The plane touched down in Vienna just as Tom announced he was hungry enough to eat Mom’s handbag.
“Tom,” Shira said, “we finished all your candy over the skies of Hungary.”
“So now I am hungry on the ground,” Tom said. “That is a different kind of hungry.”
“There are no kinds of hungry,” Jess said from the row behind. “There is hungry, and there is Tom.”
“There is also Libby,” Libby said, phone already in hand. “And Libby has to film the first German sign. It is for my actress portfolio.”
“We are in Austria,” Jess said without looking up from the map. “And the sign says Exit, not Drama.”
“Everything is drama if you film it right,” Libby said.
Adam told a joke about bridges and runways that nobody understood except him. Noa smiled anyway. That was her dad: bad jokes told with the confidence of a man who built bridges that actually held.
“Noa, are you with us?” Libby asked. “You are quiet like a dead battery.”
“I am with you,” Noa said. “I am just remembering how to put a foot on a floor after eleven hours.”
“Like this,” Tom said, and jumped in place. “See? Floor. I am a genius.”
“You are eight,” Shira said. “And take your jacket. It is cool outside.”
Uncle Benny waited outside the terminal with a big sign: GOLD PLUS TWO FRIENDS AND ONE HUNGRY CHILD. His smile was too wide for that hour.
“Yes!” he called. “You look like people who survived a flight. That is a compliment.”
“Uncle Benny!” Tom ran to him. “Are there magnets here?”
“There is a whole Austria here,” Benny said. “Magnets after the suitcases agree to come out. Noa, come give your uncle who gets confused at every traffic light a hug.”
Noa hugged him. He smelled like mint and a folded map. “Do you really get confused at every light?”
“Only the ones that spin,” Benny said. “In Austria half of them spin. It is not fair.”
“So do not drive,” Jess said.
“I will drive slowly,” Benny said. “Slow is almost like correct.”
“That is not the same thing at all,” Jess said, but she was already smiling.
On the way to Hallstatt, Libby filmed windows, cows, and one cloud that looked to her like a crown. “Tell me it is a crown,” she begged Noa.
“It is a cloud,” Noa said.
“A crown of a cloud,” Libby compromised. “Jess, zoom.”
“I do not zoom for clouds,” Jess said. “And you are filming the sky at an angle.”
“Angles are dramatic.”
“Angles are crooked.”
“You are both right,” Adam said, “and please buckle up.”
Shira sang an old song in a low voice and stopped in the middle when the first mountains appeared behind the trees. “Wow,” she whispered. “I forgot how it looks.”
“Have you been here?” Noa asked.
“A long time ago,” Shira said, and smiled too quickly. “Dad’s work. Nothing dramatic.”
“Everything is dramatic,” Benny muttered from the wheel. “Even Dad’s work. He once built a bridge that-“
“Benny,” Adam said.
“What? I only wanted to say the bridge stood.”
“Your bridges always stand,” Shira said. “Your jokes less so.”
Tom yelled, “Lake! There is a lake!” and Noa’s question stayed in her mouth.
Hallstatt looked like a frosted cake set on green water. Roofs with flowers, small boats, mountains with snow on the tips, as if someone had forgotten it was summer. Benny stopped by a little inn with a wooden porch, and Libby was already outside before the trunk opened.
“I live here forever,” she announced. “Say hello to the family in America for me.”
“You live with us in the room,” Jess said. “And you have one toothbrush.”
“A technical detail,” Libby said, and filmed a swan. “Swan number one. He is looking at me.”
“He understands bread,” Tom said. “Can we feed him?”
“No,” Shira and Adam said together, then looked at each other and laughed.
“Why does everyone say no together?” Tom asked. “It is like a choir of no.”
“Because we are parents,” Adam said. “We rehearse.”
Noa stepped down slowly. The air was cool and clean, and the lake glittered. Something inside her moved. Not fear. Not joy. Something in the middle, like a knock on a door from the inside.
“You okay?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Jet lag. Probably.”
“Then a drink and a little walk,” Benny said. “There is a cafe with a cake the size of Tom.”
“The cake is not my size,” Tom said. “I am taller than a cake.”
“You are taller than an average cake,” Jess said. “The cakes here are not average.”
They walked the narrow street. Tourists spoke three languages at once. A little girl pulled her mother toward ice cream. A rowboat crossed the water, and the oars sounded like a soft clock.
“The map says the hotel is on the left,” Jess said, “but the sign says right, and the phone thinks we are inside the lake.”
“How does a phone think we are inside a lake?” Tom asked.
“Because it is a tired genius,” Jess said. “Like me.”
“So we follow the sign,” Noa said.
“Follow the sign,” Jess agreed. “Finally someone listens to engineering.”
Libby stopped at a shop window. “Look at that dress. If I were playing a lost twin in Europe, I would wear exactly that.”
“You are not playing a lost twin,” Noa said, laughing. “You are playing a tourist with a low battery.”
“My battery is full.”
“Forty percent,” Jess said, glancing at the screen.
“Forty percent is full in dramatic terms,” Libby said.
In the magnet shop Tom chose a mountain magnet, a boat magnet, and a cake magnet. Shira said, “One.” Adam said, “Two, because vacation.” Tom hid three behind his back until Shira saw him in the mirror.
“Tom.”
“Two?” Tom tried.
“One,” Shira said.
Noa whispered, “I will buy you another later if you do not tell.”
“You are the best sister in the world,” Tom said.
“I am your only sister.”
“Then it is still true.”
At the cafe on the porch the cake really was huge. Benny told about a castle where he almost got locked in a display room because he thought the exit was a closet.
“Why would you think an exit looks like a closet?” Jess asked.
“Because in castles everything looks like a closet,” Benny said. “Doors. Windows. Once even the king looked like a closet to me, but that was only his back.”
Adam tried a joke about bridges over canals. Shira kicked him under the table. “Stop.”
“That was a good joke,” Adam said.
“It was a bridge with no road,” Shira said, and Noa burst out laughing.
“Noa,” Jess said suddenly, “you are not eating.”
Noa looked at her fork. She really was not eating. She looked at the lake. “It is weird. I feel like I have already been here.”
“Jet lag,” Libby said at once. “On the plane I also felt like I knew the flight attendant from kindergarten.”
“It is not the same,” Noa said. “It is like the smell of a room you remember without remembering why.”
Shira put a hand on hers. “The lake does that to a lot of people. It is too pretty. The brain gets confused.”
“Exactly,” Benny said. “My first time here I thought I was dreaming, then I fell in a puddle.”
“That is not comforting,” Noa said, but she smiled.
“If it is jet lag, you need water,” Jess said. “If it is not jet lag, you still need water.”
Noa drank. The knock inside did not fully go away. “I am fine. Let’s go to the dock.”
On the dock the wind was stronger. Libby filmed three swans. “Swan number seven! He is making a face at me!”
“Swans do not make faces,” Jess said.
“This one does. He is going in the movie.”
“There is no movie,” Noa said.
“Not yet,” Libby said. “This is the raw-footage stage.”
Adam pointed at a mountain and said a name nobody could repeat. Tom tried and sounded like a sneeze. Shira stood quietly beside Noa.
“Are you glad you came?” Shira asked.
“Yes,” Noa said. “I just have a feeling I need to look carefully.”
“At what?”
“I do not know. At everything, probably.”
Across the lake a small boat came closer. For a second Noa thought she saw someone brush a hand across a forehead, the same move she made when the sun was too strong. She blinked. The boat was far. Probably only light and water.
“Noa!” Tom called. “There is ice cream shaped like a mountain!”
“I am coming,” she answered.
“I want some too,” Libby said. “But first tell the swan to stop staring.”
“You talk to him,” Jess said. “You are the director.”
They climbed the narrow street between flowered roofs. Benny pointed at the hotel. “Tomorrow a boat ride on the lake. Anybody volunteer to make sure Tom does not fall in?”
Noa raised her hand first. “Me.”
“I do not fall,” Tom said. “I dive only when needed.”
“You do not dive at all,” Shira said.
“Not yet,” Tom said.
When Benny opened the hotel door and said, “Welcome to my lake dream, this time with air-conditioning,” they all laughed.
At the desk a woman with braids smiled and said in heavy English, “Gold? Family room and girls’ room?”
“Yes,” Adam said. “And if possible a room with no swans inside.”
“No swans inside,” the woman said seriously. “Only outside. And on postcards.”
“Perfect,” Benny said. “I am afraid of postcards that bite.”
In the room for Noa, Libby, and Jess there were two beds and a rug green like the lake. Libby threw her bag on the bed by the window. “Mine.”
“Why yours?” Jess asked.
“Because that is where you film sunset.”
“So film sunset and move after,” Jess said. “I want the wall, not the drama.”
“I can take the couch,” Noa offered.
“No,” Libby and Jess said together.
“Choir again,” Noa said, laughing. “Fine. I will take the middle. Like a referee.”
Libby flopped face down on the bed. “I am dead.”
“Do not die before the boat ride,” Jess said. “I do not fill out forms.”
“Do you hear the lake?” Noa asked by the open window. The sound was distant and soft, water on wood, laughter from another dock.
“I hear a tourist yelling cheese,” Libby said. “Almost the same thing.”
A knock. Tom came in without waiting, magnet in hand. “Mom said to check if you are alive.”
“Alive,” Jess said.
“Dad also said to say we get up early tomorrow,” Tom added. “And Uncle Benny said if anyone wants an extra map he can get confused for her too.”
“Tell Uncle Benny thanks,” Noa said. “And tell Mom I am fine.”
Tom looked at her a moment. “You look like someone thinking about something.”
“I always think about something.”
“Yeah, but now harder,” Tom said, then lifted the magnet. “The magnet is thinking too. It is thinking about the fridge at home.”
“Go,” Libby said from the bed. “Before I film you as swan number eight.”
Tom ran off laughing. Noa stayed by the window. The sun dropped a little, and the lake changed color. Libby fell asleep with the phone in her hand. Jess spread a map on the blanket and whispered, “If we get lost tomorrow, it is not because of me.”
“We will not get lost,” Noa said.
“Good,” Jess said. “Because Libby will film it anyway, and I do not want to be famous as the girl who went right instead of left.”
At night, before sleep, Noa wrote in her small notebook: “Jet lag + lake too pretty = confused brain.” Then she added: “Boat ride tomorrow.” And turned off the light.
From the window a dark green strip of water remained. Libby snored a tiny snore and Jess mumbled something about maps. Noa smiled in the dark, and the knock in her heart finally slowed enough to let her sleep.
