Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Short Fiction

other short stories in the form of walks, had died on Christmas Day in 1956 while strolling the grounds of the Herisau Psychiatric Hospital. Clay Regazzoni, the Formula-One champion who’d been left paraplegic after a racing accident, had crashed on the highway near Parma the night before, en route to an antique auto-club meet. Another newspaper printed a picture of the crash, showing the car’s crushed hood and, in the foreground, the driver’s body draped in a white sheet. I compared this picture to the one of the dead writer: a white outline amid the dark of night, a dark outline amid the white snow. Each was the negative of the other. We know what happens when there’s an accident: other cars pull over, first responders come, sirens wail, there are police and ambulances. Walser’s body was found by two kids going sledding. Maybe it was windy, but any noise was probably muffled by the cloak of snow; in all likelihood, silence reigned. Before withdrawing from the literary scene, Walser had published with high-profile houses, and although sales were skimpy, his poems and prose, both fiction and essays, were reviewed by some of the finest writers of the day. Then, during the 28 years he was institutionalized, he distanced himself from writing (a safe distance, one might conclude) and chose instead, as he himself said

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