Bridges are important to me. They provide a crossing of obstacles to something new and perhaps exciting on the other side. I imagine my bridges as crossing water. That elixir of life is also a taker of life. Water is both dangerous and healing. This story is set in the Rheinfelden region of northern Switzerland. The river referenced is the Rhine. Between the villages of Wallbach in Switzerland and in Germany there is a regular commerce of passengers and parcels via human powered skiffs. Each skiff requires tow operators to skull their way across the swift moving Rhine River.
Robert came to his usual place near the edge of the river. A sidewalk runs between him and the fast moving murky water. A rusted, green painted steel tube railing was all that kept pedestrians from stepping the short drop from edge to the wide busy river. Weeds sprout from the base of the posts adding to the aged look of the railing. On Robert’s side of the river is a lovely little park that follows the river’s edge for the entire length of the village. The park looks like a series of building lots with rows of mature trees every thirty meters or so running from the street to waters edge. Each lot houses a specific activity. A playground for the children flanked on either side by picnic areas, game areas, more picnic spaces, a dog park, flower gardens, a community orchard, a bandstand, all neatly contained uniform spaces. The village and canton were fastidious in caring for this park, this historic reminder of the protection of the nation.
The park is left from the war. The army came at the start of the war and cleared all houses away from the waters edge. Guns and armaments were trained across and at the water to remind the potential enemy across the way they would face a formidable force should they make an attempt to take over this country. During the war large electric spotlights were kept burning day and night, fully illuminating the river to its center, the border between two nations. The lights had an added benefit for local fishermen and hungry soldiers who would come out in hoards to stand at the river’s edge and catch the fish that were drawn to the bugs who were attracted to the light.
Robert was born just before the war, in a house that was torn down that is now part of the park. He and his family were removed from the house before Robert could develop a complete memory of the place. His parents used to lament the loss of their beautiful home, with it’s long garden to the edge of the river and the view of the forest and mountain across the river. Robert’s parents were musicians and would travel daily to the city to teach at the university and to play with the orchestra there. Roberts mother was aware of his gift long before the rest of the world. She was in tune with him and understood the cloistered world his beautiful mind had built around him, shielding him from the upset life of madness the world was inflicting upon itself during the war. Robert could hear the guns across the river and he would scream uncontrollably at every thump and every explosion. His mind could see and hear it all. His mind would also not let him out to experience his feelings. His mind could only process.
As Robert grew older he withdrew further into himself not even letting the screams from his mouth. His release was through a blank all knowing stare. His mind was projecting the hurt and fear from his body out into the world. As he released his emotion he became aware of the rhythm of his world and in the way of the conductors he so frequently watched when his parents would play at concerts he began to direct the world around him. As emotion came toward him he would direct it around or over or to stop. He would hum the rhythm he would feel, sometimes a tune, sometimes nonsensical noise.
Robert was also very intelligent. He would lose himself into radio. When programs would finish he would stand on one leg and rocking back and forth would mimic the speakers he had just heard correcting their grammar as he spoke. When he finished his one-man show he would stand again upon two legs and continue his conducting. And read, Robert loved to read. He was reading classics before he was five. When he started school however his teachers labeled him retarded as he refused to even attempt to join in the infantile books of usual youth.
Robert was alone. Robert was lonely.
The music in his family home would be the only emotional connection Robert could truly understand as love. He certainly felt the physical connections to the hugs and kisses of his parents and other relatives. But Robert could not connect in an emotional way. His uncle died and Robert simply took it as fact, he would not miss him. His cousin was horribly injured and he just asked her questions of the cuts and abrasions, and broken bones. That she was frightened and needed someone to simply pay attention to her, to be her friend, never occurred to Robert.
The loss of the house on the river was especially hard on Robert’s mother. She used to bring Robert to the place their home used to be and she would stand amongst the guns, and fuel, and storage dumps, and tents, and soldiers and yell across the river at the enemy. “You took away my house”. Robert’s mother never blamed her country. She knew the defense of her country was more important than her beloved house. And she also knew her house would still be hers, be Robert’s, if war had not come. She blamed the enemy.
Robert lost his parents when he was a teenager. His parents were hired to play at the home of a wealthy patron across the river. On the day of their death they hired one of the river skiffs to make the crossing. It was a cool fall day and there was a heavy fog on the river. The skiff with two paddlers began its trip to the dock in the nation of the former enemy. No one saw exactly what happened nor did they know which boat was responsible. In the fog a tug-boat pushing a double barge of coal and wood simply ran over the skiff and its four occupants. No bodies were ever found and the belief was the bodies had been pushed well beyond the little village. Robert felt nothing. He processed what happened, filed into his mind the skiffs were dangerous, and he went back to conducting his imaginary orchestra.
Today Robert’s family home is a flower garden with a long flowing brick sidewalk that starts at the street and finishes at the only opening through the railing at the river’s edge. Through this opening is a short ramp dropping to the floating docks where the river skiffs lay in wait. A small freight house is located just off the sidewalk in a grassy space nestled among the flowers. In the building is a small desk to sell tickets. This same desk is used to receive parcels destined for across the river and to take parcels delivered from across the river. Parcels are stacked high between chairs and torn couches and urn ashtrays and are kept secure only by the presence of the barrel-chested skiff operators. Two men, the dispatcher and the border agent permanently occupy the house.
Every day from early in the morning until dark Robert would come to the little freight house. He would stand outside the door to the building and face toward the river directly opposite the opening through the railing. Robert is always well dressed. He would wake every morning and eat his liverwurst, cheese, and dry bread, all washed down with piping hot cocoa. He would pack a simple carefully measured lunch of cubed cheeses, crackers, and grapes and a large bottle of beer. Robert would then bathe and shave, dress, and walk to his station in the park by the freight house for precisely seven o’clock. At ten thirty Robert would begin the process of eating his lunch slowly over the day, first five cubes of cheese, then five crackers, and finally five grapes, always fifteen pieces of food. Every fifteen minutes Robert would change from his food to his beer. Two sips of beer exactly 15 seconds apart. In this way his food and drink would last the entire day. Robert was very disciplined.
Robert did not have an employer. His was not an official job. Many would call him a beggar or some other poor unfortunate label. The less savvy would simple call him a retard. Robert was well paid for his self-employment efforts and this allowed him to keep a small room above the village grocery store and kept him well dressed and fed. It also allowed him to take his supper every evening in the small tavern next to the store.
Robert’s self employed position consisted of greeting people getting off the skiffs. He would rock back and forth slowly humming and directing. The barrel-chested skiff operators would share their tips with him, dropping coins and paper into his hat. Travelers too would drop their coins into his hat as he greeted them and directed them through his motions to the freight house to be processed into his country. Robert would also watch the river and as skiffs came into sight he would open the door of the freight house and let the dispatcher know the skiff number and then would advise the border agent the precise number of travelers on the boat.
The skiffs were wooden with high sides. The hull was flat and wide with a very shallow keel that ran the length of the skiff. The bow and stern were not at all different. They rose curving from the hull to a soaring height of nearly two meters. Directly behind, or in front of depending on which end of the boat you were looking was a large metal eye mounted to a swivel platform. The eyes were located on opposite sides of the boat. The operators would pull their oars through the metal eyes. Each boat required two operators to skull the boat across the river and back again.
Robert loved the skiffs. He wanted to stand on them and to take a ride on one. But he was also fearful of them, or more likely was frightened of the river. He knew death was out there. Death had taken his mother and father and he did not want death to take him. The closest Robert could bring himself to the floating skiffs was at the freight house.
During the winter about half the skiffs would be pulled on shore and laid upside down side by side in the dormant gardens behind the freight house. To Robert these skiffs looked like bridges and he grew to calling the boats water bridges. This name stuck year round. It seemed appropriate to call them water bridges regardless of season. They were a bridge to the nation across the water, the only way people could travel from his village and country to the village and country across the way.
As they came off the water bridges Robert’s greeting to travelers was always the same. “Where are you from?” His next response would depend on the answer to his question. If they answered they lived across the river he would look at them sternly and inform them in his sternest of voices, “You took away my house.” All others were greeted with “Welcome to my house.”
Robert had been doing this job since his parents died, nearly fifty years earlier. He was known and loved by all. Robert, in spite of eccentricities and lack of social skills, was a fixture in his village. All of the village raised Robert, and when he was old enough, he paid his own way.
As we age so do the ages we live within. As is apt to happen in modern worlds there developed a certain jaded attitude among some of the youth in Robert’s village. As children they would find him a harmless oddity, his strange manners, his odd jerky walk, the swaying and humming. As they aged he became a person to ridicule, someone to bully. As teenagers they would take to throwing small stones and scrap at him, to unsettling his routines, which would on occasion elicit a yell of frustration, much to the satisfaction of his tormentors.
Robert’s history was well known the skiff operators. His daily guard of the freight house made him a point of discussion. A couple of the teenagers who had tormented his as they grew came in time to become skiff operators themselves. Robert greeted these new operators as he would greet all operators, with respect and admiration. He felt the operators were the bravest men on earth, venturing forth on their dangerous journeys across the river, delivering packages and people from one country to another. These men who skulled back and forth on the river were like gods to Robert.
Robert’s tormentors were frequent drinkers and they often would close down the tavern where Robert would take his supper. It was Christmas Eve. Robert’s tormentors were in the tavern when he arrived. A few minutes before he was finished his supper they left. When Robert left the tavern for the short walk next door to his rooms above the grocery he was jumped. A large coat was wrapped around his head disorienting Robert. He was pushed to the ground, someone grabbed his legs, and wrapped a belt around his ankles. Robert did not struggle. He just whimpered in fear. Back and forth he swayed, terrified within the cover over his face, as he was lifted and carried to the back of a car and dumped into the trunk.
The drive was short, just a couple minutes. He was violently removed from the car trunk. Robert could smell the river and hear the birds in the trees in the park. He knew where he was. Robert started calling over and over “welcome to my house”. He was told repeatedly to shut up, an order he ignored until a blow to his middle knocked the wind from his body. Then he just cried.
He was carried some distance. Robert knew by the sounds he was getting closer to the river. His captors banged him against a rail and then he heard the hollow sound of wood as they dipped slightly. Robert was unceremoniously dropped with a hollow thunk onto a wooden floor. This floor swayed back and forth. The realization Robert was in a skiff both terrified and satisfied him. He found comfort in the water bridges. He also was terrified of death, the fate of his parents, he felt he would face if he were to cross the river. There were two heavy steps into the boat, the sound of a rope, and suddenly Robert felt the skiff moving, a gentle back and forth sway as the operators skulled out into the water.
Robert lay very still waiting for his death. He could hear the water through the sides of the boat. It passed with a bubbly then swishing sound. He could hear the birds and the barges. The bells from the Catholic Church in his village began to peal, calling parishioners to celebrate the birth of Jesus at midnight mass. The sound of the bells diminished as they moved and then the ringing stopped. And then the boat stopped. Robert felt the operators step from the boat and could hear them tie it on. As they lifted him from the skiff the coat covering his head momentarily fell open and he could see the lights of his entire village across the water.
Robert was terrified and relieved. He was relieved he had survived his first crossing of the river. He was terrified because he was now in the land of the people who took away his house. His captors carried and dragged him for a long time. Gravel sounds gave way to the solid base of concrete and stone walkways. Finally they stopped. He was propped against a wall and the belt was removed from his legs. Robert was given instructions. He was told to stay very still. He was told he would not be hurt if he followed instructions. That in a moment he was going to have the coat removed from his head and he was to keep his eyes shut tight until somebody told him to open them.
His captors knelt beside him and started chanting, first one, then the other, into each ear: “sie konnen nie nach Hause gehen”. “You can never go home”. Over and over they repeated. Robert started to chant slowly, he swayed back and forth, he closed his eyes, tears were rolling down his face. He was in the land of the people who took away his house and now he can never go home. Robert was lost. Robert was very lonely. The coat was removed and Robert could hear his captors running away, laughter fading out to the river.
He shivered there, eyes tightly closed, propped up against the wall. Fatigue overcame him and Robert fell asleep. On Christmas morning he woke with a start. He had opened his eyes in spite of a thought telling him he was not supposed to. You can never go home was rolling over and over in his head. A grief overtook him in a way never before experienced. Robert cried with deep convulsive sobs for the first time in his life. He felt a loss. He was lost. He felt lonely. Robert was alone and lonely.
Greta opened the curtains of her kitchen window to let in the streaming Christmas day sun. The inviting warmth, even on a cool winter’s day, enticed her to open her windows and let in the fresh air and holiday sounds. On this day her open windows let in sobs. Greta went to her door to find Robert seated against the wall beneath her windows. She noted he was well dressed but disheveled. He did not seem a threat. Greta leaned down to this man with a consoling touch of his shoulder. To her surprise he fell into her arms and simply wept. Instinct told her he bore no threat and Greta, moved by the man’s grief, wrapped her arms around Robert and held him close.
Greta invited Robert into her home after his weeping had run its course. He followed her obediently, eyes averted downward, confused and lonely, but grateful for her invitation. She plied him with strong coffee and biscuits with fresh butter and preserves. Robert felt he had never tasted food so good. Greta was constantly talking. She rarely had visitors. She was generally mistrustful of strangers. Greta had been hurt far too many times placing her trust in people and then having that trust misused. But with Robert she just knew he was a man she could trust. He needed a friend and she wanted a friend. It was Christmas Day and that was a day for friends.
She had a beautiful little house. Her village was quiet and being directly on the street did not present any issues for her. Her single bedroom had a small balcony directly above her front door. Greta used to imagine suitors would woo her from the street below as she swooned on her balcony. In spite of her great beauty no suitors ever came. No man could ever understand her and she would turn them away. Greta and Robert were near the same age.
On the opposite side of the house was her art room. Greta would paint scenes of her village and the river and the village across the way. She usually painted from photographs. Some she took herself. Her favorite were the old black and white and sepia photographs from before the war. She would sketch the outlines of the features onto larger paper and then fill in the spaces with watercolors and ink. Great would imagine the colors and thus bring life from the old photographs.
Greta found an old robe for Robert and she made him bathe. He would not say what had happened to him. Robert was actually saying nothing at all. He was fascinated by this woman. He had never stayed so close to a woman for such a long time. This was a new experience for him. He could sense she understood his needs and could feel her trust of him. When she finally paused her speech she simply looked at him quizzically and asked, “Where are you from?” To which Robert responded, “Where are you from?”
Greta laughed which brought a smile to Roberts face and a warm feeling to his heart. She told him where she was from and his smile vanished, “You took way my house” he exclaimed. Greta of course had no idea what he was talking about. She leaned across to Robert, gave him a hug, and went on talking. “Of course you will stay for Christmas dinner. I have no company and such a large goose for one person. And all the trimmings with apple stuffing and sausage and yams and beer and all sorts of vegetables. And I have strudel for desert. Of course it will be late when we finish eating so you must also spend the night. I will make a bed for you in the art room and I will wash your clothes. We will spend a wonderful day tomorrow visiting the shops and the park. Maybe it will snow and we can make a snowman and throw snowballs at the children. We can have a wonderful time together. What is your name?”
“Robert.” The first time he has said his name out loud since his parents had died.
They had a wonderful evening together. She loved chess though she was not particularly good at it. Robert, who did not play often, was exceptionally good at chess. He would signal approval of disapproval of her moves through grunts and glances. Robert even let her win a game, something he had never before done. It started to snow and they went for a walk through the village square and the park at the base of the mountains.
Greta tucked Robert in and with a kiss to his cheek said good night. Robert could not sleep. He was feeling for a person for the first time in his life. This woman had affected him in a way he had never experienced before. And Robert began to talk. Every word she said that day Robert had committed to memory. He said them all, with every inflection and nuance, he whispered through her dialogue until finally his eyes closed and he fell into deep dreams.
Robert’s stay went from days to weeks and into months, and Greta thought nothing of it. He began to talk in ways he had never experienced before. He talked of feelings and his parents. He told her of his job. His speech turned from a lilted forced word to one of reasonable but awkward eloquence. Robert was not fully able to put his feelings together but to Greta this did not matter. She would ask Robert where he lived and he would tell her but she would be confused. He would give her the name of her village. She had not stopped to think his village had the same name but was across the river in another country. His speech did not reflect the accent of his country as Robert had taken to mimicking the accent of his host.
Robert loved to walk with Greta. She would hold his hand or onto his arm. The men of her village, a group she had grown to mainly disdain, looked on in envy at Robert.
Greta would often paint into the night while Robert would lay in bed patiently waiting for her to grow tired. He would watch her with envy. He slender fingers deftly making marks on the paper with pencil and pens and finally with color and brushes. Layers and water would be mixed until the right wash was achieved and images would come to life before his very eyes, beneath her very hands. Robert loved her hands.
One evening Greta took out a wide slender montage of photographs taped together to form a single picture and clipped it to the top of her easel. The photo looked vaguely familiar to Robert and he took particular interest in her work. She carefully laid out in pencil the shoreline and the trees and buildings. Distant mountains came to life as she inked in the outlines and shadows. As she layered the sky and clouds, then the green of the park Robert became aware she was painting his home. She added the freight house and green railing and finished with the skiffs, Robert’s water bridges. He leapt from bed and pointed. “Here”, he exclaimed, “Here is where I live, this is where I work.”
Greta stared at him with sad eyes. She had grown used to his company and imagined him in her life forever. But she knew he had to return to his home. It had never occurred to her he was from across the river and their villages shared the same name. “Well, we must return you to your home, tomorrow.” And with that simple statement Robert was going home. He took it simply as fact. She had said “must” so it was obvious he would have to do so. He too was sad but he could not quite understand why. He had a new friend. And he would see her again and again wouldn’t he?
Greta finished her painting early that night. She turned out Robert’s bedroom light but remained in his room. She removed her clothes and pulled into bed next to Robert. They held each other close, enjoying the feel of their warm bodies to each other. They said no words, just felt the respect and the love each had for each other.
The following morning Greta walked Robert to the docks. She had called across the river for a skiff and it was waiting for them. Robert knew the operators and surprised them with a steady conversation all the way across the river. He told the barrel-chested men what had happened to him a couple months ago and how his new friend Greta, he hugged her tight causing the boat to shake a bit, had saved her and taught her how to talk by just being nice to him. As they crossed the river the operators told Greta of the origins of the park and how Roberts infant home was one of the many that had been raised to make preparations for war.
Greta suddenly understood why Robert would accuse the people of her village of taking his house. Much became clear for her on that passage. Robert jumped from the water bridge to the dock of his home and ran to the freight house. He opened the door and announced the skiff. And then he stood at his spot and as Greta walked up he said with a grin, “Welcome to my house, Greta”. And Robert introduced her to all the men in the freight house.
Two men got very nervous when Robert flung open the freight house door. They had expected Robert would have made his way home at Christmas. When he didn’t show for several weeks there was an investigation in the village and fear Robert had met a bad end. As Robert introduced Greta around the freight house, with all the men looking astonished at his sudden command of speech, his bully tormentors broke into tears and begged his forgiveness for being so mean. They confessed their middle of the night transport of Robert across the river. He immediately forgave them logically stating he would not have met Greta had they not done so. The other men in the freight house were not going to be so forgiving. The bullies knew as soon as Robert and his new friend were gone they were going to have to endure the wrath of the skiff operators.
Roberts home remained as the day he was spirited away. His landlord, the grocer, did not believe for a moment that Robert was dead, a fear widely discussed in the village. She was surprised when Robert showed with a woman and was taken aback when he marched Greta up to his simple rooms. Robert had never had a woman to his rooms before. And talk. He talked incessantly. The grocer had been accustomed to a few simple words delivered with difficulty. This was the same body as the Robert she knew but was now one who walked and talked with apparent confidence.
Greta and Robert took their supper in the tavern where he was greeted as long lost family and Greta was treated as a new bride, which in the villager’s eyes she certainly appeared to be. It was dark when they left the tavern so Robert asked Greta to stay the night with him. They held each other close, their naked bodies once again enjoying each other’s warmth. On this night Greta taught Robert of love, simple and beautiful.
In the morning Robert woke and prepared a breakfast for two. He shaved and bathed and he dressed in his best suit, ready to return to his work. Greta walked arm in arm with him to the docks. They held each other close and then she stepped into the water bridge for her trip home, alone without Robert. Tears came to their eyes and together they said they would see each other soon.
And they did. Three or four times per month one or the other would make the short trip across the river to visit with their friend. They would spend a night or two and then return to their home. Greta and Robert had a love that was rare. It was full of respect and admiration. Theirs was a love of friendship first. They were lovers too but this too was out of a respect for human need. They trusted and loved. They talked as if married but never once considered marriage.
Greta found a pre-war picture of Roberts home one fall day. This was the most important painting she would ever produce. Greta spent weeks ensuring the detail was correct, researching the colours, and capturing the life and the art of Robert’s family in their home. She presented the painting to him for Christmas. He was never so moved. His memories, childlike and imaginative flooded back to him. He remembered the music, his father’s piano, his mother’s violin. The smells and the sounds returned to his memory. “Oh Greta, you have given me back my home.” Robert wept with joy wrapped in Greta’s love.
Robert and Greta were over eighty the day he received word she had fallen ill. He immediately took a skiff across and came to her in her hospital bed. She told him of her wish to die at home, naked in his arms, on their bed, in her art studio. Robert carried Greta in his arms from hospital to her home and laid her frail failing body down in the studio bed. For a week he would feed her and change her. Robert would bathe her twice a day letting the warm waters provide Greta with comfort. On her last night she laid curled in the safety of Roberts arms. She turned her face to him, kissed him, and said simply “I love you Robert.” They lay nose to nose as her breathing became shallow. He shared her breath back and forth until her final sigh. Robert felt her relax as the pain left her body. He felt her presence as her soul explored the room. Robert did not lament the loss of his friend. She would always remain there with him feeding him life and emotion.
All of the skiffs were out on the water. The air was still and warm. The swift moving river itself seemed to lie still in respect. Robert removed the cap from the urn. As the operators skulled slowly he took handfuls of her ashes and spread them across the water. No words need to be said. All who had grown to know the true Greta and who saw in her art and in her love for Robert the sensitivity and life she brought into the world, lived their memory that day.
The skiffs form bridges across the water. They float and move silently on the river surface driven by human will and respect. These water bridges, these wasser bruchen join two countries in peace and in commerce. They join two villages that share one name and one language and two histories. These water bridges joined two lives into a friendship rare and a love rarer still. These water bridges, these skiffs join our souls.
