by John Berger
I saw a bend in the line ahead. I wasn’t the one who was driving at this moment, but I was looking up at the configuration of the lines of bricks at the top of the cutting wall, high above us, and I could tell by the way that they were converging that round this next bend the cutting would open out and that we would be flooded with light. It was now no longer night. The fact that I could read this in the walls gave me a great sense of satisfaction (although perhaps partly my pleasure came from my anticipation of that opening out and the bright light which was awaiting us round the bend). The train was now going fast. As we turned the bend, there, as I had foreseen, the cutting walls fell away. We were high up, high up, above a whole landscape and a whole bay, a bay of the sea—an idyllic landscape, blue sea, hills, gentle beaches, woods. All laid out below us. But at the same moment as we turned the bend we saw that the lines of the railway descended at an extremely sharp angle, like the lines of a switchback train; and not only this, we saw that they led, several hundred feet below, straight into the sea.
This constituted one of those moments of imminent resolution of which I spoke. The end of the line, like this, leading into the sea, explained the strange nature of all our previous journey and the reason why the route had been abandoned. The view beneath us was of an ineffable beauty, which made even more sense of the whole journey than the white bird had. The white bird in that small circle of light. And now the whole landscape and seascape beneath us. There was no question of stopping the train. For an instant we were balanced at the top of the steep descent, and then we began to descend, fast and dangerously. This had been foreseeable from the very instant that we had turned the corner but had in no way diminished my pleasure. And although there was a grave inevitability about the end we were approaching, it seemed neither tragic nor pathetic. To the rest of us I shouted out: Swim! as we hurtled down. The train disappeared deep under the water. I was not drowned. But some of us (belonging to my first person plural) were.
‘The progress of today in every field is nothing else but the absurd of yesterday.’
Luigi Barzini, Carriere della Sera 1910
Today I wish to write about an event which took place in September 1910.
The Aero Club of Milan had offered a prize of £3,000 to the first man to fly over the Alps. Geo Chavez, twenty-four years old, a Peruvian already famous in the aviation world, has been waiting for several days in Brig, beneath the Simplon Pass in Switzerland, for the weather to improve. Several other competitors are also waiting.
Most of the pilots are of the opinion that it is already too late to attempt the flight this year; June or July would be more suitable months. During the last five days they have made trial flights, climbing to over a thousand metres but then returning to the small field called Siberia where canvas hangars have been erected. All of them have complained of the treachery of the air currents which tug at their planes as soon as they approach the entrance to the massif: all except Weymann, the American, who wears a pince-nez and says about everything that you have to get used to it.
A few weeks ago, Chavez broke the world altitude record. Across the Alps there is no need to climb as high as he did then. Yet the mountains appear to constitute an absolute frontier. The buildings of Brig crouch low on the ground before them. The mountains induce the idea that there is nothing beyond them. To believe that Italy and Domodossola are on the far side is an act of faith, supported, it is true, by the traffic on the Simplon road and by history, for it was near here that Hannibal and Napoleon crossed the Alps with their armies, but denied by the five senses within whose pentagon each man is alone.
I quote from the report by Luigi Barzini, a well-known Italian journalist, in the Corriere della Sera of 23 September 1910: ‘This morning around ten o’clock the news from the Simplon was not at all encouraging. On the north side the weather was calm. But a wind was blowing through the valley at the bottom of which, like white stones after a landslide, were the small snow-covered houses of the village. On the Monscera and in Italy the weather was splendid.
‘ “I would like very much to go,” Chavez told me sadly, “I will never find better weather conditions on the Italian side.”
‘He kept on telephoning his friend Christiaens who was making meteorological observations on the Kulm.
‘All of a sudden Chavez says: “I must go and see. A car.” We took a racing car belonging to a young American and sped up the mountain, deafened by the roar of the engine, and hanging on to our very seats so as not to be thrown out at the corners.
‘A very strong east wind was blowing against the very highest peaks, at perhaps 3,000 metres, dragging clouds along with it. But lower down the weather was perfect. The trees were still. The smoke of fires lit by tourists in the woods was rising slowly into the sky. It was not too cold, although above 1,300 metres everything was white with snow …
‘Chavez looked around him, studying the air. A continuous working of his jaw showed that he was grinding his teeth. Nothing else showed that he was preoccupied or anxious. He had not shaved, he had got up quickly in the morning and he had just forgotten this detail of his toilet in the dawn of the victorious day.
‘He spoke little. He asked the time. “I must go,” he exclaimed. And after a few minutes he added, “If I can’t get through, I’ll land at the Simplon Hospice, I’ll certainly be able to get as far as that.”
‘Christiaens climbed into the car and exchanged a few words with the aviator—serious words.
‘ “The wind?” asked Chavez.
‘ “There’s still wind,” Christiaens replied.
‘ “No chance of going through?”
‘ “No.”
‘ “What’s the wind speed?”
‘ “Fifteen and increasing.”
‘In the valley of Krummbach the pines were moving and the grass was bent low under the icy wind.
‘ “It’s very strong!” said Chavez, “it’s making the pines sway and it takes some wind to do that …”
‘A car was coming up from the valley. It was Paulhan, who had gone ahead to explore. We stopped and Paulhan told us that towards the Monscera the weather was absolutely calm. The two aviators became engrossed studying the likely air currents.
‘The wind was blowing from the Fletschhorn, which was covered in snow.
‘ “It’s not very likely to change,” said Paulhan, “and the currents will make whirlpools. If you get caught in one of them—.” An eloquent gesture concluded the sentence.
‘Chavez and Paulhan climbed a few hundred metres towards the Hubschhorn and then watched from there for a few minutes. The wind seemed less strong. Coming down Chavez was torn by doubts.
‘ “Wait till tomorrow,” said Christiaens.
‘ “I’m going now,” Chavez said suddenly, “let’s go quickly to Brig.” ’
He must dress accordingly. There are no rules save his own. But these he has repeatedly checked with himself, so that what he is doing does not seem to him to be for the first time. Nothing will seem original from now on—except his luck over which he has no control, and his welcome when he lands in Milan. He puts on a tight-fitting suit of thick Chinese paper—the same kind of paper which the great Chinese calligraphers used to write on. The sight of his own legs as he dresses encourages him. He has been a champion runner. Before a race he has many times felt the weakness in his legs which he feels now and which is not a weakness but is a waiting for the beginning. On an impulse he asks one of the mechanics in the hangar to lend him a pencil and he writes on the paper on both legs: Vive Chavez! Over the paper suit he puts on water-proof working overalls, specially quilted with cotton, then some sweaters, and on top a leather shooting jacket.
When everything was checked and the cloths wrapped round the pipes against the cold, Chavez prepared to take off. He glanced at the mountains; against the blue sky they looked nearer than they had ever done during the last week. He glanced across at the spectators along the side of the field: he was determined not to come back and land
once more in Siberia.
There’s a priest over there, he said to one of his mechanics, all we need now is a gravedigger.
He waved to his friends. He is enclosed, made secure, by the familiar deafening roar of the engine, which after a run of sixty yards lifts him into the air.
The spectators see the plane take off and gain height easily and well. The engine sounds regular. They look up at the plane with its elegant curved wings against the sky and in different ways they all think of it as a bird. But when Chavez heads for the entrance to the massif, they lose sight of the plane. It totally disappears from view.
He has crashed! someone shouts.
He has gone into the hillside where the pine-trees are.
He can’t have done, he was higher than that.
You can’t tell.
Look! Look! There he is.
Where?
About half-way up the forest!
And they find the plane again. But it is no longer like a bird in the sky. Against the greyish pine-trees and then against the grey shale face, it is like a moth, but a moth that can no longer fly and is crawling slowly across the surface of a grey window.
Chavez is fighting the wind that is already blowing him too far to the east, but he is also fighting a sense of unreality. He has never flown like this: the more he gains height, the lower he is: it is the mountain that is gaining height.
When it was clear that this was not another trial flight, the news was telephoned to the cities of Europe. In Milan a white flag was run up on the roof of the Duomo. This was the agreed sign that an aviator had taken off from Brig to cross the Alps with the intention of coming to Milan. As soon as he had crossed the mountains, a red flag would go up. In the piazza round the cathedral a crowd began to collect. Whilst waiting for the red flag to be hoisted, they chatted and often glanced up at the sky. In spirit and formation this crowd was very different from the crowd which had assembled in the piazza in May 1898.
The Hotel Victoria in Brig is full of journalists, flying enthusiasts and friends of the competitors. Among them is the principal protagonist of this book, whom I will now call, for the sake of convenience, G.
He is twenty-three years old and a friend of Charles Weymann, the American pilot with the pince-nez.
A few months previously he flew as Weymann’s passenger in one of the first night flights ever made. Weymann had been impressed by his calm and his good navigating sense. Unexpectedly clouds had obscured the moon and the sudden total darkness had compelled them to make a forced landing in unknown hilly country. It was an experience, Weymann was reported by the press as saying, that I would rather not have again. But it would have been a damn sight worse if I’d been alone.
Weymann found it hard to understand why his young friend, who was an enthusiast for flying, didn’t want to learn to fly himself. I’m willing to teach you, he said, and they’re lining up for that privilege in Pau and New York.
G. was recognizably the same person as the boy of fifteen. Beatrice would have recognized him at once. But his complexion was sallower and his face thinner, which made his nose appear larger than before. When he smiled the gaps of his missing teeth still made him leer.
It would be different, said Weymann in his slow American voice, if you had no money. You need money to fly. But I guess you have plenty.
I have too many other interests.
What are your other interests? What do you do?
He smiled at Weymann ironically, for he knew that Weymann was a man incapable of discovering the truth even when it was placed in front of him. I travel, he said.
The pince-nez magnified the simplicity of the American’s blue eyes. Exactly, he said, so you could fly. You have the attitude and the determination, the two things needed.
Weymann counted the two on the fingers of his hand.
I am too impatient. I wouldn’t last a month by myself.
You need to be quick, said Weymann. He was small, dapper and wore a bow tie.
My mind would be on other things.
Such as? asked Weymann, his eyes open wide.
The maid who serves us breakfast.
She’s sweet, conceded Weymann, his eyes blinking.
She fills my life.
But we’ve only been here a day.
She’s engaged to a clerk who works in the Town Hall and they are going to get married at Christmas.
You’re joking, said Weymann, beginning to suspect that he was being teased.
No, said G.
Weymann spoke like a patient schoolmaster: We are making history. We are pioneers, we are the first to open a new chapter. I guess we are a little mad. But how can you compare what we are doing—the early birds like us—with a twenty-four-hour infatuation with a little Swiss waitress whom you haven’t even spoken to. How can you put one before the other like that. You’re not a schoolboy. You’re not being serious. I just can’t believe you. He grasped his companion’s arm. Tell me what your worry is.
Whether she got my note before lunch.
Weymann burst out laughing. He had decided that since this ugly, intense young man (whom he liked because of what they had experienced together) did not want to talk truthfully about himself, it was better to stop talking. His laugh was a way of withdrawing from the conversation. Poker tonight? he asked.
The next day Weymann said to another friend: He’s so damned secretive. I don’t know what he is up to. I can’t make out whether he’s interested in the money or the adventure—or both, like us, I guess.
The news that Chavez has taken off with the determination not to turn back arrives at the Hotel Victoria during lunch. Everybody rushes out on to the terrace to see the plane as it flies down the Rhone valley before turning south towards the massif. They shout and wave.
After a week of false rumours and disappointments everyone was reconciled to the idea that the Alps would not be crossed by an aeroplane this year. Why does it not occur to them that this attempt may end in disappointment too, that Chavez when he approaches the Saltina gorge may find the currents too strong and be forced to turn back? Perhaps because it is the last chance: tomorrow everyone is leaving: and so they seize upon the last hope of an event. Perhaps also because they have seen Chavez, they have watched him for a week and they have read his face. This is not to talk of his fate but of his character.
Chavez sees the crowd on the terrace below but does not wave back to them. He feels superstitious. The next time he waves must be on arrival.
During the last week many peasants have come to Brig in the hope of seeing a flying machine disappear over the mountains. And now the hotel staff, the waiters, the maids, the cook, the dishwashers, the gardener and his wife, appear to be as excited as the guests. There are many elements in such excitement—curiosity, the uncertainty of the outcome, a vicarious sense of achievement because they have all been near to the man they can see in the sky; but what may be deepest is the satisfaction of witnessing, and so of taking part in, what they believe will be an historic occasion. This is a very primitive satisfaction, connecting the time of one’s own life with the time of one’s ancestors and descendants. The great pole of history is notched across at the same point as the small stick of one’s own life.
When G. left the dining-room, he did not go out on to the terrace but ran to the courtyard at the back of the hotel, where there was a large wooden building. Its ground floor was open like a barn, and there was a stone trough and a fountain around which the hotel laundry was washed. Above, on the second storey, were the maids’ rooms. She was standing on the outside wooden staircase, gazing up at the sky. He called her by name—Leonie! and held out his hand to indicate that she should come down. Taking her by the arm, he told her to be quick: they would see best from the balcony of his room.
She might then have declined. It was the weakest moment of his strategy. She knew perfectly well that two things were happening at the same time: the plane was flying overhead like a bird, and the man who had pursued her with notes, wi
th jokes, with whispered conversations, with declarations of love and extravagant compliments during five days was now hurrying her up into his room; more than that, she knew that he knew that she had two hours off duty every afternoon. She followed him because the unusualness of both the things which were happening confirmed that the occasion was exceptional. The noise of the engine, the excited shouting and the fact that everybody, with their backs turned towards her, was pointing up at the sky, encouraged her to take advantage of her normal, unexceptional self. He stood at the doorway to let her pass and it was as though under his cover she slipped past this self. On the stairs she began to giggle.
In his room she fell silent. He strode across the floor and flung open the French windows on to the balcony above the crowded terrace. The plane was banking as it turned, and both of them in the room could see the silhouetted head and shoulders of Chavez, smaller than a boot-button.
Leonie was frightened to come near to the window lest somebody on the terrace, looking up, caught sight of her. She stood well back from the window in the middle of the room, without any possibility of pretending any more that they were there to watch the plane heading for the mountains. (She could have fled the room, you say. Yet she was not frivolous. He had proposed nothing to her yet. She knew parts of what be would propose. She was neither frivolous nor naive. But there was the other part, his proposal to her exceptional self, that self which was surrounded by life other than her own as the receding roar of the aircraft engine was surrounded by silent air.)