“This is not the first time I’ve watched this man on his bench by the Staatsbrücke. He lies on his belly and seems to sleep. I want to take a picture of him,and when I finally bring myself to ask him whether I might bother him for a minute, he says no. Later, he tells me that he thinks it’s important to say No from time to time, and that he had to learn that first, too. Well rested, he turns to me with a smile to tell me that I may bother him now, and is excited by the idea of being photographed by me. Then he spontaneously does a handstand on the bench!
Pauli from the Pongau is an engine driver. Afternight shifts and when the weather is nice, he likes to lie on this bench to bathe in the sun. It has been replaced and is not as rough and bent as the other benches. His asks me: “Salzburg is a city of culture. Do you think it’s bad taste to sit topless in a city of culture?”, since a woman once mentioned this to him.
When we meet the next time, I’m picking him up from work. Pauli stands in neon pink shorts and a neon orange reflective vest on his blue roller-skate. The inn where we planned to go is closed, so he suggests that we instead go to McDonalds, he hasn’t been there in ten years, and also it’s close by. He makes an effort to go slow on his inline skate, nevertheless I am barely holding up with him on foot. Luckily, I have my bike with me, so I can ride along besides him. We get coffee, he pays, and in return I bring him the tray. As he talks, I notice his left eye: the iris is half blue and half brown. When he laughs, a tooth gap becomes visible between his molars. He tells me that in the beginning, he never dared show his maimed leg in public. That he wore an artificial limb, which was good for the short distance between elevator and car, but when he walked with it for ten kilometers and then took it off, sweat and blood poured out. It took some time for him to become confident enough to show his crippled leg. He emphasizes how glad he is to have made the experience of the accident, that he is the happiest man on earth. But I am unsure what to make of the sparkle in his eyes.
He wants to show me something, we go towards the rails. While he emphasizes how much more he suddenly sees, now that he drives slowly , I come close to running to be able to keep up. We come across a beautiful castle, and then a Romanian Orthodox church, carved entirely from wood and surrounded by colored flowers and small fruit trees. On one side is shallow ground, filled with goldenrods. Pauli is thrilled. He gushes about the goldenrod, and the bobby tops which grows along the edges, when he suddenly plucks their flowers and eats them. Now I am intrigued and also sample a few bobby top flowers. They taste of lettuce with a hint of cucumber. An employee of the church allows us to visit the church , and the vicarage, which also is built entirely from wood. Pauli relishes in the smell of sunflowers and roses, before he has to leave for work again. I head for the railway bridge, from there I can see him stretching and doing a handstand before he enters his locomotive. He waves at me and drives off blowing the horn noisily. Today I will go inside Pauli’s locomotive!
We meet again on the bridge across the rails. Today, Pauli wears a climbing boot . On the way down to the rails, he plucks grape ivy from the edge of the bank and eats it, and gives me a handful . We walk to his locomotive. He is very adamant about safety concerns, and gives me strict orders not to step on the rails or wooden beams when they are wet, but only on the stones in between. And to better look left and right . To hold onto the designated grip when embarking, never on the door. When disembarking, not to overlook the lowest step. Ounce inside the locomotive, he settles into his seat, puts his crutches into their spot and prepares for driving by turning the machinery on, running inspections and making entries into the driver’s log. While we push and pull freight trains, up the hump yard, he tells me about roller skating in Thailand. Last year he skated 5000km in three months, on average 50km per day, and some days even more than 100km. It is a kind of meditation, after 15km he gets the runner’s high, he feels like floating above the ground. He simply gets up in the morning and drives in any direction, mostly on the emergency lane of the highway. He sleeps in dormitories in youth hostels to meet interesting people… but says that most of them only go bed at three in the morning, when he’s already getting up again to roller skate.
When it’s time for his lunch break, we disembark and go to a shunter’s hut to eat. Pauli brought some rations, lunch consists of: lukewarm water with a drop of peppermint oil – not the cheap one from SEWA, but the one for 27€ from the drug store! –, grated carrots eaten with sticks (a friend from Thailand showed him that), a banana, coffee and some ice cream. Everything all at once, and prepared with love.
Then he tells me about his accident. He was traveling on his motorbike, when (most probably) he experienced an episode of microsleep., slid along the guard rail, which cut off his leg. First he thought, he cut himself, though it seemed to him a shaving cut hurts more. A few meters further along, he fell off the bike which continued to roll along, and much later came to a stop virtually undamaged. When he was told in the emergency ward what had happened, he used his hands to feel around the area where, only a few hours ago, his leg had been. Naturally, his first thought was: “shit”. But immediately after this, he asked himself: “What is the use of complaining? What is the use of crying and screaming? That doesn’t give me my leg back.” And thus formed the principle to always try to think positive. To which he has adhered since. (He says, the time in the intensive care unit was the best of all, because he was anesthetized and didn’t notice much of what was happening, but when he was transferred to the normal station, the pain and suffering came.) He rummages around in his wallet and shows me an old, torn up bill. Since 2005, he writes down his New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions like: happiness, love, freedom, health, thankfulness, humility, activity. He lives by these resolutions, 100%.
Pauli is deeply religious. He was raised a Catholic and goes to church on a regular basis, but he tells me that a Thai once paid him the best compliment when he told him that he lives a life of Buddhism. Pauli leads the humble life of a monk, as an engine driver. He tells me about his faith in one God, no matter what you call him.
Sometimes, Pauli meditates and writes with his left hand: At first in a strong and aggressive way, then more softly, until no ink gets on the paper. He used to write and scrawl into diaries until the pages tore, then he ripped them out, crumpled them up, unfolded them again and hung them up or at least collected them. These days, he sometimes writes in his diary, but he gives his writings away, to people he trusts. Because it is important to let go.”
Anna Schmitzberger was born in 1987 in Oberndorf near Salzburg in Austria. Early on she knew her talents and interests lied in the arts. She tried painting, drama and music (singing in a choir and playing several instruments , even glass bottles in a band). She then studied graphic design in Berlin and after getting her degree she spend a year in Rome on different photographic projects. She currently lives in Berlin and Salzburg, and works as a freelance photographer. Her photographic work has been exhibited in Rome, Berlin and Vienna.
