Chapter Eighteen Fran

Chapter Eighteen

Fran

Manhattan, New York

1959

It's only when Maria stops speaking and primly folds her hands in her lap that Fran realizes she's been holding her breath. So this was it. This was the start of the Trapp Family Singers.

"And the Nazis at the Salzburg Music Festival—"

"Never happened," Maria says harshly, rising from the park bench. Around them, men are shrugging into their jackets and women are buttoning their sweaters as the wind picks up.

"Mr. Hammerstein is going to want my notes by Monday," Fran says, also rising from the bench. "I wouldn't wish to impose on your weekend, but I don't suppose you're free tomorrow?"

"If you don't mind me bringing Lorli. She's driving down from Connecticut to see me tonight."

"That would be wonderful!" Fran exclaims. Little Lorli, who must be almost thirty by now. "Connecticut," she repeats, surprised. For some reason, she imagined that all of the children would have settled close to Maria, in Vermont.

"Yes. It's not so far away." But Maria's voice catches when she says this. "She's married with five daughters. Can you believe? I have twenty-nine grandchildren now."

"It must be wonderful to have so much family." Fran herself has no one in the city, and even though she loves her job at Rodgers & Hammerstein, there are times when she catches herself thinking of home.

They begin to walk, and she's reminded of something Hammerstein said when he'd heard that Maria was in New York. "I realize it's still a month away," Fran tells her, "but let me know how many tickets you'll want for the premiere. You can take up an entire row—even two—if you'd like."

But Maria's smile falters. "I doubt that will be necessary."

"Oh, it's no trouble. It's your story, after all. We—"

"One ticket."

Fran stares at her to see if she means it.

After work that evening, over hamburgers at the Moondance Diner, Fran repeats the story for the table. Jack is there, and while they drove to the diner together, an obvious separation exists between them. His arm isn't slung casually around her shoulders, and the big smile he normally reserves for her is now flashing at the waitress. Then a memory resurfaces of him playing the piano with Hammerstein in the Hamptons. Maybe Eva had been right.

For once, she's glad Eva isn't here, even though Friday-night dinners have become a tradition. Instead, Peter is on his own, seated between two men who work for Dick Rodgers. The three of them are absorbed in her tale, trying to figure out what it means.

"I don't think it's exactly a mystery," Jack says, plunking down his empty beer glass. "Her children are still upset about seeing the German film."

"Which was the basis for this script," Fran points out heatedly. "And no wonder. The last half of this show is nothing like her life."

But Jack isn't bothered by it.

Peter puts down his napkin and frowns. "So is she angry?"

"I can't tell," Fran admits. She leans back against the booth. "But she knows it's unlikely Hammerstein will meet with her and that I'm simply typing up notes for him."

"Oh, Fran." Jack says her name as if the effort is exhausting. When did he become so condescending? "I really wouldn't put too much effort into that."

Fran is about to respond, but Peter beats her to it. "Why not?"

Jack laughs. "Because he'll take one glance at them and then toss them out. You really think he's going to change the show?"

"Why not? He changed the lyrics in ‘My Favorite Things' after you made that suggestion," Peter argues.

Fran looks at Jack. "What suggestion?"

He doesn't answer.

"Jack thought ‘pink satin sashes' should be changed to ‘blue,'?" Peter explains. " For the longer vowel. And Hammerstein took his advice."

Fran is staring at Jack so hard it's a wonder he doesn't melt into the plastic booth. Then suddenly he gets to his feet.

"You know, who even cares what happens to this play? The whole thing will probably run for twelve nights and never be heard of again." He grabs his leather jacket and meets Fran's eyes. "Go ahead and waste your time."

Everyone in the booth goes silent with shock. Then after Jack is gone, Fran says quietly, " I made that suggestion about the color."

There's an intake of breaths around the table, and one of the men who works for Dick Rodgers tells her it was smart. "But why would Jack do that?"

"Yeah," chimes in another guy. "What's the matter with him?"

Peter looks at Fran and shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause an argument."

The waitress makes a cheerful reappearance with their desserts, but Fran isn't in any mood for eating. The New Yorker article has been nothing but a curse. First her mom, now Jack.

"You know, I'm actually not that hungry. I'm sorry." Fran grabs her handbag and gets up to leave.

"Wait." Peter rises as well.

"Hey, what about dessert?" one of the guys shouts after them.

"You have it," Peter calls over his shoulder.

Outside the diner, Peter exhales. He looks as worn out as Fran probably does, and she wonders if it has to do with Eva. They stand together beneath the neon lights and quietly take in the rush of Manhattan's evening traffic. Perhaps her article is less of a curse and more like the sign over the diner, a garish illumination of everything that hasn't been right in her life.

"Not been a great week, has it?" Peter shoves his hands into the pockets of his sports coat.

"I can't believe he did that. Took my idea and passed it off as his."

Peter shakes his head and a loose curl falls into his eyes. He quickly brushes it away. "Jealousy does funny things to people," he says quietly. They begin to walk toward the station. Peter lives only two blocks from Fran, but they've never ridden the subway together.

"Where's Eva?"

"Probably with her new guy," Peter says, turning away from her.

"Oh, Peter. I'm really sorry."

He shrugs. "She told me last week. I was pretty cut up about it at first. But, you know, I'm not sure I'm all that upset about it anymore."

"Still, four years—"

"It's a long time, isn't it?" His hazel eyes focus on hers. "You all right?"

Fran blinks back tears. "I just…I feel like my ambition is a curse."

"What?" Peter stops walking. "Franny, you should never say that."

"It's true. My mother thinks I'm wasting my time with writing. And now my writing has come between me and Jack—"

"Jack came between you and Jack," he says firmly. "Not the writing." They've reached the station, but Peter pauses at the top of the stairs, causing a line of people to grow behind them. "You have a gift, Fran. The curse would be if you abandoned it."

—

Fran thinks about Peter's words the next morning as she makes her way back to Maria's favorite bench in Central Park. She hasn't heard from Jack since he stormed out of the diner last night, but she'll have to face him at work on Monday. And what then? At first, Fran had been hurt. Now she simply feels angry.

She sits on the bench and looks out at the cherry trees. In April, pink blossoms will fill the skyline. But in mid-October the trees are burnished gold. She wants to focus on the task at hand. Finish the interview with Maria, then pass on her notes. But she can't stop thinking about Jack's duplicity or the way Peter had said to her that the real curse would be if she never wrote at all.

Fran is still thinking about Peter when a familiar voice makes her look up. Maria is there in her green dirndl and next to her is a striking young woman. Lorli. Her daughter is dressed almost exactly as she is, in a voluminous green skirt and crisp white blouse. Both women smile, and Fran sees they even share the same rosy cheeks.

"You must be Eleonore." Fran extends her hand, and the young woman shakes it warmly.

"Oh, goodness, just Lorli," she says. "Mother has told me so much about you."

Fran steals a glance at Maria to try to guess what might have been said.

"Only kind things." Maria laughs. "I try never to dwell on the negative."

Lorli's raised brow tells Fran that the truth is somewhat different, but Fran appreciates the remark anyway. She scoots over in order to make room on the bench, but Maria shakes her head and Lorli tells her, "My mother is hoping to make the ten o'clock service at the cathedral."

"Oh, of course." Fran rises. "We can chat as we walk. You leave tomorrow, right?"

Maria sighs. "Yes. Lorli will be here a few more days, taking care of family business. But I need to get back to the lodge."

"My brother is there right now," Lorli explains.

"But he's only twenty," Maria interjects, "and it's a big responsibility."

Fran can see that Lorli is biting her tongue. Maybe Maria doesn't like being away from home. Or it could be that she prefers being in control. Whatever the case, it seems impossible to believe that she has a boy of her own who's now twenty years old.

"So my mother tells me that this show is a lot like the German film," Lorli says. She has no trace of Maria's German accent, but she is blunt like her mother, and for this, Fran is actually grateful.

"Yes," Fran admits while they walk. "Right now, the play and the film are not very different."

"But you will change that," Maria says forcefully, and both women look at her.

Fran inhales. "I'm hoping that Mr. Hammerstein will make some changes, yes. But from a writer's perspective, I can tell you that there are elements of the play that he may not want to alter."

Maria's voice grows thin. "Such as?"

Fran steels herself for their outrage. She has no idea how Lorli will react to the news that her father will be portrayed as a hard-nosed disciplinarian once again. But she imagines it won't be with indifference. This is her father's legacy, after all. "Well, I'm guessing that Mr. Hammerstein will choose to keep your husband's character somewhat rigid. But perhaps it helps to remember that in the end, it's just a character."

"Except that everyone will believe it," Lorli says, incredulous. "How is this happening again ?"

Because the writers were lazy and didn't want to change what had obviously worked so well in Germany, Fran thinks. But to Lorli she says, "This is why I'm taking notes."

Maria begins zipping her crucifix back and forth along its chain. "I promised Georg. I went to his grave and promised him."

Fran swallows. "There are things to be hopeful about," she points out. "This isn't just a play. It's a musical, and Mr. Hammerstein is writing the songs. That will make this very different from the film."

But Lorli isn't buying it. "How?"

Fran can feel herself grasping. "Well, songs add new dimensions to the characters. And I wouldn't think of this as anyone's life story. I would think of it as being based on your life story. Loosely."

"And when people come running up to us in the streets with the assumption that all of it is true?" Lorli challenges.

"Then perhaps you will tell them to visit the lodge for the real story."

The walk to the cathedral is mostly silent. No one is happy, least of all Fran, who should never have been given this job. Because Maria is right. Everyone will believe what they see on the stage. And why should they think anything different? How many of them will bother to visit the lodge in Vermont or read a copy of Maria's autobiography?

While Maria enters the cathedral, Fran waits on a bench with Lorli, and Fran thinks they probably look like sisters. They both have the same light eyes and dark hair. It's Lorli who breaks the silence.

"My brothers and sisters won't be happy to see our father portrayed as a humorless disciplinarian again while my mother comes across as a saint."

Fran nods, understanding. "I'm sure it wasn't easy when the film was released. From what your mother has said, she seems to feel a great deal of guilt."

Lorli seems surprised. "About the film?"

"Yes, and now the musical."

"What you just said to my mother about using the show to lure people to the lodge—none of her children care about that. She might be blinded by the publicity, but what matters most to us is our father and our loving memory of him."

"In the end, the audience will see him just as valiant and lovable as he was in life," Fran promises, her voice steady.

"His children owe that to him. My mother—" But Lorli cuts herself off, not sure if she should go on. Then she draws an unsteady breath. "I'm the one child who consistently visits her," she confides.

"But there are ten children."

"Nine," Lorli corrects quietly. "Martina died in childbirth seven years ago."

Martina, who had been so difficult for Maria when she was young. It seems impossible to think of her as old enough to have children of her own. "I'm so sorry."

Lorli nods, and Fran can see how painful this is for her. "No one but Johannes is even interested in the lodge," she reveals. "We all just want to move on."

Suddenly, Fran feels overwhelmed. What has happened to this family? And why did Hammerstein think she was up to this task?

"You bought into Germany's film version of our lives, didn't you? The happy story about all the children who loved to sing."

Fran's embarrassed to admit that she did. And she can't understand how a woman who married a man for his children no longer retains their affection. "Was there an argument?" she asks.

Lorli laughs. "Just pick a topic and I can tell you what the arguments were about. Religion? None of us were religious enough. Bible every night and Mass every Sunday wasn't adequate. It needed to be about sacrifice. The way Jesus sacrificed for us. So some weeks we went without meat. Other weeks without milk. Or the radio. Or TV."

"Was she always this way?"

Lorli glances toward the cathedral. "She almost became a nun. She's passionate about whatever she does," she explains. "When we could pay the mortgage on the lodge by giving fifteen concerts a month, she used to book thirty. And if one newspaper ran an interview about our family, she wanted another ten. It exhausted us. Because we weren't like her. We needed rest sometimes. And to do other things."

"And she never stopped?"

Lorli shakes her head. "Not even when Rosmarie went missing."

Fran leans forward, the noise of the traffic forgotten. "When was this?"

"Just after my father died. Rosmarie was eighteen and didn't want to sing anymore, but my mother wouldn't hear of it. And without our father, who could my sister appeal to?"

Fran's heart aches for the little girl who once hid in the family car rather than sing on the radio.

"She was gone for three days," Lorli remembers. "The entire city came out to try to find her. When they did, she was wandering barefoot across an empty field. She couldn't even remember her name."

No wonder Maria always lingered on Rosmarie's story. It wasn't disapproval. It was guilt.

"My mother sent her to an institution where they tried to help her. And everyone thought the electroshock therapy had worked because she returned to singing the next month."

Fran can feel her heart actually drop in her chest. "And her stage fright?"

"It turned out they hadn't cured her of that. She had a second breakdown seven years ago and never sang with us again." Fran is shocked to learn this, but Lorli just sighs. "My mother is terrible at facing painful truths, but when Father died, we all felt that a chapter of our lives had closed. It was only my mother who disagreed."

So without Georg—the source of reason and calm—to hold it together, everything began to fall apart.

Lorli glances at the cathedral, obviously wondering how much time she has left. She must decide it's enough, because she continues, "You should understand, my mother grew up very lonely, and her greatest fear has always been that she'll be left on her own. She didn't intend to hurt Ros, she just couldn't understand. And now her misunderstandings and anxieties and fears have driven everyone away."

Which is why she asked for only one ticket to the premiere, Fran thinks. "So did everyone want to quit after your father died?"

"Not immediately. But after Rosmarie had her breakdown, Johanna asked to get married. Of course, my mother's answer was no. But Johanna was already twenty-nine and her boyfriend had been proposing to her for more than ten years. She'd met him at the Chancellery—"

Fran gives a little gasp. "Ernst? The vice mayor of Vienna's son?"

Lorli looks shocked. "My mother told you about him?"

"She mentioned he was there."

Lorli gives a little sniff. "Did she mention that when Ernst finally got tired of waiting, he told my mother himself that they'd be getting married with or without her blessing? Well, you can imagine how she took that."

But Fran didn't understand. "Didn't she want Johanna to get married?"

"And lose one of her lead sopranos?" Lorli smiles ruefully. "She tried locking Johanna in her room," she confides. "But my sister escaped through her window and eloped."

Locking a daughter in her room at the age of twenty-nine! What could Maria have been thinking? Fran tries to imagine how Maria would have felt without Georg, her entire world spiraling out of control. For twenty years she'd been the engine that drove the train, then suddenly the cars were detaching. And what was left? For all of her drive and ambition, she'd come to New York alone, with only Lorli willing to visit.

"I shouldn't have painted my mother in such a dark light," Lorli worries, twisting her hands in her lap. "We would never have survived without her ambition, and that isn't an exaggeration. Our family repeatedly turned down performance requests from the Nazi Party. And the third time we refused, the request came from Hitler himself."

Fran doesn't think she remembers anything about that in Maria's book.

"If my mother hadn't encouraged us to sing and go on tour, we would never have had a way out of Austria. And eventually, they would have sent us to one of the camps over our family's criticism of the Nazi Party. If that had happened, we would have died there." Lorli's eyes grow dark. "Without a doubt. So she saved us. And every one of her kids is grateful to her for that. Who could imagine we would all end up here?" She smiles. "In America."

"And with a Broadway musical," Fran points out.

But Lorli doesn't seem impressed by this. "My mother is stubborn," she warns. "If you can't convince her to fall in love with your play, she might make things difficult."

Lorli's remark has the desired effect on Fran. She smooths the fabric of her skirt with her palms. "Do you think your mother would talk about it to the press?"

"I'm sure she would."

This is what Fran has feared. She can see Maria making her way out of the cathedral, stopping to socialize with people in the narthex. Lorli follows her gaze.

"I apologize if what I've said about my mother is upsetting."

"No." Fran shakes her head. "It's just the truth, and families are complicated. Everyone comes away from their childhood with wounds, some deeper than others."

Lorli seems to connect with this. "Yes." She tugs her dirndl over her knees and thinks. "When we reached America, I was sent to boarding school. I cried bitterly when everyone left me to go on tour. I didn't understand the language or the customs—I didn't even know when they'd be coming back. It was traumatic," she admits. "I wanted to be on tour with everyone else. But if you had asked Rosmarie, she'd have traded places with me in an instant."

So even Lorli had suffered. How old could she have been when they left her? Seven? "And then your family toured all across America," Fran recalls.

"Yes. The touring was hard on them. Months and months on an old bus with no heat, traveling through snowstorms from motel to motel. When my mother became pregnant with Johannes, she let out her dirndl and didn't tell anyone, because a pregnant woman on tour…But none of it started off this way. In the beginning," Lorli remembers, "back in Aigen, it was actually magical."

Maria returns, gushing about the cathedral and interrupting their moment. "Have you been inside?" she asks.

Fran smiles warmly. "Oh, many times." Most days she passes it on the way to lunch. "It's one of the most beautiful buildings in Manhattan."

Maria looks between Fran and her daughter, trying to guess at the conversation, so Fran fills her in.

"Your daughter was just telling me how life was on tour. How magical it was when it first began."

Maria glances down at Lorli and seems surprised. "It was magical, wasn't it?"