In the evening, walking through the streets of
downtown
Vienna, the streets blocked off from traffic, between the Opera
and St.
Stephan's, I passed many pedestrians who, like me, carried the
telltale tourist
map of Vienna that is given out everywhere. Most moved about in
groups of half
a dozen or more. But there were some alone like me, the same map,
staring here
and there, walking down the middle of the street, checking street
signs and comparing
them with the map, and moving on.
At St. Stephan's, the
Gothic
cathedral which is the postcard symbol of the city, the tourists
crowded into
the back area, fenced off from the area where the real worshippers
worship.
Beyond St. Stephan's, I
chanced
upon a narrow "gasse" -- an alley for pedestrians, not vehicles.
Here
I spotted several 'pensions' -- boarding houses, the low-cost
alternative to a
hotel, often favored by students.
I realized that if Babs
were here
with me, my experience of Vienna would be very different. I was
detached, with
no connection to my surroundings and the other people. I wandered
aimlessly and
gazed at buildings, struck more by the sameness of large cities
than by any
hint of difference. I shied away from shops. I had no use for the
dust-gathering
knickknacks and mementos for sale there.
Babs would stop at every
shop, at
least to look in the windows, and often would go inside and handle
the merchandise
and talk to the shopkeepers -- not that any of it would be for
herself. No, by
nature, she was connected. When she travelled, she had a list of
all the people
she had to bring something back for. I grumbled and complained at
such a useless
activity, 'No one needs this stuff,' I insisted. 'No one would pay
attention to
gifts like that for more than a minute; and it'll take you hours
to pick them
out. Besides, it costs money, and what are we here for? Why are
you wasting our
precious time in this city that we'll probably never return to
again in our
lives?'
She would smile, and
coax, and
insinuate that friendly pleasures were in store when we returned
to the hotel
if I'd just indulge her in this need of hers. And, in fact, the
quest that seemed
to me such a waste of time would connect her to the city. It would
give her an
excuse to look closely and to talk to the natives and to hear from
them about
other shops and other goods. and each purchase would weave threads
of
connection between our moment together in Vienna and friends and
relatives back
home. This shop we were in would be transformed -- not a shop like
every other
shop, but rather the place she bought the stein for Tommy or the
angel figurine
for Elly. She will see more and remember more of the city than I.
It would become
part of the fabric of her life. And the photos she would take,
even if they were
only pictures of buildings and of the same buildings that appear
on all the
postcards, would be connected with memories of people we met in
the shops and
the restaurants and beer kellers.
Yes, she considered
eating and
drinking a pleasure, and the choice of a place to eat or drink was
another
opportunity and adventure, like shopping for gifts. She would make
the city her
own. She would eat and drink the essence of it and become one of
its people. While
I eat from necessity, rushing on to the next important task ahead
of me, such
as finishing reading some book I'm not really enjoying, without
knowing why I
bother to do so.
Here, alone in Vienna, I
had no way
to get to know this city. I had no social skills, no natural
cameraderie, no
inclination to buying gifts. I walked and stared and judged,
disconnected.
But I could imagine Babs
here in
the summer of 1971, just after she graduated from college and
before we began
going out together. She was here with her friend Anne. Anne, like
me, was probably
detached, amused by Babs's enthusiasms, but not involved in them.
On the other
hand, she would have been willing to linger in restaurants and
beer kellers. Both
of them would have been open to meeting interesting unattached men
-- Austrians
or tourists; and while that wouldn't happen often, the possibility
of such
adventures would add flavor to each day's meanderings. Anne would
probably be
more overtly on the lookout for such opportunities, and the two of
them would
size up the prospects and the desirability of one or another
spotted in the
distance, and how to catch their attention, with a look and a
smile, and deliberately
looking away.
All the time, to Anne's
annoyance,
Barb would be shopping for token gifts and curiosities, always
having a dozen
more people on her list, and needing something for each of them
from each
country and each major city.
They'd see the
Lipizzaner stallions
in training. They'd be tempted by theater or opera, but not
speaking German, they
would shy away from live performances, not wanting to waste their
limited cash
on what probably would turn out to be a bore. But there was an
endless variety
of little restaurants and unattached college-age tourist men,
hoping for romance
or adventure, just as they were. So the two of them would linger
here in Vienna,
finding a low-cost pension in one of these alleyways not far from
St. Stephan's
and in the midst of all the charm of the old inner city.
I was here now on
business, put up
by my company at an American-like hotel in the American-like
suburbs. But I was
tempted to find a pension, perhaps the very one that Babs stayed
at back then, and
thinking, too, of the scenes John Irving wrote about a stay at a
pension in
Vienna, with gypsies and a trained bear and circus midgets --
scenes from
several of his books merging in my memory.
There were very few
pensions listed
in my European-wide travel book. It only devoted five pages to
Vienna. But I
suspected there must be many more of them. So I broke away from my
cynical
detachment and began to ask, at restaurants, shops, and hotels,
about nearby pensions;
and having found one, I asked there for directions to another.
To my surprise, I heard
tell of a
"Pension Barbara." The person who told me, on the square outside
St.
Stephan's, was a businessman from Canada. He had heard of it from
a friend who
had been here before. He didn't remember where it was exactly. But
he was sure
it was near. He himself was staying at a plush hotel this time --
on business,
his company paying for it. But his friend had come to Vienna when
he was just
out of college, and with several other friends, had stayed at
Pension Barbara
and had a great time.
Mostly, his friend had
recalled waking
at dawn and seeing on the stone wall across the alley a series of
enormous paintings
of a beautiful young girl.
As the sun went higher
in the sky,
the shadows shifted and the images became darker and soon it was
almost impossible
to distinguish them from random patterns in the stone.
He had asked at the
front desk, "Who's
the girl? And who did the paintings?"
But the clerk looked at
him like he
was crazy, "What paintings?"
He insisted, and took
the clerk out
to the street to looked up, but nothing could be seen from there.
He dragged
the clerk up to his room to look out the window, but only the
faintest hint,
like a mirage was distinguishable. The clerk laughed, like this
was some game
of finding artwork in the shapes of clouds or among the shadows
the sun cast on
mountain tops.
His friend had had train
tickets to
Rome that night and hence was not able to see it again at sunrise,
but before
leaving, he sought out the owner of the pension, and asked him
about the name
of the place, 'Why Pension Barbara? That doesn't sound Austrian.'
The owner agreed. It was
not a good
name for attracting tourists. "There is not enough Vienna in that
name,
yes," he agreed. "I should change the name. And now that you have
awakened
me to this reality, yes, I will indeed. I have a friend who knows
of
consultants who are excellent at this very task of naming, which
is so
essential in the tourist trade. Perhaps something like Mozart or
Edelweis. Best
to leave that to the experts."
The friend insisted,
"But why
this name in the first place?"
"It was a whim of the
previous
owner, or so I heard. Something to do with an American tourist
named Barbara
who was just out of college, someone with a knack for bringing
people together
and bringing them out. She'd sit in the background and never seem
to be at the
center of the conversation, but when she wasn't there, there was
no conversation
at all, no gathering of young people. But the owner did not notice
that at first.
"Yes, that owner was a
young
American, just out of college, too, with a high draft number, so
he didn't need
to worry about Viet Nam. He had a wealthy father and no reason to
be one place
rather than another. He had chanced upon Vienna and upon this
pension -- I
don't remember what it's name was then -- at the very time when
Barbara and her
friend -- another girl, American -- were staying here. Night after
night the
young people at the pension would assemble on the street, without
anyone
seeming to be the leader and instigator. They'd find a beer
keller, almost
always a different one every night. Then they'd return to the
pension and, in the
lobby by the fireplace, they would talk and sing and enjoy saying
and doing
nothing at all.
"It was near Christmas
and this
wealthy American had planned to head home, but now he felt so good
here at this
pension in Vienna he wanted to stay forever. So he left, not
because he wanted
to leave but because he wanted to be able to stay. He left to
plead with his father
for the money to buy this magical pension. and he talked
passionately about not
the physical structure or the business opportunities, but rather
the convivial
spirit that brought him to life more than anything he'd ever
experienced. He talked
like someone in love, but it was as if he had just met himself,
his true self.
Here in this pension, he had become the person he wanted to be.
These people,
this time, this place made him feel alive as he never had before,
made him fall
in love with the self he never knew he could be.
"His father gave him the
money. He hurried back and bought the pension. His offer was
outrageously
generous, based as it was on emotion rather than business. He had
been gone for
a couple days. It was still before Christmas. All the old gang was
still there
-- except one who had suddenly defected for home.
"But the atmosphere was
different.
He felt uncomfortable. Many of the same things were said and done
as before. There
was the heightened excitement of the holiday and the celebration
of his purchase
of this magical place. For several days, he offered free drinks
and free
accommodations, at random, to many -- wanting everyone to stay and
preserve
this moment.
"But there was no magic
anymore. He felt empty and drank much heavier than he ever had
before, to blank
out the emptiness.
"Then it dawned on him
what
was different -- the girl -- the cute one with the black hair and
green coat
and the ridiculous floppy green hat. He had hardly spoken to her.
He couldn't
remember a single exchange of dialogue involving her or about her.
But she was
always there, and around her everyone was always animated. She
didn't draw
attention to herself, but rather, somehow, unintentionally drew
attention to
others, to their stories and their interests. Her attention was
the spotlight
that made others stand out and seem brilliant and amusing. And her
spotlight
never shone in her own direction.
"He asked about her. Her
friend had moved on -- reportedly hitch-hiking to Spain -- a few
days before
New Year's. And that page of the guest ledger had been ruined by
beer that he
himself had spilled in a depressing and losing drinking bout. So
he had no
record of where she or her friend came from. And she had so rarely
spoken of
herself that all he could determine was that her name was Barbara,
and she came
from Boston.
"Now in the evening,
when he
returned from the beer kellers with his new-found friends, this
rich young
American, proud owner of a pension in Vienna, sat in the faded
blue easy chair
in the corner where Barbara had always sat, and tried to see the
room and his
friends and himself through her eyes. He tried to remember the
tone of her
voice, the way she always began in the middle of a thought -- not
that he could
remember the particular words, just the rhythm and pulse of her
voice -- saying
something and backtracking, annoyed that someone didn't understand
the context
of what she was saying, hadn't moved ahead from the current point
in the
conversation to where she had jumped to in her mind, and in
backtracking and
backfilling she gave new life and direction to everyone's thoughts
and brought
them together in a marvelous maze, where everyone's feelings and
concerns seemed
to matter more than her own.
"He tried to reconstruct
from
memory her fingers -- short, fleshy, surprisingly sensuous. He'd
held them a
few times at convivial moments when they all joined hands walking
up the
street; and one or twice when they'd happened to dance together as
a group.
"And her nose -- how
could he
describe it -- flat on top and turned up and just begging to be
touched,
begging for a friendly knuckle to brush against her upper lip and
pass upward
as if to relieve an itch between the nostrils, but really just to
see the way
she'd both back off and come forward at the same time, shying away
from being
touched, but wanting it as well.
"She didn't flirt,
overtly,
like her friend did. She didn't push herself forward to be
noticed, but she wanted
to be wanted all the same; not expecting to be singled out, but
delighted to be
included in the larger group. And without realizing it, there was
no question
of her being included. The group was only a group, only had life
and purpose
and direction from her unobtrusive caring presence among them.
They were who they
were, and he was who he was because of her.
"Before, the wealthy
American
had avoided going to the Historical Art Museum. It was too
touristy a thing to
do. Now, he was at the door every morning when it opened. He went
straight to
the second floor where the paintings were -- mainly Dutch and
Flemish and
Italian from the Renaissance. He studied the faces of the women
carefully, and
sketched many of them, not from appreciation of the art, but
rather striving to
understand what made a face unique and memorable, finding a hint
here and there
of Barbara's face in the little portraits and in the vast
panoramic biblical
and mythical scenes.
"He struck up
conversations
with art students who camped there day after day with their easels
and palettes,
making precise copies of these classic works. One, an Irish girl
named
Madeline, he hired to give him lessons in the evenings. He
apparently had
talent, especially at capturing the likeness of a person -- a
skill that was
once considered at the heart of true art and that now, thanks to
photography,
is considered a merely mechanical skill.
"For the practice, and
in
hopes of perhaps seeing once again a flat turned-up nose or a
green-blue eye
that could sparkle in such a way that you forgot yourself and
found yourself,
he would set up an easel in Karntner Strasse and did five-minute
pencil
portraits of passersby -- accepting payment not because he needed
it, but
because it was expected of him.
"None of the old gang
remained
at the pension. Even though he offered them a free place to stay.
They all
drifted on. There was nothing to hold them. Their drinking and
joking had
become hollow and repetitious. They all sooner or later wanted to
move on to
fresh experiences or to head back to where old and new
responsibilities awaited
them.
"With no attention paid
to the
business side of the pension -- no publicity, no special effort to
draw in
customers from among the steady flow of young tourists in Vienna
-- he lost
money month after month, and his father grew impatient with the
regular
requests for more cash to keep afloat.
"Money worries began
weighing
on him, until Madeline, who he continued to see for lessons and
who was now the
only one left with whom he could share his obsession with Barbara,
until she
suggested that he do a mural on a grand scale. His neighbor across
the alley,
an accountant for a large corporation, who was rarely at home, was
kind enough
to indulge him, to let him use a large windowless cement-covered
wall as his
canvas.
"That summer, a year and
a
half after Barbara had left, he immersed himself in the task --
building
scaffolding by hand and mixing his own paints, all with the help
and
encouragement of Madeline.
"By the end of
September, it
was nearly finished -- Barbara over and over again, large and
small, sometimes
only a head in a floppy green hat, sometimes full figure nude as
he imaged her.
"Crowds of tourists
would
gather to watch as he worked. Madeline would walk among the crowd
with a hat,
taking donations. (They insisted on making donations, and she
wasn't about to
stop them.) And many stayed at the pension now, and she would tell
the legend of
Barbara to them in the lobby as they looked out the window at the
scaffolding
and the painting with spotlights shining on it, as he worked well
into the
night.
"Then came the rain --
slow
but steady, day after day, more rain than we had had in Vienna in
decades. He
couldn'd paint outside so he sat in the lobby with the guests,
hearing Madeline
spin ever more elaborate tales for the guests about the mysterious
Barbara who
had this artist in her thrall.
"He had mixed his paints
well
-- with full knowledge of the underlying chemistry and the demands
of the
weather. But he had not counted on the the persistence of the rain
and the properties
and thinness of the cement he was painting on. Day by rainy day,
the vast and
glorious painting melted away, and the crowds at the pension
melted way as
well, leaving him with a strangely dirty wall and a losing
business.
"I never met the
previous owner
myself, having heard this tale from the washer woman and the old
night clerk
when I bought the place through a broker. At first I thought I
could reignite
the mystique of the legend of Barbara, which had for a brief while
made this
place a Mecca for tourists. But the spinner of the myth --
Madeline -- had
disappeared when the former owner did. I was unable to track her
down. Perhaps
they left together. I'd like to think they left together.
"And all that remained was the name 'Pension
Barbara,'
which, as you so accurately point out, doesn't ring true for
Vienna. Yes, it
should be Mozart or Edelweiss, or some other word clearly
connected with Austria.
My friend's consultant friend is sure to help with that. He's a
professional
with an international firm based in New York. Yes, he's sure to
know just the
way to make this place -- by name, by brand, by look -- feel like
the Vienna
that tourists want to believe in and return to."
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