1
Incredible things...
There. This is Walter's suitcase.
Uncle Walter had died,
shortly after his 90th birthday.
In November 2001,
his possessions arrived
in Switzerland, from Hawaii.
At my brother's,
in the family archives.
A whole container.
A whole life.
That is a very good photo.
That was him. Walter Otto Wyss,
known as WOW.
Honolulu, 31 May 1970.
Dear Mami,
In a way, I would like to fly home to you,
and stay until your 100th birthday.
But what could I do,
if I were to stay longer with you?
Prayers to you. Your son, Walter.
Casa San Carlo in Comano,
slightly above Lugano,
the house of Walter's mother,
my grandmother.
Our family home.
In 1939,
Uncle Walter left this place
as a young man.
Shortly afterwards, I was born.
For 60 years,
Walter lived in my head.
I don't know why.
My uncle in America.
Hero of my childhood.
In Comano, nothing has changed.
The same furniture,
the same smells,
and the feeling
that time has stood still.
As a child, I never really knew
if I was supposed to like it here,
or if I wanted to be far away.
Far away, like Uncle Walter.
In his picturebook-life,
everything had begun perfectly.
Loved and pampered by all - like me.
His parents -
Dr. med. Hans Oskar Ernst Wyss,
and Ida Wyss, ne Diener -
his most beloved mother.
Ours was a family of few words.
Not in front of the children!"
was often said at the table.
Everyone seemed to know
how to behave and what was a tabu.
Uncle Walter, too,
could not escape these rules.
On family photos,
he is usually at the side,
as if he did not belong properly.
He was the youngest, like me -
the most spoilt, like me,
and the best-looking.
Which was not be said of me
and, as a young engineer, he would
soon be able to afford all he wanted.
What was he like?
He was always a bit different,
a bit a loner.
He always went his own way...
a strange way.
August 1929.
Dear Papa, I have set up my garage
in your double garage in Zurich,
and am building my first car,
the W1.
I'm just using parts of disused cars.
It's great fun.
Perhaps my enthusiasm has to do
with your Electromobile of 1905.
April 1930.
Dear Mami, I'm sending you the
photograph of the two of us in the W1.
I'm so grateful for
your financial support,
and that you believe in me!
Did he take you for a drive?
Were you able to drive with him?
Yes... people did not really like going,
because he drove like mad.
- Like mad?
- Yes
I wasn't really so keen on
going for a drive with him.
August 1931.
Dear Papa,
My W2 is finally finished.
How do you like it?
My friends are quite thrilled.
I hope to be successful with this car.
Perhaps it will also help me
to become known abroad,
and to make contacts.
In Comano, I came across
a document that really shocked me:
A character reference,
which stated that Uncle Walter had
been sentenced to six weeks in prison.
As a 24-year old student,
he had hit a cyclist with his car.
The cyclist died.
What bothered me most,
was that for my family,
it was as if this tragic accident
had not taken place.
You didn't know that
he'd had an accident,
killing a cyclist?
No! Really? How terrible!
You also didn't know that
he had been to prison?
No, I don't know anything about it.
But 10 years later, for example,
one might be able to talk about it?
But why?
Well...
I don't think...
Don't you?
Well, I think...
you don't necessarily
need to talk about it.
Since you ask, about the accident -
it was probably hushed up,
but also, in this family,
things like that were
not spoken about to others.
The only person who told me
about the accident
was Elia Moghini,
Uncle Walter's childhood friend in Comano.
There are a few stories around.
The story of this accident.
I had an accident myself once,
with my car.
I drove down from Biasca to Bellinzona.
Thank goodness there was
a driver from Zurich behind me.
A little child ran after his ball,
jumped from his garden and
suddenly ran into the street,
right in front of me.
I hit him with the car, and killed him.
You? A child?
Yes, a child.
I was lucky,
that the driver from Zurich,
who was behind me,
had witnessed the incident.
He testified that I could not
have done anything,
as the child suddenly appeared
out of a hedge and on the street.
He hit his head on the sidelight.
He was dead immediately.
A three-year-old child.
I can tell you: You never forget that.
I am sure Walter was
deeply affected by his accident.
Definitely.
He was an attractive man, Walter.
Did you know each other well?
We were more than friends.
We were like brothers, Walter and I.
That is why I became a mechanic.
Because Walter was a mechanic.
Oh?
We learned of Walter's accident
from his father, Dr Wyss.
He came to our house
and told us what had happened.
But Walter never spoke of it.
Not even with me,
even though I was his closest confidant.
I even did not know until now
that he had spent time in prison.
After Walter had done his time,
and finished his engineering studies,
he decided to change his life:
He emigrated to America.
Zurich, 20 February 1939.
My dears,
our farewell left a deep
and wonderful impression.
I gratefully felt that
you were sad to bid me farewell,
and that you still harbour
a true love for me.
It is only now that
I am beginning to realize
the great sacrifice
you have made for me,
making it possible for me
to leave for the New World.
His new life began in New York -
far from his parents, and yet,
astonishingly close.
Over 30 years, Walter wrote his
beloved mother more than 500 letters,
which I found among her possessions.
In Comano I also came across an item
which I had dearly loved as a child:
Grandpa's huge magnifying glass
from 1890.
My looking glass through time.
When Grandma showed me
this photograph from America in 1949,
I was seven years old.
My very first encounter with
Uncle Walter.
He looked me straight in the eyes -
and stood right next to the
legendary Henry Ford, his great idol.
I was hugely proud!
Who, after all, had an uncle
standing next to Henry Ford?
All I knew was that Uncle Walter
had worked at the New York World's Fair -
the big world exhibition of 1939.
There, they held the Ford Day",
on which a commemorative automobile, having
completed a long journey across America,
was received by Henry Ford and the
country's most successful Ford salesmen.
Perhaps Walter had simply snuck
into the photograph next to Henry Ford.
I went to Dearborn, near Detroit,
to the centre of the world of Ford.
Perhaps there would be more pictures
of Uncle Walter in the company archives.
In the Ford News I found an article
about this big day.
And the photograph with Henry Ford.
But where was Uncle Walter?
To my own surprise,
I was really disappointed,
and felt betrayed.
I paid a second visit to the Ford archives,
this time, to the photo department.
My Uncle Walter had simply
been airbrushed,
like all the other extras.
But, that very year,
he was hired by the Ford Motor Company
as an automotive engineer - a dream job.
15 December 1940.
The Dearborn Inn is wonderful!
I've lived here for almost a year,
and love sitting in the lobby.
First-class service!
You have given me so much goodness,
with the power of your loving thoughts,
that it is hardly possible
for me to be bad.
3 August 1941.
Dear Mami,
Have you any idea how shy I am?
Too shy to approach someone
to speak to them, or to visit them.
I thought there would be so much going on,
and now I just live for myself.
Thankfully I am far away,
and you need not worry.
4 May 1943.
Just think:
A few weeks ago,
I became an American citizen.
Am investing all my money
in war bonds.
November 1944.
It is difficult to write to you
after so many years of war,
not knowing whether
you have received my letters.
I go dancing. Take Spanish lessons.
Am often alone.
I've hung up a picture of Comano,
with the view from the portico.
I could gather from Walter's reports
of his life abroad
that his mother answered every letter
with at least three of her own -
for 30 years.
Hundreds of letters,
all gone missing in Honolulu.
But my search for Walter's traces
in the New World had only just begun.
My research led me to Wichita, Kansas,
then a center of the
American aviation industry.
The huge companies,
which had lost their Air Force contracts
after the second World War,
were on the search for new markets
and ideas with a future.
For Walter, the chance of a lifetime.
I set off for Wichita.
November 1945.
Dear Mami, Just think:
I now work for the airplane company
Beechcraft, in the state of Kansas.
I'm designing a car for them.
Maybe this will be my breakthrough.
January 1946.
Do you remember
Papa's Electromobile?
I will design a very special car,
which can drive on electricity
as well as on gas.
15 April 1946.
Before my departure from Detroit,
I attended a jazz concert by Lionel Hampton
"and heard my favorite piece,
Flying Home".
I arrived in Wichita last Saturday evening,
with my Ford and all my things,
after a nice 1000-mile trip.
The roads were good,
and I mostly drove 70-80 miles per hour,
overtaking everyone on the way.
Here, everything seems better than
I could have dreamt for.
In the Broadview Hotel, I'll probably
be able to pay a monthly rent.
Wichita, 17 July 1946.
Work at Beechcraft is still wonderful.
I have never been happier in the USA.
I've bought a bed, to be able to
spend the night in the office.
Seven people now work for me
on the Plainsman car.
End of November, 1946.
It is certain that we will
finish the test cars,
as a few hundred thousand dollars
have already been spent on them.
But there is a big question mark over
whether the car will ever be manufactured.
After days of fruitless searching,
I began to fear
that I would find nobody
who could tell me about Uncle Walter's
private life here in Wichita.
But then I came across the name
Walt Burnham,
Uncle Walter's then boss at Beechcraft.
His daughter Pat
had married a certain Dale Rummer,
whom I finally found in Lawrence, Kansas.
Dale was also an engineer.
On the phone, he had told me about
a wonderful wedding present,
which Walter had given him
and his wife Pat.
15 January 1948.
Unfortunately,
the aviation industry is not doing well.
People are losing their jobs.
I surprised I'm even still here.
I can probably still finish the test car.
Working Saturdays now too.
But who knows,
with the Cold War against Russia,
and rearmament,
the aviation industry might soon
have plenty to do again.
It is so terrible, that there will be
war again in the foreseeable future.
Handicapped down here...
Following my visit to the Rummers, after
travelling alone for such a long time,
I suddenly had substantial back-up.
The two elderly engineers took me to
the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City.
There was no stopping Dale and Bob
on their trip down memory lane.
And the result of my research in Kansas?
A hybrid car that was never completed,
and two small inventions, in which
Walter Wyss was apparently involved.
Not exactly much.
5 August 1948.
It seems to be cursed. Nobody is
interested in the project any longer.
Mami, I don't know what it is,
but I think that if you
had not kept writing to me,
I would probably never
have written again.
24 January 1949.
Dear Mami,
There is something inside me
which prevents me from coming home.
I wish I knew exactly what.
It is all the more so,
when I think of seeing you again.
Still, you are the only reason for
my visit to Switzerland.
In the spring of 1949,
Uncle Walter bought a plane ticket
to Switzerland.
He had hoped to come with news of
his breakthrough at Beechcraft.
He was 38 years old -
and he came home alone.
7 May 1949.
After ten years as an American,
I flew back to Switzerland,
in 20 hours,
from New York to Zurich.
The pleasure at seeing my
dear parents again was great.
I had always wished
for Walter's hopes of success
with the Plainsman to come true,
his revolutionary hybrid car, which was
invented half a century too early.
But in August 1949,
the Beechcraft company
dropped the Plainsman project.
One month later,
Uncle Walter lost his job.
He stopped enjoying
his work as an engineer,
sold his war bonds,
and invested his money in securities.
Walter began to live off
playing the stock market,
and turned to his hobbies:
Photography, languages, and travel.
Los Angeles, August 1950.
Dear Mami, I do not think that
I can continue to live alone for long.
But finding a woman
with whom I will fall in love
and wanting to marry her,
is a huge problem.
If I send you letters of
former girlfriends...
I invited a girl to dinner,
another to a show.
The one I liked best
is getting married in a month.
We drove around in her big car.
The more I think about it,
the worse it gets.
Dear Mami, My last interesting
girlfriend is a black woman,
whom I met on the plane
from Mexico to L.A.
She will give birth in two months,
and is called Martinique.
What an experience
for a bachelor like myself.
I had already met Walter's former
girlfriend in Los Angeles in 2003.
Six years later,
I visited Martinique Landois a second time.
The former dancer was now over 80,
and lived with her son, Raoul.
When I asked Martinique
during my first visit,
how her love story with Walter
had actually begun,
she first said:
"Maybe I shouldn't tell you..."
Los Angeles, 8 February 1954.
It is wonderful,
that you write about Martinique so kindly.
Mami, You have a strange son,
that he is more able to be friend with
a woman of a different race,
and that it is more mutual,
than with someone of the same race.
Mami,
Martinique is not the way with men,
that you think.
Don't write so nastily about her,
that makes me sad.
Martinique is very Catholic,
not like you and I,
and never misses Mass on a Sunday.
When she was in Rome,
she even danced for the Pope.
June 1955.
Dear Mami, what a pity
that I cannot introduce you
to Martinique in Comano.
I would have been so happy
to see the two of you meet.
"I am sure she would have
called you Mother",
and that you would have loved
the little black baby.
I do not know what happened
between Walter and Martinique
in the following months.
The fact is that from spring 1956,
he no longer mentions her in his letters.
Martinique told me
she had returned to Mexico,
and had always hoped
that he would follow.
But Walter never came.
He gave up the small apartment,
put his belongings in storage in Los Angeles,
and set off on a round-the-world trip.
On his big trip,
Walter visited his 80-year-old mother
for the second and last time in Comano.
He stayed for two weeks,
then continued to Istanbul.
7 July 1956.
Dear Mami,
I miss so much, not being able to
accompany you to your bedroom,
to sit by your bed and chat with you,
and, in the morning,
to have breakfast with you again.
Tokyo, 3 May 1959.
Dearest Mami,
I like it here in Japan,
and feel better than
I have in a long while.
Everything is so strangely nice
and different,
that I keep going further and
taking photographs and never want to leave.
4 August 1959.
Everyone must think I am totally crazy,
to be learning Japanese.
But I am so obsessed with it,
that I want nothing else.
It drives me from within,
like building cars did, back then.
It is all so strange,
and I am surprised myself,
that my life is going in a different
direction from what I had imagined.
From 1959 to 1964,
Uncle Walter lived in Tokyo.
50 years later, the journalist.
Masayuki Ishiguro led me to the archives
of the Bunka Hoso radio station.
I had discovered Walter's method of
learning Japanese.
At home, he taped radio plays
based on popular Japanese novels.
Every week, he visited the radio station,
to pick up the original manuscripts.
That way, he could listen to the recordings
and read the text at the same time.
After Walter's death, I found over
200 cassette reels among his belongings.
Masayuki recorded for me
the radio play Snow Country",
based on the novel of the same name
by Yasunari Kawabata.
On either side of the long tunnel,
is the snow country.
There is a sad beauty
in the constant snowfall.
When it stops snowing,
there is a lonely purity.
This is like the heart of a woman.
The radio play tells the story
of an impossible love,
between the writer Shimamura
and the Geisha Komako,
who keep meeting in a ryokan,
surrounded by snow,
in the north of Tokyo.
The train that separated us,
and carried me out of
the snow country,
brings me back to this woman.
Could that not be the same train,
and the same compartment, as back then?
Yes.
Perhaps it is even
the same seat as then.
Tokyo, October 1961.
Dear Mami,
I don't have time for anything anymore,
apart from, uninterruptedly,
listening to radio plays
without missing a single day.
Instead of living my own life.
I have immersed myself
in the life of the people in the stories.
It is not what I wanted,
but it just happened.
And I don't have the strength
to change it.
For a long time, I thought
Uncle Walter had been all alone in Japan -
a hermit.
But then, I found Japanese letters
among his possessions,
which I sent to my friend Masayuki
Ishiguro, for translation.
Shortly afterwards,
he replied that Walter had not at all
been so lonely - on the contrary.
You are probably surprised
about this letter,
please forgive me.
Should I run away from home?
Should I come to you, Mr. Wyss,
and live with you?
I will say good night now.
Please tell me if you need help.
I was surprised that you are
such a bad person!
Japanese men are not
as cowardly as you.
I have never experienced
a man physically.
I am totally crazy about you,
and am now scared.
And I send you my kiss.
Thank you for being so kind to me.
To tell you the truth:
I have met a man in Kyushu.
I am going to marry him.
I will forget the past,
and start a new life.
Do not be angry with me,
I will never forget your kindness.
If he has been with many women,
that would be a shock for me.
Of course,
I am also shocked about the women.
Mr. Walter was an admirable man.
But he was a man, after all...
Yes...
First I would like to ask you,
how you got to know Mr. Walter?
When I worked at the radio,
Mr. Walter was sometimes there.
He asked me for textbooks,
and I gave them to him.
I was not actually allowed to do this,
but because he said,
that he was eager to learn Japanese,
I gave them to him.
Apart from at the radio,
I had nothing to do with him.
Once, when I went for a walk
near my home in Kagurazaka,
I ran into Mr. Walter.
We chatted, and I mentioned that
he was often at the radio.
He told me he lived in the area,
and taught English occasionally.
What kind of person
do you think Mr. Walter was?
That is hard to say.
I just wanted to
learn English from him.
Probably I was inattentive.
Once,
he mentioned the name of a woman,
who lived in the same apartment block as I.
So I thought
they must get along very well.
I was engaged, and so I had
no interest in Mr. Walter's girlfriends.
Only once did Mr. Walter invite
myself and Miss Tsubouchi
into the apartment he was renting.
It was really a very small room.
You could only sleep curled up.
He only had textbooks,
and a little bed.
Why did you come?
Why did you come here?
I came here to meet you.
I don't believe you.
People in Tokyo are liars -
I hate that.
I won't take you to the station anymore.
I am torn.
Oh - this time I will leave
without saying anything.
Liar. I waited the whole time.
I cannot trust what you say.
And then you invited him
to your wedding.
Why did you invite him?
As a friend?
I thought that
a Japanese wedding
could be interesting for a foreigner.
That was all.
We researched a lot,
and discovered many women and girlfriends.
I hope that he only had
good experiences with girlfriends.
That would have been nice for him.
Tokyo, March 1962.
In this country,
I can stand it much better
as a hermit.
And at least I like being
among all these strangers.
The fact that everything is so peculiar,
is what attracts me the most.
I have decided to enjoy life,
before it is too late.
In the summer of 1963,
Walter sent a long letter to Comano.
For the first time in his life,
he spoke up against his mother.
He was 52 years old,
and she was 86.
Tokyo, 25 June 1963.
Dear Mami,
For 25 years,
I have only read kind words from you.
But all I have inherited from you,
is a miserly austerity,
and the feeling,
not to have achieved anything.
Mami,
since, on the inside,
I am still strongly attached to you,
I have to try not to lose my belief
in you and the way you brought me up,
otherwise,
my conflicts will make me ill.
After 5 years, Uncle Walter
no longer renewed his visa for Japan.
He returned to the US,
and found his new home in Hawaii,
on the other side of the globe.
From there, he wrote
a very last letter to his mother.
Honolulu, 31 May 1970.
Dear Mami,
In a way,
I would like to fly home to you,
and stay until your 100th birthday.
But what could I do,
if I were to stay longer with you?
Prayers to you. Your son, Walter.
Following the mother's death,
the heirs met in Comano.
Everyone was there,
only Uncle Walter was missing.
And to the whole family's annoyance, he
refused to sign the division of the estate.
After two of my sisters-in-law tried to
get Walter to change his mind, in vain,
I offered to fly to Honolulu myself.
I would see my Uncle in America
for the first time!
He had written to me,
that we could meet on the 25th floor
of the Pauahi Towers,
at his broker's.
For this first encounter,
I had taken a small Video-8 camera.
So that was my Uncle Walter,
who had lived in my head
for so many years.
Who got up every morning at four,
to study the New York share prices,
who lived at his brokerage
like in a big family.
In the office of his broker,
Eugene Drzymala,
I finally summoned the courage to
ask Walter a few questions.
Once, during my visit,
Uncle Walter asked me:
- Why did you come?
- Because of you, I said.
Then he uttered a scream,
and ran off, across the street.
Of course I was led by compassion,
when I asked Uncle Walter
my questions about the future of his life,
but also by my interest,
that his money shouldn't be lost.
It didn't rain.
Not in the morning, either.
Nothing.
Towards the evening,
I had begun to get used to
my strange, frugal, lonely Uncle,
and I began to
like him more and more.
Just like all the other Uncle Walters
I had always imagined.
But he didn't let me get any closer.
Have a nice evening!
Bye, Walter!
Uncle Walter had taken about
25,000 slide photographs over 50 years.
Most of them in Honolulu.
It took me months,
just to have a quick look at them.
In February 2001,
I visited my Uncle again in Honolulu.
I knew that Walter would soon die.
Three years earlier,
he had fallen from his bed,
because for years,
he had shoved all letters and bills under
the mattress, until it collapsed under him.
He was bruised and
taken to an old people's home.
When he got worse,
he was taken to the Leali Hospital.
In November 2001,
Walter's urn was sent to Switzerland.
A few months later,
his estate.
About a million dollars
for each of us heirs,
almost 100,000 Swiss Francs.
I can carry it down,
if you like.
It would be possible.
It would be better,
then you can see it.
Damn it!
There is still a final story:
During my visit to Honolulu,
Uncle Walter told me that he
absolutely had to go to Los Angeles,
as he had put his belongings
in storage there,
and never picked them up.
But he never made it.
After his death, I made inquiries
at several storage companies,
without success.
If I were to receive a phone call today,
that they had found his things after all,
what would I say?