DEMURRAGE

demurrage

 (dɪˈmʌrɪdʒ)

n

1. (Nautical Terms) the delaying of a ship, railway wagon, etc, caused by the charterer's failure to load, unload, etc,before the time of scheduled departure

It was not a term she was familiar with. It was something in the shipping regulations she had read for the transport of their parents’ old furniture from Geneva to the Port of Baltimore. Baltimore, where her brothers had moved when they were well-established professionals. She alone of the three of them had returned to Geneva to live permanently.

She pored over the lexical offerings of Google. Demure or demurral, it was something negative, something you had to pay for if it happened. Or didn’t. It had to do with delays, when a ship did not leave port at the scheduled time, and it threw the shipment schedule out of kilter. Late out of port. 

No rush in this case. It was transport of tough, old memories in the form of wooden chests and prayer chairs, paintings and Spode china, stamp and coin collections, and way too many books. They could wait. Her brothers, or the encased furniture in some French port. Whatever. She wasn’t going to hassle herself at this point. She’d already taken care of so many things, starting with their parents, ageing in their villa outside of town, retired from the United Nations and then on to other pet projects intended to alleviate poverty in other countries and bring peace. Big projects, that those that who had lived through World War II could envisage: the Marshall Plan, creation of the new land of Israel – and the United Nations itself, she thought. Idealists and doers. 

She had grown up here, part of a small community of expats in the then-quiet fifties and slightly noisier sixties. After one botched year at the University of Pennsylvania she’d returned, grateful for the easy, if restricted, lifestyle. The University of Geneva was good enough for her, and she was able to slip into an administrative job at UN European Headquarters, where the hours were predictable.

* * *

The Petit Lac bathed the city itself, with its Jet d’Eau, a tall fountain, like a swan’s prize feather, and grand hotels lined up on the bank on the opposite quay. Today there were many sailboats plying back and forth, as if the city had been rebranded as a city of pleasure, rather than a stronghold of Protestantism, prosperity and peace negotiations. There was an underlying reserve, which suited her, with the feeling the city was immune to violence and revolution. Turmoil was somewhere else. Geneva stood, aloof and noncommittal. It accommodated negotiators, peace talks, refugee conferences. Generous enough. But its soul was elusive, if it had a soul.

It was special here, in this tapering western corner of the lake, where the Rhône rushed out, accelerating waters that pushed through the Rhône valley all the way to the Mediterranean. An outlet, a force. Force Motrices, which used to be harnessed to generate electricity, but gave way to a more efficient generator down-river. You could lean over the railing, absorbing the energy of that flow, that drive. The lake was deceptively placid, with haphazard winds that could arise suddenly, tip boats, drown people. Killer winds. The lake had the reputation of being more dangerous than the Mediterranean for the unwary sailor.

Pulse and thrust, muscular, driven, as if it had been held back for millennia. Which it had, with the source in the glaciers of the Alps, deep frozen, now melting in the pernicious warmth of the past decades, they too accelerating, as if in a rush to clear the ice, leaving a wake of grey moraine.

* *

But her own life was in stasis. 

Yes, that was the feeling. Both troubling and secure, this stasis. 

She felt the edges of her life unraveling in very slow waves, small waves that then lapped back up the lake stones endlessly. Maybe it wasn’t stasis. It was repetition. This was the quiet hypnosis of the lake.

She felt she’d been here a lifetime, when in fact it was no more than 25 years, but she’d grown a new umbilical cord. Couldn’t stay, couldn’t leave. 

Robert called “Maddy, I’m going to André to check out the cars, want to come with?”, and she turned to see him slipping on his leather jacket, then digging for his keys. She was parched and chilled at the same time, the weather was indecisive. So was she. 

“E-mails, Robert, e-mails. Let’s talk about it later”. He wanted a new car. Or rather a used new car, but not too used. Enough to dull the original sheen of new and bring the price down18%. Just let it go, she thought. She heard Robert shut the front door a bit abruptly. 

The inbox showed at least thirty morning messages, most of which she deleted. But e-bookers had some specials, she always kept theirs. E for Escape-bookers. E for Exit-bookers, E for Elsewhere, E for Except for here. Anywhere. 

She had been feeling an almost violent drive to leave for several days now. Maybe that’s why so many people who had inherited or had the means owned chalets or apartments in the mountains: to be out of this, above it. She shuddered, as if waking from a sleep she didn’t know she’d slept. 

Florence, Venice, Ajaccio, Olbia (where’s Olbia? she wondered). Easyjet and others with the rich web of destinations.

She called Molly on WhatsApp.

“Go to Venice!” Molly insisted. “It’s gorgeous, it’s the Eternal City. No, of course Rome is. I mean Florence is still….eternal. Heart of the Renaissance, core of beauty. They didn’t even bomb it in WWII” Molly was building up energy, beginning to convince herself. “But you know I’m watching the grandkids this weekend! You go, you don’t have any responsibilities right now.” 

Molly rambled on. “I mean, you know what I mean Maddy! You took care of your parents, you took care of the property, now it’s your time in the sun. Or rain, or whatever it does this time of year in Florence!”

“It rains a lot, and there’s that Acqua Alta and you have to wear boots,” she heard herself say plaintively.

“No silly—that’s Venice!” Molly scolded.

God, she had to learn a bit more geography. Olbia. Acqua Alta. Or was it Acqu’Alta?  Exhausting.

“I’ll think about it Moll”.  She didn’t sign in to e-bookers.

Maybe she would stay and check on Robert’s choice of new used car.

Then she would meditate by the lake, feed the swans, watch the water.

She would see it as a 19^th century oil painting in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, movement in stillness: 

It’s the lake of my mind in cold weather, blue on blue, the kind of blue that moves thick waves, a deep blue you feel when you watch the roil and flow. The water grips you as it moves, shiny oil on canvas, carrying the time you’ve lost. But it doesn’t matter where the painting hangs, or what you see: you are always somewhere else, framed differently. And your boat has not yet sailed.

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