I HAD A FARM IN AFRICA

I lost my heart to Isak Dinesen when I was a senior in high school. That was the year I took an English class titled “Around the World in 80 Days.” It was taught by Margaret Gardiner, one of the most sophisticated teachers I had before I went to college. She had been a dancer on Broadway, and was tall and elegant and vain. She had a facelift in the middle of the school year. This was when plastic surgery was stigmatized rather than anticipated, and we gossiped like mad about her. We wondered if she could still kick as high as a Rockette, that sought of silliness. She spoke in a clipped accent, like upper class New Yorkers still do. Her voice was like a mellifluous Phyllis Diller’s, if you can imagine that. It carried. It registered.

Her English class opened up world literature to me. She assigned The Stranger by Camus and Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton and I wish I remembered what else. I don’t recall if she also assigned Dinesen, but I am certain that I found my way to her through Margaret Gardiner.

She served as a chaperone to the best field trip I took ever. We went with the Drama Club to New York City, and saw Equus on Friday evening, complete with a sighting of Richard Burton after the show, and A Chorus Line on Saturday evening. On Sunday afternoon Mrs. Gardiner took a few of us down to the Village to see the Lina Wertmuller’s Seven Beauties. This was before cable television, before video and DVD rentals, so we weren’t exposed as regularly to so much. Our popular cultural menu was quite slim. After the movie, Mrs. Gardiner suggested we not mention its baudy themes to our parents. I don’t think I did at first, which was liberating. But then I did and my parents didn’t seem to care, which was even more liberating.

I became a fan of Lina Wertmuller’s. One year I had a Connecticut license plate without a photo, one that said “VALID WITHOUT PHOTO,” I cut out a little head shot of the internationally famous director Lina Wertmuller from one of the New York papers, either the Post or the Daily News, definitely not the Times, and put it on this license. She had that cropped short blonde hair and those wild Italian glasses. I tried to use it as an ID a few times, and got the bouncers and bartenders to laugh at me and with me. Then, I lost my wallet. A year later, I got a call. The local mass transit authority had found my wallet. Everything was in it except two things: the cash and the Connecticut license plate with Lina Wertmuller’s photograph on it.

I thought of Mrs. Gardiner this evening because I’ve got New York on my mind. She is part of that memory-scape. I’ve also been trolling for sweeps to Africa, to Kenya, Namibia. That got me thinking of Isak Dinesen, which also got me thinking of Margaret Gardiner.

She had one of the saddest stories, one that sends chills down my spine as a mother. One New Year’s Eve, her daughter’s date stood her up. Mrs. Gardiner encouraged her daughter to go out and have some fun, not to sit home and sulk. She died in a car accident that night. Not only do I think of that story every New Year’s Eve, I think of it at various times when I make a decision for my son, when I chose him doing one thing over another. When he’s older, he’ll make decisions on his own, but I will have sometimes still have some say. I’ll do as I do now. I’ll toss the coin. I’ll call heads, and pray tails loses.

Yes, I’m looking for sweeps to Africa. I’ve found one, sponsored by Land Rover, but it looks as though it’s only for residents of the U.K. I’ve got time to confirm that, as it runs through September. It looks quite lovely if a bit short, six nights in all, with stays on Elsa’s (yes, that Elsa, the Born Free Elsa) Kopke and Tortillis lodges in Kenya’s Meru and Amboseli National Parks.

It’s very British, this one. In the form for title, your choices are the usual Mr. an Mrs. and Ms. as well as Sir, Professor, Reverend, Lord and Lady.

I almost entered as Lady Barbara Benham, but decided against it. How silly it would have been to be disqualified because I’d tried to pass myself off as a lady.