by Joan Wheelis
Many were spectacular wines that we drank in the eighties. The finer they became, the more my mother valued them and wanted to save them. I remember times when my father brought up a bottle of 1961 Château Calon-Ségur, a wine he had bought several cases of on spec in 1959, and my mother would say, “It’s too good to drink now.” My father, though, for the most part prevailed, claiming that wine, like life, should be lived to its fullest and not be put off for another time. It struck me as an odd reversal of roles, as typically my mother was the more carefree and playful and my father more brooding and inhibited. The last time I drank that wine was in 2004, when my father was eighty-eight. He had recently stopped playing tennis and drank very little wine on account of his irregular heartbeat. I had come home for a visit with my family. He already had the bottle up in the butler’s pantry and was starting to open it. “Oh, Daddy,” I said. “What a special wine for dinner!”
“It’s the last one,” he replied. “Over forty years. That’s long enough. It may not get any better.”
“But it’s not even a special occasion,” I protested.
“Yes it is. You’re here.”
the round room
OUR DINING ROOM WAS CIRCULAR. EACH OF THE THREE TALL arched windows parted and opened onto the patio and the gardens beyond of the neighboring mansion, a majestic copy of the Petit Trianon. An arched mirror across from the windows flanked by vases with long branches of quince or willow rendered the impression of yet more gardens on the other side of the room. My father always sat at the head of the table, his back toward a green and white marble fireplace with another arched mirror above the mantel. A simple silver candelabra holding seven candles was at the center of the mantel and a vase of flowers sat off to one side. The room was lit by two ornate wall sconces, each displaying a bouquet of delicate lights under their gilded petals. Japanese, Persian and Italian art hung on the walls between the mirrors. A delicate asparagus fern stood before one of the arched windows. The dark wood parquet floor was adorned by an antique Bokhara rug. There was a Danish sideboard and a small table on wheels and a simple oval teak dining table, which could be expanded to seat twelve. Four burnt orange upholstered chairs, which had belonged to my mother’s first husband, flanked the table. It was the epitome of refined yet simple elegance. We ate dinner in that beautiful room each night of the week. I always sat to my father’s right facing the mirror, which reflected the gardens behind me, and my parents sat facing one another. My mother, though a marvelous cook, worked full-time and employed a cook to prepare and serve dinner during the week. Veal scaloppini, asparagus, fried eggplant, crêpes Suzette, floating island. And always some wonderful, dark, blood red French wine. While I must have disliked some things served to me, I cannot now recall what those were. My memory in that room was one of endless, undisturbed satisfaction. But those weeknights were nothing compared to the parties my parents held in that room, each of which was an experience of exquisite pleasure for all the senses.
Preparation for a Saturday night party began the weekend before as my mother studied cookbooks to decide on a menu. By Friday night the refrigerator was brimming with things not to eat. My parents, like old dance partners, performed their moves with unwavering grace and set about to take care of their respective tasks for the party. My father was in charge of the wine or champagne offered before dinner in the living room and the wine and water served throughout the meal. He also was in charge of writing out the guest names on place cards in the blue-black ink of his Parker fountain pen while my mother decided where everyone would sit. I helped my mother set the table with the starched white Austrian linen, the Riedel crystal, the Valencia plates from Arabia of Finland and the fine Austrian silverware, which had belonged to my Viennese grandmother. The silver chest stood by the front door and was locked with a skeleton key that my mother kept hidden. She was often agitated opening the chest. The silver was indeed valuable and she was afraid of its getting lost or stolen, but her memories were also tied up with the real loss of her parents at the hands of Hitler. She often cried as I helped her set the table. The current of her sorrow flowed through my memories of those occasions and of the exquisitely elegant table with beautiful short stems of fragrant freesia or cedar or jasmine in small glass vases and individual white votive candles in fluted glasses.
When I was invited to join the dinner party, I always sat next to my father. The parties were festive and elegant, and I remember feeling that I was in the midst of the essence of happiness. To sit in the comfortable burnt orange wool-covered chair by my father, gaze upon the flowering branches in the dancing light of candles and eat marvelous things that looked so beautiful and colorful on the dark blue and white plates was magical. My father, infinitely attentive to detail, never let a guest be without water or wine. He never stayed seated and passed the bottle but was up on his feet the moment a last swallow was taken to ensure that his guests felt exquisitely attended to. My mother, always so elegantly dressed and charming, was attentive to the two men at her sides, to the plates of all her guests and to the eyes of my father at the other end of the table. The sound of silverware on china, the movement of water and wine being poured into glasses and the voices of my parents and their guests in that beautiful room settled in my mind like a long night of light snow falling—soft, pleasing drifts of memory accumulating in my mind.
the napoleon
JUST DOWN THE STREET FROM MY DENTIST’S OFFICE AT 1720 Polk was Blum’s, a restaurant and confectioner’s. And very often following a dental appointment, my father took me there to eat something sweet. It was a naughty and comforting pleasure to eat sugary things after having a cavity filled. We sat at a marble counter with copper edging. All around were the characteristic pink Blum’s cans filled with candies like the marvelous almondettes—dark chocolate fudgy chews with a whole roasted almond embedded within. They served coffee and pastries, sandwiches and ice cream. It is difficult to remember exactly what the place looked like, as my senses had already been so overloaded at the dentist’s office. What I remember most clearly was what was right in front of me to eat. I loved the burnt almond ice cream and especially loved their napoleons. Also known as mille-feuille, they consisted of six thin layers of crisp puff pastry, each filled with a thick layer of light custard, and the topmost layer had whipped cream under the pastry and a hard, sugary icing with thin lines of symmetrical chocolate swirls on top. The napoleons were served upright on a little paper doily that hugged each side of the pastry. But eating them was a challenge because pressing the fork on the top layer of puff pastry sent custard and whipped cream flying out both sides. The first bite would leave the elegant pastry in shambles.
I can’t remember how many napoleons I ate before learning the right way to cut one. Probably one or two at most. And after the lesson I never had a messy napoleon on my plate ever again.
I was eight years old. When the waitress brought me the napoleon and a glass of milk, my father said, “Today I am going to show you the proper way to cut a napoleon.” He asked the waitress to bring a sharp knife. She was perplexed but obliging. My father’s lessons were always memorable because they were delivered as though they had been prepared and rehearsed many times. And probably they had. He thought of every detail, and his arguments were ironclad—at least to me. When the napoleon arrived, he pointed out that the architecture of the pastry was such that trying to cut from the top would put pressure on the layers of custard and whipped cream trapped between the crisp pastry. Turning the napoleon on its side, however, would allow the knife to cut through all six layers of the pastry while minimizing the impact on the custard. He then proceeded to show me. First he laid the pastry on its side, carefully peeling away the half-moon piece of doily. Then he picked up the knife like a scalpel and laid the blade on the napoleon’s side, resting against the six layers of puff pastry, whipped cream and icing. He paused to make sure he had my attention and then cut straight down with certain precision. Two equal-size pieces of napoleon lay on their sides, with the layers perfe
ctly preserved. He then instructed me to cut each half as he had done, creating manageable and intact pieces to eat. It took some practice, but after a few cuts I was proficient and my father was satisfied. It seemed of great importance that I had learned this technique. I felt proud to have the knowledge.
When my son was eight, I taught him the technique, noting that he would be the third generation to understand the art of cutting and eating a napoleon. I felt pleased to show him, knowing the expertise would be perpetuated like a master cabinetmaker teaching his apprentice how to make a dovetail joint. When I was done with the explanation and demonstration, he asked, “Why is that better?” I had no good answer.
legacy
WHEN MY FATHER WAS NINE, HIS FATHER WAS DYING OF tuberculosis. My father had received a poor grade at school in conduct, and so his father felt compelled to teach him a final lesson about work and accountability before he died. In the summer of 1924 he asked my father to cut the grass behind their house in San Antonio with a straight-edged razor. It was never entirely clear how large the yard was, but what was clear was that it took my father the entire summer to finish cutting the grass. My grandfather lay in bed with binoculars, watching my father as he worked. He was quick to criticize if he saw any behavior that appeared lazy or careless and would summon my father to his bedside for a lecture. When my father rebelled, my grandfather invoked love as the motivation for his oppressive lesson.
This final punctuation of my father’s short relationship with his father was rife with conflict and guilt. By linking love with his brutally harsh expectations, my grandfather left my father longing for approval, and redemption, which he did not receive. My grandfather died shortly after that summer and subsequently my father became serious and disciplined.
He was never really freed of the criticism he internalized, yet my mother, with her proclivity for playfulness and spontaneity, helped soften the grip.
house in pisa
MY FATHER WAS AN EXACTING MAN—DISCIPLINED, THOROUGH, orderly—in everything he did. Whenever we traveled by car to a new place, he studied the map the night before, determined the best route and memorized it. He wanted no room for error. The idea of getting lost and pulling over to the side of the road to take out a map was unpalatable to him. He felt it was unseemly, messy, and spoke of preventable failure. He was always prepared for what he could anticipate and he planned for the unexpected as best he could. In addition to the memorized route, he tucked the map into the glove compartment in case of some unforeseen detour. It was hard to know when he had erred, as he never spoke of it nor directly expressed frustration or anger. Ever. To shout or swear or bang his fist was as messy and unseemly as getting lost and pulling over. The only evidence of his distress was the twitching of his clenched jaw muscle. I am sure that, internally and silently, he took himself to task much as his father had. So the memory of his great mistake in Pisa shines out of the past like a flashing beacon, reminding me that even my father was fallible.
My parents took me to Europe in 1965 during the summer of my tenth birthday. It was my first trip there, and the itinerary included Greenland, Amsterdam, Zurich, Mürren, Zermatt, Como, Portofino, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Milan and London. We drove from Como to Pisa in tremendous heat. Travel, let alone driving in Europe, was a challenge for my father. It taxed his meticulous tendencies, as the landmarks of reference were foreign to him.
When we arrived at the hotel in Pisa, we were instructed to park our car some streets away. My father was handed a slip of paper with an address on it and verbal instructions as to how to get there. When we arrived at the designated address, my mother turned to my father and said, “Allen, this doesn’t look right.” My father was silent because he had the piece of paper with the address and this was the place. Before us on a residential street was a building with two tall, wooden, arched doors that opened into a darkened interior.
“Allen, this cannot be right!”
Despite my mother’s concern, my father proceeded to drive very slowly into the dark space. The narrow opening did not strike my father as unusual, as he was used to this with our own garage in San Francisco. It even looked similar with its two large blue doors that parted in the middle and but a half inch to spare on either side. He enjoyed the challenge of skillfully maneuvering the car without scratching it. The car inched into the dark, cavernous space. We were all silent. From the back seat I saw stairs off to my right and what looked like a large white box. So intent on the side-to-side maneuvering into the tight space, my father hadn’t thought to turn on the headlights.
Finally my mother, staring straight ahead anxiously, said, “Allen, why don’t you turn on the lights?”
No sooner were they on than my mother commanded, “Allen, stop! There’s a Persian rug!”
And now with the lights on, we all saw the large, colorful Persian rug on the floor, as well as a bureau and some framed pictures on the walls. The white box off to the side was a refrigerator, and now a woman came flying down the staircase screaming, “Esci da casa mia!” (Get out of my house!)
My mother was angry with my father; my father was silent; I held my breath. From the back seat I saw his clenched jaw as he backed the car out of the angry woman’s house as slowly as he had driven it in. It felt like an eternity. We finally cleared the tall wooden doors, and the angry woman, still yelling, shut them from the inside with a resounding thud. Behind us a crowd had gathered in the street, watching and laughing.
We drove back to the hotel in a mixed climate of amusement and grim silence. The concierge with only minimal apology said it had been the right number but the wrong street.
In the log that my father kept to mark notable events, the entry for this day reads, “August 12, 1965—Pisa. The celebrated parking incident.” It made me laugh to see the shorthand. For years after the event my mother teased him about it; for the longest time my father would ignore her levity. Finally as an adult I challenged him.
“Daddy, it was actually very funny. You are still letting your father command your life. Give it up. It’s funny. For all you know, he might have laughed too.”
My father was clearly amused by my words, but all he said, with only the slightest of smiles, was, “You might be right.”
poker
I TURNED TEN IN ITALY. MY FATHER DID NOT LIKE THE FACT that I was becoming an age that was a two-digit number and that my life would likely never involve more digits. He spoke of wanting to turn the clocks back. It was hard to know how serious he was in his lament. It seemed grim.
He said this to me in Portofino. We stayed at the Hotel Splendido, a magnificent hotel perched over the Mediterranean. Our room had a small curved wrought-iron balcony with a table and two chairs. The waves below pounded the rocky shore. I remember eating prosciutto and melon. The waiter ground fresh black pepper on top. It was so delicious and the balmy breezes so pleasant.
The day my father spoke of two-digit numbers, he also told me that because I was turning ten, it was time for me to learn how to play poker.
Why, I thought, but didn’t ask.
We went out on the balcony with a deck of cards and a box of wooden matches in lieu of coins.
I can only remember the feeling of being perched far out over the sea. Looking down at the coast through the wrought-iron rails, the waves breaking against the cliff. There was not much room on the balcony. I felt the spray from the sea. Exciting. Precarious. Tense. My father’s calm voice. I remember the terms my father taught me: five-card draw, seven-card stud, straight flush. The feeling of something important happening that I would never forget.
IN MY FATHER’S LOG I find the reference:
To Portofino and the Hotel Splendido.
The wonderful balcony
Muscat grapes
Poker
8/7/65
I don’t recall the Muscat grapes. I can’t find a photo of the hotel that looks familiar. The calmness of the Mediterranean depicted on the website does not match my memory of the waves ravaging the
rocky coast. The balconies look larger and protected. The wrought iron is not curved.
dogfight
THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN BORDERED THE PRESIDIO IN SAN Francisco, offering a wonderful venue to walk my dog. With views of the San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz, our walks along the dirt paths through the groves of eucalyptus and spruce and the fields of wildflowers were very happy times. Monty always wagged his tail excitedly, sniffed the air hungrily and chased after tennis balls we threw for him. The paths were of endless interest to him with their scents of other dogs, an occasional rabbit or cat. My father and I went together on these walks. When my father reached for his fedora, his coat and the leash from the hall closet, Monty began to dance excitedly on the parquet floors, as eager as I to leave the house, go down sixty-three steps to the street, turn left for two blocks and then take a right onto Arguello Boulevard into the Presidio. Exiting the bustling city, within minutes we were in a world of trees and fields. I asked lots of questions about things that we saw; we talked about the songs of birds, the color of the Monarch butterflies, the spots on ladybugs, the smell of eucalyptus, why moss grew on the north side of the trees but not the south. My father diligently answered all my questions and it made me feel lucky and protected that he knew so much. Several times when Alcatraz came into view, we talked about serious things like what a maximum-security prison was and about the great escape that had taken place in 1962 when I was seven.
On a Sunday afternoon in December 1966, my father and I were along our usual walk. I was eleven. We were talking about Alcatraz. I was preoccupied with the prisoners who had not been found. I asked my father whether the men who escaped might be hiding in the Presidio. He reassured me that this was unlikely, that they probably had drowned trying to reach Angel Island. I felt troubled that he wasn’t certain.