Genève: The View From Inside a Golden Cage


There is a haunted kind of beauty in his face as he looks at me, the silence between us stretching far into the bounds of awkwardness. For a moment we stand on the streets of Geneva staring at each other — unsure, uncertain, undecided. I finally smile at him, assure him I haven’t at all been disturbed by his singing, that there was no need for him to apologise for singing on a busy street. His smile when it comes is a ray of sunshine on his scarred face. He shyly brushes a lock of long hair that has crept up onto his visage.The smile is gone so fast it’s almost as if it had never been and the whisper when it comes is so soft I barely hear it over the busy din of the street. If Paris screams of a City sure of its Elegance then Geneva broods quietly as a City that is sure of its Wealth. Everywhere you care to look luxury cars purr down the smooth, flag adorned roads. Store fronts with no visible security guards have watches worth half a million euros nestled behind glass store fronts as the rich Genevois pass by with barely a glance. Giant logos of luxury brands sit atop the imposing buildings. These are the type of brands you only see advertising themselves in the first class lounges of airports or sponsoring the Olympic Games. Never on anything so vulgar as social media. The air itself seems cleaner than Paris, perhaps washed by the jets of the Jet d’Eau as it pumps its frothy brilliance into a sapphire sky stretching over a crystal clear lake bordering a city full of the rich and the beautiful.