Shanta Bär, Hostess Extraordinaire

We wait between stacked plastic chairs and our luggage for somebody to let us in. A hotel guest explains that the owners do not live here and she offers to contact them on her cell phone. A handy, (cell phone) I think, is really handy in this town with its noon to three naptime. But before I can dwell on my irritation, a station wagon stops a few inches from the steps to the hotel. The driver introduces herself as Shanta Bär, owner of the Pfälzer Hof, and while she quickly arranges chairs and tables on the deck, she engages us in a fast paced conversation. A cup of coffee for me and a Fanta for Stephanie, on the house, before we are escorted to our room.

That evening I get to know Shanta as the cook of exotic dishes for hotel guests who come from all over Europe. Hotel guests who, so I am told, on occasion include the Indian National Soccer Team. Shanta’s brother is their manager.

Our hostess was born in India; she grew up in England, and eventually met and married my grade school principal’s son, Theo Bär.

She was a singer once, and a dancer. Now she teaches ballet to the granddaughters of my former classmates. A flyer at the front desk says that she is also a belly dance and yoga instructor. Two days a week, upstairs, (in the old ballroom.)

One morning Theo introduces Stephanie and me as his girlfriend and her daughter from America to two Pakistani businessmen.

“Imagine!” I whisper to Stephanie after the gentlemen have left, “India and Pakistan are always at odds with each other. I like the Bärs.”

As is the custom in small restaurants, Shanta welcomes her guests personally at dinnertime. She sits with us too, for a while, gently extracting our story and building up her knowledge of our preferences.

“Stephanie, was the ‘Chicken Tandoori’ too spicy? Maybe tomorrow you will eat lamb with basmati rice?”

After a few days she prides herself in having gauged exactly the amount of curry my granddaughter can handle. For dessert she delights Stephanie with plain vanilla ice cream.

“Ohne Mango Soße und ohne Sahne,” she smiles at me. “Ohne Alles.”
Patting Stephanie on her back she repeats in English, “Without mango sauce and without whip cream. Without everything.”

One evening, almost ten o’clock, she puts her feet up on an empty chair. Would I mind, she asks, it’s been a long day. Though she employs a neighbor to help with the rooms and another neighbor to cook some of the meals, she spends most of her waking hours here. Her children are of great assistance, of course, and Theo too, when he is in town.

Several times during our stay we find different napkins with our breakfast. Shanta has observed how Stephanie selects and marks each new one with the name of the hotel and the date she has added it to her collection.

On Monday, the day the restaurant is closed, she sends her daughter Anna to put together a platter of leftovers for us. Cold meats, cheese, sliced cucumber, shredded carrot salad, and olives. Her son Pascal entertains us by telling stories and trying his hand at mixing a tequila sunrise. We are the only guests tonight.

Even Theo is enlisted to take care of us sometimes. Though he is clumsy in the restaurant, spilling soda when he tries to draw it from the tap, he loves to joke and entertain. Stephanie giggles when she spots him with his crooked, old-fashioned bowtie. He tells her that he remembers me from long ago.

“Your grandma didn’t talk to me because I was just a little kid. Her brother’s age.”

Halfway through our stay Shanta brings together ten of my old classmates for an evening of loud stories and old songs. She and Theo add their voices to our sing-along, and when she sees that Stephanie is getting bored with our “remember when” stories, she introduces her to a Russian gentleman who speaks English. Later she takes her into another room to play the piano.

On Sunday Theo walks us back from a town festival. He has bought Stephanie a wind-up Santa Claus and a furry stuffed animal and has filled a small basket with other flea-market finds for his wife. It is their twenty-sixth wedding anniversary. When we reach the bridge, just before we cross the street to the hotel, Stephanie picks a few blossoms off the shrubbery and slips them into the basket.

“It looked kind of plain,” she tells me later. “It’s their anniversary.”

I wonder how an extremely talented woman survives in this town. Maybe the answer is in the way she smiles at her husband. Another answer comes a day later, when the couple returns from a shopping trip to Frankfurt. The city has a large Indian population and Shanta who looked tired last night, seems rejuvenated. She tells me about the Indian movies she has bought and the beautiful sari material she has seen. While she rushes into the kitchen, Theo and I discuss culture shock, his frequent travels as computer consultant, and the Internet café the children promote as a sideline to the hotel. I don’t mention to him that Anna and Pascal are the only ones I see on the computers in the lobby. I don’t tell him what I think about the ambitions of this town, which time seems to have left behind. When I was a child we had several hotels. The Pfälzer Hof, then owned by my mother’s best friend, is now the only hotel in town.

When we leave Schönau, after almost two weeks, Shanta takes us to the train in Heidelberg. She speeds her ancient station wagon artfully through the narrow streets of several towns. Stephanie sits in back on a pillow between tutus, boxes, and canned goods. At the station, while we get our luggage together, Shanta ties ribbons around two small gifts for us. We hug. She is in a hurry. New guests arrive in an hour, she says. The neighbor woman who makes up the beds is sick. Anna is off with friends. It’s Pascal’s day to sleep in and Theo left for a computer conference this morning.

“See you later,” she smiles. “Tschüss.”

Before we enter the building I turn around to wave, but the spot by the curb is already occupied by another car and Shanta Bär has disappeared into the traffic.