Georges Aeby, Walaschek’s outside left, had his eyes closed too. Once in a while he let out a light snore. They had both decided to catch a little shuteye, without a word, as if they were still twenty and on the train home at night, with their shins beat up by the opposing defenders, and dog tired, perhaps too with the bitter taste of defeat and the not so appealing prospect of Monday.
What was Georges Aeby thinking, there opposite him? Every so often their knees bumped, or their feet. On his home field, at Charmilles, but also at the Wankdorf as on April 18, 1938, but also at the Parc des Princes in Paris, as against the German white team, but also at the Prater in Vienna, they could play with their eyes closed. Walaschek would meet him again, feinting first with the easy movements of a girl spinning a Hula-Hoop around her unripe hips, and then with a precise tap with the outside of his foot. He knew how and when he would break free, where to pass in order to have a clear shot toward the goal. There, when the center arrives, vigor and grace must converge. There, as one great master of technique (de Caussade) says, what grace achieves in this state of simplicity is always a source of wonder for watchful eyes and enlightened minds. Without method, yet most exact; without rule, yet most orderly; without reflection, yet most profound; without skill, yet thoroughly well-constructed, without effort, yet accomplishing everything; and without foresight, yet nothing could be better suited to unexpected events.
The train conductor (was he really a conductor, or was he a mystic who wanted to explain to the travelers—especially Walaschek—the meaning of Klee’s alphabet? Was it just a ruse, his punching the ticket—a little round circle, or rather, a little oval, like Klee’s O over Walaschek’s name, which obliterates the Wala, in the National Zeitung from that very remote April 19, 1938—so that he could deliver his speech? In truth, he whispered with a breath, it’s completely useless for man to get upset—everything that happens in him is like a dream: one shadow chases and destroys another, chimeras keep coming and coming in those who sleep, some that disturb, others that console; the soul is the plaything of these phantoms that devour one another, and waking only demonstrates that there’s nothing that can stop them), the train conductor hadn’t recognized them: neither the outside left, who was very lightly, almost imperceptibly snoring, nor the inside forward, so contentedly dreaming comforting things. They could be any pair of Genevans coming back from Bern, tired from a business meeting. “Tired but happy,” as kids might write in school compositions. Still not retired at that age? Maybe they had a private family business?
Just past Laussane, Walaschek was transported into another dream, less brief this time (also because Aeby, now awake, was being careful not to hit him with his knee like before—how he’d apologized!). First he dreamed of a stadium like the one in Cologne—maybe it was Cologne, because it was all a-flutter with swastika flags and packs of officers and soldiers were stationed at the entrances and in various parts of the stadium—but then instead of heading for the sixteen-meter line, he found himself dribbling the ball down a mountain road after a sudden heavy snowfall in early March, the trees loaded with snow, the wind kicking up all of a sudden, sweeping away the black clouds and opening the path of the sun; and every so often a gust of wind, stirring larches and firs, raised a cloud of snow, a dense ball of powder, and the whole sun lit up, blinding, the geometric light guiding his dribble, with Walaschek waving his arms like a priest incensing the altar, maybe at St. Peter’s? Or the Pope on Easter morning? And candles flickered like the icicles hanging from a tin roof up in the mountains that a little boy knocked with his ski pole, tinkling like a harpsichord as they fell: he had the impression of breaking into flight with the doves over a bay near Oslo, Switzerland-Norway, an all-blue sky just barely dotted with little white clouds like balls of cotton, like little armchairs for royal princesses.
After a while, not a living soul was to be seen, there were no more whistles or applause, and then he noticed that it wasn’t Cologne or Oslo, it was the rough field on the outskirts of Geneva where he used to meet up with his friends. It was a classic national team: six from the Grasshoppers, four from Servette, one from Lugano; Switzerland made its entrance onto the field to greet both the officials and the crowd as the band played the national anthem with an enthusiasm that hit you right in the thighs, then the solar plexus, then the throat, with the urge to sing along. In five minutes the sarabanda would begin and they’d have to dance. A footballer is like an improvisational actor: at the opening whistle he still doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to do, so much depends on the first few minutes, on the reaction of the crowd, on a hundred other things—that actor was right when he said that one of the best actors in the world was Falcao, the Brazilian—he too certainly needs a day of grace.
The white team had also lined up before the officials, extending their arms upward in the Nazi salute; eleven arms that seemed like so many cannon barrels. Walaschek half-swore; the first time he’d sworn at home, his grandmother Jenny Morel dropped her cup of bread soaking in milk. It all ended up on the floor in a big puddle.
But then he dreamed that a girl was coming directly toward him from one of the little hills in the surrounding terrain, toward him in his classic position as inside forward, at that moment back supporting the defense, trying to get control of the ball. She was carrying a garland of flowers. It wasn’t one of those oval garlands for funerals: it was one of those lovely, light, fresh ones, the kind we don’t have, the leis that Hawaiians put around the neck of a guest of honor, a great man, a star. He bowed so that the girl didn’t have to bend down to crown him. The garland split him in half, Wala on one side, Schek on the other. That painter from Bern didn’t put the girl in his painting, but the girl is there, alive. Perhaps it’s the younger sister or the cousin of the girl Pindar talks about, so determined, for her hero, to slacken the bridles of her virginity.
Then Walaschek noticed that it wasn’t really a garland but a wide sash, the ruban vert that divides the chest diagonally, which is still used in certain pageants, placed around the beautiful bodies of the most beautiful people in the world; and then he returned to the circle in midfield, just in time to go after a high pass that was flying right toward him. He controlled it with a sophia that would have delighted a Greek, and with two dribbles, pretending to retreat, freed himself from an opponent on the same diagonal, like a bishop in check with a king or queen. Walaschek then stood erect with the majesty of the king in Überschach, The Great Chess Game, 1937.
Then he turned.
He turned like that émigré Klee turning to look at what there was to see in 1939. Still dribbling the ball, he sped toward the opponents’ penalty box, where he could see and hear the throng of ally jerseys and enemy jerseys. Moving forward, you have to keep an eye on everything, like a poet, a painter, a composer: from the first syllable to the last, from white to black, from the first note to the finale. Klee’s O was only the beginning of his invocation, his dream: O gams, gams go! O iambs, iambs go. Yellow, if you wish, like Van Gogh, the blue of Vermeer, the black of Rembrandt and Klee. At the rhythm, if you wish, of anapests, of false three-quarters, a Stravinsky who “samples” from Pergolesi. He feinted a move toward the sideline, toward the corner; he imitated the soft bow of the willow, of the alder, of heron wings in the air, in the wind, of silk, of flanks without weight. Legs, muddle the minds of those pitbull fullbacks, those butcher halfbacks who slide into your ankles and swear they’re going for the ball, throw them on their backs with your scanzontic rhythm, alternate imagination and ingenuity to confuse every command post, the tyrants deaf-mute to life—to life. Even an inside forward, like a dancer, has to free the rhythms of the body patiently trained with freedom and discipline. If after your pass the outside runs along the sidelines, taps the ball, and then aims right into the sixteen-meter zone, then you—white, color of the miracle—you jump, trying to stay up as long as you can. Then, never losing sight of the trajectory of the ball as it soars, calculating the timin
g in infinitesimal divisions with mathematical brainwork, turn your head to the left, tense your neck. For an instant you’ll feel what it’s like to levitate like saints do during miracles, in what they say is a violation of physical laws, transgressing them in a total sublimation of yourself, in ecstasy. When the ball, soaring, crosses to you, all the ecstasy will transform into energy for your muscles, into drive for your neck and spine. Your head will rotate with violence and precision, between sixty and ninety degrees, striking the ball with your right temple, as if it were the tip of a triangle, the other points being Georges Aeby’s foot and the top net-corner to the goalkeeper’s right: that is, if the event will come to its epiphany.
Advancing toward the penalty box, then, he kept an eye on Georges Aeby who always seemed to be snoozing but in fact was as agile as a cat. Or Belli might make a downfield pass: an inside forward’s work is analogous to the mental labor of a great chess master in simultaneous play, in blitz matches—he was unpredictable, Belli, who roved on slightly bowed legs outside the box; who looked, from high up in the stands, like a toddler distracted by something or other, dragging around a kilometer’s worth of snacks in his nappies, whereas he was actually trying to avoid the offside, and he pounced for the deep pass like a cat in the bushes out in the countryside—like a rocket. With the genial Sindelar always in his mind’s eye. With them—Klee said—he’d invent a quadrilateral as a sign for rotation, for the movement of the vertical-horizontal symbol: a dynamo, an X, a rotating cross. Thus he headed for the opponent’s penalty box, dodging and not neglecting to set up the left for the big kick, in which he would impart all the rage of 1938. He knows that an enemy is at his heels—ready, if he catches him, to grab him by the shirt, jerk him back and pull him down.
People are coming with whom I must not be.
He knew he was caught between two fires. He took three more steps, right, left, right, and then his energy and intelligence would be unleashed upon the left: one, two, three,
and off he raced,
like one of those who at Verona run,
to gain the mantle green; and he appeared
no loser, but like one who has already won.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
The purpose of these notes is not to provide the reader with a complete bibliography and glossary, but merely with an informal guide to some of the quotations and references (literary, historical, geographical, sportive, and of course Helvetian) utilized by the author in composing his Dream, and by the translator in preparing this English-language edition.
The translators of published works quoted here have only been named where necessary to avoid confusion between multiple editions of extant translations.
—Ed.
p. 3Pardon, gentles all, etc.: translator’s epigraphs, included with the complicity of the author.
p. 7a Russian said: Joseph Brodsky, “In a Room and a Half,” Less than One, p. 467.
p. 7“I shall show you some cases . . . The individual pattern . . .”: Paul Klee, Notebooks Volume 2: The Nature of Nature, Ed. Jürg Spiller, Trans. Heinz Norden, p. 183, 185.
p. 9Traugott Wahlen: Friedrich Traugott Wahlen (1899–1985), politician and head of the Swiss Federal Office for War Nourishment, who instituted a plan to cultivate all available patches of land, thereby averting famine and increasing Switzerland’s self-sufficiency.
p. 10the National Redoubt: the Swiss National Redoubt was a defensive plan consisting of multiple fortress complexes barring passage through the Alps, developed during World War II to defend against a possible German invasion.
p. 10Dinamo Ossasco: Djalma Santos (1929–), legendary Brazilian right-back in the ’50s and ’60s; Nilton Santos (1925–), Brazilian left-back from the ’40s to the ’60s; and other Brazilian players alongside “local” characters.
p. 10General Guisan: Henri Guisan (1874–1960), General of the Swiss Army during World War II, is best remembered for effectively mobilizing the Swiss to prepare for resistance against a possible invasion by Nazi Germany in 1940.
p. 11Dopolavoro: abbreviation for Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND), or National Recreation Club, a leisure and sports association for workers established by the Fascist regime.
p. 12oriundi: immigrants of native ancestry, which has historically qualified many football players to be allowed onto Swiss teams.
p. 12Brianza: an area in Lombardy, Italy, just below the Swiss border.
p. 14“. . . been writ so quick”: Dante, Inferno XXIV.100, Trans. Robert and Jean Hollander.
p. 14“My tragedy is finished . . .”: attributed to Racine.
p. 14“language no longer known”: Giovanni Pascoli, “Addio.”
p. 14The song of the birds, etc.: ibid.
p. 14“But tell me . . .”: Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Trans. Mark Roskill, pp. 240–1.
p. 15Johanna Trosiener: Johanna Schopenhauer, née Trosiener (1766–1838), Arthur Schopenhauer’s mother.
p. 15il pleure dans mon coeur . . .: Paul Verlaine, “Il pleure dans mon coeur.” (It weeps in my heart AS it rains on the city).
p. 15“Bagnacaval does well to have no sons”: Dante, Purgatory XIV.115, Trans. Mark Musa.
p. 18Thus spake Zolla: reference to Archetypes (1981) by Elémire Zolla (1926–2002), writer, critic, and professor of Anglo-American literature at Rome’s La Sapienza.
p. 19Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli: Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (1900–1975), Italian anti-fascist archeologist and art historian.
p. 19curved lines . . . are charged with a unique sensitivity: Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Dal diario di un borghese e altri scritti, p. 316.
p. 20tuba mirum spargens . . .: from the “Dies Irae”: “The trumpet scatters a wondrous sound / throughout the [deserts] all around.”
p. 21in groups of ten, twenty, four, seven, eight: Orlando Furioso, IX. 3, Trans. Guido Walkman.
p. 22lama sabachthani: Aramaic; in Matthew 27 and Mark 15 as: “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
p. 24erased above the waist: reference to Dante, Inferno X.33, “da la cintola in sù tutto ’l vedrai.”
p. 24squat like a sparrowhawk just alighted from its perch: as in Klee’s Creator (Der Schöpfer), 1934.
p. 24Masaryk and Beneš: Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937), founder and first president of Czechoslovakia; Edvard Beneš (1884–1948), leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement and the second president of Czechoslovakia.
p. 24. . . from the waist down: Dante, Inferno X.33, modified from: “you can see all of him from the waist up.” Trans. Jean and Robert Hollander.
p. 24a certain boy from the mountains: that is, the author himself.
p. 25föhn: a warm, dry wind that blows down a mountain range, especially the northern slopes of the Alps.
p. 25the place, the time, the seed of their begetting and their birth: Dante, Inferno III.104–5. Trans. Robert and Jean Hollander.
p. 27Sepp Herberger: Josef “Sepp” Herberger (1897–1977), German soccer player and manager in the ’30s (the Reichs-fußballtrainer) and then coach in the ’50s–’60s; a renowned strategist of the game who rebuilt German football after the war.
p. 32our great Gottfried: Gottfried Keller (1819–1890), nineteenth century Swiss novelist.
p. 35Shklovsky: quotations from A Sentimental Journey, pp. 145, 276, 110.
p. 36During the Revolution . . .: Marina Tsvetaeva, A Captive Spirit, pp. 135, 72.
p. 36Switzerland won’t let any Russians in . . .: Marina Tsvetayeva, in Letters, Summer 1926, p. 110.
p. 38Peyroteo: Fernando Baptista de Seixas Peyroteo (1918–1978).
p. 39Rhone, Rhine, Iber, Seine, Elbe, Loire, Ebro: Petrarch, Sonnet 148. (All names of rivers.)
p. 39iahn swan puč, et al.: soccer players with monosyllabic names: Antonín Puč, Ruud Krol, Helmut
Rahn, Johan Cruyff, Mihály Tóth, etc.
p. 40Bacigalupo, Ballarin, Maroso: Valerio Bacigalupo, Aldo Ballarin, Virgilio Maroso. Three of the players for Torino A.C. who died in the Superga airplane crash in 1949, which killed everyone aboard: most of the team, officials, journalists, and crew.
p. 40goats “with Semitic faces”: allusion to Umberto Saba’s poem “La Capra” (The Goat).
p. 40mi ritrovái | per una sélva | oscúra (I found myself in a dark wood): Dante, Inferno I.2.
p. 40e per la sélva | a tutta bríglia | il cáccia (and [she] galloped full tilt through the forest): Ariosto, Orlando Furioso I.13.
p. 41mi stringerá | per un pensiéro | il cuóre (and the thought will clutch my heart): Umberto Saba, “Quest’anno” (This Year).
p. 41The word is the phallus of the spirit, centrally rooted: Gottfried Benn, “Wort ist der Phallus des Geistes, zentral verwurzelt.”
p. 41Bacigalupo . . . Schiaffino: for the first three players, see note above; Otone, Avolio, Berlingiero, Avino are from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso; the last four are other footballers.
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