SYLVIA
Was Paris really the last time she was abroad? Sylvia recalled her student year at the Sorbonne with a rush of nostalgia for those walks by the Seine, coffee in smoky cafes, wine-fuelled dinners in the Marais, lectures on Sartre and Camus and Molière. It was only three years ago but seemed like an age, although she remembered the feeling it gave her so well – a voracious desire to devour everything she saw, to lap up every new experience, to revel in the sense of freedom being abroad gave her. Sylvia hadn’t realised until now, walking through customs in Geneva, how badly she’d needed that again.
The train swept her along the length of Lake Geneva until the guard announced their arrival at Lausanne station in three languages. She stepped off the train and walked through a fug of cigarette smoke spiralling up to the high ceiling of the station concourse. She took a cab up the steep hill to the Hôtel de la Paix, a grand old building offering a glorious view of the lake far below. Not that she could see it from her room, of course, a pokey cube whose only window faced onto a building on a side street. Janice had warned her. Budget’s limited, love, this is the best you get. Like hell it was. But Sylvia was abroad, on a foreign commission – the room could be in a shed for all she cared.
She unpacked and squeezed into the bathroom. She brushed her hair, applied a slick of lipstick and assessed herself in the mirror. She was wearing a beige trouser suit Maggie had helped her pick out when she’d started her job, with a pin brooch her parents gave her on graduation from Oxford, and platform shoes she’d scrubbed clean. She smoothed her clothes and her hand came to a rest on her stomach. Another image pushed into her mind: visiting her friend Gilly last month; her youngest child at her hip, bloodshot eyes and sick-stained clothes.
God, put the kettle on, won’t you, while I change his nappy?
She blinked and blew out a shaky breath. She wouldn’t think about that now.
‘I apologise for the mess.’ Evelyne Buchs swept a pile of papers from a battered old chair, gesturing for her to sit. ‘Smoke?’
Sylvia took the proffered cigarette and leaned forward for her to light it. A collection of butts languished in an ashtray on a table, which was stacked with flyers and posters. A sign scrawled on the door had said ‘Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises’, both confirming its presence and suggesting its ephemeral state. It looked like a basement storeroom.
‘We don’t have a proper HQ,’ Evelyne said in precise, measured French that seemed so different from the fast-flowing mumble Sylvia had learned to keep up with in Paris. ‘But we use this tiny space as a drop-in centre for women interested in the movement.’ She waved her hand around the room, sending a spray of ash to the floor. ‘Oh, I’m very glad you’re here. Any opportunity to get the word out; raise awareness of our situation.’
‘I’m pleased to be here.’ Sylvia felt her heart rate ease. She had always appreciated the slight nervousness she felt on going to interview a stranger – it kept her alert – but it had already dissipated in front of Evelyne’s cluttered table and relaxed manner. The woman seemed about Sylvia’s age, with a mass of unruly hair loosely tied back by a scarf. Her flared jeans and chunky red jumper made Sylvia feel ridiculously formal – and conformist – in her suit.
She took her notepad and pen out of her bag. ‘I’m really keen to give a true picture of what’s going on here within the Swiss feminist movement. How things have changed since women’s suffrage in ’71, and what’s still to be achieved.’
‘Oh, everything!’ Evelyne said. ‘That’s in answer to the last part of your sentence, of course.’ She sat back in her chair and took a drag on her cigarette. ‘I mean, it was absolutely marvellous when women finally got the vote at federal level after so many bloody years of campaigning, but it was simply shameful it took so long, and it’s not nearly enough. It means nothing as long as women are still controlled and restricted by rules made by men. What’s needed now is a complete revolution, nothing less. We won’t stop until we’ve dismantled the patriarchy and built a new society that doesn’t marginalise women and exploit their bodies.’
‘That’s quite an aim,’ Sylvia said.
‘It certainly is, but there are plenty of us out there fighting for it.’ Evelyne leaned forward, brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ‘However, it’s slow progress. Part of the problem is that the country’s system of direct democracy requires a referendum for constitutional change, but of course until ’71 only men could vote in national referendums, so progressive policies regarding women’s rights have been few and far between. I mean, that’s why it took so bloody long to get the vote in the first place – only men could vote to give women the vote!’ She shook her head and laughed. ‘Of course, some men are more progressive than others. Here in the canton of Vaud, they granted women the vote back in ’59 – we were the first in the country to get cantonal suffrage.’
‘Meaning you could vote in cantonal elections and referendums but not national ones?’
‘Precisely.’ Evelyne leaned forward to flick ash into the ashtray and looked at Sylvia. ‘I’m sorry, do you know much about the Swiss system? It is rather complicated.’
‘It’s a federal state, made up of different cantons, yes?’
She nodded. ‘Each canton has its own political powers, and can legislate on certain matters, while the federal government deals with nationwide issues. Attitudes can vary widely from canton to canton, so while several progressive cantons granted cantonal suffrage prior to 1971, a couple still haven’t even now.’
‘Still? You mean there are parts of Switzerland where women can now vote on national issues but not cantonal ones?’
‘Hard to believe, but yes.’ She laughed. ‘So now you understand that things take time to change in Switzerland, which is frustrating because there’s so much more to do – statutory maternity leave, more nurseries, equal access to education, pay equality, among other things.’ She blew out a long trail of smoke to the ceiling. ‘But it’s about far more than legislation. Fundamentally, we need these basic rights so that we can take back control of our lives. We need easy and free access to contraception and the complete decriminalisation of abortion so we can control our own bodies, and we need to smash the system that casts women as unpaid workers in the home, raising children and doing the housework, all the while being controlled by their husbands. I mean, married women here must ask their husband’s permission to have a job or a bank account, and even then all their money is under his control. Did you know that?’
Sylvia shook her head, her pen flying across the page. She hadn’t known that, but it didn’t surprise her – it was only last year that financial discrimination against women was outlawed back home. When she’d opened a bank account several years ago, the bank had required her father’s signature as well as her own.
‘So it’s more than women’s rights – it’s women’s liberation. Liberation from the male-dominated society that has been imposed upon us for centuries.’ Evelyne sighed. ‘But unfortunately,’ she went on, Sylvia realising that questions were not going to be entirely necessary in this interview, ‘with this dire economic climate, it’s women who are bearing the brunt and it’s undoing all the progress that’s been made. Women are the first to lose their jobs and get sent back to the kitchen. Well, after foreigners of course.’
Sylvia raised her eyebrows.
‘Foreigners are even less appreciated in Switzerland than women. So as a foreign woman, well, you’ve haven’t much of a hope!’ Evelyne laughed and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Come on, I’ve had enough of this place. Shall we go and get a drink?’
The air was frigid as they hurried through the cobbled streets, but the cold seemed to suit Lausanne so much better than London. Rather than bone-chillingly damp, it was dry and fresh and easily fended off with her Afghan coat and woolly hat. Nevertheless, Sylvia was glad to step into the warmth of Le Barbare, a little cafe perched on the old market steps that could have been there for centuries. It was late afternoon and the snug interior was already busy, mostly with young people, beers and cigarettes in hand. A hum of chatter and laughter was the only soundtrack, though in one corner Sylvia saw a drum kit and assorted microphones, indicating live music had been and gone, but would likely come again.
Heads turned their way as they walked in. Sylvia unwound her scarf and shrugged off her coat as Evelyne greeted the woman behind the bar as though they knew each other well. She returned with two glasses of beer and slipped into a chair opposite Sylvia.
‘This place is where we come to plot,’ she said with a smile. ‘The drinking establishment of Lausanne’s young radical lefties. And don’t they know it!’
‘They?’ Sylvia said.
‘The fusty old conservatives, I mean. They succeeded in shutting it down a few years ago, complaining about drugs and homosexuals and “moral danger”.’ Evelyne shrugged. ‘It was only a bit of weed, for God’s sake. Sometimes it’s as though the sixties never happened. That’s part of the bloody problem in Switzerland – too many people stuck in the past.’
And she was off. Evelyne, Sylvia had realised already, wasn’t the sort of person to need alcohol to talk – but it clearly wasn’t going to slow her down, either. Sylvia’s shorthand was pushed to its limits as she listened to Evelyne tell her how she joined the Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises three years ago while she was still at university, inspired by the fellow students she met for whom traditional feminism wasn’t enough, who were pursuing something more radical.
‘We owe them a lot, those older feminists. They’ve fought for voting rights for years, but many of them still think a women’s place is at home keeping house and making babies.’
Sylvia heard how, last year, the MFL joined other militant groups to boycott a women’s congress led by those traditional Swiss feminists after they refused to put abortion on the debate agenda, and how they created an anti-congress of fierce debates, controversial films and pieces of feminist theatre that gained more press attention than the real congress. She heard how the local authorities tried to shut down the printing of the MFL newsletter, and how they teamed up with other campaigners from around the country to interrupt a session of parliament to demonstrate in favour of abortion rights. Sylvia couldn’t help but feel rather lucky. Britain wasn’t perfect, by a long way, but at least things were moving in the right direction. She had the right to request a termination – yes, she reminded herself, I do – and, as of just last year, legal recourse should she face discrimination at work or unequal pay. But then her thoughts flickered to Clive, his sneers and his putdowns, and she considered Evelyne to be right – legislation was necessary, but something more fundamental was still needed, and not just in Switzerland. The women’s lib movement may have made more progress in the UK, but it still hadn’t achieved all its aims – far from it.
‘I admire your determination, your passion, I really do.’
‘Well, someone has to do it.’ Evelyne drained her glass. ‘And I’m not saying it’s just us at the MFL; there are thousands of women across the country standing up for change.’ She signalled to the waitress and gestured for more drinks. ‘But some people don’t understand – and that includes many women, too, especially the older ones. They think we’re being too militant, too aggressive; that we’re making a fuss unnecessarily and should simply pipe down and get back to our husbands and children where we belong. Putain! They’re simply wrong. There’s so much that should change, so much we should be making a fuss about.’ She shook her head. ‘I have a friend who is about to get married, and because her fiancé is French, she will lose her Swiss citizenship when she marries, unless she specifically asks to retain it. And yet if it was the other way around – a Swiss man marrying a foreigner – he’d automatically keep his nationality.’
Sylvia shook her head. ‘Wow. That’s—’
‘I don’t want more than what men have,’ Evelyne went on. ‘I simply want the freedom to live my life as I please, free from their control, their oppression. And if it can’t happen for me then I want it for all the girls I teach every day, so they can grow up knowing they are as valued in society as the boys.’
‘You’re a teacher?’
‘Primary. You didn’t think this was the day job, did you?’ She laughed, one eyebrow arched. ‘Mon amie, I’m a member of the MFL for love, not for money. For the love of myself, my girls, and even those Hausfrauen who think we’re unfeminine hell-raisers. Because it’s important. And if we end up achieving nothing, well, at least I can hold my head up high knowing I tried.’ She paused and looked at her watch. ‘Speaking of teaching, I must go. I have a pile of prep to do for next week. But listen, what are you doing later? I’m having some friends from the MFL over for food. Come too?’ She scribbled her address on a bar mat. ‘It’s been great to meet you. Sorry if I rambled on a bit. Once you get me started, you know.’
Sylvia agreed to come and then Evelyne was off, a breezy ‘À plus tard!’ as she rushed out the door. A gush of cold air hit Sylvia and then the door slammed shut.