When I first moved to Geneva, I complained to friends it was sterile. My partner and I had moved here for work, one of tens of thousands of foreigners who arrive each year for interludes working for or in the orbit of its international institutions. I knew, in a diffuse way, that it was considered a boring place, but I was unprepared for the specifics.
It seemed that the only exciting thing to do in town was to rev a fancy car outside our plug’n play temporary apartment late at night, by which I mean at around 9pm: everything had already closed by then, and I might well have already been in bed. The apartment had been furnished so it would be inoffensive to whichever temporary Geneva sojourner passed through. Everything was beige or grey, coated in glass or soft furnishing. It’s so convenient, I told everyone, just really, extremely convenient.
It’s odd to say you miss discomfort; it sounds churlish to say that a place can be too orderly. But moving to a new place always shines a light on what you took for granted before. At first, the proximity to Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) only made me miss the ocean acutely. I missed teeming life in the kelp forests of South Africa, where I grew up: shoals of fish, nudibranchs and seals. I even missed knowing that beyond the kelp forests, sharks were hunting, proof of the vibrant life beneath them on the food chain. I missed the thrill of big waves and the funk of seaweed.
Now, you might be thinking, what’s so hard to like about a big, clean lake, you weirdo? Well, Lac Léman was too flat and calm, in a way that felt almost infantilising. Gigantic yellow buoys and a water taxi that looked like a bath toy didn’t help. The fact that the water was so crystal clear only made it easier to see the lake was lifeless. Could water be … too clean? Was that, in fact, why there seemed to be so few living creatures in it? There was a credible rumour that a specially designed boat in Lausanne sucked up sand and cleaned it. That’s right. Cleaned the sand. The whole thing horrified me.
But then, in summer, the water temperature shot up, and I met an Australian, Sam, who invited me to a weekly swim. I don’t think I would have taken this invitation up from anyone other than an Australian. I knew they were a people who took swimming seriously enough to have at least four slang words for women’s swimwear – cossie, cozzie, bathers and, Sam told me, swimmers in South Australia “because they like to sound British”). They are, also, in my limited experience, unafraid that something might sting or bite you, because in Australia something really might, and people learn to accept it. In my mind Australians were hardy, and adventurous. If they were delighted by the lake, maybe it wasn’t so lame, after all?
On our first swim, after protestations that she would just splutter along, if not sink, Sam took off with such a powerful freestyle that I was afraid ducklings would be sucked into her wake and drown. Sam brought other Australians with her, with similarly vigorous front-crawl and passionfruit-print togs. It would be too emphatic to paint the Australians as “hardy” – in fact, a lack of sharks was highlighted as unalloyed plus of Lac Léman’s waters – but they were definitely full of vim.
I didn’t stop scanning the lake weed for life, but I accepted things were different here. I learned that what Lac Léman lacks in fish, it makes up for with birds. Instead of crashing waves, it has spectacular sunsets.
And then one day it happened: it was just after the first lockdown had ended. Swimming in the lake was allowed by the authorities but discouraged by the season: in spring the water wasn’t often above 15C. Needless to say, I had the waters almost to myself. And maybe it was because of the months of less boat traffic and few swimmers that the wels catfish had ventured up into shallower waters and become comfortable near the Bain des Pâquis. As I swam past the boardwalk, something in the lake weed caught my eye. I did a double take and ended up swallowing water. Was that a shark? Beneath me was something sleek and grey – a fish longer than a metre idled sinuously. As I watched him, he turned his head to the side to scope me out but made no move to flee. He was sassy but unflappable – a beast worth waiting for.
Since then, I’ve seen the catfish several times, as well as many of the other fish that were really always there. It’s almost as if my gaze has become attuned to the life that still takes place in quiet places. Everywhere you live teaches you something new. For me, learning to love the lake meant slowing down and appreciating the gentle things in life.
When newcomers arrive, I tell them I have only one piece of advice: swim. And if you keep your goggles on and your eyes open, you might just be rewarded with the sight of a gigantic catfish. Almost as big as a shark, but without the teeth.
• Simone Haysom is a journalist and author of The Last Words of Rowan du Preez, a true-crime book
