Cairo to Casablanca to Marrakech to Madness

As it turns out, the African continent is much wider than one might easily believe. Weaving through the sky, one moment above the Mediterranean, the next over the dunes and barren rock outcroppings of the Sahara, the flight from Cairo to Casablanca takes every bit of six hours. Looking down from 32,000 feet on Libya and Algeria (my mind drifting to thoughts of closed borders and the “Even More Distant Adventure” of the future), I was overcome with thoughts of the value added to the journey by Egypt. Egypt is so much more than pyramids. Sure, the famous icons must be taken in (they are the last standing memory of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), but they are not the reason to travel to this fascinating place. Egypt is the birthplace of one of the world’s earliest civilizations, but it is the Egypt of today that makes for the most enriching exploration. It is the winding alley between Africa and the Middle East, it is desert and sea, it is a faded memory of lavish times, it is poor and crumbled and corrupt, it is smiles and heartache, it is sobering and intoxicating—it is a must hit for anyone with a sense of adventure, or even just a burgeoning desire to witness the unexpected.

We arrived in Morocco, the smell of sweat and butchered animals from Khalili market still clinging to our luggage, to a sparkling airport, French language directories, porters shining marble floors, and hallways of boutiques and patisseries—all antithetical to the developing world. We looked at each other with smiles that reflected disbelief, and hidden relief in the calm and order of the place. The air-conditioned, European-made train that transported us to Marrakech was clean and comfortable. We detrained to welcoming and honest faces, were given a fare price for the cab ride to our hotel, and were escorted down wide, open boulevards of swaying poplar trees and elegant fountains spurting in grand roundabouts. Our three-star booking for the night was brand new, boasting the cookie-cutter-meets-chic feel of somewhere like suburban Orange County. It was all too much to take. Our first impressions of Morocco were analogous to the feelings we had upon arrival in Kathmandu, but from the opposite end of the expectation spectrum. It wasn’t until the next day, when we ventured into the labyrinthine souqs (covered market streets) of the old medina, that we discovered the true face of Morocco—a face that would slowly reveal itself to us, one mysterious feature at a time.

Two Sounds

It finally happened. In the legendary El Fishawy coffee house— a Cairo institution for 242 years, a framed mirror of the same age, pocked and rippled, reflecting the numberless faces of Egyptian society, cigarette and flavored shisha smoke hanging in the air like velvet drapes, a prize winning cockroach, well fed and confident, scuttling unfazed along the frame of the doorway, camel leather bean bag cushions threaded with opulent beads, a turnstile of toothless hagglers and touts slanging swords, snake skin wallets, King Tut masks, braided anklets, golden Aladdin lamps, lotus extract perfumes, henna tattoos, and the most destitute, Kleenex, a team of demonstrative servers barking at the constant rotation of sludge-sipping locals and starry-eyed visitors, trying to keep their wits in a place that effortlessly strips them away—an Arabic speaking woman looked me over then spoke to the man beside her, who after releasing a hearty laugh, smacked me on the knee and shouted through a smile, “She said you look like Jesus!”

The woman turned out to be the only Christian we met in eight days, so I assume she would know.

I will be the very first to admit the beard is not handsome. It is unkempt and unbecoming. Aside from my moustache, which insists weekly on falling over my upper lip, I have only trimmed my facial hair once in nearly four months (sixty days ago in an Indian barbershop called Habib’s). It protrudes from my cheeks in puffy tufts. When I swim it holds water for almost half an hour. When I wake up in the morning it is matted and flat, but by the time I sit down to breakfast it has already spread its wings. Sometimes it itches and chafes. It requires a vigorous shampooing at least biweekly. I am not proud of it. To be honest, there are times when I am mildly ashamed. Between my recycled clothes and the beard, most people I meet probably think I am on some type of spiritual pilgrimage, wandering the Earth, exploring the world and my place within it…wait a minute.

I suppose, more than anything, the beard has become a symbol. It is a barometer. It tells the story of how far we’ve come. It reminds me of the freedom, so sweet and special, that has filled our hearts. It is the physical realization of the absence of rules. It is a silent protest to the regulations that govern our normal lives. It stands for the temporary casting away of responsibility. It embodies the spirit of the vagabond that has taken hold of us and transported us to places we never imagined we would see. It is the symbol of happiness and discovery and wanderlust. It reminds me of the beginning of my marriage and the living out of a dream.

There will be two sounds the moment it comes off: my tears landing in the bathroom sink, and Jeannie’s lips hitting the cheek she hasn’t kissed in two months.

Fasting and Feasting

At the moment, Cairo is a city completely drenched in religious commitment. Every breath, every bow, every waking moment is spent in observation. The very ticking of the clock represents the transmission of God’s time. Their religion is in their clothes, in their speech, in the air they breathe. It is on the face of every man, woman, and child—deep reverence and faith, so palpable it pours from their eyes when they see me, from their mouths when they address me. Their religion echoes off the walls of the vaulted bazaar, bounces down the blind alleys littered with shiny streamers, rises from the footsteps of elders in gallabiyas and burqas. They emit the kind of passion and exuberance that is powerful enough to grab you by the neck. Uniformed policemen stop in the middle of the street to read the Qur’an in a full and bold voice. When the ear piercing call of the muezzin rings down from the minaret on every city block, shopkeepers take to their knees in the middle of the crowded market, prostrated in prayer, removed from the scene by some higher audience. They close their eyes and bow their brows to the earth, oblivious to the sale they so zealously pursued just moments before.

We have called upon this Arab country of nearly 75 million Muslims during the most holy period of the Islamic calendar. Ramadan is in full tilt, and the ferocity that occupies daily life the whole year round has been elevated to a fever pitch. This holiday lasts one month, and brings with it each year a particular set of traditions and rituals, the most paramount of which is the requirement to fast, a giving up of four particular pillars of daily life. From sun up to sun down Muslims are not permitted to eat. They are not permitted to drink either, even water. Smoking is forbidden during this time, as is the company of your husband or wife, meaning no touching of any sort. It is a time to endure daily life without distraction, to reflect on the importance and power of God. And the Egyptian people are steadfast. A large meal is consumed before four o’clock in the morning, and then believers commit to zero intake of food and water until the sun has set at six o’clock in the evening—a fourteen hour fast, everyday for a month.

After four days of drinking Turkish coffees with sugar in the morning, eating large kebab lunches at midday, and guzzling waters in the afternoon heat, I decided I couldn’t bear the burden of asking one more fasting Egyptian to serve me a meal. My effort to assimilate needed to take on new meaning. I made the decision to fast. Not for the remainder of Ramadan (let’s be realistic), but for one day. I would eat no food and drink no water and not touch Jeannie from dawn to dusk. I recruited her brother, Russell, and his girlfriend, Amelia, for moral support. I realized doing it alone in a group of four might be too tall an order—my will is strong, but so is the force of peer pressure. So the three of us formed an alliance, and set a plan for a midnight meal that would have to provide sustenance for one entire cotton-mouthed day.

Before our day of fasting I spoke with several Egyptians about our plan. I was met by all of them with the same reaction—a deep belly laugh, followed by a battering of questions that always concluded with a resounding, “Why?!” I would respond with pleads for advice, hoping for a tip or two from a fasting expert. The wisest words I received were these: “Eat yogurt before sunrise, and then rely on the strength of Allah throughout the day!”

The day of the fast was predictably hotter than the other seven we spent in Egypt. The desert sun was scorching the second it showed itself. I was hungry when I woke up. By noon my taste buds were completely shriveled. My tongue was sandpaper. Bottled waters came to life and screamed at me, raining down on me with cartoony taunts. My lips smacked together at the site of apples and bananas on the nightstand. By late afternoon my anguish had reached its peak. I smelled a morsel of food in the hotel lounge and almost crumbled. But as the clock ticked past four, like a marathon runner visualizing the final mile, I refocused myself on the goal, and rather than being bothered by the thought of food, I let my mind dream of the feast that waited just beyond the setting sun.

And what a feast it was.

Plump and pickled green chilies stuffed with jalapeno cheese, cubes of feta over ripened tomato slices, potent salad of chopped basil and white onions in olive oil, softened grape leaves stuffed with salted vegetables and cumin, smoked ham and aged beef, wood oven fired bread (crisp and soft in the same bite), a dozen different spreads and sauces in hues of lavender, olive (green and black), crimson, and speckled yellow, lentil soup so thick and rich a fork might be a better tool than a spoon, saffron rice with veal heads, cow stomach loaded with spiced rice and partitioned to bite-size chunks, grilled salmon with rosemary potatoes, gravy-drenched prime rib, kebabs of every shape and texture (skewered and spun over endlessly fanned coals), baklava by the pan load, powdered donut balls, coconut bars drenched in honey, and finally, three or four bubbly puffs of cantaloupe flavored shisha.

After our traditional meal it became quite clear to me why Ramadan is such a treasured time in Egypt. The nightly Iftar feast that follows the fast is one of the most wonderful eating experiences imaginable. We sat amidst Egyptian families, with the sound of ouds and other Arabic instruments harmonizing in the background, and witnessed them throw off the shackles of the day, breaking bread with one another and rejoicing in the blessings of life, thanking God for the gift of food, drink, and surely after the final embers of the shisha pipe have been extinguished, the pleasures of the fourth pillar of the fast.

The Bendel's Are Coming!

There might be light at the end of this unbelievable travel tunnel, but I can rest peacefully about this fact knowing that I’ve witnessed two particular events: Grandpa Bendel backpacking in Italy, and his son (my father-in-law) on the back of a camel in Egypt. These are images, which while naturally have been captured for eternity on film, are undoubtedly burned permanently in my mind’s eye. It is my wish, and duty, to share these images with the readers of the blog, and at the same time give thanks and pay my gratitude to the Bendel family, a clan of incredible people that not only made the Distant Adventure possible with their overly generous support, but with their emotional backing and love. To Gramps and Carla Fischera and Joy, to Russ and Judy and Russell (and Amelia!)—this adventure couldn’t have happened without you, either from home or from the entrance of the Coliseum or from the alleys of Khan al-Khalili!

His Holiness

I knew she meant business. The alarm was ringing at the same the sun was freeing itself from the clutch of the Roman horizon. She was out of bed, showered and primped, before I had time to clear the creases of the pillow from my face. She had even, to my dismay, bedded down in a damp and dark motel room, turning a blind eye to the ring of dirt around the mattress, solely because of its proximity to the Vatican. Donning a long dress, a shawl, and a glimmering crucifix around her neck, Jeannie looked down at me in bed and asked me if I was coming, knowing full well such an invitation was irresistible. The Pope was in town. He was to address a group of pilgrims in the auditorium behind St. Peter’s Basilica. The Swiss Guard would be checking for tickets, the kind of tickets that required half a year of correspondence with the Church. This fact did not bother Jeannie in the least.

The sacrifice of the damp pillow proved worthwhile when we looked up at the walls of the Vatican City just steps from the motel. Dressed in my Sunday best (gelato-spotted khakis and a thrice-worn shirt), I nearly tripped over myself trying to keep up with Jeannie. As she motored across the square, domes glinting overhead in the morning light, I could see that she was suddenly overcome with fervor. The symmetrical columns of the Basilica, the copper ornaments and bells, the realer-than-life statues on its roofline, the vaulted archways like passages to centuries past; these are the designs of heaven’s architects, and when beholding them amidst the company of visibly giddy nuns, balding robed monks, and five thousand joyous fanatics, it is hard not to be inspired. But there was no time to stop and marvel. Jeannie was on the move, dipping and plunging through the throng, searching (the way only she can) for just the right opportunity to free someone from their two extra tickets.

Sometimes I wonder if as a child she was installed was some kind of computer chip, a visual aid that allows her to scan a crowd, target an individual and immediately calculate the perfect approach. What looks to me like one more bobbing head in the crowd must be a glowing red arrow in Jeannie’s eye. When she located her arrow she absconded in its direction, leaving me behind in a precarious tip-toe between the tiny feet of a hundred elderly nuns. When I finally caught up to her, having moved more than one sister to mutter a sin under her breath, she was accepting (with a radiant smile) two golden tickets from a young priest. She held them in her right hand while holding the shoulder of the suited man in her left. Her eye twinkled for the clergyman in such a way, bold yet demure. I think he was ready to leave the priesthood there and then.

She turned to me, her body tense with energy, and mouthed a silent scream. I’m not sure what excited her more, the thrill of success, or the fact that we were five minutes away from seeing the highest agent of the Catholic faith.

When he appeared, to the uproarious clamor of the crowd, he seemed to glide like an apparition above the marble steps of the stage. His long garments swayed in slow motion around his concealed feet. He was a vision of white; his robe, his sash, his hair, all glowing like they he had been lit from the inside. He appeared like an animated spotlight, raising his arms in triumph and tossing rays of light over the enchanted crowd. He was encircled in a halo-shaped aura, a force field of power and reverence. He was met like a rock star about to perform a famous guitar solo, the crowd swooning at his every subtle move. The pilgrims around us waived their national flags, Poles, Portuguese, Germans, Czechs, Spaniards, Scots, Brazilians, Chileans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, all competing for a just a papal nod. When he would acknowledge their presence, they would erupt into song, singing words of praise in their native tongue, swaying arm in arm, then embracing each other with complete abandon. The rapture of the crowd contrasted with the stoicism of the Swiss Guard and the papal entourage was startling. And there we were, somewhere in between, reveling in the experience and the mystery of the glow of His Holiness.

Green Shutters

It’s hard not to love a place whose pastime is to stand in a third floor window, the shutters tossed open, languidly gazing at the hustle of the daily happenings below. You never know what you might see from such a perch. A fisherman turned salesman, his rod traded for a calculator, hawks the catch of the day, sardines and scampi from ice buckets. Old women haggle over the just the right weight on his scale. A shopkeeper unlatches his doors and slides a postcard turnstile out to the street. A chef peruses wicker baskets of fresh produce; peppers, red onions, tomatoes, garlic, and eggplant, displayed in a kaleidoscope of bountiful heaps on the sidewalk. A uniformed busboy eases a hand truck down a flight of stairs, carrying two cases of Chianti to a restaurant cellar. A tourist attempts to frame the perfect photograph, adjusting the lens over the shadows of bed sheets and boxer shorts drying in the breeze, pinned to balconies and clotheslines with wooden clips. One smitten couple departs just as another arrives, steeling a final glance at the diamonds dancing over the sapphire ripples of the Mediterranean. This is Cinque Terre. To resist its charm is a futile exercise.

I instead surrendered myself fully, and discovered a piece of remote and rustic Italy that will linger in my mind for many years. This twenty kilometer strip of the sundrenched Italian Riviera, five hours by train from Rome, is linked together by a set of small coastal villages. The communities are carved into granite cliffs that pour down to the sea. Were they not painted in brilliant yellow, pink, and red, the dwellings would probably disappear right into the rock. Homes are stacked on each other like coins, as if there were a race to be closest to the water. Each tiny village has an even smaller marina where row boats and orange buoys bob in the waves. Weathered grape vines cling to hillside terraces that look like the stairways of giants, climbing all the way to the peaks of the surrounding mountains. A salty haze hovers over cruise ships on the horizon.

Being in Cinque Terre is like walking through the pages of a magazine. It’s like you swear you’ve been there before but never dreamt you would be able to go back. It’s new and nostalgic all at once. It’s the kind of place people go to visit and wake up five years later with bronze skin and an Italian accent.

The Proudest Scharetg

Being a Scharetg, Part 3

When the village castle, now converted to a fifteen room historic hotel, was inconceivably full (it’s hard to imagine a No Vacancy sign in such a place), our intention to stay in town was somehow commuted to an invitation to sleep in Judith’s home. Once I got around the imposition of the matter, I was beside myself with excitement. A real life Swiss home stay? With foreign Scharetg’s? I filled my head with these jubilant thoughts for the entire two hour drive from Lucerne. When we left Paspels last summer, we told Judith and Lisbeth we couldn’t resist being away, that we would return within a year. The calendar had implausibly completed one full cycle, and he we were, once again preparing to knock on their door. This time however, they were prepared for our visit, and were even armed with what they called a “surprise.”

Having been on the road for three months, “home” has become a term with very loose definition. I have learned to own my identity as a vagabond. With this comes the acceptance that sometimes home is a train terminal, an airplane seat, a hotel room, a beach or a jungle hut. Jeannie has become my common denominator. Home is the place where Jeannie is. But arriving in Paspels activated some heightened sense of my notion of home. Returning to this place I had only been once before, for only a few hours, I was overcome with a strange sensation I can only describe as belonging. The mountains looked like home. The cow bells sounded like home. The billowing chimney smelled like home. The air tasted like home. Judith and Lisbeth felt like home.

When Lisbeth, waiting for us in the driveway, came charging for Jeannie with open arms, a beaming smile, and a kiss for each cheek, I knew something had changed in the last year. The woman who had treated us with some caution, who had not fully accepted the potential of our familial connection, who had guarded a corner of herself, was holding a new look in her eye. She looked at me with a recognizable twinkle, with certain warmth in the creases of her smile. She looked at me like she knew me, not like she remembered me, but really knew me. She wrapped her arms around me and it was impossible not to reflect the same emotion. We had spent one hour together in our lifetime, but when we embraced I knew something between us was bigger than time.

This feeling became real with the revelation of their “surprise.” Lisbeth had been very busy since our last meeting. She had visited the church and taken the historical records out on loan. She had met with village elders and written notes on their memories. She had studied birth documents and death records. Our door knock last summer had inspired her to engage in a personal quest to discover her own history, a search that eventually led her to the musty cellar of her aunt’s home. It was there that she discovered a piece of art that changed her understanding of who she was, and at the same time illuminated a branch of her family tree that extended across the vast Atlantic.

Faded by almost two centuries of existence, Lisbeth held the dusty portrait in her hands while her aunt described the man on the canvas. His name was Johan George Scharetg. He was a citizen of clout in 19th century Paspels. He owned three homes and a large plot of land in the village. He had a wife and young son. He was a mountaineer. But equal to his love of the Alps was his affinity for the bottle. When his drinking habit took priority to his responsibilities, his land ownership came into jeopardy. He eventually lost all three of his homes, his entire fortune, and presumably a large majority of his dignity. Desperate times forced him to make a desperate decision. With little means in Switzerland to provide for his family, he packed provisions and set out in the direction of hope and rumored prosperity. He went west to a foreign land, a place a world away, a dream known as America. He left behind a massive debt, a promise to return with money, and a five year-old boy named Luzi, a miniature namesake who would never see his father again.

My head was spinning as Judith and Lisbeth unfurled this tale. As the details came out, one layer at a time, their carefully translated words began to deliver an incredible truth. This was the man who came to America and completed the registry at Ellis Island. This was the Swiss citizen, lured by adventure and desperation, who immigrated permanently to the United States. This was the man who fathered Otto and subsequently four generations of silent-G-offspring. I had to say it aloud for it to be real: “The man in the portrait is my Great Great Grandfather.”

But an even bigger truth still hung in the air. What about the child he left behind? What came of Luzi, the fatherless five year-old? These questions didn’t need to be posed. The clues lied now in Lisbeth’s warm embrace. The answer was in the way she looked at us, the way she held us with those familiar and knowing eyes. Luzi is her Grandfather. Our family tree, though decorated with extensive branches, shares but one trunk. Johan George is our patriarch, and the source of a common blood line that took almost two hundred years and thousands of miles to discover.

The paint is faded. A layer of dried dust sits over his face. Decades in an underground cellar have imparted some unintended creases. But through the decay of time shine two blue eyes that enlighten an undeniable fact. I look like the man on the canvas. So vivid is the resemblance, Lisbeth demanded the portrait now belong to me. Like the man himself, the art will make the journey to America. It will symbolize adventure, learning, and the trials of life. It will stand for the importance of family. It will hang on my wall until the day it belongs to my son. It will silently remind us what it means to be a Scharetg.

Being a Scharetg, Part 2

After visiting the garden in Luxembourg last summer, we motored south across the Alsatian countryside and through (literally by immense tunnels) the Alps to Switzerland. My mom and sister had an important place to show me. It was a location they had traveled to some years earlier with my dad, a spot remote enough that it can only be reached by car. Together we recreated the journey to a town represented cartographically as a microscopic dot—you have to hold the map at just the right angle for it to appear. They took me to a place called Paspels, a place that by equal parts rumor, legend, and historical fact is home to the elusive, mysterious, and scarcely seen species known as the Scharetg’s.

They warned me that when we arrived in Paspels I needed to be alert. One heavy blink could shade the village from view, they cautioned me. Driving on the single road that meanders through the village, you pass the last home in town as quickly as the first. There is one post office, one store, one school, one firehouse, one chapel, one castle, and one crumbly watchtower. It is after brunch before any of these structures feel the sunlight of morning—the Alps are so close and so impossibly large they cast a shadow over the village until nearly midday. But when the sun does summit the peak, it flashes a warm sheet over a place so perfect and pristine that it can’t possibly be alive. You’ve read of it in story books and you’ve seen it in films, but never imagined it was a living, breathing place. Just having your feet on the ground is a spiritual experience. The sound of cow bells rising from emerald hills and echoing through mountain air is a sound that acquaints you to the wisdom of the creator that made beauty possible.

Perplexed (yet eternally grateful) that any person could leave this place for another life, we set out to learn if anyone still in Paspels could pronounce our name. An Ellis Island registry that had surfaced in the nineties listed Paspels as my Great Great Grandfather’s place of origin. We knew that if there were any hope for uncovering the mystery of our family history, this was the place. Hoping our enthusiasm would compensate for our lack of German speaking skills, we built the courage to go knocking on doors. We thought the post office would be a good place to start. My always clever sister had scribbled eight big letters on scratch paper—SCHARETG. When a woman opened the locked door of the post office, I thrust the paper into her hand. All three of us watched in shock when she gave one quick glance to the letters on the note and our name rolled flawlessly off her tongue. Her eyes got big, she pointed to a cluster of homes over our shoulder, and unloaded a story in German that for all we knew was the answer to our lifelong questions.

We thanked her in our best accents and practically ran down the road to the homes at which she had waved her finger. It was with only one more knock that we found two women with the same name. Judith and Lisbeth, two Swiss Scharetg’s, live in the flesh. The only thing that made this dream more exciting was that the younger of the two spoke wonderful English. We spent one blissful hour with this daughter and mother duo, explaining in great detail who we were and what had brought us to their village. We told them what we knew of my Great Great Grandfather, that he had gone to America to give birth to Otto, who fathered Edward, who raised Kevin, who brought my sister and me to existence. Judith, a beautiful young woman with eyes bluer than the alpine sky, listened to our tale with childlike glee. She furiously translated our words to her mother, who more reserved and guarding of her wisdom, listened carefully and slowly nodded her head. She was visibly wary of these foreigners that had knocked on her door. She seemed to know something that she wasn’t prepared to share. A quiet truth lied behind her slightly furrowed brow. We left Paspels that day with hugs and kisses, but it would take one more year and another pilgrimage to the village to fully realize the circumstances that allowed this chance meeting between oddly familiar strangers.

Being a Scharetg, Part 1

I’ve spent my entire life watching people go cross-eyed when they see my last name. During roll call on the first day of school, when the teacher rattled off name after name, I was the kid that waited for the awkward silence. I would raise my hand while the teacher rolled her tongue, smacked her lips, and stuttered blindly over the letters on the class sheet. When I was the kicker on my high school football team, my name would be in the box score in the Saturday paper for every extra point I had kicked on Friday night. The editor, completely baffled by such an arrangement of letters, would simply try a new variation every time my name was written, hoping that at least one would be correct—it never was. I added it to the dictionary of the spell check feature on my computer, but there’s still a squiggly red line beneath it every time it’s typed. I have heard every possible pronunciation. The only people that can get it right the first time are other Scharetg’s, and they are my cousins. “The G is silent,” is something you learn to say in your sleep. I’ve even watched my best friends pause contemplatively when they write it down. I think half the emails that have ever been sent to me are sitting in some sad forgotten box in cyber space.

Growing up as a Scharetg, you face two possible options. You grow tired of being butchered and you reject the name, or you find solidarity in the oddness of who you are and become hopelessly proud to be a Scharetg. I remember when I was first confronted with the choice. It was in one of those early day class rooms with the tiny chairs and the tiny desks. The teacher said, “Richards, Rooney, Ryan, Sanders...oh, ah…” I stood up and thrust my tiny hand into the sky. “Scharetg!” I belted out with an emphatic smile. It would take thirty more attempts with that teacher, but at least I tried.

I have a special admiration for those who take the name by choice. My mom is perhaps the greatest ambassador of all. She was a Gray before she was married. She didn’t understand the struggles that lied ahead. I have such vivid memories of standing behind her at the video store, at least once a week, listening to her spell our name to the same clerk behind the counter. “S-C-H…A-R…E-T-G.” I could time his sigh and then the scribbling of his pen. “One more time,” he would say. My mom is so proud of her name. Maybe she likes being different, maybe she is a glutton for punishment, but mostly I think she just loves my dad. I see the same passion in Jeannie.

My name has taken on new meaning in the last year. My identity as a Scharetg has evolved greatly through new discoveries. Nestled in the remote Domleschg Valley of the Swiss Alps, in a village of four hundred people, is a house with a cellar that contained secrets of the very meaning of being a Scharetg.

Legacy

My father was a creative man. He was an artist with many mediums. Brick and mortar, lumber and drywall, steel and rebar, people—he skillfully composed his masterpieces through the application of all these elements. His gift was his vision, an ability to see a finished creation. He could start with an object in Form A and transform it to Form Z, touching every consonant and vowel along the way, using every letter as a building block. He could produce a goal from less than a whispered idea. Contorting a list of simple criteria, he was able to dream of an end product that astonishingly exceeded expectations. He did the impossible, and he did it all the time.

Many contend his greatest work was his final project. When he was given the assignment I remember hearing about the challenge he had been charged. He told me it was a unique mission, one that would impact the lives of many employees. He was tasked with developing the Amazon.com corporate headquarters in Europe. The company had chosen Luxembourg as the location of the building. Though the city-state is centrally located in the continent, sharing borders with France, Germany and Belgium, he understood the new building would require the relocation of dozens of employees and their families. The very decision to consolidate the division and centralize the European team was met with great resistance. He knew the building would have to be special. He set out to create a workplace that would excite the expats moving to an unknown land. They would be far from the comforts of home, but my father was determined to create an office that inspired the same appeal.

Luxembourg is a place with two identities. As a major financial and business capital, the population of the city triples during work hours. With so many companies moving to Luxembourg, the need for building space is accommodated through the development of new land. Modern business parks and massive office complexes dot the peripheral areas of the city. Wide-laned roads and cement parking garages connect characterless blocks of cubicles and desks. This is the new Luxembourg. But at the physical center of all this newness is an old town with a history centuries old. Cut into a deep forested valley called the Grund, old town Luxembourg is a set of narrow cobbled streets connecting 14th century neighborhoods. Ancient churches and watchtowers cast afternoon shadows over public squares and monuments. People meet for lunch in Italian restaurants carved out of crumbling brick. The air is filled with the din of coffee shop conversation at cafes on every corner. Mature trees shed their leaves and show the seasons. It is a place so full of culture and life it seems to be oozing from the cracks in the sidewalk. This is where people want to be. This is the identity of the city everyone wants to know.

But the practical business person knows that creating an office in such a location is impossible. It is too small, too dense, and far too exclusive. And of course exclusivity comes with a price, surely one that would be too large for a pragmatic company allowance. There were many compelling reasons to believe that opening an office in 21st century Luxembourg meant renting space in the sprawling complexes outside of town. My father didn’t believe any of them.

The Grund became his goal. He combed its cobbled streets looking for the perfect place. It took him months. His vision was uncompromising, and although he uncovered many possibilities, the faultless building was elusive. He ultimately found it in the form of a four story structure, so deep in the Grund it actually abutted the canal flowing in the valley floor. It was originally built as the Bofferding brewery in 1764. He knew it when he saw it—the same walls that created Luxembourg’s national beer would house the activities of the Amazon.com European division. This was a realization that would take months of negotiation. The building was in a dream location and it came with a dream price.

My father’s favorite part of the building was the garden situated between its rear wall and the canal. The garden was a stunning real estate quality, an unbelievable find. With land being so expensive in this district of the city, space for a garden (if it even existed) was simply out of the question in terms of budget. But my father became enamored with the garden. He saw it as retreat for people during the workday, a peaceful place for lunch, a flowered visiting spot for family. It became his fixation and the crux of his negotiations. He worked on a deal over the building for nearly half a year, and when agents couldn’t settle on the appropriation of the garden he nearly walked away from the whole thing.

Last summer, along with my mom and sister, I visited the garden behind the building that is now the European headquarters for Amazon.com. In the center of the garden is a maple tree. It seems to glow even when the sky is gray. It has been planted there in honor of my dad.

I needed to make the pilgrimage again this summer, to check on its growth, to touch its leaves and hold its trunk. It still glows. It was important for me to share the garden with Jeannie, for her to witness the symbols of my father’s life. She knew him in person only for a short time, but she knows his spirit through seeing his work. His legacy lives in the garden in Luxembourg.