Autumn Light

I’ve been reading at William Fiennes’ The Snow Geese for several months now, slowly following his journey from Texas to the northern reaches of Canada as he tracks the spring migration of the birds. The book is in part an extended meditation on home and missing home, on homesickness, nostalgia and longing. And on days like today, with the dim light of a low-lying sun never seeming to reveal the sky, longing, homesickness and nostalgia are very present for me.

While I love autumn’s beauty, captivated by its palette of bright colours set against the austere neutrals, a contrast that quickens my pulse, it can be a difficult time. For me, death and other losses litter the autumnal landscape. The fading light of the dying year casts these losses in starker relief. The wood next to our flat is no longer a tall green wall. The bare branches of its tree now weave a dull brown screen that filters the light. Inside the flat, the wooden floors gleam darkly; only when I light the lamps – as early as 4:30 or 5 – is there brightness, and that willed.

That’s not to say we are giving into gloom. Yesterday – Sunday – we climbed Kapuzinerberg, one of the two mountains around which the core of the city is built. It is the taller of the two, 640 metres, and it is mostly green space with trails and a small fortress built during the Thirty Years War, now gasthaus serving snacks and beer, at the top. (The Festung, the city’s signature fortress, sits atop the more heavily developed Mönchsberg, the mountain on the other side of the Salzach.)

The last time we climbed Kapuzinerberg, it was a warm late May afternoon, and we panted under a tall canopy of green until we reached the top. Yesterday we climbed by a different route, and the dim light reflected off a thick carpet of copper-coloured beech leaves. We were warmed with exertion, but stopping at a precipice and looking north, we soon became chilled. However, we stood long enough to see that part of the city spread below us, and I was surprised at how many landmarks, strange to me not many months ago, seem familiar to me now.

At the top we stopped to look southeast, but here the landscape was less familiar. Some Sunday afternoon, we agreed, we should explore those street just to see what’s there. Then we descended, keeping to our left the city wall built on the steep flank at the same period as the small fortress above. Wall and fortress were so effective a deterrent they were never tested.

We didn’t stop for beer and wurstl in the gasthaus because we were going directly to Schloss Leopoldskron. Commissioned in 1736 by one of Salzburg’s prince-archbishops, Schloss Leopoldskron is an elaborate rococo palace that sits on the edge of a large pond in an expanse of green space.

In the early 20^th century, it was bought by theatre and film director Max Reinhardt, famous locally as one of the founders of the Salzburg Festival. During the war it was confiscated by the Nazis as ‘Jewish property’. After the war it was bought by the American foundation, the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, and is now used as a conference site. Fans of The Sound of Music recognise its lake as the location for some of the film’s outdoor shots and its grounds and one of its façades as models for the sound stage set of the Von Trapp villa.

However, it is closed to the public every day except one day a year, which was yesterday, when it was open for tours. By the lake, its small formal garden open for an Adventmarkt.

Along with other residents of Salzburg, we waited on line for nearly an hour to view this national treasure, with its stucco ceilings and chandeliers, its faded Chinoiserie room, the gilt and mirrored games room, and the elaborate neo-rococo library, with plaster cherubs and beautifully carved wood, the latter interior commissioned by Reinhart.

The tour was conducted, of course, in German. I was pleased to realise that though I could not follow word for word, description by description, the guide’s commentary, I was able to at least follow the general outline of her remarks. Even though Himself, better at German than I am, filled in some gaps, it is reassuring to find I’ve made even a little progress in German.

It was late and the dun-coloured light rapidly fading when we left the tour to wander the stalls of the small Adventmarkt. We inaugurated the Weihnachtsmarkt season with our first cup of Glühwein, mulled wine popular at the street markets that will soon be open all over Salzburg, as well as throughout most of this part of Europe.

Then, just as we were about to leave, a children’s chorus began singing, and we stopped to listen. They stood in a narrow gravelled path at the edge of the lake. Torches were burning around the grounds, and the lights on the far side of the lake as well as from the garden reflected in its dark waters. The faces of the chorus –  young children and older boys, their voices already deepened, along with a few adult women – were illuminated by a couple of lamps. We listeners were in near darkness, the flickering light occasionally catching a face in the crowd. The chorus sang what must be traditional German and Austrian Christmas music, of which I understood a word here and there.

Then came a familiar song, odd to me in the circumstance, knowing its commercial roots. But, as it happens, ‘I’d Like to Teach the World To Sing’, which began life as a Coco-Cola jingle in the seventies, became a popular Christmas song in Europe, as I learned while living in Ireland. Yesterday, the children sang it with enthusiasm.

Driving home in near darkness, through a part of Salzburg that seems remote from my daily life, I was pleased to realise how familiar have become the mysterious, winding streets of even this part of the city, tucked into the curve of Mönchsberg, where not many months ago I got lost. Last night I knew, almost without knowing, the way. Shops and street corners have become landmarks, if only subliminally. I felt as though, had we turned off Mavis, our Mistress of the GPS, I could have guided us home.

Which reminds me of William Fiennes and his reflection on homesickness and nostalgia. He writes of turning his longing for the home he loved in the past into ‘a desire to find that sense of belonging, that security and happiness, in some other place. . . . The yearning had to be forward-looking. You had to be homesick for somewhere you had not yet seen, nostalgic for things that had not yet happened.’

I am not sure who I am these days or what my job is, not sure what nationality I represent or where my home is. But every small bit of progress I make – in learning German, in knowing my way around Salzburg, in writing something new – makes me feel more grounded in where I am now and gives me more hope that I will be able to manage where I will be tomorrow.

Snow in the Altstadt

It’s been snowing in Salzburg for a couple of weeks now. The Sunday he was here on his own, while I was still in Tipperary, my husband explored the large park across from the hotel, sending pictures of an acres-wide expanse of unblemished white ringed by dark-green trees. I’d hoped I’d be able to see it myself, and, sure enough, the mountain just beyond our window is spread white between grey-green trees. It looks as if one could ski down its face. It snowed all afternoon Saturday, and we sat watching from the expanse of windows in the wide, empty common area outside our room as it fell on the street and passing cars and car park and window ledge. But it’s warm enough that the flakes dissolved, building leaving only a few inches of white covering roofs and ground.

The hotel into which we’re settled, for the short term, is a pleasant one on the Alpenstrasse with a bright, colourful interior. It’s not far from my husband’s office, to which he commutes in a rented car. Buses toward the city centre pass every five minutes, stopping at the corner next to the hotel, more convenient, I’d say, than driving. Yesterday after writing in the morning, I did some errands for my husband, including taking the bus to a shoe shop I’d discovered, just a few stops along, to pick him up new shoes, his attention these days being focussed on coming up to speed at work. Then, on a whim, thinking to see the snow fall on the Dom and surrounding churches and the Festung and narrow streets, I continued north to the Altstadt.

The bus set me down on the far side of the Salzach near the pedestrian bridge, the Mozartsteg. Swirling snow gave the afternoon a dusk-like feeling. People walked heads down or under umbrellas. I dawdled crossing the bridge, stopping to look down into the shallow blue-green waves. It seemed as though I could see stones on the river bottom. A thin layer of slush covered the bridge so I trod carefully, stepping on the raised metal cleats to keep my footing. On the opposite shore, a man stopped his bicycle as we waited for the light to cross. He wore a plastic or nylon cape that covered his shoulders and body as well as the handlebars and most of his bike. It made sense; I had been wondering how people used bikes as transport in wet weather.

The Festung on its mountain and the domes and steeples of the churches below were shrouded in the dim grey light and thickly falling snow. The narrow streets and shop windows, although still festooned with shining colours, were dimmer through the mist. One shop window was filled – entirely filled – with painted Easter eggs. I’d seen it before, the first night of my first visit to the Altstadt, but it had been closed. Inside, painted eggs, real blown hens’ eggs, were displayed by the dozens, resting in 48-count egg flats and 12-egg cartons, hung by ribbons from small bare branches, painted in scores of different patterns and colours. It’s a minor industry here, where Easter is taken very seriously. Under the low stone-ribbed groin vaults of the ancient building, fully the first half of the large shop was filled with eggs and other Easter decorations. (The back half of the shop, fronting on another street, was filled with Christmas decorations.) A few of the eggs were goose eggs, painted and cut in filigreed patterns; there were a few candles and other twee tchotchkes, as well, but the variety of eggs was overwhelming. A mother and her serious-faced daughter, about 8 years old, moved among them, carefully examining eggs and putting them into an egg carton.

Outside again, I wandered, aimless, growing colder. My feet especially were feeling the cold rising from the slushy pavement. And – curse of middle age – I needed to pee. Stopping at the entrance of the stately Hotel Altstadt, I considered going in. Perhaps I could find the toilet; maybe I would stop for a coffee – ein grosser brauner, as I’ve learned to say. It would be nice to get in from the cold.

As I hesitated, the door opened and out came a woman, a bustling woman in black. From a leather bag hung over her arm peered a toffee-coloured dog the size of a handkerchief. She was a woman of a certain age, of woman of substance, with the heft of wealth, wearing a black coat of Persian lamb with fur collar. A dome-shaped black fur hat nested over a full silver bob; wide black earrings set with diamantes hung from her ears. Fumbling with a small camera with hands encased in soft black leather, she addressed me in musical French-accented English, a charming voice. A friendly voice.

‘I had to come out to take a picture of my dog. She’s never seen the snow.’

The dog, a solemn-looking miniature terrier with a red ribbon tied in the fur that flopped over her face, looked at me, incurious.

‘How old is she?’ I asked, which seemed relevant in the circumstance.

She was precise. ‘Seventeen months.’

‘And what’s her name?’

‘Her name is Louise.’

I felt entitled by this familiarity to reach out and scratch the dog’s tiny head. Neither the woman in black nor Louise objected. The woman still fumbled with her camera.

‘Would you like me to take your picture with Louise?’

She was pleased with the suggestion, and we looked up to see, just across from us, a low dark doorway with a shallow pointed arch, the perfect frame, capturing the atmosphere of the street and setting off the falling snow before it. As they posed in front of it, dull light illuminated woman and dog, while soft fluffy flakes drifted in front of them. I took one picture, exclaiming at how lovely they looked, then another, capturing the woman’s bright smile. They were good pictures.

We stood a minute after admiring them as people hurried past us. ‘Are you staying here?’, she asked.

I hesitated. How nice to be able to claim the stately hotel as mine, to pretend to be at home and warm in its rich comforts. A frisson of regret flashed through me as I groped for a suitable explanation.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve just moved here from Ireland. To live.’

Do I speak German? No? I’ll have to learn, I said.

What language do I speak?

‘Only English. And you?’, I asked. ‘You’re French?’

She nodded.

‘Where are you live?’

‘Monaco.’ Which seemed somehow perfect.

Then we said ‘Au revoir’, and she disappeared into the door of the Hotel Altstadt, and I walked on, still aimless, wandering in the cold, feeling it was now impossible to slip unnoticed inside the grand hotel just to use the toilet.