Holiday in Austria, Part VII: The Reunion Proper

On Sunday we breakfasted as customary, I after having been awake since around 3:45 a.m. because I couldn't sleep. I had wanted to tackle the Predigstuhl again with Gi., to have a better memory of it and conquer the near-trauma that the sight of it inspired, but my parents and in the end Gi. vetoed it. I decided to respect the veto because proving something to myself wasn't worth causing them to worry, but didn't do it happily, and for this and other reasons I was in a really irritated and depressed state. It was all the more irritating because I dislike being the slave to irrational and passing moods, and behaving disgracefully as a result. But at least I went back to sleep and was therefore better rested.

Anyway, after breakfast we betook ourselves to the house, named the "Dreieck" presumably because of its right-angled floorplan, where my grandfather's family once spent its summers. It is a big but snug house (it would sprawl if it were constructed in a different style and climate, because of the number of rooms), shutters painted a bright darkish green that tends very slightly to the turquoise, and its outer walls are siding that has been painted a wintry brown-black shade. A garden runs on all four sides, a little pool to the right and a little kitchen garden to the left, and behind it a low wall draped in ivy and a plant whose dusty leaves resemble those of the lavender runs on the crest of a slight dip that looks out onto a field. Above the house, to the left, there towers a wooded hill.

When we arrived we were greeted at the front door and guided into the room at the back, which gives out onto the back yard, and then shook hands with the first brace of unknown relatives. It was less of an ordeal than expected. Then we looked at a big album of black-and-white photos of Mendelssohn connections that lay on the table in that room; I recognized my great-grandmother (or, as my father and his siblings called her, Omi) often, and even where the people were unknown the zeitgeistiness of the pictures was amusing. There was also a book of interviews with the sculptor Rodin, published as far as I remember in 1911 but bound in what seems to me to be a mildly anachronistic and elaborate leather binding lined with marbled paper, and full of good photos partly of Rodin's sculptures and partly of the paintings and sculptures of the older artists (e.g. Praxiteles, Michelangelo) who inspire him. It also held a photo of the bearded artist standing in his garden, nearly dwarfed by two swans in the foreground. The book, as far as I could tell, was bought by Omi, who was a devoted sculptor and painter herself.

On the wall there were posters of the family in its different branches, which I didn't peruse much, except to recognize portraits of the distant ancestors from the Mendelssohn archive in the Staatsbibliothek (State Library) and to find it funny which photos of us were chosen. J.'s photo was about fifteen years old, for instance, though it is a lovely one; it would take a keen physiognomist indeed to recognize that the endearing two-year-old and he are one and the same. Either way, it was comforting to see the photos of Opapa and Tante Nora, and to know that they are neither entirely gone, nor forgotten.

Then we ambled out into the garden and so on and so forth, and had photos taken of one generation at a time, until the luncheon was ready. I decided to wait until everyone else had taken their portions and took something to drink first. It was mineral water, which seems like a very diet-y choice, but the truth is that the toothache experience in December has turned me off sugary juices and even inspired a horror of sweet desserts. (Fortunately I often forget the latter and therefore eat as much chocolate, ice cream, etc., as I like.) And I didn't feel like having wine. Then, at any rate, we sat out on the benches and talked.

Normally the whole family sits together, but it is a tribute to the relaxed atmosphere that we were broken up this time and that this didn't make me uncomfortable. Part of it was that nobody addressed duty-conversation to me, or at least it didn't seem like duty-conversation; not that I mind such conversation except that talking about myself, which generally ends up happening, is awkward and uninteresting. When I'm left to myself but have enough going around me to prevent me from being or looking bored it's easier to relax, let go of my inhibitions and forget the insecurity that usually poisons social situations for me. Anyway, my parents discussed squirrels and other wildlife with my father's cousin's husband, and I pitched in from time to time.

As for the food, of which I did partake, it consisted of divers salads of lentils, couscous, tomatoes, etc., and cured salmon and other things I didn't have, as well as Marillenknödel, or apricot dumplings, for dessert. These dumplings are a local specialty, and consist of an apricot at the core, then a glutinous Spaetzle-like dough, and then a loose coating of sugar, breadcrumbs, butter, and maybe cinnamon. Aunt L. made sure I had some, and I especially liked the soft and nearly disintegrating apricot at the centre.

Then, since most people were out in the garden and out of earshot, I played the upright piano in the dining room after asking permission. My mood had improved in any case but the music made everything much better. Then Papa and I were asked to play a little together, since there was an informal concert planned. The original idea was more to provide background music, but most of the guests gathered in the chairs along the wall of the room, and we played Saint-Saëns's "Swan," a largo by Händel, and a folksong by Schumann. At the piano I had my back to the audience, which moreover gave out a friendly and undemanding aura, and I was in an absorbed mood, so there wasn't much room for nerves. The music in general would have gone better if Papa and I had practiced beforehand, and I think that some in the audience had expected a polished and carefully prepared performance instead of the spontaneous performance it was. We didn't announce our pieces in advance, either, as the musicians who came after us did. But to me it was more important that the music would be nice and sincere, and I think it was.

This mini-concert was also a good experience for me because it helped lay the ghost of the last time I played in front of so many people. It was when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, and I had been having difficulties with the two pieces I performed even when playing them at home; so at the concert I made so many mistakes that it was already, as Mama said, impressive that I didn't break off before reaching the end. Though I understood even at the time that most of the audience were total strangers, and interested more in how their pupils and children played, it was pretty crushing. After that, whenever we drove past the church where it took place, I would look the other way, and I didn't like playing the pieces any more though I kept at them to try to overcome the bad association. This time I didn't have a melt-down and didn't play too differently from the way I play at home, so I was pleased and proud of myself.

After we were done, another relative played Schumann's Kinderszenen, which she executed extremely well. Then my grandfather's cousin's granddaughter, who is only sixteen, played a Mozart concerto movement on the violin, and I liked it very much — unpretentious, conscientiously worked out, and genuine. Of course there were criticisms to be made, but with house music it feels churlish to remember or mention them. Then the concert ended with the string musicians among us (Uncle Pu being one, of course (c: ) sight-reading Austrian folk dances.

After that some of the relatives took their leave, and others (like us) went for a walk to a waterfall. This waterfall is reached by winding along the road for a while, then turning off to the right and ambling through the forest, where stacks of felled trunks were piled up along the left and right of the road, the bark trodden into the muddy ground and the ensemble giving off a strong scent of resin which I've missed since we left Canada. At length we snaked up a path that finally leads to a wooden bridge over the creek, and above it the waterfall, an impressive series of gouged slides of pale rock over which the water plummets into kettles (also known as potholes) and then threshes out again on toward the flatter gravel-bottomed course of the creek. Rock and forest rise to the left and right, with wild flowers and brush in the sunny areas, and wet leaves and soil and rocks exposed in the shadowy ones. The rest of the path was barred due to recent tree slides, so we paused here before retracing our steps to the Dreieck.

Upon returning we sat down in the garden, where we were gradually joined by the others, and the best part of the day unfolded itself as we drank wine and talked and ate a little as the sun sank past the mountain to (presumably) the east. The conversation was at times amusingly erudite, touching among other things on Elias Canetti and Vladimir Nabokov's posthumously published, unfinished book, literary fame with its pros and cons, and gnosticism. L.'s husband M. also discussed green energy and heat storage with Ge., and I enjoyed listening to it especially since it was animated by a quiet, understated devotion to the subject. Later the general conversation turned to computers and the incompetence or malice of software developers (which of course immediately caught Papa's attention) and I liked that, though in essence the drift was the same, it was a subtler variation on the customary lamentations of the incomprehensibility of computers to the older generation, or of one's own stupidity. In the house the musicians were playing Haydn's trio in G major, a Mozart quartet, and other things, which drifted down to us, and there were also chocolates but I didn't have any.

Then we took our leave after signing the guestbook (I summoned the courage to formulate a message myself, in German, though I fear the result was a little generic; the others decided to sign underneath it). Altogether I was very happy and satisfied, and felt that, even if we hadn't gone to the art exhibition opening, lecture, boat ride, and other events, our portion in the reunion had been well rounded. There were people there whom I know well and care very much to see, and can't see often because they live too far away, and also people whom I'd very much like to know better. So the social side of it was — even considering the unhappy and grumpy mood I had been in and the stressfulness of interacting with relative strangers — rewarding.