My Short Layover in Geneva

My arm being shaken. Weakly at first, but the amplitude kept increasing. I opened my eyes. Blocking the soft yellow light was a round face. On the round face were small round eyes, a discomfortingly round nose, and even the clearly rehearsed smile was slightly round. It was shaven neatly, but tastelessly. The face, seeing that I had opened my eyes, smiled even wider, flashing a gold tooth, and pulled a cigarette from a pack.

“No thanks, I don’t smoke,” I said and leaned back into the seat.

“Ehhh… Geneve stop’,” with hesitation, as though swallowing the last constant the face muffled.

I gave no reaction.

“You get’ out,” the face continued after a short pause.

I flinched and immediately threw my eyelids open. Glanced at my watch. 5:27. Turning, I could make out the reflection of the bus windows parked in the adjacent lot. I was in Geneva.

I quickly got up, thanked the Frenchman to whom the face that woke me belonged, and with my sleeping bag draped around my neck, started moving down the aisle through people who were either asleep or frantically gathering their things for the exit. Out of the corner of my eye, as I moved forward, I noticed how the comrade who woke me instantly hopped into my window seat, seemingly contemplating lighting up right then and there. Jumping out, I nearly collided with the driver, who for some reason was already holding my backpack. He was still angry with me from yesterday, when I handed him my driver’s license instead of my passport, covering up with an explanation of my passport being buried in my bag in such broken and painful french that he commanded me to board. After a couple of curses and a cough that only comes from lungs accustomed to smoke for decades, a blue 60-liter lump of everything required to survive at 10,000 feet above sea level flew into my chest. Slinging it on, I started walking somewhere into the dark, wanting to get as far away from that damn bus as possible.

About ten minutes later, I found myself on the promenade. The gloomy but beautiful Lake Geneva and the southern part of the city lay before me. I had nothing to do anyway, so I decided to head there. I felt disgusting. Sleepy, filthy, and crumpled, I dragged myself exhaustedly under the weight of my backpack along the pavement. The sleep deprivation and the 50 kilometers I walked yesterday were beginning to make themselves known. My feet ached and my ears were ringing, even though the city was quiet.

By six, I was at a small city beach on the other side of downtown. The first rays of the sun began painting the clouds in burgundy and orange. The water was crystal clear. I thought about taking a dip, but noticed two street sweepers cleaning the beach. They were glancing at me with suspicion and judgment. I couldn’t subject myself to that and moved toward the nearby pier. I thought about diving in there, too, but the moment I set my backpack down, two Swiss pensioners jogged up and started stretching, grunting, and groaning not even three meters away from me.

When I walked back into the city, it had radically changed. The promenade was swarming with runners, the streets with cars, the bikeline with men and women in suits zooming on their electric scooters, and the first trams were pulling up to still-empty stops. It must have been around seven. Walking along the waterfront, I watched the runners. Their faces, their movements, their clothes—everything was manicured to display. The posh kit combined with a technique my knees trembled just watching—a haunting memory of my high school cross-country time. In them you saw a belief that a run in your new Hokas at sunrise could save your weight, your fitness, motivation, marriage—it all. An allegory of a simple escape from a complex problem, a singular answer to a structural flaw. They were smiling, full of energy. A 1950s suburban advert. In my hometown, I’m often one of them. I watched their light footsteps from beneath the crushing weight of my backpack.

These runners instilled in me such fury and despair that I dived into the winding old city streets away from the promenade. I headed up, toward the main cathedral. The neatly laid stone pedestrian streets slowly carried me upward, pulling me out of the waterfront atmosphere. Everything was closed. Doors, windows, shutters. This part of the city was dead.

Dead, except for one coffee shop. The lights were off, but the city had long since shed the colors of dawn, and I could see two people inside being served tiny cups. I walked in, dumped my backpack, and asked for an espresso with a croissant. By that point, I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in almost 48 hours. The stifling, sweltering Paris I had so desperately wanted to conquer had nearly broken me. In this little joint, I was finally able to shed that terrible exhaustion, that feeling of sweat and dust coating my entire body, that burden Paris had dumped on me. I had never drank such a delicious espresso, nor tasted a croissant so soft.

I lay there staring at the wall of the University of Geneva. Maybe three hours had passed since I left the cafe, no more. All around me, on the lawns and benches, sat and lay happy, stereotypical students and, to my surprise, men in business suits—the same ones I had seen on electric scooters three hours ago on the bustling promenade. I was lying on a bench, too. Headphones in, OK Computer playing. The notes that Radiohead’s members had embedded into the album about their disillusionment with the modern world didn’t touch me. Then, on that bench, hiding in the shade from the sun that was just starting to bake, wedged between businessmen and students, I was happy. I felt that maybe this world—which had disappointed me so much, whose cognitive dissonance I still can’t comprehend—maybe it isn’t completely lost yet. Maybe we can all be like these businessmen and these students, sitting and lying, laughing and smiling on the benches and grass of the Geneva university campus.

It struck 12:15, but the doors still hadn’t opened. Two of us were waiting for them: me, and an elderly man with long, gray curls and an easel. He was wearing an old but high-quality shirt, chinos, vintage loafers, and a shattered women’s watch on his wrist. On me: a running shirt, gray waterproof pants, a silicone neck gaiter, obnoxiously bright yellow-and-white hardened trail running shoes, and a sports-watch on my left wrist. The doors belonged to the Geneva Museum of Art. After exchanging words of mutual misunderstanding—he in French, then in broken English; I in broken French, then in English.

“Where are you from, the US?” the man asked me.

“Yes, from Boston,” I replied.

“Oh, Boston! I was there in the dark ages of ‘98, you have a beautiful Monet sunset.”

My conversationalist narrowed his eyes slightly and began to describe the painting in vivid colors. He started gesturing, pointing to different parts of the canvas. I joined in. I had seen another version in Paris, but I couldn’t remember when I had seen a photo of the Boston one—I had never actually been to Boston. We inspired each other over a non-existent Monet for a couple of minutes. With a sigh, the man turned and peered closely at me.

“Peter,” I offered my right hand.

“Armand,” he met it.

“I see you are a fan of Monet. As we spoke, it was as if I was standing in that museum 26 years ago, still young, burning with ambitions and dreams.”

“He’s peerless. No matter where he’s exhibited, in whatever room, under whatever light, the moment you walk in, you immediately know who the author is.”

“Are you studying?”

“Yes, undergrad in fine arts, Brown.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You were talking about youth—” I was cut off. Armand’s phone rang. His face instantly tightened and darkened the moment he saw who was calling. He spoke in rapid French for no more than 20 seconds. I didn’t understand a single word. The relaxed face with its half-lowered eyelids quickly scowled, his pupils started darting around, and his upper lip began to tremble slightly.

“You’ll have to excuse me, but I have to run—” he shoved his easel under his arm and sprang up as if he were an 18-year-old footballer subbing into a match, not a Geneva pensioner.

“Yes, of course. I hope everything is okay—”

Sprinting down the stairs, he shouted something in French in my direction, but I couldn’t make it out.

I remained on the steps.

About two hours later, I returned to the bus stop. Half an hour after that, I met up with my grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, and brother. I hadn’t seen my grandparents since I left Russia. Meeting them in Geneva was a stroke of immense luck. They fed me, cleaned me up—turned me back into a human being. Then they walked me around the very places I had already been. I had to frequently process a concurrent stream of information coming from three, sometimes four different sources. One was worried about everything that could somehow be fixed—from my hunger to my physical well-being to my choice of clothing. Another demanded exact reports on every method of transportation I had used, would use, or wanted to use. The third politely verified that I fully comprehended what I was planning to undertake in the Alps. Four hours later, I was left in the silence of an emptying parking lot.

The tram carried me to France. My hotel was right on the border, on the French side. The only thing giving me the strength to stand was the hope of sleep and a shower. Wake-up was at 5 AM tomorrow, and it has been three nights since I have slept in a bed. My hotel was a blend between a shipping container warehouse and a refugee shelter. Gray, cardboard-looking cubes reminiscent of Khrushchev-era housing made up its walls. Inside wasn’t any better. There was no AC—it was insanely hot. You had to pay for a towel, a fact I only realized after stepping out of the shower. Mine was across the ocean all the way back in Toronto. Trash was scattered beneath my window. I constantly heard Arabic speech, often highly emotional, drifting up from outside. I couldn’t afford to close the window—suffocation was guaranteed in my 5 square meter solitary chamber of plastic. I lay on top of the blanket, sweating, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep for a couple insurmountably long hours. Around midnight, my eyes finally closed for good.

I ultimately visited nothing in Geneva—not a single museum printed my name on a ticket. And to be honest, I only remember Geneva as a transit point. I remember the bench I slept on, I remember getting lost in the parking lot, I remember the beach where the city sweepers judged me, I remember the long-awaited reunion with my relatives, and the next day with my hiking partner Grisha, I remember the smug Frenchman from the bus, I remember everything—but my experience never coalesced into a single, unified picture of the city. The lake, the tasteful parks, the cleanliness, the transport—Geneva deserves its place among the best cities to live in on the planet, no doubt. However, it would be hard for me to fall in love with it.

The alarm woke me up. I was exhausted, miserable, sweaty—but happy. Today was the first day of the most ambitious dream, the biggest challenge I had ever faced. Today, I finally meet Grisha—he spent the last 24 hours on 10 different trains getting here from Warsaw. Today begins our trek through the Alps. Today begins the Haute Route.