GSTAAD—I shoulda been a weatherman. No sooner had I announced snow to be a Gstaad rarity than it came down nonstop. Then it rained, so everything’s hunky-dory. Older rich people who don’t ski are happy after the scare of a snowfall, while younger types who do indulge are over the moon. Happy, happy Gstaad, but not really; the coronavirus news has some scared out of their wits, in fact this alpine village is beginning to feel like Der Tod in Venedig, or Death in Venice for non-German speakers.
The great South African doubles specialist Frew McMillan, now the best tennis commentator on TV, used to call me Dirk, as in Bogarde, because he thought I looked a bit like the thespian. “Different sexual proclivities,” I used to shout back at him. Dirk was great as Aschenbach in Venice, and then there was my grandson Taki announcing at dinner that I was the likeliest to catch the damn thing because I’m over 80, have smoked for seventy years, and when drunk go around shaking hands with all sorts of strangers.
Death in Venice
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What was it they say about “from the mouths of babes”? But death is on everyone’s mind nowadays, especially in this small community inhabited by people who don’t have to do a 9 to 5 chore daily. The young who ski know they will never die. The oldies cling to a fantasized life and think that death will not happen today or tomorrow but sometime in the faraway future. The trouble is that life should be celebrated for its ephemeral beauties, with death recognized as ever present and just around the corner. Only self-centered people fear death. It’s as natural as life, and everyone’s bound to experience it. Living dangerously helps put death in the right perspective.
One thing is for sure: In this hyperconnected world, the types who run our lives were slow to yell fire in case we insulted the Chinese. I’m not saying we should go back to treating them like coolies, but to remember that commies always speak with forked tongues. China should have been isolated as early as last December, but we were all too busy waiting for Nike sweatshops to deliver their cheaply made goods for our Christmas trees. Now we’re doing the sweating and half of Italy is shut down. And still today fake-news journals like The New York Times are reluctant to write anything that might give aid and comfort to antiglobalization forces in case they sound like The Donald.
