Ella Maillart: Memoirs Of A Sparrow
The Ancient Greeks believed that three goddesses were in charge of the spindle that directed our destiny. Spinning a thread, they would give the impetus to create an existence. Twisting it between their fingers, they would shape the ups and downs of a life. And with a flick of their scissors, they would put an end to the course and send a soul to Limbos. If indeed our fates are chosen by those weavers, what an extraordinary fibre they have used to unfold Ella Maillart’s journey on Earth.
She was a rare person; an outstanding sportswoman, who ventured in fields as diverse as trade, sailing and cinema. Writer by need rather than desire, she nonetheless had an enduring instinct for journalism and a keen eye for photography. However, at her core she was a traveller.
Born in 1903 to a wealthy family on Geneva’s lakeside, Ella is a sickly child. On the advice of her mother, a sports passionate, and her doctor, she dives into outdoor sports. Her love for risk and her daring behaviour make her stand out as she feels the need to seek out the dangerous path, to learn the hard way. Her teenage years unwind at the rhythm of the seasons. She falls in love with skiing. Years later, she will participate to 4 consecutive World Championships.
“Sometimes I believe that skiing is responsible for having made me a rolling stone. As soon as winter arrived, visions of skis swishing through new snow filled me with such feverish longings that wherever I was – in Berlin or Paris, or even on board Perlette – I interrupted what I was doing, or stopped worrying about what I was not doing, and went to the hills."[1]
As soon as the temperature rises, she leaves the mountains for the lake where she learned everything. She has taught herself the art of sailing from a humble dinghy to a seven-metre yacht. The sea attracts her like a siren’s song does. At the age of 20, Ella and her friend Hermine de Saussure sail through the Mediterranean Sea, from Corsica to Côte d'Azure, on a yacht they bought from Louis Breguet. They become acquainted with Alain Gerbault who will be the first to cross the Atlantic in solitary sailing. He ignites a new hunger in them by sharing his fascination for Polynesia’s islands. In secret, the girls prepare their first expedition and recruit an all-female crew. Their goal: emulate Gerbault’s exploit and start a nomadic life on their boat. Alas, the sea won’t give in. Shortly after departure, Hermine falls sick. Without their captain, there is little left to do but sail back to the shore.
Meanwhile, the Great War has left scars that do not fade. Even the Swiss youth, protected from the conflicts, feels the tensions running over Europe’s shattered body. Ella wishes nothing but to escape melancholia’s grip, this dark sickness that intoxicates her friends. For a moment, she finds solace in competition. Enrolled as the only female competitor, she represents Switzerland in the solitary Olympic regatta of 1924. She finishes 9th out of 17 contestants. Then, she discovers silent movies in Berlin’s studios while touring Europe. She begins a career as a sports understudy and actress in mountain movies. Next door, Marlene Dietrich is starring in the Blue Angel. Although the broad and friendly city buzzes with opportunity, Ella seeks greater paths. At the Gate of the West, infinite Russia and the enthusiastic Sovietism are calling for her, transmitting the sounds of a further East. Her journey has begun.
Nowadays, even as high-speed connection and instant information have replaced the legends that filled our grandparents’ dreams, some places keep the mystery alive. Among them is Turkestan, the region spreading from the Caspian Sea to China. Far from the popular white sand beaches and green Alps, it is an unusual destination for travellers. But even if they can’t explain their reasons, those who feel this attraction succumb more than once. Maybe they can hear a promise in this space where our familiar world dissolves. One that tempts us to walk out of time on the way to ourselves. No doubt that Ella is following its whispers, as she crosses Turkestan from one point to the other and journals her impressions.
Her ambition sets on an objective: from the heights of the Tien Shan she has had a glimpse of the Takla Makan, a forbidden desert that she vows to know one day. Running out of money, she must postpone and go all the way back to Switzerland. Her journey back through the Balkans is one of unrest. She travels solitary and at times without papers amidst the anti-soviet rebellion. This exploit will establish her reputation in Europe.
Finally, her financial shortcomings end. Funded by a major French newspaper, she is commissioned to write a travel story on China. For 7 months, she roams its territory with Peter Fleming, a reporter from the Times turned MI6 agent. In a spy-like manner, the duet traces its way from Beijing to Kashmir, dodging police check-ups and sneaking into restricted areas. Lebanon, Türkie, and Afghanistan follow soon after and complete Ella’s map of Asia. She documents relentlessly, in her simple and faithful writing and through her Leica’s lenses.
1939 arrives amid the roar of tanks. Around her mobilisation and the Resistance enroll their lot but Ella refuses, fleeing as a swallow to kinder lands. She knows herself to be individualistic and unfit for the mundanities and politics of the Old World. Once again, she departs for Asia, India this time, the realm of serpents and cats. As nations tremble and alliances break, Ella follows the teaching of sages, venturing down the inner trails. Peace returns. The whistle of the armistice pierces through cloudy Europe, it is time to come home.
“I spent the six summer months in the Valais, in a village at 2000 metres, inundated with sun and silence. It lies on top of a mountainside festooned with larch trees, and its vast and varied horizon is a source of ever-renewed joy.”[2]
What home is there for a vagabond, adapting everywhere and nowhere at her place? Surely not the cosmopolitan city of Geneva. Ella goes back to her first love, the untamed Switzerland whose peaks and mountain lakes echo the silence of their Himalayan counterparts. She settles in Chandolin nested in Val d’Anniviers for the summers to come.
Fading away
Ella Maillart’s wanderings across uncharted lands mirror a question that goes beyond touristic infatuation or scientific interest. What is the true I? she asks, to the sands, to the mountains and to the cold nights. Little by little, they answer her and inhabit her with their immensity.
How to explain her fascination for secret peoples as Modern Times and their tarmac roads reached the steppes? Bathed in the breadth of life in the open air, Ella was anticipating the rifts and alienation that would follow in the wake of progress. She sensed that we were going astray as we were forgetting the quiet simplicity of the nomad and the mountaineer life, what allows us to navigate the world with an innate understanding of belonging.
One cannot escape change. Mountain guide in Nepal during the 70s, Ella witnesses first-hand the changing of the world as she trades her week-long treks against a 20-minute helicopter flight. The rotors waltz and their whirring covers the rhythm of footsteps in the snow and the breath of effort. She is far from her home ground, but with those sky-like eyes that have searched many paths and studied many faces, finding the thread back to herself was never so easy.
