My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-eight

Monday, 2 January, 1989

WIEN-- Got up for the Kaiser rolls and jam. I asked for my tee "ohne Milch" but apparently my accent is really lousy-- the waitress brought the pitcher anyway.

Caught the streetcar that heads southeast from the central part of the city, to the Zentral Friedhof. It goes along the Simmeringer Hauptstraße. I don’t know why, but it felt very homely, in a good sort of way, to see this other part of Vienna, as well as the touristed places. The buildings and shops reminded me of places in Kansas City, like along Troost (though not so rundown) or up at 63rd and Brookside. One thinks of all these people going about their lives here, where Vienna isn’t important because it’s a world-famous city, but because it’s where they live.

The object of the morning was another musical pilgrimage . . . Not as easy to accomplish as at the Cimetiere au Montmartre. The Zentral Friedhof seems pretty orderly, in that there’s a monumental avenue leading from the entrance, to a great green-domed church. But as for finding anything . . . I asked a uniformed attendant, in my best fractured German, where Beethoven’s grave was located. He said, or at least I think he did, that it was along the first (or was it the second?) avenue "links" past where a white car was parked. All this in German, of course, so I wasn’t sure if I’d understood correctly.

The whole thing became moot, though, when the white car’s owner drove it away and I lost my point of reference before I got close enough to ascertain where it had been.

Went up and inspected the outside of the church and its flanking wings. There’s a kind of gallery along there, with memorial tablets along the wall. I wonder how one rates that, since I didn’t recognise any famous names.

One interesting feature near there is a plot set off for the graves of Red Army soldiers. It looked, from the dates, that these men hadn’t died in the war but rather were stationed here afterwards (as an army of occupation? Oops!) and it hadn’t been possible to ship their bodies back to Russia. The really sad thing was the near-certainty that most if not all of these men would’ve died as atheists. What a terrible thing, to have no hope!

I knew Beethoven’s grave was supposed to be east of the church, so I tried again to ask someone. Seems they should have section numbers or something. And I think they do, except my German isn’t anywhere close to being able to understand numbers (except for "zwanzig"-- 20-- on the streetcars when they call out the stops. I’ve gotten really good at that). And I could not make the man understand my request to write the number of the row and section down. So I was in for another hour or so of blind wandering.

Found Arnold Schönberg’s grave, though. It’s kind of a Cubist marble monument, very apt. And I came across Josef Hoffmann’s. He and his wife Karoline have a plain tall shaft with their names and dates inscribed in tall gothic lettering.

Finally, after more blundering about, I found what I was looking for. They have a kind of musicians’ Poets’ Corner there, with Brahms, a Strauss or two, little Franz Schubert, and Beethoven all interred in kind of a horseshoe arrangement, with a monument to poor Mozart in the center. Von Suppe had sneaked into the formation, too, though how I don’t know.

I’d been wondering if I should’ve brought Beethoven some flowers but I saw that plenty of other people had adequately supplied the gesture. And it really wasn’t the same as it was at Montmartre. Here, with Beethoven, I was paying my respects to a great man who lived a long time ago. But there, with Hector, it was like visiting the tomb of a dear and sorely-missed friend.

A gaggle of Japanese tourists were marshalled through as I stood in the little clearing. They disturbed my contemplations to a degree, but not to the extent they would’ve with Hector in Paris.

I sang "An die Musik" for Franz. But other than that, I hadn’t much time to tarry. Though I’d arrived at the Friedhof around 10:00 AM it was nearly 12:30 by now, and my Wien transport pass had expired at 12:00. And I still hadn’t figured out how or to whom pay paid your streetcar fare if you were using money.

So feeling rather guilty about it, I bootlegged the streetcar ride back to the Ring. Wasn’t made any more comfortable by the stickers in the windows that said, in German I could understand, that the transport inspectors would be around checking passes today and that yours had better be in order. I suppose I could’ve put some money in the little box, but I didn’t have the correct change and was feeling too straitened to overpay.

So I sat tight, deciding that those stickers probably are on the streetcar windows all the time-- I can’t see them sticking them on and scraping them all off just for one day’s worth of warning.

However it is, as soon as I got back to the Schwarzenberg Platz I walked down to the Stadtpark station and bought a fresh two-day transit pass. And the fact that I’ll only be able to use one day of it should amply make up for my contraband trip of the past half hour.

Went back to shoot a picture of the Konzert Haus where I heard the Beethoven last night, but returned to the Stadtpark U-Bahn station to catch the train for Heiligenstadt. One might suppose I was going to see the house where Beethoven wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, and someday perhaps I shall. But the afternoon was to be devoted to Architecture, specifically Hoffmann’s Sonja Knips house.

Heiligenstadt is the end of the line. I made myself a satisfying and highly nutritious lunch of pastries there in the station, then set out to find Nußwaldgasse.

Very near the station is a housing project which interested me for a number of reasons, most all connected with its name. It’s called the Karl Marx-Hof (!) and has all these heroic Soviet-Realism-style statues over the major entrances. The amusing thing is that these figures are still enchained. The other irony was that, in the wide front garden of this memorial to the progenitor of Communism, two small boys, on this second day of January, were playing the good old American game of baseball. It was great.

To get to the Sonja Knips house you have a good long pull up the Barawitzka street before Nußwaldgasse veers off to the left. One can’t go into the house, of course, it being a private residence. But the gray exterior is all studded with a regular pattern of diamond-shaped castings, which look as if they should be structural, like the star-shaped tie rod heads on houses in Lawrence. Probably aren’t, though. These are set off by the diagonal mullions in the windows and the diamond coursing of the slates on the roof and the three chimneys. It’s deceptively simple but rife with subtle details like the scooped-in embrasures of the windows.

I managed to catch a bus back down to the station but had no intention of getting the train back just yet. Something important to do first. Made my way down the very warehousey-looking Mooslacken street to the Nußdorfer Lande, which runs along the Donau Kanal.

But canals don’t make it. I wanted the real river. And after awhile of getting mucked up in a small spaghetti-bowl of an interchange I found myself on the Nordbrücke, crossing the actual schöne blaue Donau.

There’s a lovely view of the church on the Kahlenberg from there. And I’ll have you know that in this afternoon’s bright sunny weather the Danube really was blue, if with a slight grayish tinge to it.

The river there splits into two parallel streams, with a long narrow island or something between. There’s a way down to it from the bridge, so you can stroll along the paths as many others were. It was so nice to see the people out enjoying their river on this bright January day: This taking, in the case of some young boys, the form of skateboarding (on their tails) down the smooth pavement.

I walked along the river awhile myself, admiring the fishing boats and the ducks and the views of the city far away to the south. I sometimes wonder what sort of travelling companion I’d be: I’m such a fiend for rivers and tops of towers and hills and things. Would anyone else understand? But it seems to me that if you’ve got a town on a famous river, you haven’t been there properly until you’ve visited the river as well.

Left there around 4:30 and caught the train back to the city. Changed at Schwedenplatz and ended up once more at the Stephensdom. You should see the absurdity that Hans Holler is putting up opposite it on the Platz. It’s called the Haas Haus (Rabbit Hotel?) and looks like a series of cans with their lids half off. Took a picture for Myron Davidman’s* [architectural employer back in the States] benefit.

Near there is a shop that sells some Wienerwerkstätte type things; I bought a deck of cards in that style as a Christmas present for Lynne* [my elder sister].

I saw a coffee mug at a shop along my route to Beethoven’s flat on the Mölkier Bastei the other day, one I thought might be fun to get for Daddy. Went back now but that shop was closed. But as long as I was along there, I stopped at one bakery-deli for something to do for supper, then went to Julius Meinl’s to stock up on bread and cheese and other provisions for the long train ride tomorrow. Stuck it on my Visa and probably spent a fortune.

Though I was cutting it close I tarried in the Opernpassage trying to find the shop where I saw those needlepoint-topped pill boxes. I thought it’d be a nice gift for Janie* [friend who was subleasing my Kansas City apartment]. But I couldn’t find the place again. Gave it up and dashed back to the hotel to change for the opera.

The Wiener Volksoper is the Viennese equivalent of Kansas City’s Lyric, meaning the works are done in the local vernacular; in this case, Deutsch. German, Italian-- in the case of Don Giovanni, it made no difference to me, especially as I’ve heard it in English at the Lyric and basically know the plot.

As I approached the theatre along with many others, I heard a boy of eight or nine a little way ahead of me notice the posters and cry out to his parents something like, "Oh, gut! Ist Don Giovanni!" I couldn’t tell if he was glad it was that opera in particular or if he was simply relieved to see the play was going on as advertised. Either way, it was charming to see the child’s enthusiasm.

I had been told day before yesterday that I’d been sold the last seat in the house. And now I could see why. It was a little stool in the corner of one of the stage right boxes. To see anything at all I had to balance on the very edge of my stool and crane my neck around the lefthand frame of the box. The other people there had real chairs.

But I noticed that there were plenty of empty seats in the balcony center and resolved to employ a little of my Folly Theatre ushering chutzpah during intermission and move.

It’s really hard not to compare this performance with the one I saw at the Lyric in ’79, so why try? In that one, Stanley Wexler played the Don as an overwhelmingly attractive cuss, the kind of man who wouldn’t need to seduce women, he’d have them lining up in the street of their own volition. The Giovanni tonight, a Boje Skovhus, played the role as a dark-minded cynic. You got the idea he seduced women not for the physical pleasure of it but for the vile sake of dehumanising them and messing up their lives. A valid approach, and I don’t think it was to blame for the fact that the performance of the ensemble as a whole never did catch fire. It all seemed rather secondhand.

There were some interesting pieces of business, though-- e.g., Giovanni and Leporello escaped from the avengers at the party by lowering a ladder into the orchestra pit, scrambling over the musicians, and out the other side. And they came back the same way, ladder and all, at the start of Act II. The backlit scene at the graveyard was very effective (and yes, I could see it decently since I did move between the acts). And Giovanni slid into Hell on his own supper table, which went into the depths with him.

I noticed that, as with last night, people were taking pictures all over. So I ventured to follow suit, not using a flash, of course, and waiting for loud portions of the music to cover the shutter noise.

Afterwards, it was truly a strange sensation, standing at the streetcar stop, waiting there at the Währinger Gurtel for the #40 streetcar to take me back to the U-Bahn at Schottentor . . . and over the street one could see signs directing drivers to the highways for Budapest, Prague (Praha), and Brno . . . my God, those cities are all in Warsaw Pact countries! Am I really that far east?† It seemed very mysterious and exotic, as if I were brushing shoulders with something I hadn’t quite believed in up to now. But those cities certainly exist and could be announced by something as straightforward and prosaic as blue and white highway signs!

Back at the hotel, the idea was to get packed up and in bed as soon as possible. 8:00 AM train out of the West Bahnhof tomorrow.
_______________________________
†Yes, I'm aware now that my geography was shaky and that Czechoslovakia (as it was called then) is just to the north of Austria. But the point is the same.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-six

Saturday, 31 December, 1988
New Year’s Eve/Silvesterabend
Wien

HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE-- Didn’t get up as early as I perhaps should’ve, but the body refused.

Had the included breakfast in the hotel Speisezimmer. Kaiser rolls with butter and jam. This is odd. I never would have thought of Kaiser rolls for breakfast.

Lost a good half hour at the hotel desk waiting for the clerk to get off the phone. I needed to recover my passport and ask a question or two. For my patience he gave me a piece of the chocolate New Year’s gelt he was playing with.

Up the street and bought a bottle of sparkling wine for tonight’s party, as Rollo* had requested. Had to be done now since the stores would be closing early today. Also got a little jar of my traditional pickled herring.

Dropped that back off at the room then went to the Opernpassage to see about music tickets. Came away with one for Beethoven’s Ninth at the Konzert Haus tomorrow (not cheap. Close to $30 maybe) and one to Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Monday. Got about the last tickets.

Even so, I’m sorry these necessary errands kept me from seeing the Lippizaner rehearsal this morning. It was the last one for the season.

It was funny dealing with the girl at the counter, though. She wanted to work on her English and I on my German, so she'd speak to me in English and I'd reply in German and somehow, it worked!

I didn’t like the exchange rate at the info office nor the fee so since I was going over there anyway for Otto Wagner’s sake, I rode to Schwedensplatz and walked to the main post office, which was the only one open today. Stood in a nice long line then had it turn out that their rate wasn’t much better. Too late now. Bought some stamps, too.

Not as fine a day as yesterday but the sun was trying to come out. Made a decent effort to shine a little as I photographed the Postsparkasse exterior.

Blundered my way over to the Stephensplatz. The area around the cathedral was pretty well populated. I was starting to get hungry but the Konditorei were so crowded you could hardly squeeze in. Anyway, I’d noticed a sign pointing the way to the house where Mozart wrote Marriage of Figaro and I thought I’d better check its opening hours, before I took the time to feed my face.

Good thing I checked. It was 3:15 by now and the house was only open till 4:30, and it wouldn’t be open tomorrow or Monday.

I suppose it can’t be helped, but the place is kept as a museum, alone. There isn’t even as much furniture as there is at Berlioz’s birth house, just display cases with artifacts and things hanging on the walls. Many of the latter were silhouettes, drawings, or paintings of people who I must assume had some influence on Mozart’s life and work. But not knowing that many details thereof I wasn’t particularly edified by these exhibits. There was one room that I really think must’ve been the kitchen . . . that came closest to helping me get a feeling of Mozart actually having lived there.

All the Vienna-based composers’ residences are administered by one authority, and I saw from a poster that Beethoven’s most frequent domicile, the Pasqualati House on the Mölker Bastei, was also open only today, till 4:30. So I bade Wolfgang farewell and hurried over there.

There’s more of Beethoven himself there, more of his furniture and possessions, and more paintings and sculptures of the man done in his lifetime. And I could see the good views he had to the west, though thankfully he never had to look at the modern monstrousity now standing across the street. But still, it was merely an intellectual exercise remembering that he wrote Fidelio and the Violin Concerto there.

It wasn’t till I was heading back down the stairs from the 4th floor† apartment that it hit me with a shock that he, Ludwig von Beethoven, actually had lived here, he had walked in this narrow space, on these winding steps, had seen and probably touched these plastered walls-- Gott in Himmel!

Retraced my steps to the Stephensdom, trying to find something to eat. On der Graben I bought a cone of roasted chestnuts, the first I’ve had, to shut my stomach up. They’re really more like a vegetable than a nut in taste, but I liked them well enough. And they were good and warm.

Finding dinner tonight was a bit difficult. Seemed as if all the places that looked appetizing or inexpensive enough (and also the ones that didn’t) were getting ready for the Silvester parties and not serving walk-ins. I finally settled for a wurst on a roll off a stand in the Kärtnerstrasse and then went and sat down in the Konditorei next door and had me a piece of Sachertorte mit Schlag.

You know what? It wasn’t as marvellous as I’d expected. It was rather dry, not tremendously flavorful, and left me yearning for another piece of that wonderful chocolate torte I had in Paris.

The Kärtnerstrasse and indeed the whole area south of the Stephensplatz was teeming with people. There were even some street evangelists. And down by the Staatsoper a couple of guys had a drag race off the stoplight. Some things know no boundaries . . .

Back at the hotel I read a bit of the Beethoven booklet I’d bought and ate pickled herring til time to dress and catch the U-Bahn to Rollo’s mother’s. Heading for the Karlsplatz I wondered what it’d be like coming back after midnight. The streets between there and the Schleifmühlgasse aren’t as lively as I’d like after dark; tonight would they be too lively?

When I got to Rollo’s mother’s place, I could’ve shot her elder son! He hadn’t told me what to wear and there I was in my gray flannels, silk blouse, green Shetland sweater, and red and black suede hiking boots, while everyone else, including Rollo, was in semi-formal party clothes. It was really a sight to see him in a smoking jacket. I didn’t mind so much what I had on; it’s just that I get so few chances to dress up and had a perfectly good dress with me.‡

Besides Rollo and Connie* [Rollo's wife] and his mother, there was Rollo’s brother, Marko* (who seems to have some slight mental or other functional handicap), and several of Frau Schipfner’s* middle aged to elderly friends. All or most of them spoke at least a little English, which made me feel better about trying out my German.

We started out with aperatifs; I had Rollo pour me a Campari and soda because I was curious to taste what it was like. But it’s rather bitter and I didn’t drink much of it.

When I saw the dining room table I realized it had been silly of me to go looking for something to eat earlier. As seems customary in this part of the world, the fare was sliced meats and various sorts of pasta salad, and a great deal of it.

On each plate was a little good luck token. I was informed by the woman on my left that I must immediately take and put it in my purse and thus assure I’d have plenty of money all year. Can’t hurt, I guess . . .

On the table were little figures of chimney sweeps and pigs, and the napkins were printed with these and with four-leafed clovers, all symbols of luck and prosperity. I’d wondered what all those stalls were, downtown, but now I saw the Viennese wouldn’t consider a Silvesterabendtafel complete without these favors.

A toast was drunk before the meal, the woman on my left looking at me and pledging, "To your honeymoon." Does she know something I don’t? I thought for a moment she was really addressing Rollo, on my right, but that’s impossible: he and Connie have been married three years.

In the table talk I learned that the obnoxious newspaper vendor is probably Egyptian, since most are and the Turks aren’t advanced enough socially to take such jobs. And that Sachertorte generally is dry, which is why you need the whipped cream.

Unlike in Switzerland, I could at least tell what the German conversation was about, even if I couldn’t discern the tenor of the comments. I commented on this to the lady on my left, she laughed, and that started a general raillery against what these Hoch Deutsch speakers called "Sweetzer Dootsh," or some such teasing appellation. Still being angry at Lukas’s* uncalled-for extension of his performance in that dialect last week, I took a rather unChristian pleasure in hearing it mocked.

When it came time for dessert everyone got up from the table and adjourned back to the living room. Rollo and Connie and Marko shut themselves into the kitchen for a smoke and to get things ready, while Frau Schipfner cleared away. When dessert was put on, she started herding people back into the dining room, and I said, "Ja, wir kommen! Wir kommen augenblicklich!"

"Oh, you speak German very well!" she exclaimed.

(Thank you, Ludwig von Beethoven.††)

By the time dessert was finished, it was about fifteen till midnight. Back in the living room, the champagne (or rather, Austrian Halb-süß) was broken open and glasses filled. They turned the TV on; it was an ice show being broadcast from here in Vienna, but when the skaters did a routine to the song "One" from A Chorus Line, it was sung in English. I thought of Nigel*-- it was inevitable.

Then the time came and the great dial on the screen ticked off the seconds: "Zehn, neun, acht, sieben, sechs, fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins-- Prosit Neue Jahr!"

At least, that’s what was being shouted by all and sundry as the wine glasses clinked and the sparkling drunk down. As for me, I was praying blessings on a certain Englishman, who despite his very taken (if not engaged) state, still can make any new year worth entering.

Meanwhile, on the screen was a little animation number of champagne corks dancing to a Strauss waltz. Cute.

Rollo and Marko got out the fireworks and went out on the balcony to shoot them off. The skies had cleared and all over this suburb of Vienna the heavens were blazing with the trails of rockets and shooting stars making merry war with their repeated noise. The neighbors downstairs came out to shoot theirs and shouted up, "Prosit Neue Jahr!"

We came back in and drank some more ersazt champagne (I’m glad I tasted the real thing on Christmas. It is better) and conversed. I asked Connie if women in the Midwest were wearing big shawls, as they do in England. She said yes, they were.

Around 2:00 AM we ate again, going back to the dining room for soup. I think I ate more tonight than I have in entire weeks on this trip.

About 3:00 everyone decided it was time to shove off home. Rollo’s mother earlier had said it was best I go home in a taxi and not risk the Viennese lager louts at the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station. But one of the ladies said they could cram me into her car, despite the fact they already had six full-grown adults booked to ride in it-- "We’ll pretend you’re a baby. It’s not legal to have more than six adults, but a baby is all right."

So everyone said their goodbyes and final New Year’s wishes to Frau Schipfner. But before I went I asked Rollo to please tell me, quickly, about the office. . . .

[Here ensued some architectural shop talk interesting to me at the time but not relevant to the occasion.]
It was jolly crowded in that car, which was only a mid-sized VW. Never mind me, I think one of the old men had regressed in age. I can see that he might be more comfortable with his arm stretched across the back of the seat, but squeezing my shoulder while he was at it really was not required. Nothing threatening, but I was glad when we dropped him and his wife (yes!) off at their flat near the Schönbrunn Palace.

It was nearly 4:00 AM when I was dropped off at the hotel. I didn’t go to sleep immediately. I’ve decided to revive my Song for the Year custom; for 1989 it’s to be "An die Müsik"; and while I was running my Schubert tape back to listen to it, I thought about the Waldstein Sonata and how I couldn’t recall the Rondo theme at the Beethoven house, getting it mixed up with that of that Opus Posthumous piano trio movement. I listened to the Waldstein Rondo, too, therefore, and see that recall is all in the opening intervals-- the OP starts in an ascending minor second, the Waldstein on a melodic unison. I tried it a few times and it works like a charm.

Anyway, that’s only more or less relevant to what I’ve chosen for 1989, and no unattainable men are in it:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Studen,
wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden,
hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt,
in eine beßre Welt entrückt!

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harpf entflossen,
ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir,
den Himmel beßre Zeiten mir erschlossen,
du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür,
du holde Kunst, ich danke dir!

________________________________
†By European reckoning; 5th floor by American.
‡As I'd known him in the States, Rollo did the European casual look straight down the line. I'd never seen him in anything other than a long ponytail, an open-necked shirt, and Birkenstock sandals with heavy socks. He wouldn't condescend to wear a suit and tie, not even for a client meeting at our architecture office. So I'd figured it'd be the same here in Vienna!
††"We're coming! Yes, we're coming in the blink of an eye!"-- a handy phrase I'd memorized from the spoken dialogue of Beethoven's opera Fidelio.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Nineteen

Saturday, 24 December, 1988
Christmas Eve
Löhenthal*, Switzerland

As for what transpired today, I got up around 9:00, took a shower, and appeared upstairs. Everyone else had already eaten but Mrs. Renzberger* produced breakfast for me. Instant guilt, even though she’d said for me to sleep as long as I liked.

The family put up the Christmas tree today. Lukas* and I did the decorating. He put on the red candles in their clip-on holders and showed me how they also use these hanging fireworks-like sparklers that one can light just for fun. I started in on the ornaments. They were, characteristically, heavy clear stained glass balls, each of all one color; though some had designs and textures molded or blown into them, most were smooth. I’m afraid I left a memorial to myself behind-- I shortened up most of the strings on the balls I hung, to keep them from sitting on branches below.

There were also a few handmade decorations and contributions from family friends, which Lukas told me the story of. And a contribution of a red-orange tail feather from Kapten Blood*, the West African parrot.

Didn’t do anything terribly useful after that except look at a French Gothic book Lukas pulled off the shelf for me, till time to go fetch his maternal grandmother from her apartment at an old-age complex near Zürich.

I went with him and sat there in Granny's front room, feeling very dull, as if I hadn’t a great deal to say. But silence can be a virtue, can’t it?

(On the way over I did ask about his mother and he said don’t worry, I’m not being any trouble. Well, if you say so.)

His grandmother, Frau Heimdorfer*, treated us to coffee (tea) in the complex snack bar and then we drove back to Löhenthal. I sat in the back seat, contemplated the scenery, and idly let the German conversation in the front seat wash over me.

When we returned I had just enough time to wrap my present for the family before time for supper and time to meet Lukas’s middle brother Thaddeaus*.

Dinner was all sorts of charcuterie, better than what I had in France, despite Greti’s* constant concern that I wouldn’t like it. Table conversation started out in English and a little French but gradually went predominantly into Swiss German. It occurred to me I didn’t mind, greatly. It relieved me from the necessity of having to be clever myself. And it reminded me a lot of the Coverdale College* dining hall, where due to the noise I can’t understand anything being said around me anyway. I found I enjoyed the sound of Lukas speaking German. The Swiss do it more softly and gently than the Germans do and his voice in his native language is pleasant in itself.

I wasn’t totally left out, though. Talked about England a bit, since everyone there had been there.

After dinner the tree candles were lit and the family assembled in the living room. Lukas officiated and set the mood by having the "Pastoral Symphony" played on the stereo (Handel’s, from the Messiah). Then he read the Christmas story, according to Luke, through the annunciation to the shepherds, from the NIV out of consideration to moi-même. After that, we lit the candles we had been given, passing the flame and with it a wish for peace around the circle. Then each person put his or her candle on the tree.

Then, in a move designed to destroy my peace and everyone else’s, Lukas’ mother asked me to sing a carol or something else for Christmas. Oy vay. Seems dear Lukas had given his mother a proper buildup for my vocal abilities. And, she said, none of her Kinder will sing anymore. They did to a certain age but then refused. So I was elected.

Deciding it was appropriate after the text about the angels, I gave a verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High," to everyone’s seeming satisfaction.

But I wasn’t off the hook yet. Frau Renzberger declared that after she read the company a story I was to sing again. Panic!

Fortunately the story was long. In German, of course. I caught words here and there. As explained to me afterwards, it was about a former political prisoner who had the meaning of Christmas and freedom suddenly come together for him on simultaneously hearing Handel and being given a drink of warm milk. The homely comfort and the glory of it combined . . .

I’m not sure why I did what I did then. Yes, I do, too. Instead of a traditional American or British Christmas carol, I, after some preliminary fumbling around for the proper key (I couldn’t trust myself not to crack on the high f''), sang Schubert’s "Du Bist die Ruh’." I did it because it’s in German. And I did it especially because I remembered what Lily Michaels* [a little girl I used to babysit] once said, that it reminded her of Jesus. So it seemed more in the tone of the story just read than a conventional carol would have been.

I sang with my eyes shut to keep off the nerves (I know, Dr. Smith† said never do that) and only stumbled over the words once. Still, I’m no Dame Janet Baker and maybe I shouldn’t’ve tried it. One gets that feeling when the predominant response is, "Oh, we know how difficult it is to sing before people!"

These preliminaries over, it was time for presents. They told me that if the family is going to Christmas Eve service each person usually just opens one or two, often those given by friends they’ll be seeing at church. But tonight things were running late and Thaddeaus was taking the only car back to Neigendorf*, where he lives. That meant everyone would have to walk and Grandmother wasn’t up to it. Leaving her at home alone wouldn’t’ve done, either.

So church was punted for the evening and everything was opened. Lots of socks; Lukas and his brother gave each other calendars; the former brought all sorts of things from Oxford. And there were two gifts for me. One was a dark blue-black scarf with a-- what do you call it?--oil swirl design running through it. Turns out Lukas had suggested it and his mother had picked it out. Funny, because we’d been talking about the Oxford fashion for that sort of thing at dinner and Mr. L. Renzberger had not betrayed a clue. My other present was an assortment of Swiss chocolates. Good. I can serve them for tea in my room at Coverdale.

Mine for them was hiding under the tree and thus was one of the last opened. My drawing of the Hobbit House went over rather better than my singing did, I think. And it seems to be rather appropriate, since most of the walls of the house are hung with contributions from friends and family. I immediately told them I’d need to take it back to Oxford to get it framed, but Lukas’s father said no, no, they’d get it done.

Maybe that’s better anyway. They can choose the frame style and mat color to match their décor-- or maybe choose not to hang it at all.

After presents were all opened there was more wine and more cookies and playing with the bird, who’d been let out of his cage. Me, I did not venture to pet him. Would like to keep my fingers.

The household retired to bed around 11:00, whereupon I discovered something very awkward-- Lukas’s mother had been kind enough to wash all my dirty clothes today, but she doesn’t have a clothes dryer.‡ Therefore my flannel nightgown was still very wet and I had no idea where my cotton boatneck shirt, which would’ve done to sleep in, had been hung to dry, let alone the underwear which I would need in the morning.

I finally decided to make do sleeping in my bathrobe, not being comfortable sleeping in nothing, but it was a pis aller. I’m afraid I retired in a very uncomfortable state, especially inside me: I wish I were pretty, I wish I could sing properly, I wish now I were ten years younger and could go back and do everything right, I wish I never had to cause anyone any trouble . . .
____________________________
†My voice teacher at KU
‡They had the typical European drying room, where wet or spin-dried semi-wet clothes could be hung on racks or laid flat on slatted wooden shelves and take advantage of the heat emanating from the not-highly-efficient, uninsulated furnace and water heater.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Ten

Sunday, 26 March, 1989
Iona
Day Ten, Easter Sunday

Odd thing at breakfast. For some reason they toast only white bread here, and put it out on toast racks to get cold, while the wheat bread sits in the basket untoasted. A couple days ago I located the toaster in the kitchen and as it worked like the kind we have at Coverdale* I’ve been nipping back to do myself some wheat toast, properly hot. This morning I took orders for some others at the table and came back to do them, seven slices in all. Jeannie Brownlea*, one of the older members of the MacLeod Center party, was back there on the same errand. I told her what I was there for and she said, "I’ve got six in here already. Is that enough?"

"No, I need seven."

"But I’ve got six in here."

"That’s all right, but I need seven. I’ll do more."

"There’s no more wheat bread."

"Oh. Well. Well, don’t worry about it. We’ll make do."

"Is six enough?"

"Well, we wanted seven . . . "

I haven’t recalled this word for word, I’m sure. The point is that she kept making all sorts of suggestions that simply ignored the mathematical realities (especially if she’d been planning any of the wheat toast she was making to go to her own table) and I could not make her understand otherwise.

Whereupon she rounds on me and says, "I think you hate me. I can tell these things and I really think you hate me."

The uncomfortable thing is that I am not entirely innocent of negative attitudes in her regard; she is in her late 60s or so and has the look of the kind of woman who appears in Presbyterianews as having loudly supported some outmoded and anti-Christian liberal cause at the last General Assembly. And I confess I find her hovering, birdlike intensity is a bit wearing. But I also know that many people who have at first struck me unfavorably eventually have been revealed as worthy of esteem. And even if not, "hate" is too personal, energised, and involved a word for her in this situation.

The joke is, that my "hating" her is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. For now I do want to avoid her, if only because she’s the uncomfortable type of person who takes a conversation onto a personal level in the most inappropriate circumstances. If she were my age I would tell her so. But because of her years I need to keep my distance-- and keep my mouth shut.

After breakfast somebody came in and said we were supposed to be doing toilets right then, just like yesterday and the day before. Not bloody likely. I have to get dressed for church.

Wore the gray corduroy skirt and the silk blouse, with silk longies under. Bright pink wool Shetland sweater over, but the only real concession I made to possible foul weather was donning my black suede boots instead of dress flats over my white WinterAlls stockings. Dammit, it’s Easter and I am not wearing my blue corduroy jeans to church. Especially because I am not feeling the impact of the occasion, it’s essential I keep up the ceremonies, to prevent me from degenerating entirely.

Karen* and Therese* conspired to put up my hair and I donned my blue silk Liberty scarf. When I assayed the makeup Karen* said, "Are you trying to seduce the priest?"

"I’m trying to figure out if there is a priest around here!" Three days of services already and I still don’t know who’s in charge.

More half-baked drama in the cloister beforehand, a somewhat silly updating of the Road to Emmaus story. But I expect that by now.

And there was actually a sermon during the service proper, by a big mucky-muck of the Community who came in from Glasgow or somewhere. Full of the meaning of Easter as it bore on all sorts of bad social and political situations. Not bad for its kind, very applicable and cogent, but I’m starving for some Scriptural exposition. Then he ended up referring to the Holy Spirit as "she" again and what could I do but put up with it?

To do him justice he did mention the plight of people around us, but I-- I feel I have no right to feel any hurt, having been in no wars and no long term deprivation . . . Not physically, at least. Marie* was talking last night (after she’d decided it was her fault Seamus* was acting like a jerk) about the need not to want things as we’d like them . . . Right. So let’s forget about loving or being loved and become Stoics or Buddhists. There is a Christian renunciation but how it works is a mystery to me.

I thought as hard as I could about Nigel*, down in S--, in church, maybe with Emily*? trying to cope with the rotten situation going on in his family, and I was thinking Bless him, bless him, O Lord; since I can receive no blessing, grace him with my share even now . . .

But more I am aware of Lukas*, and unavoidably think of the song "Easy to Be Hard":

How can people have no feelings?
How can they ignore their friends?
Easy to be hard,
Easy to be cold.

’Specially people who care about strangers,
Who care about evil, and social injustice!
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend . . .

And here it is Easter, and there he is, one of three pairs who will administer the Sacrament, and here I am, feeling cold and dead and entombed still, wishing I were a million miles away. But I am gripped cruelly by the stranglehold of present reality, seeing that though we celebrate Christ’s resurrection every Easter, that each Easter I rise with Him less and less, till some time soon I will revive not at all and stay closed in the tomb forever.

And then, O God, the three pairs took up their stations and we were instructed to receive from those closest, and I was in the aisle seat in the crossing, and Lukas* and his partner were assigned to the crossing. I couldn’t convince myself that he hadn’t seen me sitting there, thus freeing me to receive down front. Doing it under his eye would have been a demonstration of personal feeling that even I, degenerate though I am, recognised to be dreadfully out of place.

So I was doomed to be where I was. I let many people into the line ahead of me, trying to put it off as long as possible. But it couldn’t be avoided.

The girl who was distributing the bread gave me much too big a piece. But I confess I probably would’ve choked on it anyway, however small, my mouth was so dry. There was no time to get it down before I’d stepped over and stood in front of-- whom? My friend? Don’t make miserable jokes. This time I won’t comprehend.

I didn’t want to look at him but I had to, to keep from dropping or spilling the chalice. And as I received the wine he stood there with his hands outstretched as if in blessing. And he looked straight into my eyes, the most intimate of smiles in his own, as if he were saying, "Take, drink, I share this with you!"

And I don’t know what mine said back, but they wanted to scream, "Lukas Renzberger*, are you trying to kill me? What is this mockery? You pretend to offer me Communion-- why can’t you maintain it in our daily lives?"

My misery was such that I could hardly stand. I felt very, precipitously, close to committing the unforgivable sin of falling down crying before him, as if somehow I could beg and plead the caring, considerate Coverdale* version of him to please, please take me in his arms and let me cry out all the hurt and turmoil-- not as prelude to any claim upon him, but as a support, till I could stand alone again.

But I controlled myself long enough to get back to my seat, though I couldn’t produce the words of the Communion hymn. I dared not cry; he was too close. I was too exposed.

Then the service was over and everyone went back out into the cloister. The fiddle played, the flutes piped, the little choir sang. And those who were moved to, danced around the daffodil-bedecked cross that had been placed against the Lipschitz sculpture at the cloister garth’s center. I stood there woodenly looking on, but forced myself to understand that if Lukas* should happen to see me there alone, he would probably conclude that I had come up to Iona just to be with him, and was refusing now to be with any other.

So I exerted myself to put on a social façade, a process aided by the suggestion? command? made inside the church that when the remains of the Communion bread went around we were to share it with someone we didn’t know. Fortunately I didn’t have to choose with whom in all that vast crowd of strangers I would share with; an abbey staff person named Fiona*-- I think she’s in the choir-- came up and offered me a bit of hers. There were enough safe topics to talk about there, so that was ok until I felt I’d put in my time and could leave.

There was a seminar afterwards, back at the Center. I was a good girl and went, though for a moment it threatened to be disastrous. The topic today was Joy, and the woman leading was eliciting things each of us were feeling joyful about. I was afraid we were going to have to go around and speak each in turn, and I was hovering so close to the surface of brutal honesty that I wouldn’t’ve made things very pretty.

But thank God, the discussion got off on the difference between joy and happiness, especially as it related to the case of the Tzubeki* family, who are here in Scotland studying in Edinburgh, and trying to get political asylum from South Africa. So Caroline Tzubeki* kept the floor most of the time, talking about life in Soweto, which I found a salutary distraction in more ways than one.

It’s a real temptation for me to want to say to her, "What are you complaining about? You’ve got your nice husband and your beautiful little girl. You don’t have to face your problems alone!" Which shows you what a selfish degenerate I’ve become, and where I think the answer to all my problems lies . . .

Wrote a poem about this morning at Communion during the seminar. Always helps, turning hurt into art. That is if it is art. Maybe that’s what I’ll find out if I can get a creative writing tutor next term. I don’t want my work merely to be the emotional and verbal equivalent of a trip to the toilet. And I’ve seen much so-called poetry that so obviously is.

Easter dinner was pleasant. Great triumph of sentiment over principle-- we had ham. And it was good ham, too.

And they’d scrounged some more construction lumber scraps to build the fire with. I know that’s full of creosote-causing preservatives and isn’t half so hotly-burning as coal, but it has the blessed advantage of being a heck of a lot easier on the nose and the lungs, especially as this fireplace here doesn’t draw worth a poop. (Practically brand-new and there’s soot all the way up the chimney breast.) This weekend’s the first time I’ve ever experienced a coal fire, and I regret to say that it smells like what we would at home call a very bad case of pollution. I can’t believe people put up with it.

But it was wood at dinner today, and that was a relief.

Yesterday evening in the laundry room the housekeeper told me that due to the Easter Monday bank holiday there’ll be only one bus across Mull tomorrow. And to get it we’ll have to catch the Iona ferry at 5:30 in the morning. At dinner, then, I discussed with one of the men here the possibility of hitching a lift with him across Mull a little later, since he brought his car as far as Fionnphort. He says it depends on whether the Mull to Oban ferry is running more than once tomorrow.

To me, it depends upon what Lukas’s* plans are, for in this I do want to accord my actions to his. Perhaps he just wants to spend all the time he can now with his new friends. But when everyone leaves there’s a chance we can have a nice companionable chat on the bus, my tensions towards him can be relaxed, and I won’t go off feeling as I did after I left him in Switzerland last December. And I might find out what happened in Liverpool. There is to be a ceildhe tonight here; I could make myself inquire casually after his plans then.

Wrote postcards to friends in the States after dinner. Funny, but I forgot to take them to the postbox at the abbey when I went over there to buy my obligatory Iona sweatshirt. Not 100% sure why I got one of those, but I did. Burgundy red, medium. And a detailed map of the island. It’ll help me label my slides later.

Still overcast but the wind has died down considerably today. So around four o’clock I set out to do a bit of the hillwalking I actually came to Iona for. Left my skirt on-- a romantic fancy, I suppose-- and simply pulled the blue hiking socks over my winter weight stockings.

Set off more or less to the west. I was actually aiming for the high point north of the MacLeod Center but the fences kept getting in my way. I am told that since this is National Trust land it’s ok to walk anywhere, but you’d never know it from the lack of gates and stiles. There were a lot of other people about, so if they could find ways through, so could I.

Going out was definitely a good idea. I don’t say anything so silly as that the necessity of choosing to which tussock or stone to step next puts one’s interpersonal problems into perspective. But the mental and physical occupation does blunt some of the emotional sting as you run over the problems in your head.

Thinking about it thus, it seems to me that the best explanation may be that Lukas* is one of those people who assigns others to specific times and places, and if a friend steps out of that frame they’re out of place and can legitimately be ignored. As soon as they put themselves back, all again is well. Because I cannot come up with anything I have done to offend him and I refuse to believe he’s being calculatedly mean. I do think he’s being thoughtlessly rude, though. And it doesn’t become him at all.

The barren yet varied landscape with its muted tones and textures played harmony to my overall melancholy, which thankfully was able to be expressed in music. Bless you, Lord, for allowing me my top notes and good wind today, so that I could produce a satisfactory and sustained sound despite the scrambling around I was doing. It was even more satisfactory in that after awhile, as I moved further inland, there was absolutely no one else around to hear me, except for the sheep. They paid strict attention, wanting to make sure this strange noisy creature meant them no harm, and they’d stop grazing and stare and stare until satisfied I was harmless.

Sur les monts les plus sauvages,
Que ne suis-je un simple pasteur?

I tried to sing some Easter hymns but I kept getting the verses scrambled. And so fell back on Berlioz and Schubert. Dear Hector! Why are you dead and gone? I think you would’ve so much enjoyed walking these hills . . . You might even have been able to deal with me. But thank God, your music goes with me, even if you cannot.

There’s so much amazing vegetation out on the moors. There is a lot of a low-growing evergreen sort of groundcover, whose new growth comes up red. And this soft black moss, like velvet, that grows on the rocks. I don’t know if its color comes from the peaty soil (i.e., it’d be green elsewhere) or if it is an example of planned symbiosis between plant and site. Whichever it is, it's marvellous in its subtle beauty.

I wandered as far as the sea at the Mhachair on the west side of the island. The sun was peeking in and out, laying silver bands of brilliance upon the water. Somebody had stamped his initials in the wet sand of the beach, which was a pity. But still I could enjoy the silence that was only augmented by the surging of the waves and the high mewling cries of the gulls.

It was getting up towards 6:00 by now but I wasn’t particularly concerned, since Summer Time came on last night. Still, I felt I’d better head back. Did indulge in a scenario of what if I were benighted and the gales came back and . . . But I decided it wouldn’t be feasible to perish out there tonight. I hadn’t any paper or pen with me to write and apologise to my mother for being such a bother-- and to thank Nigel* (in a discreet manner of course) for how good he’s been to me. As for Herr Renzberger*, he wouldn’t get any coverage, and good enough for him, too.

After awhile, though, increasing fatigue made undivided attention to picking my footing and making sure I was headed in the right direction supersede any such thoughts. The ground, understandably, was thoroughly soaked and two or three times, despite my best care, I slipped on grassy slopes and arose with a glaring souvenir of bog mud on my left side and back. (This was deliberate-- the right side, where I carry my cameras, must be protected.)

Thought I’d make for the beach on the north end of the island and follow it round to the road I took yesterday. But when I got up there I was further to the west of it than I thought and only steep rocks led to the sea. So I headed for the next landmark I knew, the great high point of the Dun, I think it’s called. Wanted to go up it before; now it was the best idea since from its top I’d be able to see the abbey and the Center and I’d know exactly where I was. And so I did eventually reach the summit, and added my stone to its cairn (no one has told me so, but that seemed like the proper thing to do).

Couldn’t stay up there admiring the view, though, for inevitably it began to rain. Straight down rain, thankfully, but not what you want to stand about in anyway. My shoes were long since thoroughly soaked and now the rest of me had a chance to join the party, if I didn’t get moving.

Carefully down the slope, through a few more bogs, across another burn or two, and then, finally, through a gate into a farmer’s field that was so thoroughly squelching with mud that there wasn’t any point in being careful about it. Then out the gate to the road and on through the rain to shelter as quickly as possible.

But I still had breath for what was important, and be hanged to any German-speakers who might hear me as I drew near to the abbey:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz im warmer Liebe entzunden,
Hast mich in eine bessre Welt entrückt,
In eine bessre Welt entrückt!

It was past 7:30 when I got back. There was a wedding in the abbey church at 6:00 with a reception after that that everyone was invited to, which of course I’d missed. But I can go to weddings anywhere. Only in Scotland can I have the exquisite fulfillment of slogging through peat bogs and being a better person for the experience.

First item of importance, take a shower. Second thing, wash out the filthy shoes and clothes and put them in the drying room. And hope they’re ready to be packed by tomorrow.

Changed into my other skirt and made my appearance at the ceildhe after 9:00 (it started at 8:30). By then I was so tired I didn’t really care, but had decided enough of this crap, I had to talk to Lukas*.

The dances were all of the country variety, but unlike at Coverdale* at Christmas nobody taught them. It was like my home church choir director and the "Hallelujah Chorus"-- no rehearsal time because of course you’re born knowing it. It was pretty funny, because the PA system went down and you couldn’t hear the fiddle or guitars at all, but only the thump of the tambour and the shouts of the dancers counting steps in largely-vain attempts to keep themselves straight.

I didn’t dance; you needed a partner and I was too physically tired to make the effort to choose somebody to ask. Lukas* was keeping himself thoroughly occupied on the floor, a fact which at another time I would’ve witnessed with vicarious pleasure and satisfaction. Just now, however, it only filled me with the cynical sense that well, our little world of this weekend is yet proceeding according to its own established order . . .

But I did get a chance to talk to him a little while he was sitting one out. A bit of chitchat about the dancing, then a casual question as to whether he was leaving tomorrow morning or staying till later. He replied that it was tomorrow morning or nothing, so I kept my mouth shut about the possibilities of rides across Mull later in the day. If I appear on the jetty in the midst of the rest of the sleep-benumbed throng tomorrow at 5:30 AM, he will have no reason to impugn my motives.

I told him I’d just been on a three and a half hour hike around the island. He immediately countered with the statement that last Wednesday he, along with the rest of the abbey group, had gone on a six-hour "pilgrimage" around Iona, visiting all the famous hermitages and other religious sites, and, in the process, establishing a wonderful bond among them all. That, I thought, was tolerably obvious.

I wanted to say something that would reveal even to me myself that I could rejoice with him in this, but I couldn’t manage it. So I sufficed with something on the order of "That’s nice," and said we at the Center weren’t so fortunate, as having to spend so much time in services and other activities we hadn’t much chance to form interpersonal relationships. "I’m afraid there was rather more program than I’d bargained for, though I suppose I should’ve expected it . . . "

"But you didn’t have to attend all those things! You could have done other things if you’d liked!"

Oh? Maybe so, but that’s not the way I was raised.

The last dance was played around 10:40 and then the abbey group members took turns taking funny pictures of their assemblage. It briefly flitted through my mind to offer to take one of them all to give to Lukas* at Coverdale*. But just as quickly I knew that’d be meddling impertinence. Besides, I’m sure he’s already got someone pledged to send him a copy of theirs.

So I took off for the laundry room to see to the last bit of wash that was still soaking in the sink, and so much for my first Scottish ceildhe . . .