Moments in Time, Volume 1: Childhood, Independence

By Peter Cavelti

This first volume of Peter Cavelti's retrospective is a chronicle of the joys and tensions under the surface of bourgeois family life in rural Switzerland, followed by an account of his rebel years as a school drop-out, a confused soldier and a tormented immigrant in apartheid-era South Africa-and eventually, the long backpacking adventure that

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legacy Editions
• Release date: May 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778031632

Peter Cavelti

Peter Cavelti was born in Switzerland and spent his early adult years backpacking through Africa and Asia. In 1972, he emigrated to Canada, where he still lives. His early writing focused on investments and geopolitics, topics he was very familiar with from his successful career as a financial executive. In 1997 his widely acclaimed cultural study of the South Seas, "Tuiavii's Way", was published in Canada, Australia and Japan. He also has a novel, "A Dangerous Remedy", to his credit. He loves the outdoors, adventure travel and family life.

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Cover: Moments in Time, Voluem 1 by Peter Cavelti. Bronze background image with bubble of various sizes containing images of the author.Back cover: orange gradient with the floating names of serveral cities, countries, and regions significant to the story.

MOMENTS

IN TIME

Also by Peter C. Cavelti

Tuiavii’s Way: A South Sea Chief’s

Comments on Western Society

Legacy Editions, Toronto

and Sanseido, Tokyo

A Dangerous Remedy

Legacy Editions, Toronto

How To Invest In Gold

McClelland & Stewart, Toronto

and Follett Publishing, Chicago

Gold, Silver & Strategic Metals

McClelland & Stewart, Toronto

and McGraw Hill, New York

Title page: Moments in Time, volume 1: Childhood and Independence

Peter C. Cavelti was born in Switzerland. He lived in Africa and Asia, before immigrating to Canada, where he pursued his career as a financial executive and writer. His books have been published internationally.

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Copyright © 2022 by the Author

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission by the Author.

ISBN 978-1-7780316-3-2

Library and Archives Canada

Cavelti, Peter C. (Peter Christian), 1948-

     Moments In Time: The Experience Of My Life / Peter C. Cavelti / Volume 1

Cover Design: Richard Moore Associates, New York, Hanoi and Saigon

Content Design: Laura Brady, Toronto

Childhood

The faded deckchair in which I lie faces out to sea. The whitecaps moving in fascinate me and also calm me. I see thousands and know there are millions more, further out.

I let my eyes follow the waves to shore. They remind me of humans: each distinct and utterly unpredictable, but in the face of death uniformly determined not to submit without a fuss. Wave after wave gathers strength for one final rise before collapsing into itself with a thunderous roar and releasing what it was temporarily allowed to hold. Pieces of rope and coconut shell and wood; tumbles of seaweed and an occasional jellyfish; and shards of coloured glass, the edges ground dull by a million thrashings in the turbulent waters. They all clutter the beach now, no longer of any use, but only a petty nuisance.

If others were to contemplate me, what would they see? A man who’s lived a great many lives, all packed into the seven decades he’s been a visitor to this planet, that’s what. Who, as a Swiss soldier helped move tank brigades across slender alpine bridges and later, in Africa, shook scorpions out of his boots when waking up. A man who trekked through the Himalayas and watched a golden eagle soar no more than ten feet above him. Who at another time ordered traders fixated on poisonous green numbers dancing across computer screens to buy and sell gold and oil and Japanese yen, and, later still, turned inward and spent his days splitting wood and pruning plants and writing.

They’d see a man who at the threshold of his adulthood expected little beyond an interesting and perhaps adventurous existence, and in the fullness of his life received blessings so immense that he’s left both dazed and humbled when he meditates upon them. A man who takes pleasure in small things and cherishes the soothing rituals of his everyday life, but is fatigued by the interminable onslaught of change that complicates his days. And finally, they’d see a fellow human being who’s experienced purest love and the elation of deep fulfilment, and who’s also been witness to gut-wrenching tragedy, too many times for one lifespan—a person whose memories of those he treasured and lost are sweet and rich, until the throbbing ache of yearning arises, leaving him wondering why it is that everything that comes must go again, why we have to give up what we’ve come to cherish.

I watch the pelicans streak straight into the breaking Caribbean surf, and as I do so, the never-ending noise of my mind marvels at that man in the deckchair and the lives he’s led. I wonder who that man is.

There are clues. Inside my wallet there is a worn slip of paper with a Wordsworth quote on solitude. The same quote is also written in my best calligraphy on a polished slab of wood, which I’ve mounted above the window inside my small office at the cottage. I know the words by heart, but occasionally let my eyes rest on them, so that they may etch themselves into my mind ever more deeply.

When from our better selves we have too long

been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,

sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,

how gracious, how benign, is solitude.

Another signpost: a few months ago I surprised Caroline by comparing myself to a chameleon, which elicited laughter. Chameleons distinguish themselves by blending in, she explained—your characteristic is that you stick out. I laughed too, but being so far off on a subject has preoccupied me and left me a bit sad. It’s made me search for a more valid simile and here is what I’ve come up with. I know I’ve never belonged to any one country or place or industry or group. Leaving home and living in different parts of the world has done that to me. And it’s in my genes, too: my father and his father were rebels of note, so why should I fit in anywhere? I view countries as mechanisms designed to exploit, flags and national anthems as devilish inventions that are designed to divide. And I’ve observed that peer structures reward institutional behaviour and by doing so, stifle individualism and talent.

Am I an elitist, then? After thinking about this for several weeks, I’ve come up with a narrative that satisfies me. I’m the zebra among horses. I patiently observe and move the way the horses do. But every now and then I revert to what comes to me most naturally and get noticed. I’m briefly admired for my exotic appearance, but soon after recognized for being different. When I move on, I can never be sure whether I’m the one who’s rejected his adopted culture or whether I was on the verge of being purged from it.

I suppose it’s a good thing that I no longer care. What I do know is that I’m destined to leave any group, any identity, and that I enjoy doing so and sometimes romanticize it. But that doesn’t help me know what’s at the core of me. Is there meaning beyond the hundreds of visas in the old passports I’ve meticulously filed away? Can I learn from the dozen binders that contain newspaper clippings describing my activities during the years when society thought what I was doing was noteworthy? What is my destiny, other than death itself?

The man in the deckchair, whom I’m trying to see and understand as if he were a stranger and who is also the author of this book, is starting to think the answer may be simple. So simple that, had he known earlier, he might have taken some shortcuts.

Where, then, to begin? I wonder what should come first, my thoughts like bees hovering in a field of buckwheat, taking in the unending spread of white blossoms on their cushion of spring green, intimidated by the abundance, then settling for the plant that seems nearest, circling this flower and that, weighing whether its nectar may prove sweet and rich.

Not all thoughts are worth exploring. It seems that much of my life has been filled with drudgery, the days and months and years a parade of unremarkable episodes, all unexpectedly contributing to valuable experience, but nonetheless not worth recording. But then there were moments that shifted everything, that led from one state of being to another.

At the time, I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of those transitions. But now, with my eye on the horizonless sea—now there is perspective. I think I understand.

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Where are they, the precious memories of my early childhood? I compare notes with other family members and friends and realize that, unlike them, I remember virtually nothing of the first two years of my life.

There are administrative records on which I can rely for details. They record data that may have been relevant to church and government bureaucrats, but they don’t shed any light on my early existence, either. Still, it’s nice to know that I was born on April 10, 1948 at 9:05pm, at the hospital in Herisau, in northeastern Switzerland. Astrologers would note that I was born under the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, and that Scorpio was ascendant, and draw their conclusions. Fifteen days after my birth I was baptized by the resident vicar of the Roman-Catholic Church, one Dr. Theo Frey. My parents decided I should be Peter Christian. I never learned why they chose Peter, but I know my second name was my paternal grandfather’s. He wasn’t there for the occasion and I never got to know him well, but I suspect some of his nonconformist nature is embedded in my genes.

There is an early picture of me, showing a plump, overdressed, cheery looking baby. And there is anecdotal evidence to back up that image: my mother and grandmother told me numerous times that I was the most contented, pleasant baby in the family.

When looking for episodes I can recall with clarity, I have to move toward the end of my second year, and even then I admit I have no idea of how accurate my recollections are. I’ve relived them so often that over time they may imperceptibly have been transformed—much like a stone that takes on a different appearance when repeatedly polished, even though its essence remains unaltered. In short, while I can’t be sure of the exact details or sequence of things that were said and done, I believe that the context and substance of my memories are accurate.

The earliest moment of my life that I can pair with visuals has me sitting on the wooden floor of what was both our living and dining room, playing. Mami is close to me, sewing at the only table we have. She’s got her sleeveless flower-dress on: pink, white-edged blossoms and lavish, bright-green leaves against a black background. I know it’s the one with the long zipper running down its back. On the radio, someone in a foreign language sings Aloha O’e. The melody’s delicious softness is soothing like the summer breeze that caresses the white see-through curtains hanging over our slightly open window. Mami hums along and the sewing machine joins in. The toys I’m playing with are a wooden cooking spoon and a tin pot with a dark-brown resin handle. I stir, pretending that I’m making lunch, and sometimes I joyously bang on the side of the bowl.

Maxli is there too, watching me attentively. His gray woolen jacket and his green trousers are incredibly soft and his limbs are pliable. The head of the dwarf doll Mami knitted for me is gray, with a long, round bean nose sticking out, a crimson thread marking its mouth and a few black stitches suggesting soulful, expressive eyes. Maxli wears a pointed red hat that extends down the sides of his happy face. He goes where I go.

I slide from below the table, where I could watch Mami’s slippered foot pushing down on the pedal, to the edge, where the floor is liquid with the glare of sunlight and I need to squint. That makes me look the other way, down the narrow hallway leading to the front door, where the floor planks turn increasingly darker. I don’t ask why that is; the need to know and label things comes later. Right now everything delights me.

One thing that brings me pleasure is the sturdy black telephone mounted on the hallway wall. I’ve learned to walk, so I get up, balance myself and move unsteadily forward, tin pot with Maxli sitting inside in one hand, cooking spoon in the other. The phone is too high up for me to see the black-on-white numbers behind the rotary dial, but I know they are there, because sometimes Mami lifts me up and I get to see and touch everything. The dialing disk, the shiny metal bell on top, and the wire that comes out of the box and leads to the part where other people’s voices can be heard.

Not that the phone is a toy. I know this because Mami has said it many times, and because our neighbours treat it with respect and gratitude when they come to use it. We are the only tenants with a phone. Later, Mami will tell me how difficult things were during the Nachkriegszeit—the time after the war.

But this is now and on this late summer day Mami seems content with what she has. And so am I—I have my toys and can see my mother near me. Whrrrr, goes the sewing machine again, and a wave of warmth washes over me.

Twice I almost die.

Mami is in the habit of walking up the street to the bakery before the morning’s crispy fresh loaves are gone. Although we don’t have much money, she insists on freshly baked bread each day. Later, at lunch, Mami will half the loaf and, from the middle outwards, cut each of us slices. The ends that are left after next day’s breakfast will be placed in a paper bag for my father. He likes to eat hardened bread—the crispier he says, the better for your teeth. I believe him because Mami has told me he is a tooth-doctor.

Here is what happens to the bread Papi doesn’t finish. One chunk at a time, Mami places it into a grinder, pushes down the lever at the top, and turns the crank. Crumbs in shades of brown, black and white then fall onto the kitchen table, where they form a small pyramid. Mami sweeps them up and puts them into another paper bag. This is for Grosspapi’s chickens, she says, and I smile knowingly.

One time, Mami comes home from the bakery and notices a strong smell of gas. She’s left her potatoes simmering on the stove and the water has overflowed and extinguished the flame. I’m asleep on the kitchen floor. When I wake up, we’re on the balcony, Mami holding me sideways over her knees, as I cough with great intensity. The icy winter air hurts my throat.

A few months later, my mother goes out to buy groceries. It’s late spring now, one of the first warm days, and the window is wide open. I’m playing under the table as usual, but too much time goes by and I decide to see whether Mami is on her way back. I’ve learned to push the wooden kitchen chair around and climbing it is no longer a challenge. Getting to the windowsill and perching myself on it proves a bit more difficult, but here I finally am. A garbage cart, drawn by two horses, advances down the cobble-stoned road. I envy the driver, who gets to be so close to his animals all day and who can look down on the pedestrians walking up and down our street much as I now look down at him.

Then I see my mother. Hoi Mami! I yell, as soon as I see her figure come down the hill toward me, my legs dangling over the side of the building. I am not sure whether the image I carry within me has been formed by memory or through endless retelling, but here is what I see: my mother standing three stories below me, her dark hair and grey raincoat blending into the mosaic of worn cobblestones around her. Her voice is taut and frosty as she tells me to sit still, not to make any move, to keep facing the street. There’s panic in the blanched face of this person I rely on for all wisdom and strength, and her eyes are vulnerable and afraid.

As the years stretch into decades, Mami relates these stories again and again. And each time she does, I can tell how traumatized she must have been. She was carrying Gaby in her tummy then.

Later in life, my thoughts returned to Gaby a lot. She was my sister and closest companion through my years of childhood and adolescence. Eventually, on one of my many trips back to Switzerland, I decided to search through the well-organized albums my mother had compiled. It was as if I was looking for evidence of how close Gaby and I had been.

There were no more than five or six pictures of us together, but that was expected. After all, technology has profoundly changed the way we live our moments and the way we record our lives. Of my grandparents, there are about twenty pictures in existence, of my parents less than a hundred. My wife Caroline and I appear in a few hundred images, and our grandchildren, who are only teenagers, in a thousand or more.

What matters is that the handful of old prints that show Gaby and me together completely validated my thoughts. Here we did cartwheels together, bouncing through a juicy meadow speckled with buttercups, making a green path through a sea of yellow. Another shot showed us hugging to the side of a Christmas tree, the light from dozens of flickering candles reflected in our eyes. In a third picture we were posing in front of a bright-yellow postal coach, holding hands. We were very close.

Yet, curiously, I have no recollection of the time leading up to my sister’s birth, or the weeks after. There should be some connection points: Mami letting me, the two year-old, touch her tummy, or asking me to listen to the sounds of Gaby inside her. But the only thing that comes up when I search for portents of my sister’s arrival has nothing to do with her at all: what fills the time before Gaby arrived is the sea-shell. Mami handing me an exotic pink shell, the size of my little fist, saying, If you hold it to your ear, you will hear the ocean. I had no concept of what an ocean might be, but Mami handed me the shell as if it were her most precious belonging, and I listened. Maybe the sounds I heard weren’t all that different from those Gaby heard inside my mother’s womb.

I do recall being taken to the hospital, though. As I let my thoughts take flight, I feel myself reaching for Papi’s hand as we walk down the dark corridor that smells of cleaning fluids and floor wax, stern-looking nuns with glaring white wimples pulled down deep over their foreheads gliding past us. I feel secure with Papi, who knows the way to the right door, knocks discreetly and softly pushes me into the spacious room, where Mami lies on an impossibly high iron-framed bed, her exhausted face smaller than I remember it, dwarfed by several oversized, puffy down-pillows.

Here is what troubles me: there is no Gaby. I can readily summon the scene, the three of us together, but my newborn little sister missing from this memory. It’s as if someone has taken a pair of scissors to a family portrait and crudely cut her out. Where could she be, my baby sister, if not drinking at Mami’s breast or snuggled against her soft arm?

But my early childhood is like that: Mami’s presence seamless and comforting, Gaby’s conspicuously missing, and my father’s whimsical and capricious. Like all children, I adapt to the pulse of this arrangement. It’s my normal.

✧✧✧

Some of my memories confirm that I was an exceptionally calm child. My mother used to say that I was an angel until I turned ten, then became progressively more argumentative and insolent. There are numerous things that might have shaken me up when I turned ten, but I can’t think of one reason why I was compliant until then. Most relatives on my mother’s side are opinionated and on my father’s side there is a prominent streak of defiance, which eventually became part of my pathology too.

Still, my mother must be right. When looking back at my early years, I see a boy that is shy and perhaps afraid of the world. He’s willing to try new things, but not without the protection and guidance of his parents.

Papi has promised to take me to Herisau’s annual fall fair, the Jahrmarkt. There will be carousels, he explains, and jugglers and magicians. And, most importantly, the ghost ride. I’m not sure why the latter fascinates me so much. I have only the vaguest concept of what a ghost is, but the way my parents talk about it makes me think they are afraid, which evokes my curiosity.

Putting on his suit and his felt hat with the rounded crown, the one Brits call a bowler and Americans a derby, Papi gets ready to take me to the Ebnet, where the annual fair is set up. It’s a nippy October day, a white sun wavering behind the shroud of fog, and half the village is out. Herr Waldburger, Herisau’s photographer, is taking a picture of us—Papi looks dapper and self-confident, as though he were reassuring me that the stranger with the camera could be trusted. I look tall for my age, but decidedly guarded and intent on keeping my distance, much the way Mami would have done.

I notice that a great number of people know my father. Later in life, I wonder how that was possible, given that my parents had moved to Herisau only a year before I was born.

The Ebnet is the planed top of a hill, sufficient in size to hold a soccer field, Herisau’s high school and some of the village’s more prestigious houses. Even though Papi is a dentist, a house is still a distant dream for my parents. We live in a spacious apartment, with a bedroom for Mami and Papi and a smaller one for Gaby and me, a dining room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom with tub, sink and toilet. Alongside these rooms is my favorite place, which lends itself to all kinds of activities: the narrow, long hallway, at the end of which is our apartment door. That is where Frau Hilb will ring the doorbell once or twice a day, sometimes for a chat with Mami and sometimes because she’s heading out to coffee and cake with her friends, in which case she will ask Mami if Martin can stay with us for an hour or two.

Martin is my first friend. Next year, he will be at kindergarten with me. After that we will go to school together—Martin all the way to university, of which he will one day become the dean. We will serve in the army together too, Martin a year behind me and under my command, an implausible arrangement destined to lead to both hilarious and highly awkward situations. And later yet, half a century and more from now, we will occasionally return to Herisau to walk the streets and alleyways that hold such allure for us now.

As Papi leads me toward the dozens of canvas-roofed stalls that ring the Ebnet, I lose myself in a world of sounds and smells. Vendors hawk everything from figs, dates and tangerines to knit gloves, hats and sweaters, loudly advertising the virtue of their wares. The village’s two bakers are there, selling deliciously warm gingerbread cookies, whose aroma beckons from afar. There are almond croissants as well, and sticky mounds of Turkish Delight, which Papi insists is bad for the teeth and would make us sick.

Between some of the stalls stand apron-clad men behind massive metal drums filled with glowing embers, on top of which is a grid on which piping hot chestnuts are roasting. Heisse Marroni! they shout enthusiastically, each competing with the other sellers, their Italian accents unmistakable. This, I learn, is my Papi’s favorite Jahrmarkt snack, and I decide it will be mine as well. As the marroni-man shovels a scoop of his steaming treats into a brown paper cone, I move close to the chestnut drum and let its delightful heat reverberate through my body.

Later, as I struggle with a ball of spidery candy-floss that seems far too pink and light to be real, we keep running into people Papi knows. Some of his acquaintances are checking out the fair just as we are, but it turns out he knows some of the merchants too. This seems extraordinary to me, because the people who are part of this scenery of colourful lights, amplified sound and exotic delicacies must surely be part of a different world than the one we live in.

The ghost ride is next. There is only one moment when this tunnel of horrors actually frightens me and when I’m grateful for Papi’s protective embrace. That’s when we enter a completely light-less chamber and our faces are suddenly brushed with strands of damp hair hanging from above, exactly at the time when a bone-chilling shriek jars me. It must have impressed Papi too, because he calms me, saying that I need not be afraid with him here.

By comparison, the next few rides are disappointing. The Ferris Wheel is boringly slow, and the Himalaya ride, which coasts up and down on a round track, is fun for the first two spins, but then strikes me as too predictable. What I really want to do is drive a bumper car, but Papi points to a sign at the side of the track, which apparently says I’m too small. I’m not the kind of child who argues, especially with my father, and so I accept this setback. But my Papi doesn’t.

He tells me to wait, walks over to the operator and talks to him, emphatically gesticulating and occasionally pointing at me. When the two shake hands I know I get to go on a bumper car. Papi takes the wheel, but he lets me help, giving me the illusion that I’m the driver in control. The terrifying blue electrical sparks that emanate from the pole that rises from the back of each car enthrall me. I feel pure elation when we spin, and I experience terror as we hit others, never sure whether it’s done accidentally or on purpose.

I can’t wait to tell Mami about my experience, certain that this has been one of the best things so far in my life. We’ve spent two or at most three hours at the fair, but to me it seems we’ve been on an extended visit to a distant galaxy, where we’ve partaken in the most extraordinary adventures.

✧✧✧

Chur is the administrative capital of Graubünden, the largest and easternmost of Switzerland’s cantons. It borders on Austria, Liechtenstein and Italy.

Western Europe’s two largest rivers are born in Graubünden’s mountains. The Inn’s tempestuous waters will flow into the Danube and, after a spectacular journey through nearly a dozen countries and over 3000 kilometers, find their way into the Black Sea. The Rhine will trace Switzerland’s border, traverse Lake Constance, and cascade down a rocky slope at the Rhine Falls before adopting a more dignified pace and meandering through Germany and Holland, where it will pour into the North Sea.

Celtic tribes inhabited Graubünden once, as they did much of Central Europe. Later the Romans invaded, calling their new province Rhaetia and its capital Curia. Over the following many centuries, in a way that is still hotly debated by linguists, the Romansch language evolved. Spoken by less than 40,000 people and surviving only in the more remote regions of Graubünden, it is nevertheless one of Switzerland’s four official languages.

I’ve already learned that it’s also the language of my people. Both my grandfathers are from Romansch background, even though most of their schooling has been in German, so that they’re conversant in both languages. My mother’s parents, whom I get to see frequently, occasionally teach me a new word—I already know ‘bun di’ for good morning, ‘paun’ for bread, and my favorite word, ‘scarnuz’, which describes the brown paper bags Grossmami and Grosspapi use for the fruit they sell to people passing outside their house.

Today is a special day: we are headed to Chur. We’ve finished our breakfast and Mami is eager to leave. Papi says he first has to go to fill up the tank of his new car. Gaby and I don’t mind playing a bit longer, but we can tell our mother is not happy with this turn of events. Around eleven Papi returns, all smiles, joking with us children and whirling us through the air. Mami is frustrated, hurrying us along while reiterating that she told her parents we’d be arriving in time for the Sunday roast.

Half an hour into the journey, as the road winds its way across the mountain pass separating us from the Rhine Valley, Gaby complains that she’s feeling sick. The car does that