Sluggish Memory

My goals for our twelve-day stay in Schönau are simple. Climb three mountains. Visit my grandmother’s house. Search the cemetery for family names. Get a glimpse of my teen idol. Take tons of pictures. Eat pastries.

The love interest glimpse is scratched immediately. He is out of town. With his wife. We pass my grandmother’s house three times and each time I bore Stephanie with a few historical facts. My granddaughter accompanies me in my quest to retrace 50- year old childhood footprints. We make good travel companions; I initiate day tours and speak to strangers. She remembers how to get back to the hotel, what time the stores close, and where I hide the extra money.

In the cemetery she is the name-calling forerunner. In front of each grave she practices her German pronunciation and I tell her what I know about the person buried there. But we cannot find my great-grandparents or my grandparents.

“What are their names again?”

“Hölzer and Heer. They must have been moved. I think there is a time limit on cemetery stays.”
Stephanie suddenly jumps on a bench and pulls her sweatshirt over her face. Bugs. Mosquitoes. Spiders. Etc. etc. etc. We have to end the search for the dead relatives and reward ourselves with some Kirscheplotza (cherry bread pudding.)


Today we are climbing mountain number one. The walkway is now terraced, complete with guardrails and paved steps. Halfway up I rest against the metal rail while Stephanie poses for her first picture of the day. Suddenly she shudders a subdued shriek of disbelief.

“Grandma, come here. This is the biggest banana slug I have ever seen in my whole life.”

“Yeah, and he has lots of friends. Look! There are more of them.”

I aim the camera at him. “We need something to compare him to.”

I pull out a two pfennig piece and lay it on the ground. While I dial the menu on my digital camera to macro I find myself smiling at the slug. I know him. His kind was around when I hunted for snails with beautiful houses. We ignored him then, because the value of snails was in the spiral design and variety of color on their piggyback homes. He was the homeless one. Naked. Unwanted. I feel pity for him now.

We watch him cross the paved walk and disappear into the underbrush. Then we continue our climb. Higher and higher, until we reach a kind of platform, a flat area protruding to the right side of the walkway. Though it is totally overgrown, I remember it very well.

“This is where we used to play and climb trees. We’d stay up here all day eating green apples, laying in the sun, telling stories.”

Before we continue our walk I select a rock for my collection.

When we reach the top of the mountain we are amazed at the houses all around. I know my friend Hans was the first one to build one for his mother years ago, but this looks like a mountain retreat village. On the other side though, there is nothing but forest. The valley far below is a narrow band of road zigzagging towards the next town, where my family used to picnic after a long Sunday walk.

Stephanie and I rest on a bench with a perfect view, pull out some candy, drink bottled water, take pictures, and make plans for later. I think we both need a nap.


My past and I are at odds with each other. Mountain number two disappoints me. Oh, it is beautiful. Its trees are majestic, the vegetation lush and varied. I hear a woodpecker knock beetles lose from behind crusty bark and bees hum as they flit from flower to flower.

I am told that memory is selective and colored by sentiment, but how can a sunny primeval forest be anything but a sunny primeval forest? Why don’t I smell the heat? The blueberries must be right over there where pine trees tower over the slope, and where stinging nettles band together in tight formation against the intruding hand of a thirteen-year-old child.

“Ah, but you are no longer thirteen!”

That was the voice of Dr. Steinfeld, my shrink. My imaginary shrink.

I climb past the nettles, taking care not to let them touch me. Away from the compacted dirt road the soil is soft. Ferns break through a thick layer of pine needles and unfurl their tendrils into the warmth of the summer sun. I look down to Stephanie. I wave. I giggle and point uphill. But my granddaughter, who has not moved from the path, signals a concerned frown in my direction.

“Be careful, Grandma.”

She isn’t used to the noises of the woods or to its silences. She hates bugs, and there are plenty of them in Schönau. I linger, look around for a minute or so, and then I climb back down to the road. Stephanie takes a picture of me; I take one of her. We have documented the excursion into the past. But why don’t I feel it? Why doesn’t this forest connect me to the long hours spent playing, roaming, hiding?

When I sit at my desk at home, I see myself run up and down the mountain, skip behind bushes, dig into thick moss, rest between broken tree limbs and weathered stones. When I sit at my desk at home, I am close to the mountain, breathing in its humid decomposing odors.

“The past is a movie in your memory bank. But this is now.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Doctor. When I returned to the Black Forest after 45 years, I was immediately drawn into the past. It was like coming home, even though nobody knew me.”

“Serendipity.”

“What?”

“Serendipity. It was an unexpected find. Remember how you suddenly recognized what happiness felt like, how it washed over you? You said in your journal, ‘I floated in a sea of undulating yellow.’ You set out to find lavender bushes and poppy pods and wheat, but when you were surrounded by rape fields you reentered your own innocence.”

“So? I was happy in these woods, too.”

“Then I’m sure you will find something to take home with you.”

I am not really satisfied with his answer. While I pick a small rock to add to my collection, I tell Stephanie about the games we used to play up and down the mountain.

When we exit the forest I leave Dr. Steinfeld behind. Let him sort out my sentiments. I vow to spend more time making new memories rather than chasing old ones. At least for the rest of the day.

We take a few pictures of Schönau from the Bergstrasse. I pose Samy, my frog, on one of the stones that line the street. I used to stand on them and pretend to take off in flight when I was a child. Oops. Don’t look back.

The third mountain does not bring back many pleasant memories. A German shepherd bit me when I delivered passport photos to one of the houses at the beginning of the steep street. My stepfather carried my little brother up the hill when his asthma made breathing difficult in the humidity of the valley. It was up here that I told my mother I hated my life and would move to the city.

Stephanie and I are now almost at the top. A dog suddenly barks from the front garden of a beautifully landscaped home. We freeze in our tracks. Nobody ties down dogs around here and he looks ferocious. But soon somebody calls him and he disappears into the house. I realize that Stephanie is frightened and without her sweatshirt she is being “bugged” by zillions of flying things. We will make this a short trip.

“Grandma, what do I do if you had a heart attack or something? How do I say help in German?”

“Well,” I hedge, catching my breath and trying to sound even-winded. It is humid today and my walks along the creek in Campbell have not really prepared me for our daily mountain climbing activities in Schönau. I hope I sound unconcerned and very healthy when I suggest, “How about ‘Hilfe, meine Oma ist kaputt.’ That would work.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means, ‘help, my grandmother is broken.”

We both laugh. The spell of dog-induced fear seems to be broken. I think of a good memory to talk about, “When I was ten I used to come up here to collect May bugs in glass jars. They are big and brown and I think they make buzzing sounds when they fly away.”

Stephanie, who now wears her sunglasses to keep flying insects out of her eyes, is not amused. I see her arms flailing around in defense. But then we both automatically pull our cameras out. A beautiful meadow, horses, evening sunshine. Country peace and tranquility. Picture number 555. I aim the lens at a large snail wedged between two rocks in a low fence. The stone fence trails the road like an old relative who remembers everything but keeps his distance, nodding occasionally in approval, or shaking his head when ancient sins are revealed. I have the feeling that I would remember much more about my childhood if I sat on the stonewall for a few hours and meditated.

As long as Stephanie is happy with the horses I wallow in sinister thoughts of the past, “Doctor, I don’t like this mountain.”

“Well, you have to admit that you are connecting.”

“Connecting to what? Slimy snail trails?”

“Connecting to undercurrents. This is a beautiful valley, but you see the undercurrents. Isolation. Inbreeding. Gossip. Resistance to change. Don’t you see? You left all this behind when you moved away. Now, do you still want to look into buying property here?”

“Oh, no, Doctor. I understand what you are telling me. I was a slug here. Unprotected. Not even the new friends I have made on this trip can make up for old pain. And guess what? I am looking forward to slipping back into my little piggyback house in California in a few days.”

“Good. Now make sure that the child eats a spectacular dessert tonight. One more thing to add to her new foods list. And get a good night’s sleep. You are off to Berlin tomorrow, aren’t you?”