Five o’clock in the morning: I lie awake, worrying about Edgar. Not about Edgar himself, obviously, Edgar is the last person I need to worry about: I worry about the fact that Edgar of all people can’t sleep, and what that means for someone like me, who normally sleeps without a hint of a problem, when I thought Edgar was the kind of person who did so too; does that mean I have to worry about not being able to sleep, all of a sudden, just like Edgar?
It’s the kind of worry I least appreciate and am unable to see any sense in: it’s worrying about worrying: it’s a meta-worry. It’s a preposterousness, and that is in itself a worry: I now worry about the fact that I worry. About worrying.
My lover doesn’t notice I’m lying awake next to him, worrying, he just rasps a contented snore. He’s an uncomplicated sleeper. Sometimes he has nightmares that wake him up briefly, but he goes back to sleep easily and quickly. I think it might just be my clamping onto him that occasionally sets off a nightmare in him, but I don’t ask for fear that he’ll confirm that, yes, that’s what it is, because I like snuggling up to him: I spend the whole night resting my head on his chest, holding him; he holding me.
I arrange to see Edgar for a drink and he seems very happy. Tired, but fulfilled. In the course of our conversation—it’s been a while since we last met, so we have some catching up to do—I realise he’s become an expert in about half a dozen subjects, and he does not seem the least bit worried, about any of them, or about getting enough sleep:
‘Oh no,’ he laughs: I nap.’
‘You nap?’
‘Yes.’
‘When do you nap?’
‘When I’m tired.’
‘And then you sleep?’
‘No I nap, there’s a difference…’
‘I realise there’s a difference, but then at night, do you sleep?’
‘Oh no, at night I lie awake, reading.’
‘What are you reading about?’
‘At the moment I’m learning Rumantsch.’
‘You’re learning Rumantsch by reading?’
‘I read it at night, and practise it during the day.’
‘Rumantsch?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you speak Rumantsch now?’
‘I read it quite well.’
I feel a little tired just listening to Edgar, as he tells me he has taken to translating a Rumantsch story into English.
‘Aren’t you tired?’
‘No, I’ve just had a nap.’
‘I mean generally: how much sleep do you get?’
‘It varies: between four and five hours a day, enough to survive.’
‘And you’re not tired? You look a bit tired.’
‘Oh that’s probably because I’ve just woken up from my nap: it takes me a while…’
‘What are you going to do with your Rumantsch story, once you’ve translated it into English?
‘I can read it to you.’
‘Yes you could: that might actually send me to sleep.’
The experiment is not a success. I am too weirded out by the fact that I have a man twice my size but effectively my age sitting in my living room, reading me a story. Also, the story is quite interesting. When I tell my lover, he suggests I read it to him: he dozes off straight away.
I sit awake, reading the rest of the story that Edgar has translated from Rumantsch into English, about an alp farmer and his three sons, who all become mercenaries, fighting wars for foreign lords in far flung countries, for remuneration. One dies, one is captured and spends a long time being held hostage because his family can’t afford the ransom, and one comes back, traumatised, but determined to bring home his brother. He sets off again on what turns into a riveting adventure of selfless bravery, Helvetian heroism, and blockheaded stubbornness. He finds and liberates his brother, and his brother is grateful but also sad: he does not want to leave his fellow prisoner of war behind whom he has become close friends with: as close as brothers, closer even. Blood brothers. I think lovers, but the story doesn’t spell that out. It was written by a descendant of the older, stronger, rescuing brother in the early part of the 18th century, and they didn’t so much go in for the gay theme, at the time. To me it’s pretty obvious. My lover is fast asleep, so I can’t ask him.
I phone Edgar, sure to find him awake: he answers the phone at once:
‘Of course, it’s obvious!’
‘Do you think the story would make a good film?’
‘Of course it would make a good film!’
‘Do you think I should write a treatment?’
‘Why not? I’m not going to!’
‘Who owns the rights?’
‘I don’t think anybody does, but I can find out for you!’
Now Edgar is full of exclamation marks, which wearies me, this time of night, but I’m glad that what keeps me awake now is no longer my meta-worry about worrying about being worried about Edgar, but thinking about how to frame this stupendous tale into a good, solid, rustic, heroic love story. Between a Helvetian mercenary and his lover in captivity. Over the next couple of weeks I write the treatment during my night time waking hours and show it to Edgar.
‘It’s quite good.’
‘Quite good.’
‘Yes, but you’re missing something.’
‘What am I missing?’
‘You’re missing the Rumantschness.’
‘The Rumantschness?’
‘Yes. You’ve got the Helvetianness all right, which is not surprising, seeing you’re Helvetian yourself, but you’re missing the Rumantschness.’
‘How do I get the Rumantschness?’
‘I don’t know: go there, talk to the clan, learn Rumantsch…’
‘You want me to learn Rumantsch?’
‘I don’t want you to learn it, I want you to get the Rumantschness of it: if you want someone to finance this project for you so you can turn it into a film that will be shown at the Locarno Film Festival, and be owned by the people you’re talking about at the same time, then you’ve got to get the Rumantschness of it all.’
I hadn’t thought anywhere near as far ahead as that, but of course he is right: this is exactly the kind of film that should be shown at the Locarno Film Festival, preferably on the Piazza Grande, and it should both be good enough to be able to win a jury award and have enough of a broad appeal—with its Helvetian 17th century prisoners-in-captivity-and-brothers-in-arms-but-beyond-that-love-story—to have a fair crack at the audience prize too. It has to be thoroughly Rumantsch.
‘What if we shoot it in Rumantsch?’
‘That would go a long way to getting the Rumantschness of it, yes.’
‘But?…’
‘But it would obviously entail you having at least a working knowledge of Rumantsch.’
The prospect seems daunting, but I speak fairly decent Italian, workalike French, and a little Portuguese. I once studied Putonghua for a while. And, it occurs to me now, a little Latin, back at school, which I didn’t enjoy then, but that’s a long time ago, and I didn’t particularly see eye to eye with my teacher, except when we both agreed I should probably cease coming to his Latin class…
‘I think the film needs to be trilingual,’ Edgar offers into the silence that has briefly settled over my brow as I am contemplating my linguistic predisposition towards learning Rumantsch (I tried Spanish once too, but that didn’t get me very far: the Italian kept interfering).
‘What, Italian, French, and Portuguese?’
‘No, of course not: English, Swiss German, and Rumantsch.’
‘Why would anybody in this story speak English?’
‘Because it’s an English researcher or journalist or distant relative who happens upon it and tells it, from his perspective, today.’
‘Like a meta-story.’
‘A bit like a meta-story.’
‘It’s been done before.’
‘Everything has been done before.’
‘It’s probably less of a meta-story, this, than a straightforward framework device.’
‘It could work: you can write the English and the Swiss German dialogue, and I can translate the Rumantsch bits.’
‘Is your Rumantsch good enough for that?’
‘It will be by the time you’re done with your script.’
‘But you’re not a writer.’
‘No, you are.’
That’s true. I am. It’s a fascinating idea. I could write the script in English and Swiss German, and he could translate the parts of the dialogue that need to be in Rumantsch into Rumantsch, and then we’d obviously need somebody whose mother tongue is Rumantsch to check it for its overall Rumantschness, maybe one of the descendants: one of the clan.
I am beginning to imagine the kind of conversation I would be having with an alp farmer descendant of a Helvetian 17th century mercenary who goes to rescue his brother from captivity in a foreign land, only to find that his brother doesn’t really want to leave because he doesn’t want to abandon his lover, because he is concerned for his safety, and fears, quite reasonably, that he will never see him again if he now joins his brother and escapes back to his village high up in the mountains, across the St Gotthard Pass. It sounds like an intriguing story to me. Has it got legs, though?
I think I’d need to sleep on it. Ah, there’s a snag…
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EDEN by FREI 