Did Hölbl have any inkling what his visit would unleash? Anyone who only knows ice as a caged animal in closed valleys is bound to be overwhelmed by the radical freedom of the white south, where all exceptions are the rule, where ice covers everything except the steepest cliffs. Landscapes like this didn’t exist even in the wildest dreams of the eight-year-old boy who together with the others from the same apartment block dared one another to drink water from a puddle with a straw, until some mother spotted them through one of the open windows and let loose a cry that landed right in the middle of their game.
“Come on up here boy,” my father called out, without leaning out the window, “we’re going to the mountains.”
I went up immediately.
“Why the short britches?”
“It’s hotter than blazes out there.”
“You’ll be cold.”
“No I won’t, Papa, believe me I won’t get cold.”
“Well we’ll see about that …”
In my memory my father leaves Mittersendling in second gear and stops at every crossing. Our motor sounds happy and I’m bouncing on the seat so as not to miss anything. Father imitates different birds with chirps and twitters, he’s a robin a greenfinch a woodpecker.
“You should be on the radio, Papa.”
“With all that twitteratura, for an hour of bird calls? Nobody’d put up with it.”
“No I mean mixed together with all the singers, they’d do a song, you’d do a bird …”
“How would that work? Ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned for The Blackbirds’ latest hit? They wouldn’t put up with it for even a second. Well, we’ll see about that …”
I’m allowed to roll down the window, after that I can no longer hear the twittering. My father’s had the VW Beetle for just a few weeks, before that he took the streetcar, and we used the sidewalk. Wherever we couldn’t get on our own two feet we didn’t belong. I count the oncoming cars as well as the ones overtaking us. Red cars count twice, I don’t remember why. Right when I’ve reached a hundred points my father announces that we’re almost there, the trip didn’t take long, three hours, maybe three and a half. We park the car and hike up a path, and all at once I see a wall and feel a wave of cold that’s unusual for the middle of summer. Driving back hours later, I rub my hands over the goose-pimples on my upper thigh, feel my wet shoes and stare at the disappearing vista, you’ll get sick, Papa warns, but I refuse to let go, I’m staring at the glacier through two panes of glass, like looking at my future through a pair of binoculars, in the end I didn’t let go. Everything’s backward, I told my mother later, it’s like a dragon with ice-cold breath instead of fire just lying there spitting out ice and spitting out ice and there’s no stopping. You won’t believe the ice that’s up there, waterfalls that are frozen caves but they aren’t really caves, they’re chapels, they’re all blue like your favorite dress, and so smooth. The minute you sit down you go sliding off on the seat of your pants. And Papa said that when somebody dies up there on the glacier his body gets swallowed and doesn’t get spit out until his grandchildren go searching for him. Papa said the ice is full of frozen faces (as a student I used to proclaim with the arrogance of experts that no statue can come close to the ice sculptures, one day at the glacier is worth more than a hundred years in the Pinakothek). I told the other kids from the courtyard about my discovery, about my glacier, I told my schoolmates and all my cousins when we went to Wolfratshausen for my grandmother’s birthday. I even told my grandfather. He was sitting by the corner shrine, his nostrils had little black crumbs like snot, he listened to me stock-still and finally said: “You’re going to see a thing or two, lad.” I went on and on, talking until I was blue in the face, now I hear myself talking once again, after a downward slide into silence, talking more than ever, since I’m being listened to, the passengers are sitting in their rows, the Antarctic is a repository for all of us, the ice contains air bubbles that have been trapped for thousands of years, as if the Earth regularly cleared its lungs, exhaling present moments that are caught and securely stored in these natural coffers, every volcanic eruption, every eclipse, every atomic weapon test, every shift in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (every fart of mankind is how Jeremy puts it when nobody’s around). And don’t forget, I tell them in closing, you’re going to see a lot of ice on our trip, and you’ll be shivering with cold, for some of you it will be the first time you’ve felt that kind of cold, and nevertheless what you will be seeing is all in the banana belt of Antarctica during the warmest part of summer. Think about it, there’s hardly any region in the world warming up as quickly as the Antarctic peninsula, before long we’ll see heather growing, and potatoes being planted, and sheep grazing, and after that it won’t be much longer before people start vinting Antarctic wine. But for now the polar plateau is still mercilessly cold, and that’s something you won’t encounter. All you’re getting to know on this expedition is the very tip of the continent, but I can assure you that will knock your thermal socks off! Grateful, persistent applause. If only school had been half as much fun, a man compliments me on his way out — but as I write this a few hours later I can no longer picture his face. The chance to talk about ice, even just twice a day, reconciles me at least for the moment with the demise of my glacier.
In the sunny warmth of the dining room I am surrounded by laid-back voices. Ricardo is guarding the entrance to the restaurant beside his desk, he consults his register and waves me away: “I hate to tell you but there’s no place for you,” there are fewer seats than passengers, he’s sorry, but the problem was unforeseeable. An older lady rises and offers me a place at her table, in Swiss-accented German she explains that her husband will be staying in their cabin because he isn’t feeling well. Ricardo hastens to reassure the lady that he was only joking, and shoos me off to the table for the lecturers. A few passengers nod my way, by the end of the trip most will greet me by name. My response is friendly, I have no trouble being polite, I don’t despise the passengers, even if Paulina insists I really do, I know from experience that the insights they will gain during the next few days will put them in a more reverent mood, but does that mean I should ignore the fact that this reverence will dissipate as soon as they’re back home, that they aren’t about to renounce their comfortable lifestyle, despite all the harm it causes? You’re so strict when it comes to judging other people, says Paulina, as if they had personally disappointed you. If everyone was just like me, she says, I’m sure some things might be better, but some things would also be worse. “Even with people I don’t like,” she says, her voice getting agitated, “I always know they have their good side, I just haven’t discovered it yet.” For her, reality is something that has to be accepted.
At the buffet I help myself to a few appetizers and a little salad. The more I get used to this cold warm sweet buffet, the harder it is for me to decide. Instead of hardtack and herring there’s an abundant assortment of food on large trays and chafing dishes, as multicolored as the flags displayed in front of a five-star hotel (everything revolves around eating, we might not be able to make a landing, the entire continent might vanish in the fog, but it’s unthinkable that a meal might be canceled). During my first weeks on board — and this was my first cruise ship experience — I tried to compensate for years of missed mealtimes and quick snacks by stuffing myself with one course after another, the bounteous table offered some weak comfort, I ate and ate, fattening myself up, and ultimately realized that the more I continued to eat, the more unrestrainedly I would continue to indulge, I foresaw a fiasco of a finale, every pot pouring forth sweet and sour porridge that I had no choice but to consume, serving after endless serving, with no recourse or release in sight until I burst. He who wishes to escape the merciless force of excess supply must flee into strict frugality. A spoonful of corn, a spoonful of tuna, a spoonful of shrimp with melon, a few quartered tomatoes, a handful of pitted black olives. Naturally there’s a seat in the dining room for the expedition leader, at the same table as the lecturers. There are days when I’d rather have lunch with Paulina, but unfortunately only the Brahmins are allowed such close contact with the passengers, the lower castes have to eat below decks, some will finish the entire trip without the passengers ever laying eyes on them. May I quote you? El Albatros spoons out his soup and looks at me over his tilted soup bowl. “Pardon?” “That last sentence of yours, ‘And in the end the murmuring waters will fall silent, for what will wrest the ocean’s secrets if not the ice,’ I’d like to use that sentence.”