Wait for Me in Vienna (6 page)

8

It got light out around seven. Low, gray clouds hung over the city, and the leaves were falling, covering the ground with color. Office workers frantically stumbled down the street, and streetcars rattled over their tracks. City buses tried to stay on schedule, despite rush-hour traffic jams. Thomas drank his morning coffee—a caffe latte—as he stood and looked out the window. After breakfast, he mostly drank espresso—or actually, multiple espressos—but first thing in the morning, he had to drink a lighter, less bitter coffee. He had worked late into the night, so he made himself a second latte, stretched a little, and did some sit-ups—238, to be exact. Then he put on his running shoes.

Even though Thomas often ran during breaks at work, he especially loved to run in the morning. He liked to rise at dawn so he could see the city wake up. Paradoxical as it may sound, watching his fair city rousing itself for a busy day helped him relax. He ran easily through the streets, listening to his favorite music as he considered the city’s feverish pace. Then he headed home along the quiet riverbanks, a stark contrast to downtown’s hustle and bustle.

Lunchtime was precisely at noon—no sooner, no later. Johanna loved order and schedules; they helped to calm her, especially since she was rather nervous now. At one o’clock, she was even more nervous; at two, she began to pace the floor of her brother’s apartment again. She tried on, and took off, five different pairs of pants; she changed her top seven times. In just a few minutes, she tried on her entire wardrobe. Thanks to Linda, her tiny closet was better stocked than ever before, but it was still less than half full. She finally chose brown velvet trousers and a white silk blouse. She looked very sleek, slightly older, and competent, but unfortunately, her outfit wasn’t very kitchen friendly, a fact she failed to notice. She made her way to the cooking school.

“Hello, my name is Ms. Stern, and I have an appointment for an interview today,” she said, attempting to appear confident as she greeted the receptionist.

“Hello, Ms. Stern. Come on in,” the receptionist said, her accent immediately revealing that she was from Germany. Just as Johanna recognized her nationality, the German receptionist scrutinized Johanna’s pristine brown velvet pants and white silk blouse.

“You’ll have to
cook
something today,” the receptionist said, her look telegraphing that Johanna would never get the job in what she was wearing. The two would not become the best of friends; of that, Johanna was quite sure.

She followed the receptionist into the large kitchen. Seven other women and men were already there, all dressed in street clothes, but none as elegantly attired as Johanna. She looked pretty—too pretty for cooking. The applicants gathered in the kitchen; one of them looked confusingly similar to Jamie Oliver. At that, Johanna saw her chances dwindle to zero. She would have preferred to turn around and run away, knowing that she really had no cooking skills to speak of; she could cook about as well as she could build a bomb, and she had no doubt she would fail Bomb Building for Dummies. What was she doing here? Her resume showed little in terms of actual cooking; she wasn’t even a passionate eater.

Suddenly, the door opened. A robust-looking older woman burst in like a whirlwind, glided across the room, and greeted everyone warmly. She was obviously proud of “my cooking school.” Johanna recognized the voice from the telephone.
She must be the head chef.

“I’m quite pleased that you all have come to apply for the job. First, we’ll test your cooking skills, then we’ll choose two finalists in order to get to know you better. My assistant will now explain exactly what the job entails.”

Applicants were divided into two teams. Each team stood in front of their respective prep tables, on which ingredients were laid out. Johanna looked desperately at the kitchen counters. Before her were ingredients that didn’t go together at all. How was she supposed to create something tasty from all this? Less than two minutes later, everyone was assigned a partner. Johanna’s co-cook was a young man named Jörg, a biology student.

“Well, if I’d known that we had to cook, I would have stayed home. I’m not into this at all,” Jörg sulked.

He gazed wistfully at the door like a homeless dog. Well, great, now Johanna had to work with this jerk. The job clearly wasn’t very important to him, and it was obvious he would have preferred to stay in bed. The biology student chattered like he was in a fast-talking contest. He was—how to say it politely?—an
idiot
. There wasn’t a less insulting word for him.

Everyone got a chef’s jacket and then had to disinfect their hands. The pairs were given ninety minutes to concoct the tastiest dish of their lives, one that wouldn’t immediately attract the attention of the European Food Safety Authority. Johanna wanted to hide behind the dishwasher. Jörg, however, picked up an egg and regaled his cooking partner with ten negative facts about factory-farmed eggs and the impact that these unfortunate hens had on the human psyche, explaining that vegans are much better off but, of course, he couldn’t be a vegan because he loved his fat aunt’s Wiener schnitzel more than anything else in the world, and if he could, he wouldn’t eat anything at all so that he could save countless animals from suffering and save money. Jörg also said that there were people who lived on sunshine alone; he saw a report on it on the local television station’s evening news, but of course, this was yet to be proven scientifically. As a student, he was as poor as a church mouse. He capped his long-winded remarks by setting the egg down on the kitchen counter top again.

Johanna didn’t know what to do with him. She would have liked to grab that egg and stuff it in his big fat mouth, but she was too timid—plus, she was supposed to be conjuring up a brilliant culinary creation. She waited for enlightenment; her subconscious couldn’t cough up even one decent idea. It seemed her creativity was taking a little afternoon nap today. The chef and her assistant circled the teams, making notes. As Jörg continued to philosophize about humanity being on the brink of extinction and his longing for the end of the cold, corrupt world, Johanna began to throw together some ingredients. She had no precise plan but knew she needed to do something.

“You, uh, what’s your name again?” Jörg wanted to know.

“Johanna,” she said as she grabbed the baking dish.

“Johanna, what we’re doing here has nothing to do with us; we should dedicate ourselves to our ideologies,” said the biology student as he popped a peanut into his mouth.

She looked at him irritably. The ingredients she had grabbed didn’t fit together at all, but the colorful combination looked nice in the baking dish.

“Um, nobody’s going to be able to eat that mess,” Jörg said as he scrunched up his face. “Well, at least you came up with something!”

The casserole might not have tasted very good, but when Johanna took it out of the oven after twenty minutes, the dish looked colorful and the ingredients appeared to blend in with each other beautifully.

“Time’s up,” the assistant yelled. She and her boss began to assess the creations. They filled out an evaluation form, which none of the candidates were shown. They didn’t even deign to taste Johanna’s strange casserole, a sure sign that she and the pseudosavior of the world had lost.

“Well, we thank you all for coming. We’re going to consult with each other, and we’ll return shortly to advise you of the results,” the chef, Ms. Geyer, said as she disappeared into a back office.

The selection process reminded Johanna of
Germany’s Next Top Model
, where Heidi Klum was the judge. However, where Heidi Klum had a slender figure with smooth curves in all the right places, Chef Geyer’s curves were large and lumpy, like a potato sack with a string tied around the middle. They both had the same shade of blonde hair, though.

I wonder if Chef Geyer has ever seen how they pick people on those shows
, wondered Johanna as she watched the freaky biology student standing next to her—“I won’t wear leather because that would be so irresponsible”—continue to chatter as he wiped off his plastic shoes with a sponge.

The office door opened a few minutes later, and the chef pursed her lips.

“The groups with the creative schnitzel and the colorful casserole won. The schnitzel didn’t taste bad. However, we preferred the casserole.” Ms. Geyer looked in Johanna’s direction. Jörg was delighted and bounced happily up and down.

“Wait. Only one person from each group is moving on to the last round,” the assistant carefully explained as she straightened her glasses. “Ms. Stern and Mr. Ronacher.”

The chef said good-bye to the other applicants with a “Good luck to you, wonderful to have had you here.”

The assistant gazed at Johanna then said, “If you please, Ms. Stern, come with me right away. Ladies first.”

Chef Geyer went ahead, and a few seconds later, Johanna found herself in a large office. The room seemed bigger than it actually was. Cooking awards covered the walls. Johanna tried to think of any awards that she might have won in her life. She realized quickly that the number came to exactly zero—she really wasn’t the type of person who ever won anything. In school, she hadn’t been that crazy about sports. Her sport of choice was smoking cigarettes that she’d found on the ground, though they always left a terrible taste in her mouth. As for foreign-language competitions, her all-too-willing-to-criticize male Spanish teacher had deemed her “unburdened by talent.”

“Well, you’re never going to marry Prince Felipe. He wouldn’t be able to understand a word you said,” the Spanish teacher had liked to say, as if any of his pupils longed to marry the Spanish royal. Back then, everybody had a crush on Johnny Depp anyway. The Spanish teacher could ride into the sunset with Felipe himself, as far as Johanna and her classmates were concerned. She sat down in Chef Geyer’s office and nervously played with her fingers.

“Ms. Stern, you created a funny little casserole. It appeared edible, but well, I highly doubt whether it tasted good.” The chef laughed as she inspected Johanna’s resume. “Okay, you have a little work experience, but not in the field of cooking, right?” The holes in Johanna’s resume were big enough to drive a grocery-store delivery truck through.

“And you’re very thin; do you eat anything at all?” The chef waited anxiously for her reply.

“Actually, yes,” said Johanna, and paused. She didn’t know quite what else to say. “I find cooking to be very relaxing. That’s why I like it. I admit that I haven’t cooked that much, but I have a talent for detail.”

“Yes, I noticed that.”

“Anyway, I want to learn more, and I think that I could do that with you. I read that you teach all your employees how to cook.”

“Yes, when they don’t know how and I see potential in them. Do you have potential?”

“I would really love to learn, and I think that I’m a quick study. Plus, I have plenty of time on my hands to dedicate to learning how to cook.”

“You had a very tough partner, and I noticed that you didn’t lose your patience. Anybody else would have lost it with that character.” Ms. Geyer smiled. “That’s what won me over. You need patience in the kitchen . . . Okay then, do you have any questions for me?”

Johanna shook her head.

“Okay, that’s it, then . . . oh, the pay, we need to talk about that,” said Ms. Geyer as she leaned forward, folding her hands and describing the hourly wage.

Moments later, Johanna left the office and Mr. Ronacher was called in.

At least half an hour went by before Mr. Ronacher came out again. A winning smile spread across his face as he looked proudly at Johanna. Sitting opposite her, he casually crossed his legs and stared at the white wall behind his competitor. The only thing he didn’t do was whistle “Zippity Doo Dah.” Johanna had talked with the chef for less than ten minutes, so she knew she wouldn’t be getting the job.
Game over
, she thought. Mr. Ronacher seemed serious, neat, and organized, certainly a good match for the advertised position. Johanna was several years younger, and for the life of her, she couldn’t exude that kind of unwavering confidence. When she tried, it looked as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. The assistant offered them both a cup of coffee. A little later, the chef came out of her office.