The Discomfort Zone Read Online Free Page B

for six consecutive Augusts, because the railroad my father worked for sometimes bought rail-maintenance equipment from the house’s owner. Without informing the owner, my parents also took the liberty of asking along our good friends Kirby and Ellie, their son David, and, one year, their nephew Paul. That there was something not quite right about these arrangements was evident in my parents’ annual reminders to Kirby and Ellie that it was extremely important that they not arrive at the house early, lest they run into the owner or the owner’s agent.
    In 1974, after we’d vacationed in the house for five straight years, my father decided that we had to stop accepting the owner’s hospitality. He was giving more and more of his business to one of the owner’s competitors, an Austrian manufacturer whose equipment my father considered superior to anything being made in the United States. In the late sixties, he’d helped the Austrians break into the American market, and their gratitude to him had been immediate and total. In the fall of 1970, at the company’s invitation, he and my mother had taken their first-ever trip to Europe, visiting Austria and the Alps for a week and Sweden and England for another week. I never found out whether the company paid for absolutely everything, including airfare, or whether it paid only for their meals and their nights in top-drawer hotels like the Imperial in Vienna and the Ritz in Paris, and for the Lincoln Continental and its driver, Johann, who chauffeured my parents around three countries and helped them with their shopping, none of which they could have afforded on their own. Their companions for the trip were the company’s head of American operations and his wife, Ilse, who, beginning every day at noon, taught them how to eat and drink like Europeans. My mother was in heaven. She kept a diary of restaurants and hotels and scenic attractions—
    Lunch at Hotel Geiger “Berchtesgarden”— wonderful food & spectacular atmosphere—Schnapps, sausage (like raw bacon) & brown bread atop mountain—
    and if she was aware of certain historical facts behind the scenery, such as Hitler’s frequent visits to Berchtesgaden for recreational getaways, she didn’t mention it.
    My father had had serious qualms about accepting such lavish hospitality from the Austrians, but my mother had worn him down to the point where he agreed to ask his boss, Mr. German, whether he should decline the invitation. (Mr. German had answered, essentially, “Are you kidding me?”) In 1974, when my father voiced misgivings about returning to Florida, my mother again wore him down. She pointed out that Kirby and Ellie were expecting our invitation, and she kept repeating the phrase “Just this one last year,” until finally, reluctantly, my father signed off on the usual plan.
    Kirby and Ellie were good bridge players, and it would have been a dull trip for my parents with only me along. Iwas a silent, withdrawn presence in the back seat for the two-day drive through Cape Girardeau, Memphis, Hattiesburg, and Gulfport. As we were driving up the road toward the beach house, on an overcast afternoon made darker by an ominous bank of new high-rise condominiums encroaching from the east, I was struck by how unexcited I was to be arriving this year. I had just turned fifteen and was more interested in my books and my records than in anything on the beach.
    We were within sight of the house’s driveway when my mother cried, “Oh no! No! ” My father cried “Damn!” and swerved off the road, pulling to a stop behind a low dune with sea oats on it. He and my mother—I’d never seen anything like it—crouched down in the front seat and peered over the dashboard.
    â€œDamn!” my father said again, angrily.
    And then my mother said it, too: “Damn!”
    It was the first time and the last time I ever heard her