Shrimp Fried Rice and Edelweiss

The crème de la crème...

(Actual book cover)

Very late last Thursday evening, I saw a sliver of light sneaking out from under the door to our den. I reached my arm into the room to switch it off.

Much to my surprise, the Baroness was there. She was eating Chinese food from a carryout carton and slurping from a Mason jar full of crème de menthe. The room smelled like peanut oil and peppermint patties.

She was surrounded by what appeared to be proof pages of some sort, heavily marked up with editing notes from a Sharpie in her hand.

It was her first appearance here in several weeks, and we had begun to worry.

Regular readers of my 5 a.m. Stories are very familiar with Anna Louise Fransen Van Gestel, the late Dutch Baroness who was the first occupant of our home here in Indianapolis. She died in this very house, and her ghost came with the place when we bought it. No extra charge.

For a dead woman, the Baroness has quite a lively personality. She was a noted Shakespearean actress in the 1880s and 1890s, crisscrossing the U.S. and Europe under the stage name Rachel Deane. She gave up acting around 1900, when she married a Dutch Baron, then became a Baroness and had a baby.

She spends a lot of time with Barbara and me, watching classic “Hawaii Five-O” reruns, eating Fig Newtons and playing her accordion. She can be annoying, but hey, she’s part of our family.

“Long time no see, Baroness,” I said. “Not since Halloween. You missed all the major holidays.”

“I’ve been busy with my book.”

“You’re reading a book?”

“No, I’m writing one, smartass,” she replied. The Baroness has quite a snarky mouth.

“It’s a memoir, an account of my war years. Fleeing the Nazis and staying one step ahead of their diabolical assassins. Here, look at the cover.”

I glanced down to see “Secrets of a Dutch Baroness.”  But who was this Eirian J. Williams?

“That’s me. I can’t use my real name, for complicated legal reasons involving some missing propane tanks and shoplifted tropical fish, so, the publisher assigned me a nom de plume.”

(The Baroness, circa 1890, courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society)

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about this Dutch nobility thing. Where does a Baron slot into the pecking order? Is it like, right under the King?”

“Oh, no. After the King and Queen, we have Princes and Princesses, and then there are Dukes and Duchesses.”

“But then come the Barons and Baronesses?”

“No, the next are Marquises and Marquesses.”

“And, then…”

“Then, the Counts and Countesses.”

“And, then?”

“Viscounts and Viscountesses. But, the Barons and Baronesses are right under them.”

“Wow, that’s pretty far down on the ladder. Is there anyone lower than a Baron?”

“Sure. You know those guys who hold up the big signs to attract traffic at the Jiffy Lube?”

“Yes. I get it. Do any privileges come with the Baron title?”

“Of course! If you go to see Professional Wrestling and there is a line at the men’s room, a Baron gets to cut to the front of it! Also, there is a sandwich named after us at the Amsterdam Arby’s!

“But the best thing is, since I’m a Baroness, everybody has to call me “Your Ladyship.”

“Those don’t seem like really great perks, Anna Louise…”

“Ahem. You mean, ‘Your Ladyship’, don’t you?”

“Of course. My mistake. It says here on the book jacket you raised the Baron’s seven children and escaped the Nazis by hiking across the Alps to safety. It says you played your accordion and sang as you hiked.”

“Yes, I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“Um, your Ladyship, you do know that you died in 1934, right? In that bedroom right up there, at the top of the stairs.”

“And?”

“That makes it pretty unlikely that you were running from the Nazis in 1940 and hiking through the mountains with a bunch of yodeling juvenile delinquents.”

“Bob, If you’re going to quibble over minor details, then you won’t get this inscribed first edition of my book.”

I ignored her. “Let me get this straight. There were seven singing children, some snow-capped mountains, the Nazis, a Baron and you?”

“What about it?”

“This book is nothing but a thinly disguised rip-off of ‘The Sound of Music.’”

“Nonsense! Back then, the hills were alive with families harmonizing as they got the hell away from Nazis. There were bound to be some similarities.”

“Similarities, Baroness Van Gestel? Or, should I say, Baroness von Trapp? I’m very sorry, but I cannot let this happen. You can’t just steal a beloved story like this. I am a journalist, and I believe in the sanctity of intellectual property.”

“Bob, Bob, Bob… Look at this advance check from my publisher. You see all these zeroes? I’m rich! Barbara was saying you’d like to finish your basement. Maybe a wet bar, a home theater, a Crosley Jukebox, a Linea Mini espresso machine… It was going to be my gift to you both, but I guess now…”

“A Linea Mini? No way! That’s the very best! Can I get the red one? A Crosley Jukebox? A wet bar? Let’s not be hasty here, your Ladyship. You just keep on editing your book. I’m sure there were plenty of Nazis to go around for all the fleeing families.”

She brightened and dribbled more hoisin sauce into the white carton. “Of course! Any similarity between my story and the Von Trapps is just pure coincidence!”

“Your Ladyship. let’s just keep moving forward on this basement thing. By the way, just so we can keep our story straight, how old would you have been, back then?”

Her Ladyship smiled and took a dainty sip of her crème de menthe, leaving a sticky green moustache on her lip.

“Let’s just say I was sixteen, going on seventeen, and leave it at that...”