Milton and found paradise

In the magnificent interiors of the Geneva hotel Beau Rivage somehow immediately went a conversation about death. The situation inspired - columns of pink marble and pot -bellied cherubim Beau Rivage , the last Geneva private hotel of Lux, could be the perfect decoration for a detective story. In a blue fountain, flickering in the middle of the hall, ruby ​​drops of blood of the victim could blur a picture. The mysterious murder would be to the face of this sarcophagus of luxury, since 1865 located on the ceremonial-promenade embankment of Lake Geneva.

Death is an important part of the hotel legend that attracts wealthy tourists to it. In one of the numbers of Beau Rivage , the same one who is now worth the biggest money, was dying of the Austrian Empress Sissy, stabbed in the imprisoned file of the Italian anarchist. The last 9 years of life, Empress Sissy, who sacrificed many to preserve her girlish beauty, wore mourning for her beloved son Rudolf, who had a knowledgeable account of life under the end of the circumstances that was not clarified. In public, she wore only black-and a dazzling-white umbrella from the sun. Probably, according to this umbrella, the lord of the powerful European empire, who was in Geneva Incognito, was calculated by the Italian anarchist, passionately wanted to kill at least some kind of monument. The absurd death of Sissy in 1898 became a prelude to the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand, which entailed the First World War, and at the same time omen of the death of old Europe.

From the figure of Sissy in world history, the mistress of our attention, the president of the Geneva International Book Fair Isabelle Falconya, who lured us in Beau Rivage , switched to the person we expected. This was the last Swiss writer, who was to meet our Russian journalistic delegation at the end of a saturated excursion into the world of local literature. In the books of Haida Ardalan, there are few words - she is an artist and illustrator, the author of the drawings of Kot Milton, popular among Swiss children so much that his images are hung in art museums of Switzerland near Van Gogh . Of course, in order to attract child attention to Van Gogh.

Instead, I took a tiger color kitty. She died two years later. Lie on the rails. Like Anna Karenina.

Although they were waiting for her, Haide Ardalan appeared in Beau Rivage suddenly-from somewhere because of a fountain flickering perfectly blue, a brilliant black cape rustled. Then among us was her owner - an eastern woman dressed with great taste, direct, cheerful and secular. The first thing she told us was that the famous Milton, her beloved cat, is all black as a mourning of Sissy, with dazzling white, like her umbrella, nose and belly, died six years ago. He died. The sad news of Hyde sounded easily and airy, without any affect - it flashed and walked, drowning in the folds of a designer cloak. “Instead, I took a tiger cat's kitty,” the artist continued to chirping cheerfully, “she died two years later. Lie on the rails. Like Anna Karenina. "

The daughter of the Iranian diplomat, Hyde came to Lausanne to study graphic design, planning to become a kind of Milton Glaiser , her idol, founder of the American Grafdomsin school, who came up with the famous logo “ I ♥ NY " . But the fate, who sent her a long-term cat, ordered a different way-the first book about Milton was published in 1997. In the year of his death, Ardalan released the one “Where did Milton hide?”, On his spectacular cover of absolute blackness, two cat's eyes stood into the viewer. This book became the most popular in a series about a curious cat.

“Why don't you draw a book about how Milton got into paradise? -I suggested Khaida Ardalan, imagining black and white heaps for a moment, in which Milton meets Empress Sissy and Anna Karenina. “He definitely got into paradise.” She, who had not left without movement before, suddenly froze for a moment and scanned me from head to toe: “My Milton! In paradise! ” Then she suddenly rushed to me with her iPhone at the ready - to show the drawings on which she works now: Heide Ardalan paints a children's hospital in Lausanne, making icy, like a stethoscope, the interiors are more fun and carefree. Birds, fish, dogs and insects flashed on the screen of iPhone - cheerful and sharp -eyed, like the artist drawing them. At some point, the famous long white nose appeared on the screen, and a surprised cat's look, filed in a large scale, throughout the wall. "My Milton!" - Again, Hadelalan exhaled easily and carelessly and immediately turned over to another photo - a stupid self -portrait of an artist with a variegated ribbon in disheveled hair.

Milton's paradise is already drawn on hospital walls in Lausanne. There are no pot -bellied cherubs in it.

On November 30 , as part of the large Swiss program at the Non/Fiction fair No. 15, Haide Ardalan will take part in the discussion “How to write for youth” (15:00-15: 45, the Swiss stand A1).

The editors thank the Helvetia Foundation, Swiss Air Airline and Switzerland Tourism Office in Moscow for helping a trip to Switzerland.