FOG by Sonja Leobold

When Jacques and I were together, so many years ago, we hitched from Paris across Europe, ending up one night in Bavaria. We had no idea where we had been dropped off, only that we found ourselves in a dense fog.

We walked blindly, not even knowing if we were still on a road. No cars passed us, and every once in a while, we could see through the mist, fields, and, once, at a distance, a barn, which gave us hope that we might be able to sleep somewhere for a while. Jacques crossed the field to see if we could get into it, but a dog began to bark ferociously and Jacques backed off.

We walked most of the night, hardly able to see a foot in front of us. The fog enveloped us, but sometimes retreated, trees appearing from nowhere, sometimes a house or two, then disappearing. We kept losing sight of each other, too, only to rediscover one another just a few steps away. But we never saw another human being. It was as if we were between worlds—unknown places. Nothing seemed real.

As the fog lifted and light drifted down from the sky, things around us began to stir. A farmer left his house and headed across a field towards his barn, a dog at his side. Once in a while, we saw a cow or two standing as if in a trance, slowly blinking. Morning was breaking.

At some point, we heard a truck coming our way. It was a milk truck and the driver was kind enough to pick us up. He said he would take us into town. We had started out to try to find an old friend of mine who lived in Oberbayen, a small town in Bavaria, south of Munich. Amazingly, the driver told us we were practically there. Once he dropped us off in town, we were able to find the small inn where Robert, my friend, was staying.

It was good to see Robert. Robert. Solid, kind, wise. He was 65 and I was 21. He had lived a complicated life. He was German and as a young man, had served in World War I, only to emerge from it, shell-shocked and with a horror of war. During World War II, he had worked in the underground, helping Jews escape. After the war, he had come to America, living there for many years, and doing many things, some of them simultaneously. He started an old-time one-room schoolhouse, worked as a therapist, treating people who were “lost causes,” was a water-color painter, and was in the midst of translating the verses of the I Ching. 

The quality in Robert I found most impressive was his ability to focus. When you were with him, he was totally attentive and fully present, so that even five minutes with him was completely satisfying and felt like five hours. And, perhaps because of that focus, he was acutely perceptive and sensitive. He learned so much about you without you having said a word. I think that’s why I had wanted to come to see him with Jacques. I felt so conflicted in my feelings for Jacques, and thought that perhaps things would clarify in Robert’s wise presence.