STORY
Walter Abish
THE IDEA OF SWITZERLAND
l.
A glorious German summer.
Oh, absolutely.
Easil y the mos t glori ous summer of the past thirty-three years.
T hirty- three years? Oh, I agree.
When my fa ther Ulri ch von H argenau was execu ted by a firin g
squad in 1944, his last words were: Long li ve Germany. At least, that's
what I have been told hy my famil y. He was kill ed in Jul y 1944. What
was the summer of 1944 like? Acti ve. Certa inl y, acti ve.
One runs little or no danger in speaking of the wea ther, or writin g
about the weather, or in repeating wha t others may have sa id on that
subj ect.
It
is safe to conclude tha t people di scussing the weather may be
doing so in order to avoid a more controvers ial subj ect, one that mi ght
irritate, annoy, or even anger someone, anyone, within earshot. I am
past avoiding ri sks. Just a few weeks after my return from Pari s I
narrowly avoided being kill ed on a deserted street by the dri ver of a
yellow Porsche.
It
was a beautiful summer's day, and I was thin king of
getting started on my new book, the one tha t is based on my stay in
Paris. I am con vinced that the driver of the Porsche had intended to kill
or
maim me for life. Yes, definit ely. I was going to be pu t out of acti on .
There's littl e ri sk in writing thi s. I did no t recogni ze the driver, whose
[ace I saw for onl y a split second.
It
was not an unattracti ve [ace.
It
was
a German face, like mine. A determined and somewha t obdura te face, a
[ace that Durer mi ght have taken a fancy to, and painted or sketched .
Consider yourself lucky, sa id a passerby, after hav ing helped me to my
feet. He took it for granted that I spoke German . He also, I assume,
took it for granted tha t it was all an accident, just as I took it for
granted that it was not.
You reall y ought to ta ke greater precautions, sa id my brother
Helmut, when I mentioned the incident. And why on ea rth did you
decide to return to Wurtenburg, in the fi rs t p lace?
