As I neared Radó’s studio, I heard a lovely, youthful-sounding voice full of light and sparkle, and listened, with chills running up and down my spine, until there was a break so that I could go in. I opened the door of the studio in time to see Radó finishing the last phrase. It was she who had been singing! She was in her late fifties at the time. I was awestruck.
After introductions all around, Radó asked me if I would like to stay and listen. I nodded and sat down. This was the first of many voice lessons I observed with utter fascination. I knew that she had taught many of the outstanding stars of the European opera houses at that time, and I found it a great privilege to watch and listen while this extraordinary teacher taught students to put light and ease, strength and support, flexibility and control into their voices. The Frau Professor was very kind and sometimes explained things to me that I otherwise would not have understood. She never asked what I was doing there, observing her class, or why I had the time to listen to singing. I never felt ashamed that I couldn’t function. I was accepted with no questions asked.
It was comforting to lose myself in the world of singing and to feel at ease with a group of musicians—Martha’s fellow voice students—who came from all over Europe. They seemed to accept me without asking what I was doing in Vienna. It was almost as if I could go to Radó’s studio incognito. Sometimes I would join a group for coffee afterward. The talk, often in a language “mish-mash,” as we called the mixture of French, German, Italian, English and other less familiar languages, would center on singing.
I knew there was some irony in my fascination with vocal art, as my own voice, even my speaking voice, was still high-pitched and thin due to losing such a large proportion of my abdominal strength. My vocal support was so shallow and nonexistent that I couldn’t even finish a spoken phrase without taking another short breath, let alone sing even a sotto voce fragment of song. So how could I stand to be reminded all the time of the glories of the human voice, when mine had weakened to such an extent?
The answer is that living vicariously in the singer’s world was a welcome escape. My self-identity was as a pianist, and the loss of my own playing was a gut-wrenching reality. I had lost my pianistic voice, and listening to instrumental virtuosity of any kind had become an agonizing reminder of that enormous loss. But since I did not have a comparable stake in singing, I could throw myself into the world of song as a way of maintaining musical continuity. I knew that singing is at the very core of all music. I knew that immersing myself in the rich lore of opera and song could only add to my musicianship. Even in escape mode, I was thinking toward that time when my strength would return, and I would have all of this to bring back to piano playing.
We found that as registered students at the Academy (which cost approximately $16 per semester), we could obtain free standing-room tickets to the opera and to many concerts. Of course, standing in the standing-room sections was out for me, but there was a solution. I bought a tiny, featherweight folding stool that I could put into a lightweight bag, and smuggled it into the opera. Then, when surrounded by other standees or after the lights had gone out, I unfolded the stool and sat on it, leaning against the wall or against a bunched-up coat propped between me and the next step up. It didn’t matter too much if I could see or not. I could stand up for a couple of minutes for a part I particularly wanted to see, then sit down again.
I said wistfully to Martha that if only I could get to the front part of the standing-room section, I could sit down, and also see the stage. But there was always a line for the front places. One evening I looked down at the front row of standees and saw a young man with glittering eyes and a strange way of tossing his head. He was talking to, or rather at, some other standees in the front row. They were laughing at everything he said, watching him as one watches some strange creature. They had left some space between themselves and him—not a whole standing space, but a good half space. I wondered why, but as I watched, no one filled in the space. I took a deep breath, picked up my folding stool, put my coat over it, and made my way down to the front row. I put my hand proprietarily on the railing and stood, looking straight ahead, shaking inside, wondering if anyone would order me to leave.
I could feel the strange young man to my right looking at me. “Well, who is this?” he asked the other standees. One of the girls giggled. They were waiting for him to order me out, I was sure. He seemed to have power. I said nothing, only stared straight ahead as if I had not understood. I knew that the Viennese could spot an American a mile away, so it was easy to pretend that I didn’t understand him.
“Well, I wonder who this could be?” he tried again, to more giggles. “Do you suppose it’s Graahss Kell-lly?” (Grace Kelly in German, I thought to myself, trying to keep from laughing.) I couldn’t help smiling a little, and he must have seen it. I tried to think of the best way to explain in German that I would be content with a half space because I would be sitting down most of the time, but my heart was pounding too hard for me to think clearly enough how to say this. One of the women on my left spoke up.
“This isn’t a place here,” she said. “You can’t stay here.” I glanced at her as if I hadn’t understood, but she was looking at the “crazy boy,” as I had heard someone calling him, for confirmation.
“Ah,” he said. “But this is Graahss Kell-lly in our midst! If Graahss Kell-lly wishes to stand here, then Graahss Kell-lly may stay.” The others laughed again and turned away from me. Finally, I found the words.
“Thank you very much,” I said to him. “I’m going to sit most of the time anyway.” I took out my folding stool, and he helped me set it up. Then he sat down on the step beside me and began talking to me about all manner of things. I knew that the others thought him crazy. But my German wasn’t good enough to tell if he was making complete sense or not. He did have a strange look in his eyes, but I had the feeling that he was mocking himself at the same time.
“I am the leader here,” he confided. “I must have power. I must be first.” I listened and nodded, thinking to myself that it was fortunate for me that he had taken such power for himself.
From that time on, the “crazy boy” was my protector in the standing-room section. If he was there, I always had a place in the front row and could see most of the opera while I sat on my stool and listened. During the intermissions, he talked of many things—philosophy, Chinese poetry, and the usual opera gossip. We didn’t exchange much information about personal things or areas of music study. He knew that I had been stricken with Kinderlähmung (the German word for polio), but I tried to avoid any other talk about my illness. Besides, this way, I could remain Graahss Kell-lly.
Chapter Eight
Struggling Forward in Vienna
My sitting-up time had reached a plateau of about four hours a day. I could stretch it for a special occasion, but the next day I would have to reward my back and neck muscles with some extra rest. I was still in pain most of the time. My shoulders, neck, and arms ached from the slightest effort, such as wearing a winter coat, so I sometimes called them the “coat-wearing” muscles.
Most days I also had insistent neck pain just from holding my head up. The ache or pain would shoot up into my head and make it difficult to think clearly. But I hated to mention this condition, because I didn’t want anyone associating me with phrases such as “pain in the neck” or “headache.”
One useful thing I could do was pick up Staatsoper standing-room tickets at the Academy before or after a harpsichord seminar. The main office had thoughtfully placed seating outside the door for students waiting in line. One day I fell into conversation with a charming, sturdy young American with strawberry blond hair, the resonant voice of a singer, and a slightly impish look in his blue eyes. I was surprised to find that he was from the same part of Pennsylvania as Martha, and so I mentioned her name and where she grew up. He looked at me with a shocked expression.
“She’s my cousin!” he exclaimed, staring at me in utter amazement. He had b
een in the U.S. Army and was studying in Vienna on the GI Bill. He didn’t know that Martha was in Vienna, and she had no idea of his whereabouts. By the time we got our tickets, Earl and I had exchanged information, and I had invited him back to our rooms to see his cousin. I was attracted to Earl, and he seemed to respond to me.
Martha and Earl exchanged family gossip and caught up on each other’s singing careers and study. We arranged to have dinner together soon, and I thought Earl’s long look at me when he left told me what I wanted to know.
Our dinner together at Earl’s place started off in delightful fashion, especially when he asked casually if I would like to go to a concert with him. A couple of times he wanted to find out more about what I was doing in Vienna, but I brushed that off with a casual “I haven’t been well, but I’m fine now and I’m studying harpsichord.”
Soon, however, my spinal muscles began to show signs of their usual fatigue, and Martha asked Earl to find a cushion for me. I tried to say it didn’t matter, but the search for a cushion opened a conversation about my condition, and soon Martha had told him the story.
There was no way to avoid it, but I knew everything was over before it had begun. While Martha was explaining carefully why my back was weak, I saw Earl’s expression change. Martha told him to put his hand on my back, where he could tell how little muscle I had left. He did, but gingerly, as if the whole idea made him uneasy.
The faint beginnings of romance became lost in the aura of sickness around me—the first of many such incidents “AP” (After Polio) reminding me that I was unattractive because of my damaged body. It wasn’t much of a surprise, as my self-image was already deteriorating. As a vital person, I seemed to have gone the way of my piano playing.
Earl stayed in touch with Martha and helped reassure us at the time of the Hungarian Uprising in October and November of 1956. The hostilities in the nation next door had brought back familiar anxieties to the Viennese and put the city on alert. At the time, World War II was never far from anyone’s psyche. Bombed buildings—still unrepaired—were a constant reminder, while the triple and quadruple locks on people’s doors were another sign of fear and distrust.
When the uprising broke out, Hungarian refugees began to pour over the border into Austria, and everyone we knew was taking spare clothing and food to collection points in the city. From there, volunteers took supplies to the refugee camps along the border. Martha and I made trips to one of the collection points, too, and it was touching to see so many people who obviously didn’t have much in the way of material possessions arriving with bundles of clothing and goods.
The Viennese feared that Soviet tanks might return, especially since the Austrians obviously sympathized with the Hungarian rebels. The Soviets had left Austria in 1955, only a little over a year before. Many foreign students were opting to leave Vienna, feeling it was too risky to be so close to the turmoil in Hungary. Some Americans Martha knew were leaving for Switzerland. Although Martha and I were not inclined to leave, we consulted with Earl, who gave us a concise plan for what we should do if we saw any sign of escalation. Whenever either of us left the flat, we were to take along such basic things as our passports, cash, an extra sweater and scarf, some packable form of food, and other essentials. At the first hint of a crisis, we should try to find a streetcar heading west, and stay on it as far as it went. Then we should continue west on foot.
The thought of the streetcar made me nervous, as I couldn’t ride one in safety. I had to sit down when the vehicle was not in motion, since my back wasn’t strong enough to support me once the car had started up again. If I tried to grasp a handle while standing, it put too much strain on my arm and shoulder, since I always had to hold my elbows against my sides for support when using my arms. And yet to the casual observer I did not look handicapped, especially since I could walk to the streetcar and up the steps into the car. I was young and probably looked healthy from the outside, so I inevitably incurred resentful stares or actual complaints from other passengers when I tried to get a seat.
In a crisis, of course, those problems would be secondary; and Martha and I took Earl’s instructions seriously. For months thereafter, neither of us left the flat without the essentials for a quick flight. But we also laughed at a bitter joke going around Vienna at the time: A fictitious telegram from doomed Hungarian leader Imre Nagy to the Austrian government asks, “Send tanks,” to which the reply is, “Eins oder alle beide?” (“One or both?”)
While waiting for Staatsoper tickets, I had another chance meeting that resulted in a delightful conversation with a piano student by the name of Dady Mehta. Dady talked a lot and laughed a lot. He was clearly of East Indian descent, but explained that he had grown up in China, attended music school in Paris, and was now in Vienna for graduate study. Ordinarily I would have shied away from talking with a piano student, but Dady chatted so easily about a wide range of things that he made me feel at ease. I thought that Martha would enjoy him, too, and arranged for him to meet us for tea one day. My chance meeting with Dady turned into something very special; the next thing I knew, he and Martha were dating. He was to become her future husband and the love of her life.
One day a letter came from my family, looking like the others that arrived regularly, with my mother’s clear and flowing handwriting on the envelope. I opened it eagerly and read the first page, which was conversationally written about everyday things. But when I got to the second page, I suddenly realized that the first page had been a careful and thoughtful prelude to devastating news.
“Our dear Nana has gone to join my dad,” my mother had written. “We are thankful that she went quickly and that her last day was a particularly pleasant one.”
I was trembling in shock as I read the rest of the letter. Mom explained that Nana had been playing cards with some friends, and then had sat back in the chair for a few minutes, rested her head against the top of the chair, and was gone. She and Dad were thankful that Nana’s heart had given out before the cancer became more painful. Cancer? Mom and Dad hadn’t told me about that.
Everything around me was falling away, as I tried to comprehend that Nana, my grandmother and lifelong close pal, had died. Annie Wasielewski Gibson had been there when I was born, had lived with us always, and was my treasured friend and confidante. She had come to visit me in Pittsburgh when I was a student at Carnegie, and had charmed my friends there with her warmth, personal depth, and sense of fun. To everyone’s delight, she even spoke Polish with one friend who came from a Polish-speaking family. We could all discuss our student lives and dreams with her over a traditional Central European-style supper she would gladly prepare for us. By the time she was ready to leave, everyone was asking how soon their new friend Nana could come back.
Now, I kept replaying something Nana had said to me at home in Michigan just before I left for France. She had told me, in a quiet moment, that she was sensing her late husband, Will, my grandfather, as closer to her than he had seemed for many years after his death. “He has always been slightly ahead of me,” she had said, with tears in her eyes, “but now he is just at my shoulder.” She told me that I mustn’t be sad if she went to join him before I returned. At the time I wanted to interpret this as Nana’s general perspective: If the unthinkable were to happen, it is part of life. She was always saying, in one way or another, that we must savor the moment and know that loved ones are always with us.
But the possibility that I might never see Nana again was something I couldn’t have imagined. She had talked often about Will, and my younger brother, Gary, and I felt almost as if we had known him. At age sixteen, young Annie had fallen deeply in love with thirty-two-year-old Will Gibson and had married him in the same year. Their only child, my mother, was born three years later. Both Mom and Nana had told me wonderful things about Will. He had taken on the task of supporting his mother and sisters when his father had died suddenly, though Will himself was only twelve at that time. He had met adversities with humor and resource
fulness, and had always put things into a perspective that made them bearable.
That last conversation with Nana began to haunt me as I attempted to process the fact that I would never see her again. Why hadn’t I gone back to Michigan sooner? How could I have missed seeing her one more time?
Martha was understanding and supportive. Sieghart tried his best to comfort me, and during the weeks that followed, he went with me on walks to nearby churches. As a child I had accompanied Nana on some of the many visits she had made to St. Mary’s, the Catholic church in our neighborhood. She had always maintained her Catholicism as something private, since Will had been a Presbyterian, and my mother, their only child, had been given the freedom to choose either or neither. As soon as I had come to Europe, I had begun to collect little souvenirs and postcards for Nana from the Catholic churches and cathedrals I had a chance to visit. Now, all I could do was look for the right church where I could have a novena said for her. I chose the small Baroque Church of St. Anne.
Everything seemed to remind me of Nana. I had been helping Martha to learn Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben (Woman’s Love and Life), but had to beg off for a while. Its story was painfully reminiscent of Nana’s life: her adoration for her beloved Will; her treasured child, who looked like him; and her feeling that the one cruel thing he had ever done to her was to die too soon. Will had passed away when Nana had not yet reached the age of forty.
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