The Sound of Music led me to Austria
by Opal Palmer Adisa
Joy and elation are the two nouns that come to mind when I reflect back on how I felt as a child upon seeing The Sound of Music (1965) starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. It was my favorite movie then and remains one of those truly positive uplifting movies. I can still remember my mother taking me to see the film at Carib Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica, where we sat in the middle near the front, and she bought me my favorite soda, Cola Champaign, with cheese crunches and a small conical box of M & M chocolates.
I was swept away by the music and the whole experience. I fell in love with Julie Andrews and movies in that moment, thus going to the movies is still a favorite activity whether alone or with family. In fact now that my children are grown and live in different parts of the world, whenever we get together, going to the movies is often one of the activities in which we engage.
I have watched the The Sound of Music countless times, and shared it with my children. Imagine my delight that my girls, in particular, loved it as much as I did. They learned the songs and we sang them around the house, and when we went on long drives from Oakland to Rialto, California or to Reno or to the Russian River. The crisp, clear soprano, 2 octave range of Julie Andrews’ voice still echoes in my head, especially my favorite song from the movie, “I have Confidence in Me.”
Thus it was only natural on my first European trip in 1982, to chart Austria into my itinerary as I was determined to visit the site of this film that remains dear to my heart. Little did I know that my youngest daughter Teju, would, thirty plus years later end up studying in Austria for a semester.
In 1982 I arrived in Vienna where I spent three days, then took the train to Salzburg and booked a tour that included visiting some of the key sites where The Sound of Music was filmed, including The Benedictine Convent on Nonnberg, where I stood at the gate and could hear the nuns singing, “Maria,” and recall the innocence of Maria, the protagonist. I also visited the Mirabell Gardens, paused in front of St Peter’s cemetery and relived the tense flight scene, and sat for a long time in Residemz Square by the fountain where I took a picture wearing a yellow t-shirt under my red jumpsuit, all the while hearing inside my head Julie Andrews singing “I Have Confidence in Me…”
In 1982 Austria was truly a white European city and it wasn’t until I was four days in my tour that it dawned on me that I had not seen another Black person, not even an Asian. I had been going about my business eager to take in all I could by my lonesome self in a sea of whiteness. Although I had gotten some quizzical looks, some raised eye-brows, I felt at ease — so much so that I decided one night to attend an outdoor venue that monthly hosted a waltz.
I don’t remember what the venue was called, except it appeared pecunious, and I was sourly underdressed as most of the women there had on flowing evening gowns, with their straw hairs brushed and pinned. There I sat, totally absorbed and delighted with my short dread-locks sticking from my head and wearing a white summer shift. Many of the men were also decked in three piece suits. The air was elegant and lithe, and my eyes roamed and moved with the dancers as they circled the large arena stage. Many of the waltzes were familiar. My mother was an accomplished pianist — she also played the organ at church — and many Saturdays she would entertain us by playing the piano at home and I would sail on my tippy-toes throughout the living room swirling and spinning to my mother’s (and my) favorite, “The Blue Danube” by Johann StraussII, and other waltzes that she played.
I was having a good time, and not at all feeling left out, when a young man, very pale and thin with blonde hair glided over to me and extended his hand. I smiled and declined but he was having none of it. He spoke a little English. I said I couldn’t waltz, but he said he would be happy to teach me, so reluctantly I left the chair I had been warming the greater part of the night and placed my hand in his and off we went. Soon I was among those dancers gliding across and around the stage. It felt like a dream, like a scene from the Sound of Music, except I was the star. I think we waltzed to “Dance of the Swans” by Tchaikovsky, Chopin’s “Spring Waltz,” and another waltz I was not familiar with played by the live orchestra.
It was a splendid evening and I returned to my hotel room feeling elated. The next morning I got up early, and caught the train to Vienna. With no specific plan, I wondered around the city, and at a museum, met two white Americans, a mother/daughter duo, the daughter close to a decade older than me, also on their first trip to Europe. They invited me to join them at a semi-chick garden restaurant for lunch, that they assured me was not too expensive. It was a lovely place, very European with dainty ornate tea cups and thin cheese and cucumber sandwiches that cost as much as I paid for a hearty, but bland dinner the previous night, but I told myself to relax and enjoy the experience.
Almost immediately upon being seated there was some sort of consternation at the table directly across from where we were seated, where, three robust men, Germans I assumed from their accents, having recently traveled to Frankfurt and then Munich. After a while it became clear that the commotion was about me and my presence in the restaurant. This prompted great objection from the three men, although only two were demonstrative in their racist behavior. It was so blatant that even the mother/daughter (from middle America, mind you) said to me — at least the mother did, “I don’t think they are too happy about you being here.” I turned to look at the table and the hate was pitiable you could slice it with a butcher knife. I looked around at the all white room, most people pretending as if nothing was adrift, a few seemingly shocked and/or embarrassed by the three men, with a minority who seemed to be in agreement with them.
I believed that was the first time I felt it was dangerous to be a Black woman traveling alone, but I refused to buckle. I raised my back, held my head high and nibbled and pretended as if I were enjoying the watery tea and thin sandwiches. I was paying for it so I was going to eat it, but in truth the lunch was ruined. The three of us were dissatisfied, so we paid and left, the three men still glaring and gesticulating, and me glancing over my shoulder several times to make sure they were not following me.
It was my last day in Austria and I did not want that encounter to mar all of the other positive experiences I enjoyed in that country. And so, perhaps the universe wanted to right the blotch as the next morning after checking out of the hotel and going down to breakfast, I encountered the first and only other Black person I saw during my entire duration in Austria. A waiter from the African continent. He spoke no English, but our eyes drank in each other, and I lingered until after most of the other breakfaster had left and asked him where he was from. Togo he said, and I said Jamaica. He smiled and bowed, then cleared my plate. As I trundled my suitcase, heading for my next European destination, I wondered if that lone African had family in Austria or if he were alone, daily rowing on the sea of whiteness. And I, having to mitigate and deflect the unreasonable hatred of some whites, the ones who spew their venom everywhere they go.
The Sound of Music is about music and love conquering hate, but it is also about finding one’s true path and following it. I have certainly done that in my life, and that same resolve, that same dogged determination to go wherever, and not allow others to determine or limit my direction and place in the world is evident in my children — an unshakable trait in Teju who is making her mark in Vienna. Thank you Julie Andrews!
