Nota bene: I have begun writing about my father. In the following months I will publish here little pieces that could be read on its own, of so I think. Here is one of them.
It is summer in Basel. My father is staying with few days, after a book seller convention in Frankfurt and after my recent divorce. I wondered how did he found his way through Europe. His Venezuelan walkabouts, when touring his books or the paintings of the painters he represented, had a quality of randomness and purpose mixed in ways that I never fully understood. So I wonder about that summer… did he hitchhike? did he rented a car? Buses? I do know that the last leg to Basel was by train. There is some light coming through the shards of memories, of conversations half had, or half remembered.
Como llegaste?
Sin problemas. Los trenes son una maravilla. Y gracias por recogerme en la estación.
Bueno, tampoco te iba a dejar perderte en esta ciudad no?
No, no me perdería.
No, no te perderías.
The conversation fizzles out. I would have liked to hear more about Frankfurt, and the book convention. C. would have liked to tell more too, about the writers he met, the people he talked to. But we didn’t know how to talk to each other. I wanted to really ask how was the travel, since I supposed that C. travelled as he has always travelled, at his rhythm, almost never too late but certainly never on time. I could see him stressing a german conductor that holds a train for him to board. He smiles at the absurd image. German conductors are not like my mother.
De que te ries?
de nada, de nada… es un hermoso día, no?
si, si que lo es.
We are in one of the few terraces of 98’s Basel. The mediterranization of north europe has not yet happened. This terrace is few benches at the side of a city park. We are sipping a couple of beers, waiting for a flammkuchen, the local delicacy -flat bread with cream, bacon and onions-
Out of the blue, L. pass by, shake hands, and sits. L. is one of my lab colleagues, doing research in some metaphysical aspects of the behaviour of water fleas. Nobody takes him seriously at the lab, but coming from a well off swiss family, everybody tolerates him, somehow. I do not quite know what to do with him. L joins, tries his english at C, who does not respond. So he switch to french with then panache of swiss people and their polyglot reality. C tries his high school french, and they smile to each other, perhaps even exchange some sentences.
Still C. can’t wait or stay quite for long, so he stands, and gets to plays football with the kids ten meters away. They puzzled, but always swiss and polite, get him in, and they play, somehow incongruently, and somehow as it should be.
Later:
De donde salió eso, papa? Futbol con un montón de chicos? en serio?
Bueno che. Pensé que me gustaría que tu amigo y tú me recordaran así, jugando futbol.
Ok.
Years would pass and I will turn this in my head. It is somehow C’s success, since he is remembered like this. It is somehow fitting. And yet. And yet I wonder today if I missed something.
Something.