The Curse of the Labrador Duck

by Glen Chilton

  THE NEXT DAY was our chance to see even more of Graham Greene’s Vienna. Setting off along Mariahilferstrasse, we found it much quieter on Saturday than on Friday, but the early-morning smell of wet socks was no less powerful than it had been the day before. We wandered down Kärntner Strasse as Rollo Martins had half a century before. Writing in 1950, Greene described the Kärntner Strasse as a ruined shopping district, demolished by wartime bombing, and repaired only to eye level. Well, forget about all of that. Kärntner Strasse is once again a bustling retail mecca featuring super-high-end stuff. If you can find it on Kärntner Strasse, you can’t afford it.

  Near the core of ancient Vienna, Greene described the enormous wounded spire of St. Stephankirche, towering above the inner city. The church’s wounds have since healed. Today the great Gothic spire is one of the great Viennese landmarks, and its tiled roof must make it one of the most-photographed sites in Austria.

  While trying to sort out the comings and goings of the final days of Harry Lime’s life, Rollo Martins had wandered in thoughtful contemplation along the banks of the Donaukanal. Lisa and I found the canal and crossed at the Marienbrücke. I had always heard that the Danube River was blue, and it may be, but I can say with little fear of contradiction that the Danube Canal is almost exactly the color of French Canadian split pea soup. “Danube Canal Green” is sure to become the latest trendy color in the Martha Stewart line of designer interior paints.

  Our destination was Vienna’s Prader district, and the Wiener Riesenrad was our big target. Constructed in 1896, the giant Ferris wheel has survived the ravages of time rather well, and is quite a deal at just 7.50 a turn. There was no line-up, and we were admitted to car number eight along with seven other passengers. At one time there were thirty cars on the great wheel, but only half that number were restored after wartime bombing and the resulting fire.

  In The Third Man, the reprobate Lime agreed to meet Martins at the Riesenrad, and tipped the woman in charge so that they could have the car to themselves. Martins considered pushing Lime out of the car, imagining him as “a piece of carrion dropping among the flies.” Even though we didn’t have the car to ourselves, Lisa and I celebrated life by smooching at the apex. The wheel took about ten minutes to complete the circuit, and I would have been pleased to ride for most of the remainder of the day. Mainly because of the company. And the smooching.

  At one time, the district between the Danube River and its canal was an imperial hunting ground. The Volksprater Funfair arose in the nineteenth century, and today the Ferris wheel is only one of many attractions on offer. We found an endless array of rides and games of chance. Curiously, despite its approaching midday on a Saturday, we found the park almost deserted. The Dizzy Mouse, a small roller coaster, had no patrons, and its larger cousin, the Super 8er Bahn, had only two riders. The Grand Autobahn bumper car ride had only one occupied minicar. This didn’t provide a lot of bumping opportunities for the father-son team in it. The Donau Jump log ride, the Boomerang roller coaster, the bungee jump, and the reverse bungee jump were all deserted. The miniature railway stood mute. The haunted house claimed to feature a Sensationen Thriller Tunnel but could not claim any patrons. Lisa asked for permission, and then patted horses at the pony rides. The ponies had been looking really bored before Lisa arrived, as had the ride operator. Most of the food kiosks were closed, and the rest had the faint aroma of food that has been sitting too long. The total scene was pretty creepy. I almost expected an evil clown to jump out at us from behind the Geister Schloss, which looked remarkably like a Ghost Castle.

  ARRIVING AT VIENNA’S main train station at a civilized hour on a Sunday morning, we had managed to secure reservations in the non-smoking section. The seats faced backward, but I have never seen that as a big drawback. Having been a breech birth, coming into the world bum first, this form of orientation has never seemed too far out of the ordinary.

  And so, back end first, we chugged out of Austria and into the Czech Republic. At the border, a gang of burly armed Austrian border agents got on the train and stamped our passports to show that we had left their country. A few minutes later a single Czech border agent, not at all burly and with no gun in sight, came by to validate the last page of our passports with a barely used green border-crossing stamp. No muss, no fuss, no fee. “Welcome to the Czech Republic.”

  The train took us on through agricultural land, up to highlands, and then back down to agrarian flats. Everywhere the trees wore their autumn best and the golden leaves were pure luminosity. The landscape was dotted with woodlots and towns, some with sprawling factories and some without. Despite its recent entry into the European Club of All Things Wonderful, the Czech Republic seemed to have a bit of catching up to do. Other than some recent-model cars, the scene might have been straight out of 1958. We didn’t see many billboards or glitzy storefront signs. Streetlights were distinctly low-tech. There were many rooftop television aerials but few satellite dishes. The skies seemed almost devoid of airplane contrails, and in one field, and elderly man gathered rocks, or perhaps rutabagas, loading them onto a wooden cart drawn by an elderly ox.

  At the Holešovice train station in Prague, we were besieged by people trying to convince us to stay in one hotel or another; Prague hotels must have a high vacancy rate in late October. For the rest of our stay, we were set upon by people offering to exchange currency for us, a practice we had been told was illegal and possibly dangerous. Indeed, I came to believe that “Do you want to change money?” must be the English expression spoken most frequently and with greatest fluency in Prague.

  Also, we had been warned not to trust Prague taxi drivers; a taxi ride is a good way to be parted from your crowns and hellers. There are official rates for travel within the city of Prague, but drivers use all sorts of schemes for ensuring that a tourist doesn’t pay that rate. Instead we took the metro, which was clean, spacious, and fast. The fare of 12 crowns translates to about 60 cents. The ticket was a small bit of artwork, with swirly and sparkly Spirograph designs, well worth 60 cents all by itself.

  We had dinner in a restaurant attached to a microbrewery. I started with a dark lager and Lisa had 100 ml of Klasická Staročeská, something like sherry and something like mead. I ordered the vegetarian platter and found that it was composed of potatoes, dumplings, carrots, cauliflower, and rice, all boiled and largely unseasoned. Lisa bravely ordered Svíčková na smetaně knedlíky, and found it to be more or less dumplings and beef in candlesauce gravy. I cannot imagine how I went 46 years without ever trying my second drink, Kopřivové. It was Danube Canal green, tasted vaguely of lawn clippings, and was apparently made of nettles. Absolutely fabulous. The whole meal cost 296 crowns, about $15.

  LISA TOOK RESPONSIBILITY for flipping through the guidebook and finding wonderful things to fill our day, which she did brilliantly. We started off with a stroll to the Národní Muzeum, a symbol of Czech national pride. It is also home to the two Labrador Ducks that we were scheduled to see the following day. The front doors are at the top of a magnificent ramp and staircase. The main doors are flanked by statues of History and Natural History, sculpted in 1889 by J. Z. P. Mauder. Give Mauder credit for insight. History is a sad-looking old fellow, propping himself weakly on a tablet. He is missing a toe on his left foot and a finger on his right hand. Some sort of allegory, I suppose. Natural History, on the other hand, is a virile and sexy young chap, planning his next exploit on a globe, with all of his digits intact. I have been describing this sort of scholastic dichotomy to my history professor colleagues for years, and now I have Mauder to back me up. The museum’s backside is a little less opulent than the front side, being adorned with graffiti that even English speakers would recognize as rude. A number of people sleeping rough were propped up against the building.

  And so, with a full day of adventure ahead of us, we turned our backs on the museum. From our elevated position, staring off into the distance, we got a sense of Prague’s smog. If there is a European Union standard on ai
r quality, the Czech Republic must be working off a grandfather-clause exemption. From this vantage, and for the rest of our stay, we saw an endless parade of uniformed police officers on the beat, backed up by scores of roving police cars. Prague has a reputation as one of the safest large cities in Europe.

  The museum faces Wenceslas Square, to which every visitor to Prague is drawn. Once a center for horse trading and the focus of several important protests against the former communist regime, it has evolved into a consumer strip, a sign of change in the Czech Republic. Western chain stores have moved in to take advantage of the new commercial climate. Smaller shops offered trinkets to lure tourists.

  Beyond lay the Old Town, with the Staroměstské Náměstí, or Old Town Square, at its heart. The square’s architecture beggars description, with an amalgam of neo-Renaissance, Romanesque, Gothic, Art Nouveau, and Rococo styles. If you aren’t satisfied with the Church of St. Nicholas, then you can have the Church of Our Lady before Týn. We gathered to see the chiming of the richly appointed astronomical clock in the Old Town Hall. As the top of the hour approached, members of a group of English-speaking youth reminded each other, “Watch out for pickpockets.” At the stroke of 11:00 we watched Death, a Turk, Vanity, and Greed go through their little gyrations.

  Time was passing. Breakfast had been served a long time ago. We aimed for the Karlův Most, the Charles Bridge, reported to be one of Prague’s greatest tourist stops. We were certain that the neighborhood around the bridge was likely to be filled with restaurants, and indeed it was, but each place had something wrong with it. Either the venue was full, it had a posted menu that included no meatless meals, or had a menu written entirely in Czech. The closer we got to the bridge, the more costly the food became, until restaurants were asking 400 crowns for a small tossed salad. I was getting lightheaded from lack of food, but not dizzy enough to pay that price. We wandered away from the bridge, down a back street, and down another back street, and found a nice pizzeria with very reasonable prices and good food.

  Construction of the Charles Bridge began in 1357, and visitors to Prague have been drawn to it ever since. Indeed, unless you are in Prague to drink yourself to death on cheap beer, you are virtually certain to visit the Charles Bridge. At first, only a simple cross adorned the bridge, but starting in 1683, statues of saints were added. I counted thirty-three saints, but may have missed a few. Concentrating on things spiritual was difficult, because the bridge was occupied by a carnival of musicians, jewelry merchants, quick-sketch artists (seven minutes), portrait artists (twenty minutes), and stalls selling sketches and black-and-white photographs of Prague scenes. Like a magpie, I found it difficult to ignore all of the shiny things on offer.

  OUR CAVORTING IN Prague was just a lead-up to the real thing—a date with two Labrador Ducks. Arriving at the National Museum a bit early, we looked across at Wenceslas Square and contemplated the sacrifice of Jan Palach, who set fire to himself in 1969 to protest the Soviet occupation. It would take another twenty years for Czechoslovakia to regain its independence in the “Velvet Revolution.” Just three years later the nation was subdivided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

  At the stroke of 9:25, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer, and we stormed the museum’s doors, only to find them locked. How odd. We found a sign explaining that, “for technical reasons,” the museum was to remain closed until 1 p.m. A gaggle of lawyers had rented the facility for the morning. Undaunted, we tried one door after another, until one opened. Inside, a pleasant guard was more than pleased to take us to the reception desk. The lady at the desk called the extension for my contact, researcher and curator Jiří Mlíkovský, and, finding that he had not yet arrived, invited us to take a seat.

  At this time the first of the museum’s contradictions made itself apparent. Although the building is a magnificent neo-Renaissance construction, there was only one visitor chair, and it bore the remains of an earlier visitor’s chewing gum. We chose to stand. While waiting, we counted the number of different types of marble featured in the grand entrance, spotting ten. Despite this splendor, the elevator was out of commission, and had been for some time. Lisa wandered off and found a statue of a princess, and another of the plowman whom the princess wed. While Lisa wandered, I checked my notes and found that Prague has the world’s sixty-second-largest collection of stuffed birds.

  In contrast to tiny Anita Gamauf in Vienna, Mlíkovský is a giant, with long hair and an enthusiastic beard. It took me a minute to realize he reminded me of musician David Crosby. When Mlíkovský walked, it appeared that his arms were loosely attached to his shoulders, and he swung them with gusto.

  Mlíkovský led us through a side door and we began a long ascent to the museum’s floor with the most rarefied air. When we got to the top, we followed Mlíkovský down a long series of halls and ramps with more twists and turns than a Gordian knot. I couldn’t have found my way back with a map, a compass, a trail of bread crumbs, and a tracker dog.

  Labrador Ducks 29 and 30

  Mlíkovský deserves hero status. Besides facilitating our visit, he had delved deep into the archives to see what he could find about the male and female Labrador Ducks the museum was justifiably proud of. He found reference to them in the 1842 collection of Baron Christoph Fellner von Feldegg, who had purchased them for 12 gulden. Regrettably, no information was available about when, where, or by whom the ducks were collected. Feldegg died three years later, and seven years after that the Czech museum’s Director, Antonin Frič, purchased a portion of Feldegg’s huge collection of 4,500 birds. Strangely, the Labrador Ducks were not specifically mentioned. Even so, by 1854 they were listed as part of the collection of stuffed birds safely housed in the Czech museum. The catalogue system there has jumped around a bit over the years, and my drake and hen are now known by the numbers PMP P6V 4052 and PMP P6V 4053, respectively. And if that wasn’t enough, Mlíkovský was able to tell us that the Czech term for Labrador Duck is Kachna labradorská, although he favoured Turpan labradorský, meaning Labrador Scoter.

  Prague has long been proud of its pair of Labrador Ducks. The drake and hen are mounted on a single contoured base, the former placed a little higher than his mate. Sand and seashells had been glued to the base to simulate an algae-covered seashore. They were waiting for us in Mlíkovský’s office. As soon as I walked in, I said, “Oh, oh!” Lisa jumped in and said, “They’re both males, aren’t they?” Well, yes, dear, thank you for stealing my thunder. They are, indeed, both drakes. The bird thought to be a female is almost certainly a very young male. Mottled gray and brown all over, there was no evidence of a black neck ring or stripe on the head, and at first glance it certainly looked like a female. Even so, the specimen has a swoosh on his bill that I have found on almost all male specimens, no matter how young. Mlíkovský was philosophical about the revelation. “Well, it’s best to know.” Both specimens had been given cherry-red eyes, which seemed a little big for their heads. The taxidermist had been overly enthusiastic with the paint, giving both specimens orange legs and toes.

  After my examination was complete, Mlíkovský gave us a tour behind the scenes. The Labrador Ducks normally reside in a locked cabinet with two Great Auks, a couple of Huias, nine Passenger Pigeons, a Carolina Parakeet, and a Dodo skull. I took a photograph of Mlíkovský with the Dodo skull, a priceless artifact. These specimens won’t be in their present locality for long. The building was 115 years old, and while the front end was maintained beautifully, the back end hadn’t been. After years of insufficient care, the research collection is now due to be moved to the outskirts of Prague, to a facility better suited for preservation.

  Just before our day came to an end, I went for a run through an early-evening mist that made the cobbled streets slick. I ran down a street that changed its name repeatedly, then south along the Vltava, crossing at a railway bridge and cutting back across the Jiráskuåv Most. I stopped halfway across the bridge to remind myself that I might never pass this way again. “Breathe i
t all in while you can, lad.” My upper bronchial tree burned a bit from the smog. My legs were gloriously tired from our adventures. The bridge deck trembled a bit as each passing car hit an unfilled pothole. I could hear wailing sirens on both sides of the river. The city was gently lit as Prague’s one million citizens settled in for the evening. We were five days short of the Czech Republic’s six-month anniversary of entry into the European Union. I think great things are afoot.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Backpacking Through Gotham City

  To my way of thinking, a one-hour airline flight is likely to bring you to a close friend. With a little luck, naughtiness will ensue. Family members or business deals are probably waiting at the end of a two-hour flight. You will be doing well if you get a hug or a handshake. If you are on a flight for four hours, you are likely heading somewhere exotic, hopefully with sandy beaches, palm trees, and a never-closing bar tab. In contrast, a nine-hour flight is simply an insult to the system. Nine hours in the air bring on dehydration, anoxia, disorientation, and nausea, particularly since longer flights are almost guaranteed to end with gut-wrenching turbulence and excessive yaw. And yet nine hours in the air were needed to get Jane and me across an ocean to the eastern United States, and a chance to snap up most of the remaining ducks all in one go.

  I trust that you have been paying attention. If so, then you will have noticed that my wife’s name is Lisa, not Jane. Lisa was home continuing her life-and-death research into the recovery of heart muscle following a heart attack. I was traveling to the United States with Jane Caldwell, a Scottish cardiac specialist who had never been to the U.S., but was keen for the experience. I had absolutely no intention of having a coronary, but even so, I felt a little more secure about life in the presence of a heart specialist. Everyone on Earth has an image of America. Jane was keen to see how America measured up to all the hype.