Childhood: Switzerland
In 1962, when I was two, our family packed numerous heavy steamer trunks studded with metal rivets and our name painted on the sides, and sailed from California to Europe. I retain only one vivid memory from that ocean voyage.
I awoke at night in our cabin and saw my brother David standing in the middle of the floor. We were alone; our parents were enjoying the evening above board. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see a large lump and wide dark spot on the carpet beneath David. The puddle of urine was spreading out gradually. I felt anxious and confused. David seemed worried as well. I got out of my bunk and made my way to the cabin door, stepping carefully over the cabin’s high brass threshold, and emerging into the warmly lit corridor. I wandered up and down hoping to find our parents. A very tall gentleman in uniform, the purser I assume now, spoke kindly to me and accompanied me back to our cabin. A flurry of activity ensued and brought our parents and staff below decks and the mess on the carpet disappeared.
I do not know where the ship landed, or how we worked our way inland to Switzerland. We settled into a small modern concrete apartment building in Zürich with large rectangular windows and a postage stamp sized garden. David slept on the top bunk of our bed and I would gleefully push my feet up against the underside of his mattress, tormenting him often. Once I was awoken in the middle of the night by a loud thud. David had rolled out of bed and landed on the floor next to me. Happily, unscathed.
In the garden there was a large hazelnut tree that invited climbing. When the hazelnuts were small and unripe, David and I pulled our selves up into the tree branches and crouched in the crooks, half hidden by the new spring leaves, picking the nuts. Each hazelnut was a small work of art with a smooth tapered shell and small frock-like green cap. They were still green and soft, the shells not yet hardened. We could bite them open and eat the crunchy meat, a pleasing fresh taste we knew would later give us stomach aches.
I had a squeaky red tricycle that I adored. I rode it on the concrete walkways near our apartment. The pebbles embedded in the concrete made the ride incredibly bumpy and exciting. Sometimes I stood on the back ledge of the tricycle, leaning over to reach the handlebars and pushing off with one foot, trying to gain enough speed to coast. When I got up some speed, I felt as fast as the wind, wild and free.
Our apartment was sandwiched between some gracious old stand-alone homes. In one of these homes lived Markie and his family, consisting of his mother with curled hair and an old-fashioned ruffled apron over her dress, an older brother named Christopher, presumably a father whom I do not remember at all, and their parakeet who inhabited a large bell-shaped cage that was often covered with a cloth. Their home seemed always to be in dusky light, the interior shades of grey, like an old black and white photograph. They were British, and so I could speak to Markie in English, which was so much easier than communicating in the Swiss German I was still learning.
Markie was sort of stubby in appearance, with light brown hair in a bowl-cut, and he always wore overall shorts (at least that is how I picture him). We ran back and forth between our apartment and his house, and rode tricycles and climbed the hazelnut tree together. I was utterly taken with him. I think I was in love. I can’t remember any of our conversations, but I recall how often I repeated his name and how strong a tug I felt toward him.
On Sundays, when the city slept, or on holidays when all the stores were closed, David and I occasionally walked with our father to the old train station, a short distance down the busy street. It was cavernous and cold, but the small kiosk was always brightly lit and open for business. The purpose of these visits was always the same: to purchase a candy bar. The candy bars were quite different from the sculpted chocolate, truffles, or chocolate gift boxes bought for special occasions at the Chocolatier. Candy bars seemed much more exciting. The wrappers had bright metallic colors and sported alluring graphics: azure blue with stars on the Milky Ways and handsome deep black and red printing on the Mars bars. The expectation of unwrapping the bar and taking that first bite nearly undid us.
My father and I regularly walked together by the shore of Lake Zürich. In winter it was biting cold and we would buy a newspaper cone of roasted chestnuts from a man with a cart and coal brazier. The chestnut purveyor wore gloves with cutoff fingers, a cap, and a heavy dark tweedy jacket. He would slice x’s on the bellies of the chestnuts and turn them on the coals with his tongs. We waited impatiently, feeling the cold weasel its way in between our layered clothing, anticipating the hot chestnuts. My father would hand me a roasted chestnut and I took off a mitten to peel it, trying to grab the edge of the x that had opened like a petal with the heat. Sometimes the charred x’s were sharp and cut my fingers or the hulls would stick to the meat and leave a little flake of brown parchment-like skin embedded in the chestnut’s wrinkles. I would gobble the hot chestnut, burning my fingers and my tongue, but the warmth and creamy slightly bitter taste were so welcome it didn’t matter; discomfort and pleasure all rolled into one.
On one of my walks by the lake, I asked my father what age he most wanted me to be. He pondered the question, then responded “8 years old”, an age that seemed light years away from the present. He explained that it was hard for adults to relate to very young children and that I would be able to have more grown-up conversations with him when I was older. I nodded, crestfallen. It seemed an eternity until I would reach that magical age and wished there was a way to get there sooner.
In spring, the horse chestnut trees by the lake showed off their candelabra-like pink blossoms. Weeks later they dropped their heavy spiny sea-creature like green fruits and David and I would run around scooping them up, peeling off the jackets to reveal the rich brown shiny chestnuts inside. We wished we could eat them. Some of the fruits would have split open from the fall, exposing the chestnuts nestled inside; others remained hidden and we peeled them open in great anticipation. We admired each other’s finds, the biggest ones in particular, and would laugh at those that were oddly shaped. We put the best ones in our pockets. I would stroke them, admiring their smoothness, and kept them on a shelf in my room until they became dry and wizened.
By the time David was five and I was four, we regularly headed off to Belevoir Park, just the two of us. It was about a ten-minute walk, along the main street. The park was immense, descending to lake level with a view of snow-mountains on a clear day. There were fountains and sculptures, rolling lawns, flower beds, play structures, a restaurant, and a stately dark brown mansion with ornate plasterwork that looked to me like a small palace. My grandparents celebrated their wedding anniversary in that palace and my beloved babysitter was married there.
We almost always started on the swings, sitting and pumping, standing and pumping, laying down on our stomachs and pushing off, trying to get as high as we could. We ran from the swings to the fountains, past the bronze sculpted flamingos dipping their beaks into the pond, and balanced on the grey concrete ledges of the pool where you could launch your toy sailboat. We watched the fountains as they shot water high into the air, bounced low, pulsed, and sent whirligigs skyward. When it got dark, the fountains lit up with colors. We were entranced, mouths slightly agape, waiting until the full cycle of patterns had come and gone, not wanting to miss a second.
On our way home, we went to the candy store to spend our few pennies of weekly pocket money. I loved the way the coins felt in my pocket: exciting and full of promise. The store was small and crammed with candy of all kinds, much of it loose in bins. It was so difficult to choose how to spend our money. We unwrapped our purchases as we exited the store and began chewing and sucking and smacking our lips all the way home, arriving grubby from the park and totally sated.
The sugar consumption was not friendly to my teeth. Our nightly tooth brushing was perfunctory and floss had not yet been invented. There were few regular check-ups, rare x-rays, no fluoride treatments, and no sealants to prevent cavities on molars. Our dentist, Yossi, was a family friend, a burly balding Israeli with tufts of dark curly hair over his ears, a short bristly moustache, chubby hands, and an assertive barking voice. His office was attached to the family home and my parents enjoyed the visits, relaxing with Yossi’s wife in the living room, talking and laughing easily. Meanwhile, Yossi would change into a white smock, tight across his potbelly, and David or I would climb into the very large dentist’s chair that leaned us back uncomfortably. Yossi would peer into our reticently open mouths, prodding with a cold metal pick and mumbling to himself. He filled a lot of cavities on both of us with no explanation or preparation and no anesthetic. He was heavy-handed, matter of fact, and commanding, loudly telling us to turn our heads this way or that and to stay still. Any protestation or sign of discomfort or pain on our part was met with disgruntlement or stony silence. I can recall vividly the high whine of the drill, the bright light, and the inevitable needle-sharp pain as he bore into one of my teeth. The foreign smells assaulted my nose, antiseptic and chemical.
Afterwards, Yossi would remove his smock and join my parents and his wife while I, feeling battered, would stumble into the living room. Our parents always instructed us to go play with Yossi’s children, a girl and a boy a year or two older than us. We hardly knew them and they invariably gave off a pained and bored vibe, said little or nothing, and busied themselves while studiously ignoring us. David and I kept our distance, warily circling the room, trying to find something to do. The visits seemed interminable and I felt like a caged animal. Our parents appeared unaware of the pain we were enduring, first at the hands of Yossi and then of his offspring.
When I was four I began Kindergarten. For a year, I had jealously regarded David depart for school each weekday with his horsehide school satchel, and return home in the afternoon with his sewing, knitting, weaving, and drawing, and his wooden recorder in its soft flannel sleeve. Thus, I was thrilled to enter the big-kid world and start school myself. In the morning, David and I crossed the busy street and waited on the median for the streetcar. We climbed the few steep stairs, paid our fares, and found a spot on the slatted wooden benches that curved invitingly. I swung my legs high above the floorboards as we jostled and squeaked along. David walked me from our trolley stop up a steep hill to my school, stopping en route at the bakery. We proffered our pennies in exchange for a soft roll to eat before David dropped me off and walked on to his school.
My Kindergarten was a cottage set in a garden overseen by Frau Dokti Humm who nurtured us like a mother hen. She was short and stocky, her greying hair in a bun, a sweater over a sensible dark blouse and skirt, sporting thick stockings and solid shoes. When I began Kindergarten, I could not understand a word the other children said, the Swiss German a strange-sounding garbled singsong. I remember my first day, feeling terribly shy, swinging on my own in the garden, observing the other pupils. In a few short weeks, I was chattering away, at home with the student nicknames, like Rübli (carrot) for the redheaded boy, and the daily routine.
In the late mornings we donned our soft slipper-like cloth shoes and sang and danced (Eurythmy). After lunch and a nap, Frau Dokti would gather us around while she darned her heavy stockings and told us stories. When she finished darning, she would carve apples, producing a house for elves or an Amanita mushroom with its white-spotted cap. Later, we would trundle after Frau Dokti to the shed where we reached into the deep bins and selected a few pieces of stale bread to feed the rabbits. The stale bread was varied: brown bread, white bread, seeded bread, rye bread, heavy crusts, and broken slices. We couldn’t help chewing on a few pieces of “Hasibrot” (rabbit bread) ourselves; it was exceptionally delicious.
In spring we each harvested our personal patch of muddy garden, pulling out the radishes by their prickly leaves and eating several bright reddish-pink orbs before we had the chance to wash them off and bring them home. Decorated with mud, I was bursting with pride when I proffered my radishes to my parents. I was in love with the whole Kindergarten enterprise.
Kitta, who babysat us over several years, was our great love. We would sit at our long table by a bank of windows while Kitta readied the brushes, paint, paper, and cups of water. She patiently showed us how to dip the brush in water, swirl it around the lozenge of dry paint, and apply the color to the paper. Kitta had sparkling eyes, silky blond hair, a mischievous smile, and a voice like wind chimes. Her laughter was infectious. Once, as we were painting, she dipped her paintbrush into her cup of coffee instead of the water. We howled with laughter, replaying her move over and over.
The weather in Zurich was often overcast and my father, a restless soul, would gather up the family and head to higher ground. In the mountains the skies were clearer and the sun shone more brightly. We hiked amidst the patient milk cows grazing in the meadows with their luxuriously long eyelashes, their giant bells clanging sonorously. I picked wildflower bouquets and, at higher elevations we searched for Edelweiss and admired the brilliant blue Entzian (Gentians) sprouting between the rocks. My mother always packed the wicker hamper with a picnic and my father took photos of me and David grinning broadly in landscapes that were as idyllic as the postcards we purchased in the nearby towns and hamlets.
I grew incredibly fast and my joints ached within a half hour of starting on our family hikes. My mother, impatient to make tracks and frustrated by my complaints, would hike ahead with David. Although David also grew quickly, his knees and ankles cooperated. My father reassured me in his deep resonant voice and took my hand in his large soft paw, or put me on his shoulders. Inevitably, there would be a restaurant at some magnificent vista point or a mountaintop café where we would meet up with my mother and brother and indulge in a hot cocoa or a fizzy apple juice. While we waited for our order, my father would melt a sugar cube in a spoonful of his coffee and feed it to us, a divine treat that temporarily obliterated all my pain.
After four years in Switzerland, we again set sail, returning to the U.S. aboard the New Amsterdam. The ship was glamorous. All of the brass fittings gleamed, the decks were a beautiful heavily lacquered blonde wood, and the staff were terribly polite and dressed in crisp uniforms. We donned our nice clothes in the evenings and enjoyed elegant dinners served at tables set with white linen tablecloths and heavy silverware. Frequently, events were held for the children onboard. It was terribly exciting to try eating the apples strung from the ceiling or dance to a small combo playing bright brassy tunes. Much of the day we ran circles on the decks with a few kids our age, chasing each other breathlessly and laughing hysterically, free from adult supervision. The older, and in my eyes incredibly suave, kids were more restrained. I became hopelessly infatuated with three boys. I haven’t a clue now what ages they were, but it is likely they were only a handful of years older than I was at the time. They paid little to no attention to our gaggle, but I thrilled at the slightest glance, felt an almost electric jolt of pleasure when they were nearby, and spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming about them. The impression they made lasted a long time… At least a year after we were stateside I cut out a small circle of paper and stuck it reverently in an antique locket, behind where a photo was intended to go. It said, “I love 3 boys on a ship.”
During the last few hours of our ocean voyage, as the ship sailed into New York harbor, my father instructed us to meet on the top deck at a specific time. As usual, we were running circles on the lower levels and enjoying ourselves immensely. We had little sense of time, but at some point remembered our instructions. When we reached my father he was livid, his deep voice rebuking us, telling us we had missed the most important sight. We were chastened but mystified as our father pointed in the far distance, where a statue was fast receding from view. We had missed Lady Liberty welcoming us back to the States.
