was right behind him, plucking it off and snatching it away.

"Mine, " I said, already turning away. "You can get it back at the end of the day." But the words came out strangled because my throat was beating with my pulse. I felt that hot mix of triumph and emotion - I wanted to strut triumphantly but my voice gave me away. My knees were stiff and I have a feeling I pogoed like someone with Aspergers.

It occurred to me as I disappeared into the crowd that these were freshman and didn't know my name. He would never know where his hat went - and perhaps he didn't care all that much. But I did, I cared. I carried his hat down to my room and displayed it like a scalp.