I didn’t go to our school prom and was always secretly sorry, although I never admitted it to you. Every girl should be granted one magic night in spring with a date wearing a new haircut, English Leather cologne, and a white dinner jacket. You get to wear something silk or floor length, a corsage, and you have your hair done. The way I see it, after that life’s all downhill. I never had that midsummer night’s dream, and it terminally deprived me. But now by some marvelous fluke, my opera dress and Stephanie Singer were giving it to me. A prom in Vienna on a boat on the Danube!
The Johann Strauss was a vision of goofy-looking boys in white dinner jackets and girls looking like angels with cleavage. You could tell under their dresses many still had baby fat around the edges, but they looked happy and proud to be with their guys. Stephanie found us a table, but before settling in with her, I excused myself and wandered around looking at the kids. Some of the couples were in love, some were showing off, others were terrified to even look at their partners. But this was their big night and they were all trying to do it right. It turned out that the reason Stephanie and her husband, Al, were there was that the school needed some parents to help chaperone the dance and the Singers had been volunteered by their son. A girl about sixteen told me this later. While she spoke, I realized she thought I was a parent too. That shook me up until I realized, hey, I am old enough to be mother to some of these kids. And that was okay because it was a special night and everyone there was looking as good as they ever will.
So Mama Arlen walked around with a glass of cheap champagne, having a great time. One of the things that impressed me was the international mix of the students. Although it’s called the American International School, these kids weren’t only American. Arabs and Africans in djellabahs and dashikis, girls wound in saris… A California blond boy had his arm tight around an exquisite Indian girl named Sarosh Sattar. Isn’t that a beautiful name? There’s a branch of the United Nations in Vienna and it would have done all those bureaucrats a lot of good to be there and see how diverse people really can get along.
I’d been on the boat about fifteen minutes and was sitting with the Singers when a girl came up and asked very hesitantly if I was Arlen Ford. When I said yes, things changed a little but not much. Some of the students wanted autographs, and a couple of the boys asked me to dance, but generally I was just another chaperone having a good time watching the dancers having fun and acting like adults for a night before they went back to their last days as kids.
Everyone had a camera and was taking pictures. Flashbulbs popped and kids shuffled their friends together for shots of them laughing and holding their fingers up behind one another’s head. Guys stuck flowers down the front of the girls’ dresses or made silly faces. Photos you find curled in the back of a drawer twenty years later when you’re doing a thorough spring cleaning. You pick ‘em up, blow the hair out of your eyes, and the nostalgia from the pictures hits you so strongly you have to sit down. You remember the smell of that night in the car, driving over to the party, and the way your date kissed you when it was almost over.
I hung around another hour and was interviewed for the school newspaper by a boy named Fadil Foual. All Fadil really wanted to know was whether I’d ever met Billy Joel or Stephen King, so it was a comfier interview than the one I did with the Italian journalist.
I went back to my car feeling much younger at heart and very grateful to the Great Powers for allowing me to have the night.
A few days later, the Easterlings called to ask if I’d like to go on a picnic with them and Nicholas, their little boy. We met at their place and drove to the Lainzer Tiergarten, way out on the edge of town. It’s a big forest reserve that used to be a royal hunting ground. But it was turned over to the people of Vienna and is a nice place to go if you’re in the mood for an afternoon of back to nature. Animals run free, and you can take it for granted you’ll see deer or wild boar somewhere along the way if you spend a couple of hours there. When we drove up, I thought that’s where we were going, but Walker strapped on the carrying bag with the baby and led us on a path alongside the park to a staircase that went straight up forever. When I asked if the top was worth the climb, Maris and he said yes. Unconvinced, I asked what was up there. Maris said, “The Happy Hill.” I couldn’t very well say, “I’ll wait down here,” so I took a deep breath and followed.
The staircase did go on forever, and when we finally got to the top, the two of them kept going. I thought we’d at least stop for a cigarette break, but no way. We walked through woods a while until Walker veered left, and suddenly we were out on a huge open meadow with a great view down over the city. They called it the Happy Hill because it was one of the first places Walker brought Maris to when they first met. They made me promise never to go up there unless it was a great and special occasion. This was only the third or fourth time they’d been there together, and they’d decided to go there that day because they wanted to bring their baby and show him.
Their Nicholas is a cute kid, fat and robust, but he was born with a big hole in his heart. Maris said that’s a relatively common occurrence and he’s in no real danger. Surgery will have to be done to correct it in a few years, but now he’s just a big happy baby who can’t sit still and who laughs all the time.
I’d brought the wine and dessert; they had everything else. Cold chicken and salad, three kinds of cheese and crackers, fruit. Just seeing all that food spread out in the bright sun on a blue-and-white tablecloth, a breeze flicking its corners, and holding Nicholas in my lap while he patted my face with one hand and drank his apple juice with the other… it was sublime, Rose. I had a baby in my lap, nice people sitting near, food… I must have sighed fifty times, I was so glad to be there. I kept thanking Maris and Walker for inviting me, but how do you thank people for giving you peace, even if it’s only for a little while?
After lunch, Walker got out a Frisbee, and we put Nicholas on the cloth while the three of us spread way out over the field. We threw it back and forth and watched it go crazy in the gusts. Right when we were growing tired, a man appeared with a beautiful Viszla that looked very much like my Minnie. Only this was a male named Red and his specialty was playing Frisbee. He caught it no matter where or how far you threw it. He was amazing. The baby was asleep by now, the dog was leaping ten feet off the ground to catch, Maris and Walker held hands… it was bliss. Life doesn’t get better than that. I didn’t want to walk down that hill again.
But things weren’t finished. When we got down, Maris suggested we walk into the Tiergarten a few minutes to see if any wild boars were around. And almost as soon as we were through the gates we saw a small pack being fed stale bread by one of the gamekeepers. Have you ever seen boar up close? They’re adorable, ancient-looking beasts; they remind you of what animals must have looked like in cavemen times. These guys were not exactly tame, but they’d come close for dinner. The keeper called them by name—Mickey Mouse was the biggest, the head of the clan. He got first dibs on whatever was thrown. A crowd had gathered to watch, and the gamekeeper came over and handed me a loaf of black bread. I was wary, but went close enough to smell them. Indescribable. Talk about the forest primeval! Their snorts and tusks were enough to knock you over. When I turned around, I noticed lots of people were taking pictures, but assumed they had Mickey Mouse in mind and not me. I was wrong. You’ll see why in a minute.