Wait for Me in Vienna (2 page)

2

When her grandmother died, Johanna went to the nursing home one last time. On her way upstairs, she noticed the overwhelming smell of roasted nuts, plums, and vanilla, which seemed to emanate from an old lady struggling behind her walker. She was so engrossed in arriving at her destination that she didn’t even notice Johanna. The sweet old thing had put on way too much perfume, probably forgetting that she’d already sprayed it behind her ears and on her wrists.

Her grandmother’s body wasn’t in her room, so Johanna sat down in the visitor’s chair and stared at the empty hospital bed. There was a slight outline of her grandmother’s body on the sheets; it was evident the staff had just taken her away. A tear ran down Johanna’s cheek, then a second, then a third. Then the floodgates opened and she wept bitterly. She could hardly wrap her mind around it. Instead of death, the room smelled like eucalyptus spray, which Johanna had brought her grandmother a few weeks earlier. The half-full container had at least three more weeks of spray left. Couldn’t her grandmother have lived three more measly weeks? Johanna felt numb, and at the same time, she thought or hoped her grandmother would walk in the room at any moment and say, “My sweetheart, Johanna . . .” But that wasn’t going to happen again. Johanna stood and opened the large suitcase she’d brought for her grandmother’s things. She felt compelled to clean out the room right away. “Take your time; nobody’s signed up to move into this room right now,” a nursing home staff member had assured her. But Johanna didn’t want to waste any time; she wanted to put this all behind her as quickly as possible. Suddenly, though, she found she couldn’t do it. When she picked up her grandmother’s shoes, she collapsed.

Despite his misgivings, Thomas finally agreed to go to the party.

Clarissa sighed. “I wish I’d worn a different dress. I wore this one only because you told me to, but it doesn’t fit right. Look, it doesn’t do a thing for me!”

“You look beautiful, Clarissa. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You look stunning. You’ll be the center of attention like always, you’ll see.” Thomas tried to calm her down and took her hand. The taxi driver nodded in affirmation and stole glances at her in the rearview mirror.

When she got out at Julia’s doorstep, Clarissa smiled and said, “Oh, you’re probably right. Would you mind paying the driver, please?”

Thomas paid the fifteen-euro fare, added a generous tip, and then followed Clarissa into the elevator to the top floor. Julia welcomed the two warmly: Thomas with a nod and Clarissa with breathy kisses on both cheeks.

“You’re finally here! We’ve been waiting for you. I thought you’d never come,” Julia said with annoyance.

“As usual, Thomas had to work late. You know how it is.”

“Well, actually, Clarissa had to . . .” Thomas began to explain, but the women had already disappeared into the kitchen to make vodka tonics.

“Thomas, the beer is in the fridge,” Julia announced when she reemerged.

Furnished like a place in a lifestyle magazine, the apartment was a bit too extravagant for Thomas’s taste, but that was Julia: too much makeup, too many shoes, too many purses, too much jewelry, and an apartment that intimidated everyone who entered. The women, mostly Clarissa’s modeling friends, were generally in the majority at Julia’s parties, which didn’t bother the male guests one bit. Later that evening, they would all get cheerfully drunk, dancing barefoot on the tables, tossing back vodka, champagne, or whatever was available. The single men inevitably hit on the girls, or at least tried to, seduced by the short skirts and dresses exposing their fishnet-stockinged legs. The girls feigned disinterest, an effective ploy. Though these parties weren’t 100 percent compulsory for him, Thomas went to pacify Clarissa. He was disappointed to find that his best friend, Martin, wasn’t there this time. His grandmother had died, so he’d had to go back home, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Thomas didn’t know exactly where, though, because Martin was reluctant to talk about his hometown.

Johanna stayed awake the whole night thinking about her grandmother. She thought about the good old days when her parents were still alive. She thought about her brother, who she hadn’t seen in more than four months. She felt awful, really awful, about referring to her grandmother as “the old lady.” Martin, her only brother, had moved away after their parents’ death. He was older and could do whatever he wanted. He didn’t seem to have a problem getting over what happened, as if their parents had only been in a fender bender. He had an apartment in Vienna, but Johanna had never visited him. She often wished that it had been her sitting in that car instead of her parents. Empty. Quiet. Numb. She wished she were dead so she didn’t have to think or feel anything. Once, she decided, in all seriousness, to end it all. She longed to be enveloped by the sweet fog of death, but she couldn’t bring herself to do the deed. She was afraid, afraid of the unknown. Sometime in the future, she thought, she would be brave enough not to put the bottle of sleeping pills away.

Johanna stared at the remnants of squashed mosquitoes on the ceiling. Last summer, mosquitoes had plagued her apartment. A surprise flood had overwhelmed the town, followed by intense summer heat, which brought an infestation.

The tiny beasts have such a short life expectancy
, Johanna thought as she counted the sixth bloodstain above her.
Why do they need so much blood?

She had read somewhere that only the female mosquitoes buzzed and that they were a lot bigger than their male counterparts. Johanna fixed her attention on the partially smeared stains until she fell asleep.

The next morning, she didn’t feel any better. Her feet felt leaden, her neck and shoulders ached, and her head felt like it was about to burst. The pressure in her head was particularly strange. It crept slowly up her spine, then to her neck, then to the back of her head, and then lodged in her forehead. As this was happening, it started to rain. A light drumming turned into an enormous roar, which pounded on the leaves of the maple tree right outside her window. She had to get up. She couldn’t stay here any longer. She had to go to the funeral.

At the funeral, Martin came over and hugged Johanna.

“How are you holding up?” he asked worriedly as he scrutinized her.

She looked old and haggard; her skin was sallow and pale. There was no indication that she had spent the summer holidays with friends on the coast, having barbecues, drinking way too much sparkling wine. Instead, it looked as though she’d spent all summer working at the call center and reading books on the old couch in her apartment with barely enough food to keep her alive. She was so thin and wan; it didn’t suit her at all.

Martin pulled his gaze away. As he should have expected under the circumstances, Johanna didn’t say a word and turned away from him. The many condolences barely infiltrated her brain. “Dearest Johanna, I’m so sorry for your loss . . .” “First, it was your beloved parents and now your grandmother. If you need anything at all . . .” All the people seemed vague and unreal. There were only about fifteen mourners; so many of her grandmother’s friends had already died. They all whispered the standard compassionate words of consolation; it was like they’d said the same things so often lately that they knew them by heart.

The funeral ended, and all that remained was the memory of the woman who had meant so much to Johanna in recent years. How could anyone really understand the indescribable depths of her grief? The memory of her parents overwhelmed her. It was good that she still remembered them; it was terrifying to think that when someone dies all memory of them could fade until there was nothing left. Her brother ripped Johanna away from her thoughts.

“I know that you don’t want to talk to me, but I need to know what’s going on with you, Johanna. Are you alone? How about coming to Vienna with me?” Martin asked his sister.

Johanna stared at him, surprised.

“Come on, it will do you good. You need to leave this town behind, let go of your sadness, and start to live again. What have you been doing all year? Are you happy?” he asked, touching her hand lovingly.

Johanna remained mute.

3

The moving van pulled up in front of Martin’s apartment. Johanna’s brother had a beautiful three-room condo with a balcony overlooking a courtyard. He’d gotten lucky—an acquaintance had rented him the 650-square-foot home (750 square feet with the balcony), so he hadn’t had to pay any realtor fees. The bathroom had a tub. Johanna really liked that. She loved to take baths so she could submerge herself under the water. Martin showed Johanna her bedroom.

“We’ll put you in my old music room. It’s okay. I’ll practice in the living room. Don’t worry, though; I rarely practice these days,” he said as he opened the door.

He knew that when he practiced it got ear-piercingly loud. He often had problems with the neighbors, especially with Mrs. Sachs, who was supposedly hard of hearing but never missed an opportunity to complain to her neighbors about their real or imagined misdeeds.

Johanna’s new bedroom was small, with pale-yellow walls adorned with posters of the Rolling Stones. She could easily redecorate to her tastes after she took the posters down. Martin’s drum set stood in the middle of the room, and Johanna remembered when he began his eleven-year drum career and the unbearably loud clang of his cymbals. He’d been inspired to play when he saw a tattooed drummer in a movie who drank a lot of beer and had tons of groupies. He received his first drum set for Christmas in 1989.

“I’ll get all this stuff out of here right away.” Martin gestured to a laundry basket next to the drums that was filled to the brim with either clean or dirty clothes; Johanna wasn’t sure which. “Then we can bring in your bed and dresser.” He shoved a moving box toward the back corner. “This was the right decision, believe me.”

4

The next morning, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and croissants filled the apartment. It was filtered coffee, but not made with an expensive machine; Martin was proud of his old Italian stovetop espresso maker. But it was small and barely made enough for Martin. The noise from the kitchen awakened Johanna.

“Hey, Johanna, good morning,” he called out happily, juggling the hot croissants into the breadbasket. “I hope you’re hungry! I made a huge breakfast.”

Johanna smiled for the first time in a long time. She was glad to see her brother again. He seldom came back home to visit, and they didn’t talk much on the phone, as Martin didn’t like phones and always kept his calls short. Their sibling bond had weakened over the years, and an unspoken detachment had emerged between them.

“I just finished with the newspaper if you want it. There are a lot of job listings in it today.”

Johanna didn’t want to start working again so soon. She had saved a lot of money in the last few years since she hadn’t gone out much, seldom went to the salon, and didn’t buy expensive clothes. She also didn’t go on vacation—except the one time when she’d conjured up a little courage. She bit hungrily into the croissant. It was delicious.

“Thomas, did you hear that Marion and Michael got engaged?” Clarissa remarked pensively as she ran her fingers through Thomas’s hair.

“No, I didn’t know that. Wait, really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“But they haven’t been together for that long, have they?”

“No, exactly as long as we’ve been together—about two years.”

He let his hand wander tenderly under her panties and grabbed her butt. She moved away from him and threw back the black satin duvet.

“I like it when your hair is kind of messy, it’s just so sexy,” he noted, skillfully changing the subject as he leaned over to kiss Clarissa’s smooth skin, which had an almost imperceptible, fine, light-blue undertone, particularly on the untanned parts of her torso.

He enjoyed the sight of her lying next to him so provocatively, coiled up like a noble snake, her head resting on his arm. No longer satisfied with just looking, Thomas kissed her hard like men do when they want more than just a kiss. Clarissa knew this game and went along with it. She was a man’s dream come true—always up for a sexual adventure—and she played her role to the hilt on this cool autumn morning. This was their daily morning routine, at least most of the time. Sex defined their relationship. Great sex.

Johanna unpacked her suitcases. She hadn’t brought much, mainly clothes, but her wardrobe was pretty minimal: two pairs of black pants, two pairs of jeans, a few tops, a blouse, and a few thick sweaters, an absolute necessity for bitter-cold winters in the country. It had been a relief not to feel pressure to run around in silk stockings for the sake of beauty. In a small town, there was no shame in pulling on old, grandmotherly woolen legwarmers or wearing bulky sweaters instead of sexy, glittery purple tops—at least according to Johanna. For footwear she had a pair of black sneakers, brown boots, and classic low-heeled black shoes that she’d worn most recently to the funeral and, before that, to accompany her grandmother to a theater performance for her senior group two years ago. She carefully hung her clothes in the closet and put the shoes on the already overflowing shoe rack in the hall. Martin didn’t know the meaning of the words “order” and “system” in regard to his apartment. Johanna was determined to convince him to buy a proper shoe storage unit; a white one would fit perfectly in an empty corner of the hall. She began to stack her shoes on top of each other to make them fit.

Though Martin’s apartment was warm and inviting, the catch was that it was also ordinarily messy. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a large order from the Ikea catalog. The apartment had dark parquet floors, white curtains in every room, a wooden chest of drawers in the hall—an heirloom from their parents—and nice carpet in the bedrooms. But magazines cluttered the chest of drawers, dirty socks were strewn on the nice parquet floors, and there were stains on the carpet—probably small burn holes. The white curtains draped aside sloppily. Johanna felt the strange sensation of being comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, and she couldn’t decide which feeling prevailed.

Martin had cleared out a few drawers in the bathroom, in which she stowed her hairbrush, toothbrush, makeup, and her favorite perfume, J’adore. She closed the drawer carefully. She really didn’t need all that space; one drawer would have been enough. Then she inspected Martin’s stuff: hair gel, an electric toothbrush, dental floss, and a tongue scrubber—or whatever it was called. She also found hairspray, a small cosmetics bag, a manual toothbrush, some women’s perfume, and other assorted items that, since Martin wasn’t gay or especially metrosexual, led her to conclude that he didn’t always sleep alone at night.

Funny,
she thought,
Martin didn’t say anything about a girlfriend.

On the other hand, they didn’t talk much about anything, so when would he have told her?
She left the bathroom and opened Martin’s bedroom door. Because Martin was at work, she was able to inspect the apartment freely. A spacious, queen-sized bed with a thick mattress like the ones they had in American hotels dominated the small room. She would have been only too happy to plop down on it. She’d always envied the teens from
Dawson’s Creek
with their huge American beds, but decided against testing out her brother’s because it didn’t seem conducive to easing their still-rusty brother/sister relationship. There was a walk-in closet at the far-right end of the room, which stirred her curiosity. She stepped inside but browsed only briefly, as the state of Martin’s underwear didn’t interest her.

Johanna went into the kitchen and found the variety of rosehip tea she liked. The red package was unopened, and she wondered whether Martin had bought it for her. Sitting down with the boiling-hot cup of tea, she considered heading over to the city center to take a walk, since she hadn’t been there since she was a child. She’d ordered a Vienna guidebook from Amazon, but it hadn’t arrived yet.

Thomas decided to go for a run. He kept a pair of sneakers in the employee locker room and often jogged during breaks at work. If he sat in front of the computer for too long, his butt started to feel numb and the urge to move his body became overwhelming. Sometimes, he would trade his comfortable leather chair for an ergonomic stool so that his spine remained straight, healthy, and free of disc problems. As department head, he had a flexible schedule, and as the nephew and son of the respective owners, he could afford to have a little fun. He loved the feeling of freedom that running brought. Relief and joy washed over him when he finished putting on his sneakers and started running slowly, his pulse rising ever higher, everything else falling away. Sometimes, his efforts were even rewarded with the indescribable ecstasy of the runner’s high.

Today, Thomas ran to the city center. Jogging around a corner, he accidentally collided with a young woman.

Annoyed, Thomas muttered, “Watch where you’re going,” and ran on.

He didn’t like being stopped unnecessarily—not by dead batteries in his MP3 player, not by red lights, not by bicycle riders, drivers, streetcars, or stupid people who didn’t watch where they were going. His goal was to run as far as possible without bumping into any obstacles. Unfortunately, it didn’t always work out that way.

Johanna’s foot hurt a little. She hadn’t seen the jogger. It seemed like there should be large signs warning you about how reckless people in the big city could be; perhaps it would be in the city guide.

That man was so outrageously rude; he ran right into me and then blamed me for it
,
she thought as she headed for a small supermarket she’d spotted from a distance.

She bought some chocolate, telling herself she was hungry. In truth, she wasn’t really; she just had a sweet tooth. As a child, she was never allowed to snack between meals, though her parents sometimes allowed a little dessert after dinner. Her grandmother had been more lenient, and she’d introduced Johanna to her love of Ritter Sport chocolate with almonds. It was the kind in the beautiful red package; she took one off the shelf. She would’ve been able to recognize the square bar by its smell alone—just holding the delicious chocolate made her feel much better. She put it in the cart.

It was interesting how, no matter whether you were in the country or the city, you could count on grocery stores being organized the same way. When you first stepped inside the market, you passed aisles of mostly green things. Then you worked your shopping cart in the direction of the sausage and cheese. Eventually, you landed in the delicatessen, where, out in the country, a friendly server standing behind a counter would greet you—usually someone you knew from school or maybe a distant relative or at least someone everyone was friendly with. In the city, the best you could expect was a smile from the deli employee. After a visit to the deli—with or without a friendly greeting and a little bit of gossip—you made it to the chocolate and candy aisle. It was usually the children’s favorite aisle, and it was definitely Johanna’s. Somewhere beyond it lay the least interesting stuff: hygiene products, prepackaged foods, rice, jars of sauce, pasta, and requisite ingredients like sugar and flour.

As a child, Johanna had loved the small store just around the corner from her family’s house. It was locally owned, a mom-and-pop operation, and you could choose your own candy from open bins. A piece here, another there, and so on. Unfortunately, the store had closed before her eighth birthday, and nothing could compare to it. The big chains had come to her small town, which wasn’t so small after all these years.

Though she’d resisted the idea of moving to Vienna at first, the change had done her good. Her zest for life was returning, along with her appetite and her desire to thank her brother for taking her in. She was also curious about Martin’s girlfriend. As Johanna faced the meat counter, she texted her brother,
I’m cooking tonight. Invite your girlfriend! Love, Johanna.

He texted back promptly,
I couldn’t hide the fact that I have a girlfriend from you ;-) We’d be delighted. Thank you.