Stories slumber behind the facade E-Book

Christina Schwalm

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 213

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Why is my mother the way she is? Unsettled by her mother's nature, Christina Schwalm begins to question her mother's make-up façade over the course of her life. Why are other things more important to her than the emotional needs of her children? Why is she always striving for something higher? Driven by the urgent desire to find out more about her mother and her family, the author delves into the past. Her research takes her to Buenos Aires, where her grandparents, her mother and some relatives once lived, to Chile and to various parts of Switzerland. With the help of photos, memories of her relatives and her mother's written legacy, she reconstructs the exciting story of a Swiss emigrant family.

Leseprobe

*Stories slumber behind the facade

Chapter 1: Story boxes

I accessed my family stories through daydreams and nightmares, fantasies, documents, letters and photographs that had ended up in boxes in my attic over the years - mostly after deaths, separations and inheritances in our family, from our relatives.

In my attic I came across objects and documents that had been kept by ancestors and stored for a long time, from distant and close family members, deceased people and contemporaries as well as myself.

When I dared to take a closer look at my "heritage" for the first time, I came across a confusing and overwhelming collection of memories of my childhood, letters from near and far, postcards tightly or barely scribbled on and often already yellowed photographs, official documents and certificates, diary entries and food notes, stamps from all over the world, cooking recipes and dried plants in albums, between drawings or exercise books with essays. I found family trees, privately hand-drawn or officially updated with entries from birth, marriage and death registers, created in old writing and barely legible, starting in the 18th century, I found excerpts from inheritance contracts, job references, military and vaccination booklets alongside doctors' reports and ...Qué sé yo? (What do I know?)

It is in the nature of such boxes that people bring things, thoughts and feelings that they no longer want or need, but do not like to throw away. Their descendants open them to find something they have never looked for, driven by burning questions to which theyhave never received answers. Like me. Others simply like to rummage through old things and be surprised, driven by nostalgia and emotion.

In almost every family there is one person who is interested in the past, the family history, while everyone else doesn't give a damn and is happy to dispose of everything, forget it or dump it somewhere, as they are consumed by their personal present and future. It is not uncommon for those searching to be single people with no descendants of their own - like me.

In such boxes I discovered photos from my grandparents' life inBuenos Aires, carefully labeled on the back by my grandmother. One from August 1921: Grandmother, in a white, ankle-length summer dress, wearing a white scarf wrapped around her head like a turban, bending over a washing trough in the sun outside in a small backyard garden. She is pulling laundry over a washboard, she is slim, in her mid-thirties. Next to her is her eldest daughterDorli, two years old.Anita,my mother, the second daughter of SeñorFederico Schwalmand SeñoraAna Rahm de Schwalm(in Argentina, women keep their maiden name after marriage), is lying in a black baby carriage with large spoked pneumatic wheels; she was born in Argentina on July 31, 1921 - in the middle of the southern hemisphere winter.

My mother spent her first six and a half years inBuenos Aireswith her poor but intact family. It was said that my grandfather didn't know how to handle money. LikePestalozzi, he would have given too much away to the poor. That's why my grandmother would have unpacked the efficiency she had brought with her from Hallau, sewn all the clothes herself and cooked and kept house frugally in the simplest of domestic circumstances.

I have her to thank for the sparse traces on the photos she sent fromBuenos Airesto Switzerland or brought with herand left behind after her death. She had always meticulously noted in legible handwriting who was pictured where, with whom and when on which occasion. If she had neglected to do this, there would be practically no information about my mother's first six and a half years. But not a single letter was found in the boxes in my attic that my grandparents must have written to Switzerland, not even in my mother's estate. Instead, there were official documents: My grandfather's work certificates, passports, identity cards, vaccination certificates, birth certificates, family booklet, driver's license, military booklet - the most important papers you need to emigrate and start over again and again. My grandparents only took the essentials with them when they traveled. Grandma's little black Bible with the gold lettering on the cover and a newspaper article aboutHallauwith a faded picture of the village church traveled everywhere, as did Grandpa's stamp collection, which grew more and more extensive over the years and included faraway countries such as India and Australia.

Why did the small family, which had grown to include three daughters, return to Switzerland in 1928? Could it be that my grandparents decided to return to Switzerland in view of the looming world economic crisis and the growing opposition movement in Argentina?President Yrigoyenwas no longer safe in the saddle (he was overthrown in a military coup in 1930). Or was it purely private reasons, the insistence of my grandmother, who wanted her three daughters to be well educated and didn't think the public schools inBuenos Aireswere good enough? They didn't have the money for the better, private schools. Or was the rumor true that theSchwalmfamily inWinterthurput pressure on them to finally return to Switzerland?Ida Schwalm, my grandfather's unmarried sister, who lived inWinterthur, was said by relatives to have supported the family financially, but also to have influenced them in her favor. There are few certaintiesin this story, but all the more rumors and contradictory allegations. The facts were extremely thin on the ground. I heard nothing from my mother.

Because I knew so little about my mother and her family's life inBuenos Airesand the real reasons for their return to Switzerland, I imagined scenes that could have taken place from Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) December 24, 1927 inBuenos Airesuntil their arrival inHamburgat the end of February 1928. I found a few more details in 2013 in my aunt's autobiography written inBuenos Airesand from memory bubbles that suddenly appeared in my mother's consciousness in old age.

Chapter 2: A fateful decision

(Fiction in five movie scenes)

Scene 1

FADE IN

EXT. VERANDA IN FRONT OF A WHITE HOUSE IN A POOR NEIGHBORHOOD OF BUENOS AIRES

Time: December 24, 1927, summer, hot, afternoon, 4 p.m.

Persons:

Mother Anna Schwalm-Rahm forty-two years, three daughters: Dorli eight years, Anita six and a half years and Ruthli (later called Heidi) one year, father Federico Schwalm thirty-nine years and Heinrich Rahm in his mid-thirties (visiting fromHallau,Switzerland)

Mother Schwalm is sitting on one of the two garden chairs, Father Schwalm in a rocking chair on the veranda; in front of them is a white, round table on which stands a spindly Christmas tree. The three children are playing on the floor in front of them

MOTHER Schwalm:

slim, rather small, marked by a lot of work, existential worries and homesickness for Switzerland, with brown, somewhat sad eyes and an already graying chignon, in a high-necked, light white dress

(stands up and puts six red candles on the tree, sighing) The candles melt in the heat as soon as they are lit. But it's still too early for that.

(a German Christmas carol plays softly in the background:"Ihr Kinderlein kommet ...",but breaks off again after thefirstverse)

HEINRICH RAHM:

a cousin of the mother fromHallau, brown eyes, brown moustache, brown hair hanging down his forehead, open white shirt, nonchalant, good-humored

(comes out onto the terrace, sits down on the second garden chair and lights a cigar, lolls comfortably, looks at his watch) Christmas Eve is about to begin for most Swiss families. InHallau, they sit around a lavishly decorated tree in the well-heated living room. It is snowing heavily, the snow is piling up on the windowsills. It is cold, the window panes are covered with ice flowers.

Intermezzo

Christmas Eve inHallau,December 24, 1927, approx. 8 p.m.

(projected onto the wall with a beamer)

EXT. MARKETPLACE OF UNTERHALLAU

The camera approaches my grandmother's parents' house at Marktplatz 138 - lots of snow everywhere. Then a view through a scraped window into the brightly lit living room.

INT. LIVING ROOM

Relatives of my grandmother Anna Rahm from Hallau are sitting in a semi-circle in front of a large, dense, lush green Christmas tree; presents are placed around the magnificent home-carved nativity scene with the Holy Family and the usual nativity figures. The windows are almost covered with ice flowers. The candles on the tree are burning. They continue to sing the sameChristmas carol from before: verses 2+3"Ihr Kinderlein kommet…"

(projected onto the wall with a beamer:

A stained glass window from theSagrada Familia, cathedral in Barcelona, with the nativity scene: Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in the manger. The intact, "holy family").

HEINRICH RAHM (continues):

I like it much better here in the summer heat than in wintry, cold Switzerland! I would love to stay with you! (rolls his shirt sleeves further back, lolls on his chair, stretches out his whole body, takes a pleasurable drag on his cigar)

FATHER Schwalm:

black wavy hair, blue eyes, moustache like Charly Chaplin, open white shirt with stand-up collar (so-called Mao shirt), takes the second daughter, Anita, who is now standing in front of him, on his knees and swings her happily - they both laugh happily.

(He sings the beginning of the Spanish Christmas carol.)"Feliz navidad, feliz navidad, feliz navidad.Prospero año y felicidad!" (looks up into the blue sky)

How blue is the sky overBuenos Aires! It's hot today! Simply glorious! You'll soon get your Christmas present, Anita, and your sisters too, of course.

Mother Schwalm:

(decorates the spindly little tree on the little table with a few colorful ribbons, puts her little black travel Bible under it) We don't even have a nativity scene with the Holy Family. (Projected onto the wall: simple stained glass window of the birth of Jesus or some picture of the Holy Family from a simpleMethodist churchin Buenos Aires)

FADE OUT

Scene 2

FADE IN

EXT. VERANDA IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE IN B.A.

Evening approx. 8 pm

(The three girls are playing on the floor. Father Schwalm is sitting on the rocking chair next to the round table again. Not yet visible are Heinrich Rahm and Mother Schwalm)

Mother Schwalm:

(comes out of the house and brings four small Christmas presents, places them under the little tree on the table, lights the six red candles. The Christmas carol"Silent Night, Holy Night"plays softly in the background, played by the Salvation Army. Mother Schwalm hums along. Then she gives each daughter a small Christmas present. Each reacts in her own way).

Anita:

six and a half years old, brown hair, blue eyes like her father, lively, curious, likes to chat, laughs a lot

(impatiently tears at the ribbon and paper, unwraps a picture book entitled "El Niño". She immediately flips through the pages and smiles, showing it to her father) Mira, Papà, the family, los niños with de vile toys ... they have a boy ... not like us ... donde viven? (shows the book to her father)

Father Schwalm:

(takes her on her knees and begins to tell the story) Érase una vez una pequeña familia feliz que vivia en Buenos Aires, Argentina ...

Mother Schwalm:

But not in Spanish, Otto, talk in Swiss German!

S’isch e mal e chlini, glücklichi Familie gsi,…

Dorli:

eight years old, dark brown eyes, dark short hair, a pretty, thoughtful, quiet child

(slowly and carefully unwraps her present. She holds up the sweater knitted by her mother and hides her face in the soft wool) Thank you, Mommy, thank you, Daddy - it's beautiful ... and soft!

Father Schwalm:

(looks skeptical) It's much too warm for this heat!

Ruthli (later called Heidi):

one year old, bright blue eyes, blond curls, bright smile, crawls around on the floor

(pats with her little hands on the little present that her mother has placed on the floor in front of her, crawls over it, loses interest in it)

Mother Schwalm:

Come on, Ruthli, look what's inside! (kneels down to her and opens the little present)

Lueg es Bäbi! (Ruth kisses the doll, hugs it briefly, leaves it lying there and crawls away)

Father Schwalm:

(Picks up the doll from the floor and shows it to Ruthli)

Mira, Ruthli, una muñeca, que bonita!

(dances around with the self-made doll in front of Ruthli's nose, she tries to grab it but doesn't catch it, starts to cry)

Mother Schwalm:

(reproachfully) Speak Swiss German with the child, Otto. She has to learn German!

Father Schwalm:

This is our home, this is where my daughters will go to school, Spanish is spoken here - Anna, be reasonable!

Heinrich Rahm:

(comes out of the house with a thick envelope in his hand) Here's a present from Switzerland for you both, Anna and Otto (hands it to Father Schwalm, who passes it unopened to Mother Schwalm)

Mother Schwalm:

(opens the envelope, a bundle of banknotes falls out. She reaches for the letter first, reads aloud):

Dear Anna, dear Otto,

Heinrich brings you this letter from home so that you have good news from Switzerland for Christmas.

We are all doing quite well, but we miss you, especially when we celebrate Christmas and are all together! Why are you so far away? While we're singing "Ihr Kinderlein kommet", your three daughters are in faraway Argentina and don't get to experience a real Christmas with lots of snow, Christmas carols and church bells.

We're sending some money so that you can fulfill a wish.How about a passage to Europe?

Things are getting better again here in Switzerland. Unemployment has fallen - thank God - the economy has finally recovered from the First World War. Otto would certainly find work here, and the children could attend the good Swiss schools, which is important for their future.

(Anna with a trembling voice)

Please consider returning to Switzerland next year for the start of school in April. We would all be very happy. Then we would finally all be together again!

With best wishes for the New Year and in the hope of seeing you again soon!

Merry Christmas and "es guets Nois".

Aunt Ida and the Schwalmen fromWinterthur

(counts the money with a trembling voice):

So much money. ... That would be enough for a passage toHamburg!

I also have a few things on the side for the first time in Switzerland.

Father Schwalm:

(visibly annoyed) Stop it, Anna! We can use the money here for better things.I don't want to go back! I have work here.The project inTrenque Lauquenisn't finished yet, and the next request for another village has come in.I bring light to the villages of Argentina. Soy electricista. Soy Argentino!

Mother Schwalm:

(audibly annoyed) but you don't earn enough here, the public schools are backwoods. I want a good education for my daughters and good prospects for their professional future. What is Dorli supposed to achieve later on with this outdated Argentinian village school education?You are so wasteful with your wages that there is often too little left for us, let's go back!

(she presents Heinrich with two gifts)

Heinrich:

(unwraps the presents, puts on a self-sewn gilet with Anna's Hallau coat of arms embroidered on it and lights one of the Brazilian cigars he received from Otto)

I like life here. The climate is wonderful, the people are cheerful and open, not as closed and particular as in Switzerland. They enjoy life. Not just praying and working. Education isn't everything, Anna!

Mother Schwalm:

Yes, help him too ... (goes into the house crying - the children look after her in fear)

FADE OUT

Adios Buenos Aires 1928

Scene 3

FADE IN

EXT. ON THE SHIP"ARTURO DELFINO"FROMBUENOS AIRESTOHAMBURG

Time: End of February 1928, evening, sunset

Father Schwalm:

(stands with Anita on the second-class deck by the railing, while Mother Schwalm sits on a bench with Dorli and Ruthli.Next to them are four suitcases of different sizes. The ship"Arturo Delfino" is leaving).

(sadly to Anita) AdiosBuenos Aires!You're seeing it for the last time, hija! We're going to Europe, then to Switzerland. Never forget that you were born in Argentina, Anita.Never. You are Argentinian!

Anita:

Vamos a Suiza, papa, porque?I don't want to go to Switzerland! No quiero suicidarme.

[She misunderstands the meaning of the wordsuicidarse. It means to commit suicide

and not go to Switzerland]

Father Schwalm:

Your mother wants you to speak Swiss German, attend good schools and get a good education, you and Dorli.

Anita:

Tu lloras, Papa, porque? No quieres ir a Suiza? No quieres suicidarte?

Father Schwalm:

(wipes his tears and looks sadly at the slowly disappearing city)

Me gusta vivir en Argentina.Me gustaBuenos Aires, chiquita (looks back wistfully, then turns to Mother Schwalm and the other daughters, angry) We have you to thank for that, Ana, you and our "educated", conceited relatives in Switzerland.

Mother Schwalm:

(directs her gaze forward to the sea, bowwards) Don't look back! That's where our future lies, Otto.

When do we arrive inHamburg? Has Heinrich reserved the hotel room?

Father Schwalm:

In three weeks, at ten o'clock in the evening, in the greatest darkness and cold! In the European winter!

Don't worry - Heinrich took care of everything for us inHamburg.

Come on, let's eat something from the basket, I'm hungry. Picnic on the lower deck, gala dinner in first class - the world is divided in two.

(grabssandwiches/bocadillosfrom the basket and a thermos jug, pours hot water over the herbs from the maté in the calabaza)

FADE OUT

Scene 4

FADE IN

EXT. AT THE PORT OF GRAN CANARIA.

About two weeks later. Noon. The sun is high in the sky.

(Father Schwalm is back at the railing with Anita)

Anita:

(sees the traders with the yellow bananas on their shoulders coming onto the ship)

Mira, Daddy, all those yellow bananas!!!Son amarillas como el sol!Who eats all these bananas? Podemos tener una?

Father Schwalm:

... they're only for first class. Look, the couple there comes down and buys some. They're from the upper deck. I heard them speaking Swiss German. And now they're talking to Mommy.

Mother Schwalm:

(after ten minutes she approaches them excitedly) Imagine, they are rich plantation owners from Brazil, Swiss emigrants.They actually want to buy Ruthli from me because they have no children!

Father Schwalm:

(jokingly) What do they pay?

Mother Schwalm:

(shaking her head)

It doesn't matter. They pay everything. What a crazy idea! Would you sell your daughters? In an emergency? (Anita starts to cry)

Father Schwalm:

Never and never!Come on Anita, don't cry.Don't worry, I'll never sell you. (begins to sing a Spanish children's song)

Veo veo

Anita:

(immediately distracted joins in)

Que ves?

Father Schwalm:

Una cosita

Anita:

Y que cosita es ?

Father Schwalm :

El vienta con laA. Qué serà, que serà, que serà ?

Anita:

(smiles again and shouts loudly)

A-n-i-t-a

(Father Schwalm shakes his head in the negative)

Ar-gen-ti-na

Father Schwalm:

Buenissimo, pequeña!(kisses her on the forehead)

Mother Schwalm:

Stop singing Spanish at last. The children will attend Swiss schools - the best in the world!

Dorli:

(stands thoughtfully next to it) In Hansel and Gretel, the parents also gave their children away because they had no money for food. They simply sent them into the forest. How sad! I don't understand that.

Mother Schwalm:

Everything is possible in a fairy tale, but nothing is true.

Anita

(out of deepest conviction) You would never give us away, would you Mummy!

FADE OUT

Scene 5

FADE IN

EXT. PORT OF HAMBURG.

Midnight.

Three weeks later.

(The ship"Arturo Delfino"arrives, it is raining, it is cold and dark)

Mother Schwalm:

(tired but happy) We're finally in Europe!I've dreamed about it for so long.Dorli and Anita take your little suitcases and stay close behind me, hold on to my skirt. I'm carrying Ruthli.

(Father Schwalm follows in a bad mood with the two remaining large suitcases.)

Mother Schwalm: (continues)

What's the name of the hotel again?

Father Schwalm:

"Zur Schwalbe". It's right on the harbor. (Overtired, the little family trudges through the harbor facilities. After around thirty minutes, they stand in front of the gloomy reception of the second-class hotel with the shabby, peeling facade address"Zur Schwal.e", where the b is missing)

FADE OUT

Voice from the background: Swallows migrate south for the winter, not north.

(End of the movie scenes)

Chapter 3: About the return to Switzerland in 1928

fromAunt Heidi'sautobiography, written in 2013

[Brackets: my additions and corrections]

"In 1928, the Schwalm-Rahm couple decided to return to Switzerland.What prompted them to do so is a mystery to me. There is a slight suspicion that members of the Schwalm family living in Switzerland (there were two brothers, Alfred and Eugen, and a sister, Lydia(her name was Ida), might have had something to do with it, but for what reason? Unknown ... to describe the history of this family would go too far. I'll limit myself to my parents Otto Fritz (called Federico in Argentina) and Anna Schwalm-Rahm."

Heidi(formerly calledRuthli) was little more than a year old at the time of the return journey, she couldn't remember much and reported from hearsay.

"But there was another rather unusual incident on the trip. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a young Swiss couple, wealthy landowners of a plantation, joined us. They were always watching me and were so in love with me or enthusiastic about me that they wanted to buy me from my parents at the next stop at the port of Gran Canaria!!! As a joke, Dad said they would have to ask Mum and she said that Dad was in charge. Things got pretty serious because the couple wouldn't stop insisting that the parents still had two daughters, so they could give one away! Until the parents declared categorically that it was out of the question. The price offer was apparently quite substantial!!!" [ ...]

"Settling in Switzerland was obviously not easy. As the two older daughters, Dorli and Anita, were already of school age and their parents had no fixed abode, they were placed with an older sister of Mother Anna, Aunt Hedwig and her husband, Uncle Jakob, in Basel, where they also went to school. In the meantime, father - from now on called dad - had received a job offer in Spain, where he traveled with mother - from now on called mom - and me, Heidi, and stayed there for two years. After their return and presumably after a short stay in Switzerland, he got a job in Portugal, where the three of us went. Another two years that I can remember very little about. He was the manager of an electricity plant and I still remember the place and the hall where the big turbines were installed. I also remember spooning up the soup in the courtyard with a boy who was bringing lunch to an employee. Unfortunately, my stay came to a tragic end about two years later. Dad was shot by an envious employee who wanted his managerial position. The bullet lodged in his leg(Grandma had talked about two bullets in his knees)and Dad had to be admitted to hospital - Mum and I too. I remember that we had chicken soup every day! After an unsuccessful operation, we went back to Switzerland where, after a further examination by the doctors, it was found that a bullet had embedded itself so well in the knee that no further operation was necessary. The bullet remained in his knee for the rest of his life." [ ...]

"Our stay in Switzerland was not so pleasant. Because of the two stays in Spain and Portugal, Dorli and Anita had to remain with their aunt in Basel. Then came the crisis period of the 1930s [the Great Depression] and Dadmust have had trouble finding work. I lived with my parents in Winterthur, where I attended elementary school."

So much for the return to Switzerland and the reasons for splitting up the family.

(As soon as the family was in Switzerland,Ruthliwas calledHeidi, her middle name)

Chapter 4: My mother's handbag (fiction)

Location: Village betweenWinterthurandZurichSwitzerland

Time: February 1959

Six-year-oldChristinasneaks into her parents' bedroom and sits down in front of her mother's three-part mirror, opens the two side panels and looks at herself from all sides. No, she doesn't look like her mother at all. She turns to the make-up utensils on the small boudoir table and grabs the red lipstick, clumsily painting her thin lips. She blackens her eyelashes and eyebrows with the mascara brush and uses eyeliner for the lower edges of her eyelids. Too much blush on both cheekbones! She covers her entire face with a thick layer ofElizabeth Ardenpowder. Finally, she sparingly sprays the expensiveYves Saint Laurent perfumeon both sides of her neck and down the neckline of her green wool sweater.She leaves out the red nail polish to save time.Her mother will soon be back from her visit to the hairdresser in the village: with a new perm and no doubt at least one new or altered item of clothing from her dressmaker.Christina