Yesterday was the third and final day of my fast. It was also quite a busy day, being my penultimate day here in the Engadine. Amongst other things, I had an appointment with a dermatologist.
For a few weeks now, my left forearm has been quite itchy. Since there is nothing to see, I assumed it would just go away by itself, but that has not been the case. In fact, it has been getting more itchy. I had my dog here in August, and he was scratching so much that I took him to the vet. The vet diagnosed 'pyoderma' - a bacterial skin infection, and prescribed some very expensive antibiotics. I wondered whether I might have caught the infection from my dog, so it seemed a good idea to see a dermatologist.
I always forget that this is my favourite time of year here. There is a light dusting of snow on the mountains, the larches flame orange and yellow, the nights are already frosty, the days clear and bright. I have been painting too, in the Spinas Valley, but it is tricky because if you paint what you see it doesn't look real. Luminous world problems!
I left early in the morning to take my car to be serviced in the next village. I felt a little weak, so I had a double espresso before leaving. Probably not ideal while fasting, but not technically 'food', and tremendously uplifting! And the morning was so crisp, everything felt so new, so miraculous. I dropped off my car and took the bus to the dermatologist's village, the next one along the valley.
I arrived an hour early and went for a short walk. I stepped into the Swiss Reformed church. It was big and empty. Compared to the Greek Orthodox churches, with their candles and incense and the friendly faces of the Saints covering every inch of wall space, the Swiss Reformed churches seem rather cold and austere places. But there was a worn stone lectern in the middle of this one, and on it a copy of the Bible in gothic script, lying open at Psalm 23 ('Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil'), the very one I have been trying to learn in Greek. Amazing, really, how these Hebrew texts from the Judean desert of the 6th Century BC were translated into Alexandrian Greek and eventually made their way all around the world, including to this little village high up in the Swiss Alps.
The church was too austere for my taste, but there were a few stained glass windows in the south-facing wall, though oddly not in the eastern one. The sun was now beginning to illuminate them. One of them I found particularly beautiful: it showed Christ standing amongst Alpine meadow flowers, with snowy peaks behind him. This was the Engadine Christ, not the Judean one, and a good reminder for me that the Orthodox Church does not have a monopoly on either religious art, or on the divine.
I completed my tour of the village and went to my appointment with the dermatologist. I was standing at the reception desk when a heart-stoppingly beautiful nurse came to confer with the receptionist... a real Aphrodite.
A few minutes later, the same nurse came to call me through to the dermatologist's office. Then she sat down opposite me.
'Oh, so you are the dermatologist?' I asked.
'Yes. My German is so-so, Italian or English would be better. I am Italian.'
So, a real Venus!
'I am a dermatologist and a venereologist, what brings you here?'
I had found the clinic online, and had skimmed over the description, faintly assuming that a venereologist specialised in veins - 'Venen' in German. But now I realised my error.
'Ah, well, I just have an annoying itch on my arm,' I said, preparing to roll up my sleeve.
'When did you last have a full examination?'
'Oh, years ago... But I really just...'
'I will visit everything,' (I promise she said that), 'Take off your clothes.'
I stripped down to my waist. The three day fast is also a sort of mini-sesshin for me. I have been washing my body, which a Zen monk would not do during a shesshin, but I had been wearing the same underwear and t-shirt for a number of days.
'And my trousers too?'
'Yes.'
I did not, however, remove my underwear. I sat on the bed.
'Do you have any allergies? Do you have a healthy diet?'
'No allergies. Normally my diet is fairly healthy, I think. But I should probably mention that I haven't eaten for three days.'
'A health fast? That can be good too, so long as you know how to do it properly.'
Well, my inspiration comes more from the Desert Fathers than from modish dieting. And not eating does not seem to me to be that complex. But there was no need to go into details.
She instructed me to lie on the bed and proceeded to 'visit' my entire body from extremely close, using something like a jeweler's eye-piece to examine any moles or discolorations. I became very aware of the sweatiness of my armpits, the effect of having drunk the double espresso on an empty stomach earlier that morning. She leaned in close over my shoulders and neck and proceeded to remove my mask. She really was so beautiful. By far the dominant part of me couldn't help thinking: Oh, in another world! I felt that intense and familiar longing. But there was also the small 'voice' that I can occasionally hear, when I am quiet enough and really pay attention; the voice that 'leadeth me beside still waters and restoreth my soul', and that reminds me that all forms of distress are also a lack of trust.
I am afraid that I shall have to disappoint anyone who was hoping for a racy ending to Watahsi-wa's visit. But I am happy to say that the rest of my dermis is unproblematic, and I now have a couple of creams to apply to my itchy arm.
When I got home I was still feeling a bit embarrassed about my unwashed underwear, so I decided to change and do some laundry. On taking off my trousers, I noticed that my boxer shorts - which I had put on half-asleep in the dark that morning - were inside out.
After the ignominy, the laundry!
watashi-wa in the snow 