Some years ago, on the day after Christmas, I returned to my countryside home after spending the holiday with my lover’s family. It felt good to get away from the claustrophobic proximity of so many humans. While some theorists claim that today’s prevalence of the anxiety disorder is due to the evolutionarily novel situation of humans experiencing insufficient closeness and frequency of human contact, I am just the opposite: instead of calming me, extended presence in groups of people, even if intimate and not very big, makes me anxious. I only attended the Christmas party to oblige my lover. And now I was relieved to be returning home.
There was a snow storm over central Europe and my flight was delayed, causing me to miss all but the last bus home. Alas, that bus, departing the train station at 22:30, did not go as far as my village, but ended its run in the one before, some 6 km short of my home. The driver, who knew me, was apologetic about not being allowed to take me further. When I got out of the bus, well past 11, there was a driving snowfall, so dense one could barely see. I took a firm grip of my suitcase and plowed into the snowstorm feeling my way along the curb.
At first, I walked through a dazzling sea of light, as the light of street lamps diffused about me in the driving snow; but soon I reached the end of the village and marched on into the thickening darkness, with wind and cold snow driving into my face. At times I could not tell whither I was going: I knew I had to go up, and blindly followed the hard tarmac under my feet. After some time, I began to see in front of me, through the snow, a faint and then gradually increasing general glow, too slow and too dim and too broad to be the lights of an approaching car.
Then, about 2 km out of the village, as I reached the top of the hill — the road climbs to the top of the ridge and then follows it along its long summit — I emerged from the snowstorm and above the clouds. The snowfall stopped, all became clear, and I saw before me, above the white empty world, black skies and a brilliant moon. The world sparkled in the moonlight. All was white and vast and black and shiny. A stiff cold wind froze my face.
Some kilometers on, at the old sheep-shed, I turned onto the snowy field, to save myself about a kilometer’s walk, by cutting through. And there I was, walking across a vast, empty, white field, in glowing moonlight, under jet black sky, with a suitcase in my hand.
Suddenly, my situation made me remember a scene from an old black-and-white Polish — or perhaps Czech — film, from late 40’s or early 50’s, about a man returning home from the war, from a concentration camp, or perhaps a prisoner’s of war camp, through a snowy field, with a tattered suitcase in hand. And at that instant, in addition to the intense aesthetic pleasure of the experience, I also experienced the profound satisfaction I often feel when I realize that some twist in my biography reenacts an important and hoary artistic trope.
For the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the film, and search as much as I will, I cannot find it. But here is another magical scene of a man walking at night in snowy winter. It comes from Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies. I find it absolutely spell-binding, and often find myself thinking about it. But that could be my religious gene at work, it may not work for you.
Oltre Mare 