Dear Matterhorn Readers,

Just squeaking in before the holidays, I’ve published my updated spy thriller in full with Lulu. Paperback and eBook versions are both available through the website and will be available on other platforms soon. This eBook is compatible with Kindle or Apple Books as well as other eReaders.

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Thanks to all for your support with this project! Your comments have been invaluable.

Happy holidays!

Best,

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An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday.

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∞ Table of Contents | Blurb
∞ Author’s Foreword
∞ Related Reading
∞ Podcasts about Layering Fiction

Epilogue (continued)

I have since been erased from the equation. Effectively this: even when the painting emerges to the public sometime in the next year or two, it will be impossible to trace it to me. Julie and Gregoire - and any Russians or anybody who cares - will not be able to link it to me. This has been guaranteed by Fred, Roger, and Josef. Fred and Roger have already left for Cyprus and started a wedding planning company, organizing destination marriages for foreigners. At some point, they will work on the gold and Finn says there is other important business in that area of the world. 

Josef is untouchable, Finn claims. He did manage to call me once I got home on my mother’s landline. He gave me thanks and said to watch for news of the vaccine. ‘Your work was worth it, Marie. The painting will also eventually be displayed to the public. We will meet again, long before that happens.’

They say I am safe now. I’m not sure it’s true but I like to believe it. My work is invisible. Is this better? I guess I’m not ordinary anymore but everyone will think I am.

I’m taking time to chill out in Bretagne before I get my next assignment. I can just pretend I’m doing some freelance interpreting whenever I travel. Easy cover. 

⬩

There was a terrorist attack in Vienna not long after I left. Many were surprised. People were living under a security blanket without seeing the terror all around, usually invisible. But this was a representation of that hatred felt on the streets from long ago or of the extreme toll of isolation we all felt, perhaps not as much as our Italian neighbors or that girl in the blog in Wuhan, but we felt it still and would never be the same again. 

I realized none of this was the fault of the Viennese. They were vessels in a world gone wrong. Once the Nazis, now a polycrisis to start the 2020s. When they had been occupied not just once by Hitler but again by all the Allie powers and finally still by the movements of espionage within her walls, Vienna’s energy was tainted and it hardened her people into stone. It was the way to survive — to exist within the echoes of strangeness all around them. Their faces remained cold year-round. They did not move out of the way for anyone, fearing any movement could be interpreted as meaning of some kind or another. They rarely traveled beyond the borders, some staying in the city itself, out of a kind of paralysis. At once they were trying to heal their city from within and were quite naturally too afraid to face the forces that came from outside threatening its freedom. 

Vienna is one of the freest utopic places in the world at the surface. The invisible workings of foreign powers and those from inside trying to capitalize from those forces. 

No wonder there was no trust.

No wonder they held on desperately to their own dialect.

It would take a long time to thaw. But as the gold comes out of the woodwork and the people travel and the art is admired and talked about, it will heal. 

At least there is no threat of war in Europe.

Now I am back in Le Conquet living in the house I grew up in. Comfort has replaced the depression I first felt when I got here. Upon arrival I slept in my old room at the back of the house, afraid of the staleness in my parents’ room. Looking at the closed door each day haunted me, and when I opened it, I only saw the relics of a simple life rather than rich memories. 

One day when the sea wind was strong, I opened all the windows to change the air completely. The wind knocked over several photos and even a lamp in that large room facing the sea. I entered the storm, my hair flying all over my face, and began to purge. I stripped the bed and placed my mother’s clothes in boxes to give away. The only things I held onto were a couple of photographs of us as a family and the gold necklace with a single diamond Maman had worn anytime she was invited to somebody’s house. I already had her wedding band on my index finger from the small package sent to me from the hospital. 

Online, I ordered new bed linens and a desk looking out to see. I have work as a translator now, which consisted of mostly the mundane task of translating a few words on official documents like diplomas, driver’s licenses, and marriage certificates. However, it pays well enough to live on. I am also working on a new translation of Proust, starting with Swann’s Way. I don’t have a publisher yet, but the daily practice keeps my mind active and steady. I also started to write film reviews. Maybe if it goes well enough, I can use that as my cover, traveling to film festivals and special openings. Right now, it just keeps me busy.

I often go to the fish market to think of my parents and buy something to cook. They say cooking for oneself is a kind of love. This morning, it was packed as Fridays often are. A man bumped into me while I was raising my arm to catch a portion of monkfish wrapped in paper. I turned to look, but he was already several people away. My hand went immediately to my pocket where I anticipated the empty effect of a pickpocket. Instead, the pocket was fuller. My fingers felt a Nokia phone. I looked up again and saw the friendly American, Michael Brown, glancing back at me with a subtle nod.

I watch time pass before me in the undulations of the sand that change with each tide. I know that one of these tides will bring my next assignment. Then, I will go, fearlessly, into the unknown. Because now I know what I stand for. So there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday.

Subscribe now

∞ Table of Contents | Blurb
∞ Author’s Foreword
∞ Related Reading
∞ Discussions about Layering Fiction
∞ Podcasts about Layering Fiction
∞ Toggle on/off sections of the newsletter

Epilogue

I decided to escape to the most obvious place: my childhood home. By going there, it would seem like I had nothing to hide. It was mine, after all, and since I didn’t have any new income, it was the most economical choice. I’ve got some new jobs now but let me explain what happened first. 

I went back to a very mundane existence, which I realized ironically had been my biggest fear all along. Koinophobia: the fear of being ordinary. All those other phobias I had encountered and explored within myself. Somehow though, that nameless woman in the church had given me courage. I decided to have an existence that embodied the everyday life of my mother, who I know now had been so happy, and the extraordinary invisible undertakings of the old woman.

⬩

Everything in my long ramble to Julie and Grégoire was true. I didn’t worry about telling anyone I had the musical score as well, since it was likely the gold had already been recovered from the apartment long ago.

There was one thing I left out from my previous account, still within the time frame of that writing, although just a few paragraphs before my closing. 

When Josef had come to my apartment, he had left a message under the door. I didn’t find it until the next morning, too afraid to even go that close to the outside world. 

Upon seeing the paper, I worried for a moment that it could be poisoned with ricin or something else. It could also be my ticket to freedom, or fame. 

I can clearly say now that I had been wrong about him. And his note placed under the door revealed what I had often hoped, that he was in fact good. That he was in cahoots with Fred and Roger, and even Finn after Marija’s death.

This is what he wrote:

My initial reaction was to trust the letter since he knew about the score. But I then began to wonder if he had stolen the painting. But I wanted to be sure this wasn’t some game, and there was a trap outside my building, so I waited silently for three more days in my apartment before venturing out to meet Finn who could confirm the story.

Then I remembered there was someone I could contact. The American, Michael Brown. I had saved his card in my wallet and got it out to give him a call from the burner phone.

‘Michael? Mr. Brown? This is Marie.’

‘Yes, I know you. I thought you might call.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes, I’m aware of the situation. Do what the note says. And good luck! I hope to work with you in the future.’

He hung up and I got my things together to walk to the Bulgarian embassy. 

⬩

We sat in the library, Finn and I. 

‘I’m so sorry about your wife…’ God, I didn’t know what to say to him: the husband, the murderer? But he made it rather easy for me.

‘Yes, a tragedy. But it is no secret we were not close. Please do not pity me.’ 

‘I won’t. She was a lovely woman.’ It seemed like the classy thing to say. Something you could say with a glass of champagne in your hand on a rooftop in Vienna.

‘How is Notes from Underground going?’ He had remembered from so long ago.

‘Oh, it was wonderful. I finished it a few weeks ago, but didn’t know you were still in town…’

‘Ah, what a wise story of a disgusting character. Do you remember the mouse? “[I]n its loathsome, stinking underground, our offended, beaten-down, and derided mouse at once immerses itself in cold, venomous, and, above all, everlasting spite.” It is even ashamed of its fantasies. How many in this city feel that way? How many are rotting from spite and seeking revenge, dying of their own resentment? Me, I try to learn from literature. I let these things go. I cared very deeply for my wife. I think she, too, had some of this spite and strange fantasies.’

I didn’t know what to say.

He looked off into the distance. ‘And Josef…what a fascinating man…’

‘Finn, did you know they were lovers?’

‘Yes, but it made sense. It didn’t affect me all that much. I’m just a guy who likes books and who’s happy to be alive. I always enjoyed the company of my wife and we married when we were both a bit bored of our lives in Switzerland and Bulgaria. We enjoyed going to cultural events together or occasionally traveling. Neither of us wanted children; she was more focused on her career and I had to raise my three siblings when our mother died young. They have children whom I visit frequently and teach about literature during our hikes in the mountains or moments at the family ski chalet. For me, this is enough. I have a good life, and I stay out of politics…or the underworld. Marija was like Robin Hood and Josef is Batman. I admire them both. They suited each other.’ 

Marija was perhaps an elegant and powerful ambassador in her own right, but she was a tiny pawn for the Russians who made use of her, then disposed of her when she threatened to reveal the truth, if that was the real story. She had thought she was helping her people, the Bulgarians, by supplying them with protection from something she could not stop from happening anyway. 

In the end, Bulgarians didn’t trust the government anyway, and the large unvaccinated rate made its citizens the most prone to COVID deaths in the world. 

Josef had been investigating her secretly, through the art trade, not intending to be a honeypot though that’s what he had become. In any case, he had fallen in love, and this is what killed her. In love, he had told her his version of the truth, knowing about the falsified research and what she had planned to do to her people. She was in shock, finally realizing the evil she was about to play a role in. Of course, with the Russians, refusal is not an option. She knew too much and also tried to be ‘better’ than they were. So she had to die. 

This was why Josef blamed himself. 

Finn found it all quite sad even though he didn’t love his wife, in that way at least. Josef had come to tell him the truth for no other reason than to take responsibility and to show Finn that Marija had been honorable. ‘I admired her even more; him as well. But my life is different. I am a Swiss who detests national conflicts. I live here — and married her — to escape that world. I would never even entertain a connection to the Russian underworld that she moved into our home. They saw me as an idiot, a fat cuckolded husband of no use to them anyway. But they underestimated me.’ 

‘Oh yes, Finn, I think you are quite an interesting and intelligent man.’

‘Thank you, Marie, but it’s not that. You and I understand each other; we both appear simple on the surface but are much more complex and daring than any of them will allow!’

‘So what is it? What did you do?’

‘I have the lost Klimt painting. The one you were looking for and the one Julie and Gregoire planned to take. Do you have any idea how they are connected?’

‘Julie kept asking about it…I thought she was just an admirer of his work.’

‘She and Gregoire are greedy. They’ve done this before. They pretend to work for cultural institutions and the like but really are attempting to make money on the black market. I don’t know if they are working with others, but their greed is personal.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They are not seeking political changes or anything like this. Most recently, their daughter needs some medical support in the US, I understand. She wants to have a baby and needs IVF treatments. Because of COVID, everything with the NHS is backed up. They want to pay for her to go to America.’

‘Wow – ‘

‘Please don’t pity them. They have done this before! Simply for personal gain. The opportunity is important for their daughter, yes, but the NHS will open up again soon. I can understand doing something for someone you love. However, they know plenty of important people who could help them with the funding if it were absolutely necessary. They were also working on this well before the pandemic, so even if they wanted to use it to help their daughter, it truly was not needed.’

‘Do you mind if I ask who your sources are?’

‘Not at all! Your friends, Fred and Roger. I’m not working with anybody. Like a typical Swiss guy! But, they trust me. And I’m somewhat untouchable, here in this embassy with guards and immunity.’ 

‘I hoped I could trust them!’

‘Yes, you certainly can. They saved you the other day. In the church.’

‘But they weren’t there!’

‘You didn’t see them, you mean. Fred and Roger had been following you for your protection. They had seen you go inside the church again; one had waited outside and saw Julie following you in. He stopped her at the tram stop for a chat and distracted her and made her nervous enough that she did not enter the church. Fred had gone inside the church, hiding behind a column at the back. He had seen the entire scene and was worried about what would happen to me if I was holding onto the painting as I exited the church. Julie has been violent in the past. Roger had alerted him with a message that Julie was outside, so he did something awful. He gagged and tied up the old woman at the back where he knew the priest would be sure to come within a few hours. She nodded when he asked her this. And he told her she would be fine, but it was for her protection. Then he replaced the stone and grabbed the painting, exiting once Roger told him it was all clear.’

‘So, it was Julie who attacked me in the basement?’

‘Yes. I don’t know why she hadn’t looked there before. It’s not hard to break a lock. Makes me think that she was trying to intimidate you instead. To make you think someone else, like Josef, was trying to kill you. That way, you might trust her even more when you eventually discovered the art.’

‘That makes sense I guess.’

‘She’s a strange woman. I wouldn’t think too much of it. Anyway, it’s certainly not personal! You were, sadly, a pawn for their plan, all the way since your meeting in New York.’

‘I feel so stupid.’

‘Don’t! You’ve done excellently. If you like, you can continue this journey. Or you can live on the margins of it like I do. The choice is now yours. But go home. To France, I mean. Take some time to consider your next move.’

‘You mean about the score?’

‘Ah, yes. Did you bring it with you? We could have a look together. I don’t plan to do anything with it, but we could put the information in the right hands.’

‘Ok, yes I have it here.’ 

‘The Vienna Philharmonic has a mixed history when it comes to the Nazis. Many joined the party even when it was illegal before 1938. They drove musicians out, some of whom were killed in the camps. And some of the music was, of course, used as propaganda. The worst part is that the Austrian government didn’t admit this until just six years ago.’1

‘Wow, I wonder why they kept it a secret.’

‘Right, I guess we weren’t there and so it is complicated when it comes to the musicians themselves. I’m sure some of them thought music could heal, was a gift for the world that would maybe implicitly fight evil. On the optimistic side, I guess some people think moving on as a nation is easier with suppression. But you and I know the danger of doing that. I wonder if this score has more to reveal.’ 

‘Me, too. But what about the painting?’

‘Josef is handling the selling of the painting, as you know, and he will get the money to these scientists in Germany. They will save many people, he says. But the music on the back, the secret note, we need to take a look at together. I know you are an interpreter; you might see something I have not. I cannot make out what it is trying to say.’2 

‘I don’t read music; I only learned to sing from my mother without any particular notes or understanding of sheet music. I’m so sorry to disappoint you.’

‘This is understood. No problem at all! I read music. I have written the notes here for you. What do you make of it? You are the one working between languages. I think you are the one who can find the hidden meaning.’

I felt like I was being tested. Like this was all a game or a rite of passage. 

The letters didn’t spell anything: 

CCDEFG [rest] ADEFB [rest] FGABC [rest] DDABC

That was just the first line, but it went on like this. ‘It doesn’t spell anything. It doesn’t look like any language to me.’

‘I know, that’s what I was afraid of. Are you sure there’s nothing there in French or Italian? Maybe skipping a letter?’ 

I looked again at the symbols on the page. I thought back to the symphony concert I had seen on television with all the beautiful rhythms and tried to imagine what the music would sound like, though I couldn’t imagine the pitch. I began tapping what I said. ‘Wait a minute, I know a little bit about reading music from school — these are short notes, right? Eighth notes? And these are long ones — here, half notes? These are the rests you’ve already marked. Isn’t it weird there are no quarter or whole notes? I think the answer is in the rhythm, not the letters.’

‘But how can we read a rhythm?’

’There’s one universal rhythm of language: morse code.’

‘Do you know it?’

‘A little. We learned about it during my first training to go overseas. But it doesn’t matter, we can just look it up. The eighth notes must be ‘dit’ and the half notes are ‘dah.’ Normally they’re three times the length, but a load of triplets might be too obvious. It’s going to take some time, because we won’t know where letters end and begin necessarily. However, I guess each of these is a period,’ I pointed to two weird measures of eighth note followed by half notes three times and an eighth rest, ‘Look, a period is dit-dah-dit-dah-dit-dah. We can start with those and the rests between words I assume.’

‘Let’s try! I’ll get my computer and you start taking a look.’

We spent the whole afternoon trying out different possibilities until we finally found something that made a bit of sense:

ISLE OF LOVE. GOLDEN BATH OF BEAUTY. 

‘I have no idea about the second part, but the ‘isle of love’ is Cyprus, because Aphrodite was supposed to have come out from the waves at Paphos.’

‘Wonderful! My research here also says it was a film from 1920 starring a transvestite spy, apparently anti-Nazi. Maybe it has a double meaning?’

‘Could be.’

‘I’m going to pass this on to Fred and Roger to work with. Perhaps they will call you into action again. For now, I would just go home and try to relax. We’ve organized safe passage for you.’

‘I just, I’m not sure that this act will really amount to anything. What do you think? It’s just a way to get money on the black market. Or am I missing something?’

‘Little ripples make big waves. And in this case, we’re talking about many millions of dollars of waves. This is the Swiss way: to stay out of political allegiances and nationhood; instead we find money to use for protection. Protecting ourselves or others. Because we don’t have the motivations that many others do, we can work under the radar and achieve great protection. We haven’t had a war on our land for 500 years.’

‘Right, that was against us, the French. Some think the Swiss should have helped the Allies in World War II. What do you think?’

‘It’s a difficult one. I think we did help, or many did. And we provided safety for many, sure some Nazis, too, but many escaping them as well. I guess I just don’t know. But I act more as an individual. And what my country has taught me is that one should stand for one’s values and share in a common support of humanity.’

‘I like that. Yes, it’s what I want, too.’

‘Then keep doing your work. Just don’t make a lot of noise about it! You can learn a lot from Josef. Everything he told you in Budapest was true. My Marija, she was a wonderful person but too caught up in politics. I think I knew she would die from it one day. It was not a shock to me for that reason,’ he paused to look up the long staircase she had often arrived on, ‘Maybe I detached myself from truly loving her for this reason. To protect myself, I mean. I only just realized that now.’

‘I understand.’

‘I’m sorry, I also learned that your mother died. We both need to grieve. You need to allow yourself to feel the pain or you can never move forward. The driver is coming for you in twenty minutes. Promise me you will take the time you need.’

To be continued with the final installment next week…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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∞ Table of Contents | Blurb
∞ Author’s Foreword

Chapter 29

It’s now the next day. I am writing to conclude before going into hiding.

I am alive, obviously. But terrified. You won’t see me after you read this letter. I’ll be gone, hopefully undercover and not underground.

I heard a knock at the door. He didn’t use the bell. He tried to see if the door was open but didn’t push too hard or try to break in. Instead, he called out: ‘Marie? Marie! It’s Josef.’ I thought it was strange he didn’t try to stay anonymous, but I guess this made fewer pay attention. 

I didn’t answer the door. I stayed completely silent. 

Ishmael was barking at the door, something I had trained him not to do.

He called out again and his voice sounded disappointed, even sad. 

I was afraid he might quickly bang the door in, and then silently sneak in. I wouldn’t have the courage to scream. But instead, I heard a shuffling as if he were organizing papers. My breath was heavy enough that I was sure he could hear it. 

I knew he wouldn’t stay long and make a scene. That was the last thing he would want in his line of work. Finally, his shoes clicked back to the elevator that was still waiting for him at the top. I held my breath until I heard it descend and the sound of the front door opening and closing echoed up the stair chamber. 

Ishmael came back to lick my cheeks.

I called out for my mother but, of course, she wasn’t there. She never will be.

I heard my phone vibrate but left it. He must’ve been asking where I was or telling me something. I thought about throwing the dog out the window. Instead, I threw my cell phone without looking at what Josef may have said. 

Maybe he would be back. I would wait until morning to emerge.

Now that it is a fresh day, I feel quite lost. Who have I become? What did I get myself involved in? 

I don’t think I have the strength to start again. I’ve done it so many times. Each country, ultimately a failed experience. Lost relationships an no impact on the politics or initiatives I had been interpreting for others. 

I don’t know if I want to make that effort anymore. 

So now I must leave the country. And I guess this is my reluctant resignation letter as well, Grégoire. Although maybe I’ll be dead when you read this. I just don’t know. 

Please stay out of it all but tell my story. I’m counting on you both. You’ve been my only family here. Thank you for that more than anything else.

Cordialement,

Marie

But that’s not all! Are things really what they seem?

To be continued with the epilogue next week…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

Subscribe now

∞ Table of Contents | Blurb
∞ Author’s Foreword

Chapter 28

More and more, as evening approached, I considered the possibility that I could be murdered tonight. Josef manifests the Coronavirus to me just as Nosferatu manifests the Black Plague. I have to stick that dagger in his heart. He may desire me, but he would congeal my blood. I feel a strange pull toward him like you often see in vampire films. 

As I write to you now, within the hour of his arrival, I am more at peace with the possibility of death. There are moments when I silently scream but mostly, I am being proactive in anticipating the worst and preparing myself. It is the hardest my brain has ever worked, and it has made me feel more alive than ever before. 

I decided that day that I wanted to face my end with dignity. I also considered that it could be my beginning, of life as a spy or life with Josef, I’m not sure. 

There was something wonderful about not knowing which extreme I was entering. All I knew was that this moment was significant. That I had become significant.

⬩

I considered my options recently:

What could I use for defense? Or would it be better to greet him in one of the outfits he had given me, hoping to remind him of Marija?

If I have to fight him, shall I find a way to keep him in the basement or kill him here and run away?

These ideas at times felt preposterous. I simply placed myself in a type of film and detached myself from my own reality in order to make the right decision.

All of this would be too much noise for my neighbors, even for the Viennese who normally kept to themselves. 

All I could do was to arm myself the best of my ability.

I’m beginning to feel frightened again as I write this - the last part of my long missive - though I want to resolve myself to be courageous. I was angry, too. Angry at the virus. Angry at my mother for not getting help sooner and not insisting I come home at the start. Angry at getting myself into this mess. When had it all gone wrong? That newspaper photograph. I had been manipulated to be someone I’m not, embarrassed and used by Marija and Josef. 

The emotions seem suddenly clearer. I am not so angry at Josef; in fact, I don’t care about him. And this thing in the newspaper; surely nobody remembers it. Only I do and for that, yes I am angry at Marija and Josef but I am more angry at myself for allowing myself to be manipulated. 

It is horrific the way I just let it happen. I hate myself for it.

Is this why I can no longer go out with friends? 

Is this why I detest the German that comes out of my mouth? 

Is this why I have created walls instead of boundaries around my being? 

Or is everything blurry because my mother is dead? 

⬩

Oh fuck. I’m going to have to end this in a moment. I’m sorry it’s all gotten a bit emotional here. I can hear somebody entering the building. The elevator has been called down. The cheap metal grating is rattling through the apartment hallways until it stops at the ground floor. 

It begins to move up. 

As I face death, I’ll be honest here: I’m afraid. I can’t do this. I’m going to curl up into a ball in my bed with all the blankets over me, but I’m taking the dagger into bed just in case I need to try to defend myself. I’ll let you know what happens if I’m still alive. 

To be continued next week…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

Subscribe now

∞ Table of Contents | Blurb

Chapter 27

I could feel the fear rising through my body as the morning began. At once I felt both lighter, as if a helium energy had taken over my body, and a burdensome and growing stone taking over my soul. I could not rest myself. I could not right myself. I could not move forward. 

I let out a small scream, just to see if I was really there. It came out of my mouth with some force, so I did it again.

‘Help!’ 

I wasn’t sure whom I was asking for help or why exactly. I’m sure a neighbor must have heard me though. It was certainly loud enough and I could often hear people simply walking around their flats. 

But nobody came.

Maybe I had to be more specific, or they were used to my madness.

‘I’m stuck. I’m scared. I can’t breathe!’

But I said this more quietly. Even if the neighbors had heard a noise, they wouldn’t have been able to discern the words. They may have thought I was watching a film. Perhaps I said it for myself. It was a reminder that things were not ok. It didn’t mean I had a solution. Everyone was suffering now, weren’t they? It would be selfish to assume I had it any worse than anybody else. People were dying. Or they were trapped inside. Or they were trapped inside, dying.

I had seen the videos of people in Italy, taking their last breaths in their homes while the medics looked on with nothing they could do. There were no more ventilators to put them on. No medicine that would help. It was better, they reasoned, to hold their hands dying in their beds than to transport them to a parking lot to wait to see if they could enter a hospital to wait to see if a tube could be put down their throat, and where they would probably die alone and encased in plastic under fluorescent lights.

When you say it out loud, it seems obvious. But we hang onto a hope for life. Even a few minutes more alive, we reason, is better than death. Even if it means we suffer unnecessarily or have to be alone. 

All I could manage for breakfast was yogurt from its plastic cup. I used a tiny spoon to make it last longer and ate standing near the kitchen window. The solitary tree in the courtyard grew twice its size during the lockdown. Its knobby branches reached closer to me as if waiting to pull me down into hell. Maybe it would happen in the middle of the night so nobody could witness it. 

 As I slowly ate the yogurt, I tried to connect with the soul of the tree. Any kind of escape could save me now. And what if the tree would simply decompose my body within a hollow of its trunk? Would that be so bad? I could be a natural part of the environment, looking in at other apartments, hearing their stories…

⬩

I willed myself to have a strong coffee and move back to a fresh mind. It worked. I was seeing more clearly and my body felt ready for action. 

I gazed in the mirror after brushing my teeth to make a plan for the day. First, all I could see was the black and blue nose with little bits of blood crusted at the end of it. It was still tender to touch but didn’t bother me otherwise. Who had I become? 

I recalled a scene from Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll looks at his reflection and wonders: “It yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine.” He looked at his split personality with curiosity, relishing in the uncanny nature it created in his own home, until it was finally too late. However, leaving was his solution and so it could be mine as well. 

I had to give it one more try. There were moments when I knew I was a good spy. I felt that I could play this game forever, discovering information that would change the course of history. 

But in other moments, I felt an imposter. A little girl being thrown around by those who only cared for my expendability. Even the thing I was good at — languages—hadn’t come to my advantage in any meaningful way I could discern. 

My mother’s death at the back of my mind compelled me to continue. 

I knew better than to contact Fred and Roger before they got in touch with me. In any case, it seemed they were only waiting for my information rather than giving me more to go by. Instead, it was necessary to go back to Frau Grüber. She had asked me to come join her for coffee soon. She was quite lonely in that big flat in the first. Others, she said, the few that she knew, were afraid of giving her the virus. ‘Don’t worry,’ she had said on the phone, ‘I’m a strong old lady and we can wear our masks.’

I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, but I also wasn’t sure her isolation was. And this painting had started to feel bigger than her life or mine. I decided to let her in on some of my information.

⬩

She was always home, so after sending her a text that I was on my way, I walked out the door. It was getting warmer, but I still wore a light long coat. It gave me some kind of shield as I floated through the vastness like a caped crusader, only I wasn’t trying to save the church at all. My only allegiance was to the truth. 

The city was mostly empty until I got near the Hofburg. A megaphone was blaring indiscernible words and the protestors had hung a huge cloth sign over Hitler’s beloved balcony. Drums were beating and people had their fists in the air. 

Rather than shirk from the violent sounds in dissonance with the streets that held the ghosts of Beethoven, Freud, and so many others, I walked toward the noise until I could see the signs. They were chanting the words on the signs: Black Lives Matter! and No room for refugees? Look around! It was the plight of the brown and black in this rich nation plagued by shame and secrecy, although many of them who showed up today were also blond and blue-eyed.

I smiled at the protesters to express solidarity. Nobody was listening to them except themselves. But I guess the fact that they were allowed to be there was something. They, too, would disappear into their tiny homes at the end of the day in safety. But the ones who were refugees would have the weight of their uncertain futures. 

⬩

I reached Frau Grüber’s apartment in the first just a few minutes later. 

I was invited in kindly, as always. She was dressed in a long black dress as if from another era, which matched the rest of the flat. We sat on the couch with coffee.

‘Oh Marie, I have been so lonely!’

‘But you look wonderful, Frau Grüber.’ It was true. She was vibrant and full of life. 

‘Thank you, dear. Do you mind very much to come here?’

‘Not at all. I enjoy speaking with you and hearing your stories. I like the way you have preserved something here in this apartment as well, something that’s been lost.’ 

‘Ah, sometimes I think you are the only one who fully understands me. How have you been, Marie?’

‘Fine, fine, thank you. I have been busy just taking care of my dog and doing some of my work online. I’m still getting paid by the French government, so it’s been fine really. What about you?’ I had started to feel some affinity with her. It was as if we were on the same side in this game, perhaps wiser than those around us but without all the power or tools to get things done. Maybe it was better to stay out of the messy parts of the business. 

‘I still miss my Wolfgang every day,’ I was afraid she was going to start crying again and not be able to talk, ‘But I know this just means I loved him. Ha, I am a silly old woman! He has been dead such a long time. Well, meeting you I feel a part of him come back to me.’ She went over to the snow globe that had reminded her of him and what I imagined were many romantic Ferris wheel rides, or some metaphor of that experience even if it only happened once. She picked it up and held it in the light of the window. Perhaps because she was so enamored of her memories, the globe suddenly slipped out from her fingers and smashed on the floor.

‘Oh! Oh dear, what have I done?’ Again, I was afraid she would start crying and didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to escape. But then, she did something strange: she started to laugh. ‘Oh, Marie, I’m such a silly old woman! I’m sorry I broke the beautiful present you got me.’

‘It’s no problem; I can get you another one.’

‘Oh, that would be lovely, but there’s no need. I was just thinking, those memories, they are already in my mind. Do you know what I would really like?’

‘Yes?’

‘A ride on the Ferris wheel! Shall we? Once it’s opened up again, of course. Would you do that with me?’

‘Yes. That sounds wonderful.’

I was starting to feel like I could fit in, just like this lady who had been an exile only to return and embrace the Viennese life. I found myself wanting to inherit her flat, wondering how I could get just a little bit closer to become her heir. It sounds selfish and greedy, I know, even manipulative. But it wasn’t the value of the flat that interested me; it was the thing itself. The way I had carved out a little home there, and in the city I had come to inhabit willfully. I wanted to have the liberty to linger here, well, forever, just like Frau. The house back in Bretagne was waiting for me, I knew this, and it had many happy memories. But somehow it did not feel like my home anymore. That idea that I must leave scared me, for despite it all, I was making a true home here.

Of course, it was preposterous. Surely, she would leave the flat to Wolfgang’s grandchildren she was always talking about. I came back to reality.

‘Frau Grüber, I also wanted to tell you something. About the painting.’ I was afraid of upsetting her but I also thought she might have more ideas that could lead to its return. This possibility outweighed her emotions. 

‘Oh, have you discovered something? That’s funny, Julie was just asking me about it on the phone again. She’s always been so curious about it since I first told her. I think she would like to use it for inspiration for her wall paintings, you see.’ 

I told her the story of going to Salzburg and speaking to the granddaughter of Franz Klammer’s brother. I told her, too about the churches and the tip about the church near me. 

‘My parents used to drag me to church there. Oh, I hated it! But I remember there was a girl Wolfgang had gone to school with whom he talked about a lot. I think it was her little brother who became the priest? Anyway, it was never a romantic thing. The girl was a bit odd, but kind. She was a lot like you, I think, no offense,’ she laughed. ‘She loved languages and taught at the local school. That’s the difference; she never went anywhere like you and me. Wolfgang said she had some purpose here that kept her from ever going very far even though she was very curious.’ Then she turned to look directly into my eyes, ‘She might know something about the painting.’

‘It’s possible, from what you say.’

‘Yes, certainly. But she might be dead. I just don’t know. I only met her once.’

‘Ok, I can ask the priest about her.’

‘Please do! But also, Marie, please be careful. It’s not worth getting into trouble over this. I still don’t know what killed my Wolfgang. Remember, that family in New York is doing just fine.’

‘I’ll look out for myself. Thank you.’ I didn’t dare tell her about the rest of the plan with the painting or the missing gold that it may hold the key to. I knew she could be questioned. In any case, it would just worry her more. 

I knew I had to go back to the church on the way home. With Josef on his way, it felt like this detail was imminent. If he were dangerous, perhaps whatever information I could deliver would save my life. And if he were actually good, I would also have information to help us fund the vaccine project. With the combination of information and my likeness to his dead lover, I thought I would be able to control the situation.

I opened the church doors just as I had with Akihiro. 

Nobody was there. I didn’t know if the priest lived in some apartment attached to the church or if he would have surveillance. The walk up toward the altar echoed through the vast chamber. I had a look around, trying to look like I was simply interested in the art and architecture in case somebody was watching me. There were countless beams, paintings, statues, crevices, and stones. 

I realized it was futile. Even if the painting were in the church, it could be anywhere. 

Instead, I sat down to pray for my own safety and for the strength to do the right thing that night, whatever it might be. So much has happened in the last few months. I felt like I was often running on instinct and adrenaline. The prayer was a pause, a source of strength, and a moment to absorb the love of my absent mother. 

My eyes closed, unbidden, until something asked them to open. The priest’s sister appeared before me. She must have floated in from a back door while I was seated to pray. I froze, both afraid and unsure what to say or do. 

She came directly toward me, moving extremely slowly, and began breathing deeper and deeper with a hissing sound on every inhale. At once, I realized she was also the woman I had seen at Belvedere admiring the pastoral Klimt over my shoulder. 

‘Who are you?’ she snapped in German.

‘Marie Thibaud,’ with slight hesitation, I thought I might as well be direct at this point: ‘I am here for the painting. Wolfgang sent me.’

‘Wolfgang is dead.’

‘Yes, his lover, Frau Grüber sent me to discover this lost artifact he had loved so much. I went on a search and wound up here. I also spoke to your brother…in Japanese…’ 

‘He mentioned you to me. He likes you, but how do I know I can trust you? I do not even tell my brother my secrets.’

‘You don’t,’ I switched to English, ‘But I think we are similar – invisible linguists moving between nationalities. Women who want to make the world good…I can take the burden from you now.’ Suddenly, I found the courage that had been lacking. 

‘Perhaps. I saw you go to the Bulgarian Embassy. What is your business there?’

‘It was simply interpretation work. The ambassador is dead. I’m risking my life to do the right thing with this painting.’

She paused a moment to examine my eyes. ‘So, it is time. Come —,’ and she beckoned me to follow her, like a psychopomp. 

She brought me over to the pew she was sitting on the first time I had entered the church. ‘Can you lift this stone?’

There was a small chip on the side, enough to slide a finger into. But the stone was too heavy to pry with just a finger. 

‘Here.’ The woman had a metal stake in her pocket, perhaps both for the purpose of moving the rock and for her protection. It was sharp on one end but thick enough to grab hold of. 

I placed it into the spot and used it as a lever. The stone began to move, and the old woman reached down to pull it up the rest of the way. 

‘Remarkable!’ I exclaimed. It was the size of a watermelon. Thinking it must be a fake stone, I tried to move it with my foot, but it wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t imagine how she had found the strength to pry it up. 

‘One can do amazing things when faced with situations of life and death.’

‘Are we in danger of death?’

She laughed. ‘In here, no. But we will all die, one way or another. This painting doesn’t have to, though. This painting can live on with a dream and history of internationalism.’ 

She then pulled out a sealed plastic box, like one would store photos in under one’s bed. There were layers of tissue inside and cedar balls. She opened the lid and then each layer of tissue as if they were butterfly wings, finally arriving at a small rolled-up canvas. She opened it slowly to reveal the masterpiece. 

The painting was even more exquisite in person and at once I understood how some elite criminals stole paintings for their eyes only in secret vaults in their mansions. Sort of. 

It was a perfect scene of joy: colorful flowers and the distant hills outside Vienna. Dominant shades of green in chiaroscuro fell to the background with the outline of the flowers — yellow and orange but also purple and pink — and a gnarled tree on the right reached up and arched over the scene as if it were an overseer, a godlike creator of this scene. All done in a Japanese style with strong complements of color and clear lines of movement as if our eyes were constantly following some path toward that elusive joy. 

‘There’s something else. It was in the frame of the painting, and I thought it best to keep these items separate in case one was discovered.’ She picked up a candle and we went through a small wooden door into darkness. There were old stone stairs, ‘This leads to the bell tower. I am an old woman; you go. Take this candle. When you reach the top, there is a wooden box. A musical score is in there. It was with the painting and I understand it tells where a lot of hidden gold is. Wolfgang had two bars of it with him that they gave us for the trouble of looking after this for so long. At first, they were also in that wooden box, but we took two bars out when we knew of some Syrians struggling here. My brother, the priest, he knew of this but not the painting. But there should be a piece of paper still inside.’ 

The passage was dark and damp. The steps were spiral, and I imagined the wrong kind of fall could be fatal. Up at the top, however, it lightened up with the opening to the bell. There was a little shelf, protected from the elements behind glass. There, sitting small and unassuming, was a little wooden box, without a lock. I reached back behind the glass and produced the paper I was searching for. 

Just at that moment, the bell started to ring. It was deafening and I nearly fell down the stairs to my death. For a moment, I thought of catapulting myself that way. Would it be a better end than the one Josef had in store for me? Would it be best to take things into my own hands? 

But I wanted to live. These discoveries and this old woman gave me power. 

I descended gingerly and emerged from the same door I had entered, calling out: ‘I’ve found it! Thank you so much. But you haven’t told me your name –’

The words echoed back to me from an empty altar, empty pews, and an immensity unlike any I had ever felt before. 

For not only was the woman gone from sight but also the painting. The Klimt had been literally within my reach and now it was gone again. 

Only the dagger remained to convince me the scene had been real. I picked it up along with the contents of the box and ran. 

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Chapter 26

A week or so later, things were starting to open up in the city more. Outdoor spaces for food and drink were accessible as long as one wore a mask whenever leaving their table. It was like a bunch of mini noir films all coexisting, with mask-bearing people moving in somnambulatory states, but secretly watching each other, watching out for the dangers all around them.

When the cafes first opened, I was surprised by the differences between them. The one I usually went to had become hyper-vigilant. Excessive amounts of duck tape and red and white caution ribbon sectioned off communal tables and water taps from use. Baristas wore masks and those plastic face covers and stood behind a window of plastic. No cash was allowed and no stamp cards. Plastic gloves were used to share the cups. As soon as a patron got up, the table and chair were immediately disinfected. I felt safe there. 

On the other hand, I went to the Parisian-style cafe in the second one morning. Servers wore masks on their chins. Regulars made fun of the meter-apart stickers on the floor and the need for a mask. They giggled as if it were a joke. I had the feeling that they were high on a vampirish notion of immortality. I had heard this on a Zoom call for work. A couple of Austrians talked about the way they were a strong ‘race’ … they lived long and did not worry about disease. ‘We are a mountain breed.’ 

It had all been going on for too long and everyone was sick of it. But we could not see the death. With such a sparse population, it remained invisible except to the few who felt it: the doctors and the family members of the dead. To the rest, it was an inconvenience to their dance steps of life. They didn’t know how to improvise. All they could do was try to figure out how to continue life as planned. An aberration was embarrassment. 

But these new steps to learn confused them, made them angry. So instead, they laughed. They wore masks under chins or under noses. They stood right behind you in the cue. They sat next to you on the metro. 

I found out later this was happening everywhere, but we had all become aware only of the life in our small vicinities.

⬩

Akihiro sent me a text one afternoon to tell me that a bunch of them from the UN were going to meet at Tel Aviv Beach Club by the canal. It was one of the few places opening down there and happened to be one of our favorites. 

I didn’t want to go, but I felt I had to make appearances or he and Danae would push me for reasons. My texts with her had naturally died out; we didn’t really have much in common.

I drifted in half an hour late and grabbed an Aperol spritz at the bar before sitting in a canvas beach chair, taking my shoes off to let my toes drift into the cold, imported sand. I stared out at the bleak canal and the people sitting on its edge, legs dangling while they imbibed and chatted in animation.

Without thinking, I got up, leaving my drink buried halfway in the sand, and drifted toward that same edge. My bare feet felt frozen and gritty on the cool pavement. I took a large breath in, all the way to my diaphragm, and gazed down into the opaque water. It was moving fast toward Bratislava, carrying the occasional branch from upstream. All my weight was in my toes, my body leaning a light angle toward the water. I was not afraid.

The noise in my head was getting louder and louder. It was in sharp contrast with the laughter and drinking around me. I felt the need to seek quiet and make sense of it all. I had to sort things out. I had to do something good. 

I bounded back to my seat and grabbed my shoes to leave. 

‘What are you doing, Marie?’ asked Akihiro. 

‘I don’t feel great. Thanks a lot for the invitation. Let’s hang out soon.’

I left before he could say anything else and he didn’t come after me.

The next morning, I walked through the still mainly empty streets to the arcades with the French restaurant. I went there to speak in French with the waiters and eat something that reminded me of home, even if just a piece of cheese or a macaroon with coffee or rich, earthy wine. I wanted to go one last time before I left. 

You see, I knew at this point that I had to leave. I wasn’t sure how, and I wasn’t sure if it would be alive, but I knew my days in Vienna were numbered. I arrived there at the entrance to Beau Lieu on Saturday morning, but nobody was there. The empty stone and glass passageway was dark before me. I entered anyway and peered in the windows of Beaulieu to make sure it wasn’t planning to open soon. All the Paris-style cafe chairs were stacked up in the corner and only a dim security light was on. None of the cakes or cheeses were in the windows. The wine looked a little dusty. That was when I realized it wasn’t just closed today or this morning, but perhaps it had never reopened. Perhaps it was closed for good. Perhaps the owners were stuck in France, or had died. 

I felt stressed because I couldn’t control the situation. This had been happening to me more and more during lockdown. I remembered an ex-boyfriend in Japan who had always said to me: ‘Just relax; if you can’t control something, just accept it.’ But I always countered it was much easier to relax about things I could control. Maybe it was the wrong philosophy, but the feelings were real and I couldn’t ignore them. I put my head between my knees to breathe and gather a new perspective, trying desperately to avoid a full-on panic attack. 

There was another nice coffee shop just down and opposite from my French sanctuary. As I approached, I could see that this cafe was also closed in a similar fashion. I felt a little relieved that maybe they were all just hibernating a little longer with the absence of tourists and business in the first district. It was likely and it gave me solace. It was a sanctuary of glass and stone. Like a large crypt that others dared not enter.

I moved to the other entrance to the arcade then breathed and turned again to move through it one more time, one last time. I conjured Walter Benjamin’s writing on these places in Paris in The Arcades Project. A German view on a French architectural project. 

I didn’t feel at home here. I didn’t feel community. I didn’t feel welcome. Instead, I felt like the zones of occupancy from just after the Second World War were still in conflict and still made the first district especially a kind of a void, a kind of no man’s land where people were suspicious of all others. 

The walking wasn’t helping like it sometimes does. Instead, the buildings lurked by my side, as if they would come to life and swallow me up. I felt like my movements were watched. 

I went to another cafe I hoped would be open, to sit with the comfort of a waiter that could offer me some protection. There was a little classic cafe called Sluka located under a vaulted passageway on the way home. 

The terrace was empty, but a server was smoking outside. He greeted me with a friendly smile and an Italian accent. I ordered a coffee and a Tiramisu. 

I didn’t have a notebook, so I took out my phone to take notes of the thoughts running through my mind. Then I realized that this could be watched or traced, so I just sat and looked out while I thought about things. 

Julie, you will recall that this is when you showed up. Totally out of the blue. 

‘Marie! Wonderful to see you. In person! Gregoire told me that Zoom yesterday was quite boring, wasn’t it? I was in the background and saw you on there. I’m just so bored; I’ve been listening in on his meetings. Can you believe it? I’m desperate.’ 

I laughed along with you, trying to appear of normal demeanor. I didn’t want you and Gregoire to worry about me, or get wrapped up in this messy business I’m in. ‘Good to see you, too, Julie. Ça va?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks a lot. I just came to have a coffee outside of the flat for once! May I join you?’

‘Of course.’

‘So, how have you been keeping yourself busy since our walk?’ 

‘Oh, not much. You know, some work, walking the dog, reading some books.’

‘Oh really? What have you been reading?’

‘Notes from Underground. That was a brilliant book. Oh, and I’ve just started Gargoyles. I read it before in English but now I’m trying the German.’ I was careful to omit where I had borrowed the book, afraid you would get mixed up in things. 

‘Good. Keep your brain active in times like these. Otherwise, it can go to mush!’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ve been doing some painting in the house, but Gregoire complains the fumes give him a headache. But now that it’s getting warmer, I can keep the windows open, so it should be ok.’

‘That’s good.’

‘You’re so sweet, Marie. You remind me of our daughter. She’s off in Scotland doing a postgraduate degree. When she was a baby here, she used to go on all sorts of adventures with me. We met with some powerful people…she kept them at ease, made them talk more freely. I learned so much about the world because of her!’ 

‘Wow. That’s incredible. My childhood was very simple. All near the seaside in our small town.’

‘That’s alright, too. Sometimes I think it’s better. Sometimes…I think this city has captivated me beyond my rational sense. My daughter is trying to have a baby with her partner. I hope they will stay somewhere in Scotland even though I wish they were close. She’s trying to do IVF now but the NHS is so backed up now, she’s struggling to access it.’

‘Oh gosh, I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Yes. Anyway, it’s good you’re here.’

‘Thanks, Julie, you and Gregoire are so kind to me. Like family.’

‘Oh, Marie, I wanted to mention that I talked to Frau Grüber the other day. Just on the phone, since she’s all alone, you know? Anyway, she told me that she mentioned that Klimt painting to you. You know, the one I had heard a little about.’

All I said was, ‘Yes, she mentioned it.’ I didn’t want to lie to you, but I also didn’t want to bring you into all this. It had gotten a whole lot messier than you could have imagined. I know you just wanted to save the painting. 

‘Did she say anything more?’

‘Just that maybe it was in Salzburg.’ I was careful not to lie to you. 

‘I see. Ok, thanks,’ but you were musing; you were so curious and I felt terrible that I couldn’t tell you more. ‘Do you think,’ you postulated, ‘It could even be inside that flat of yours? I mean, have you looked carefully at the walls? Or in the basement?’

‘Oh, that’s an interesting idea. I think that would be too obvious, don’t you? I mean, if she were trying to hide it.’ 

‘True. Well, worth a shot, I guess!’ then you added very quietly, ‘If you find it, please don’t tell her. I don’t trust her. She’s not bad, but you know, she’s Austrian. I’m not sure where her sympathies lie if you catch my drift.’

‘Ok, I won’t tell her.’ This wasn’t a lie either. Long ago, I had decided that Frau Grüber was a good woman but anything related to the painting might give her so much emotional stress that she could die on the spot. If she could have done something to help, she would have done it long ago. I think that’s why she trusted me with the little information she had.

We talked a little more, though I don’t remember what about, and then I left. I wasn’t really in the mood to be social and you understood. 

⬩

On the way home, I thought I’d give the Keller one more try. I hadn’t looked down there very hard and there was loads of junk. I was pretty sure, on the other hand, that the walls of the apartment were untouched. Everything looked intact and nothing had wallpaper over it or anything of the sort. 

I hated going down to that keller. I always thought of the Bernhard books and the stories on the news of people being kept down there. The ceiling was lower and the dim light didn’t shine into all the corners. There were twenty tiny caged cells, one for each apartment. A few were completely empty. Others held sporting equipment — skis, bikes, and even a treadmill. 

The uneven gray ground made me feel like I was in a haphazard hole — a graveyard of stuff nobody wanted anymore. That’s exactly what Frau Grüber’s cell looked like, although she had told me that none of the stuff in there was hers. It had all belonged to the tenant before me, or the one before that. She wasn’t sure. Anyway, it didn’t bother her because she didn’t need the space. I didn’t think it was particularly thoughtful of me, but I also didn’t have anything to put down there. 

She had a secondary coded lock that I took off first. The door creaked as I opened it with my skeleton key. It was almost too dark to see everything, so I turned on my phone flashlight. I had no idea what I was looking for, other than the painting itself of course. There were a few old lamps, small boxes of jars, and loose trinkets. None of these could have held a painting. There was an old suitcase, open from when I had come down before. Way in the back corner was an ancient oven. The last time I had come down, I looked up the mark, which had been made only in the 1950s. I had no idea why anybody would keep it other than they didn’t know how to get rid of it.

Oh! I had a lightbulb moment. How had I been so stupid not to look in the oven before? I guess it was just so dark in that corner, and numerous spiders were hanging over it. I couldn’t imagine a fancy painting being inside. But it was the right size…and it was old. 

I mustered up my courage. A Klimt versus a spider bite wasn’t a difficult comparison anymore. Maybe I had also become a little braver over the months.

I propped my phone on an old table and carefully stepped over several items to the oven. The door hinges were rusty. I slowly opened it, not wanting to make much noise and have a neighbor come by at an inopportune moment. 

There was something inside. It was a cardboard box. On the front was his name — Wolfgang. I imagined the friend in Salzburg labeling the multi-million dollar painting in this haphazard fashion so as not to draw attention to it. 

I gingerly pulled the box toward me. My heart was all over the place, not only fast but skipping beats. It was very lightweight, but I had read that sometimes to hide paintings, people take them off the frame. I moved backward toward the light of my phone, unable to turn around with the box due to all the junk piled around me. Carefully, I opened one end of the box and peered inside. 

Nothing. It was completely empty. 

I tried to pull at the other edge of the box, wondering if there was a secret space where the canvas could be held, but I couldn’t find anything. I sat, staring down. Wondering if it had once been there. How close had I come…

And then suddenly I was grabbed from behind and hit on the face with something hard. I later found a piece of wood that looked like it came from an easel though there was nothing like it in the basement. The assailant swiftly grabbed the box and ran. 

I decided not to scream, knowing it was futile. So set on secrecy, I dared not even call out for help, either for my safety or to catch the cardboard thief. Nobody would have heard me anyway, not loud enough that they would have felt compelled to act. 

Eventually, I had enough energy to make my way to the elevator, which was just around the dark corner. I don’t think I even locked the gate. The elevator’s glaring light shocked me. I closed my eyes as the metal doors closed on me and brought me up to the top floor. 

My nose was pretty ugly, bloody and bruised, but I didn’t think it was broken. I stuck a bandage on it and made tea. Then I threw out the tea and poured a whiskey. 

At least they hadn’t taken my phone. And at the same time, I was fairly certain there was nothing in that box. Maybe it would have been a clue though. 

As I write to you now, I still don’t know who it could have been. It happened so fast, but it seemed to be someone not much bigger than myself, a woman or a smaller man. That was all I had to go by. Fred, Roger, Josef, Finn…they were all too big. I thought of Danae and Akihiro. Both fit the size description. So, too, did thousands of others in Vienna. It could easily be someone I had never met, hired by someone else to follow me. 

I sent Fred and Roger a text on the burner phone. Fred replied swiftly that he was happy I was ok and that we should meet within the next few days. I was to wait for a location.

Almost simultaneously, I received a text on my normal phone from Josef. He said he would come by the next evening. He didn’t phrase it as a question. 

I wondered then if he could have been monitoring the other phone or somehow watching me from inside the flat. Then I know: he must’ve ordered the attack. If he came tomorrow, I would be alone. Just like Marija had been. True, I didn’t have a balcony, but my windows were high enough up and there were other ways to silently murder people. 

Maybe he wasn’t coming to kill me; he could have done that in Budapest easily. Was he grooming me or using me in some sort of game? I had naively trusted him. In reality, when I questioned the dangerous elements of being involved with him, I had masked them in a storylike appeal. Instead, I realized then, I was being used. I was expendable and I had information. 

I decided to flip the power switch around and gain the upper hand. I needed more information. 

That night, I began writing pieces of my story for you, now included in this narrative.

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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∞ Author’s Foreword

Chapter 25

The room I woke up in was made of large stones. I couldn’t remember noticing them during the night or when I had first arrived. There was a huge tapestry on the wall facing the bed that reminded me of the one in Bayeux my parents had taken me to. On that trip, we had also seen the Normandy bunkers and several cemeteries, both for the Allied forces and a German one. My father had said, ‘These soldiers didn’t have much choice. If something bad happens again in this world, please Marie, run away.’ His father had died in the war, far away and lost, impossible to visit any grave. He had been far too old for conscription, but he had wanted to make a difference.

Somebody knocked on the door and I pulled the covers up to allow them to enter. 

‘Yes?’ It would have been futile to hide anyway. 

It was Farkas who poked his head in: ‘Madame, would you like some breakfast?’

‘Please!’ 

He then entered with a silver tray of viennoiseries and a silver pot of coffee that he placed on the bed. It was as if nothing had happened the night before.

‘Enjoy, madame. I am to drive you to the train station in an hour. Do you require anything else?’

‘Only my…’ I hesitated to say my clothes, feeling awkward though I was already naked under the covers.

‘Your clothes, madame?’ the butler smiled kindly, ‘No matter. Here, Josef asked me to find you something new.’

He handed me several shopping bags with knee-high leather boots, warm tights in several colors, underwear and bras, and three tailored dresses, each black but with different textures. Everything still had tags on. He left before I could thank him, my fingers still testing the expensive fabrics. 

I wondered briefly if they had been bought for Marija. Then I recalled Josef was not rich; could these items be business expenses? Things a male honeypot could claim from their employer.

I chose the burgundy dress with pearly buttons and left to find my way downstairs about five minutes before our departure. The driver was waiting for me near the entranceway with a long, fur-lined coat. 

I felt like I was in a film taking place at least a century ago. 

‘Don’t worry,’ the butler smirked, ‘the fur is fake. But it’s an exceptional quality faux fur.’ 

‘Oh. Beautiful!’

He held out the sleeves and escorted me down the snowy stairs to the car.

Farkas opened the back door, cueing me to take the role of passenger-client only. I felt relieved. In the back seat, in my luxury. He didn’t say a word and turned up the music. 

⬩

The ride back was uneventful. My new clothes helped me play a role; somehow Hungarian things made me feel exotic in Vienna, as if it were the chic and edgy neighbor to traditional beauty covering up secret filth. I knew Hungary had its political problems, but at least they were out in the open. 

The rest of my day was rather uneventful. I had to do a small job online. During those jobs, no matter the topic, I have to be fully present for interpretation. It’s like a meditation; there’s no leaving the present moment. 

⬩

But after, instead of thinking about the weird experience in Budapest, I pondered what Josef had told me about the church. It was just nearby. I could even see the steeple from my flat. If this was really the place, I had to be careful about my approach. I still had no idea where the painting could be. In the crypt? Under a pew? Behind another painting in the church? I remember reading something about hidden paintings that were painted over. There was a process that could safely remove the top coat of paint. That would take quite a bit of time and people involved to get it done, though.

I was lost. So I went to bed with Ishmael at my feet. 

The morning church bells entered my soul like mind control. I was lying in bed, already half awake, eyes closed, and just pondering what future I had and if anyone in the world actually gave a fuck about me. I came up with a very short list, including you guys - thank you. But I was again drifting into sleep when the long wake-up bells began at seven o’clock just like every other day. It was as if they were saying to me, ‘There is no time to stop and feel sorry for yourself; you must just get up and continue.’ I imagined that many Viennese had faced the morning bells in this way before and that some perhaps encountered them this way every day. The bells motioned them all to get on with life.

This morning those bells I could see from my window were loud and toxic. Other days they had been a joyous welcoming to the day, an easy way of waking up. It was as if I had a massive hangover and the ringing entered my head as if my skull had become the dome and inside its chime churned the innards of my brain to mush, reminding me that I was not in control of what was there, that my identity had spun away from who I really was. The sound vibrations changed the rhythm of my heartbeat.

What had I become? A dutiful worker? A solitary thinker? A shameless intellectual? A runaway? Who was I to anyone anymore? 

The bells’ absence brought me back. I had a task to do. I recalled my initial encounter in that church with the lady ushering me out. Had she been a kind of ever-present guardian? Or was she a kind of demon connected to the painting in some way? 

Nothing was impossible anymore. I realized I just had to go and find out for myself. 

I knew this. And yet, I could not force myself to go, despite all the other church research I had done. I felt suddenly so lonely in my quest. 

I hadn’t heard from Fred and Roger since the encounter at Prater and had forgotten about contacting them when I went to see Josef. I reached for the burner phone and tried to keep my message fairly cryptic: Went to see him. Have a lead on a church.

One of them replied almost immediately: Great news! Please check it out and let us know. 

They trusted me. I was their spy. They didn’t think I would mess it up or they would have asked where and gone themselves. It all felt like some game they were playing on me. It was as if Josef had already told them this information and they were simply encouraging my confidence. What if asking about the painting there were dangerous? What if they were all setting me up for a trap? 

My paranoia, and possibly my loneliness, made me do something once unthinkable. I called Akihiro for help. I knew it could be a dangerous move for many reasons, and mostly, I didn’t want to admit that I needed help to him. But he was the only non-spy I could call. Plus, we could speak in Japanese about anything secretive. 

⬩

We met first on the Gürtel, which means belt in German. It’s that ugly road that wraps around the city. Anyway, there’s this pathway in the middle of it that starts near Westbahnhof. There are lots of drunks and addicts out as usual by the train station. The only difference was that they were all separated from one another. I imagined how cold the winter must have been for them and wondered how many had not survived COVID (so far…). 

Akihiro and I walked the stipulated distance apart with traffic on either side. It seemed like one of the safest places to talk. It would have been impossible to surprise or surveil us. I was discovering that merely my intuition could create spy strategies. It was a lot more about conversations and using common sense than fancy gadgets and violent encounters.

We danced between English and Japanese, peppered with a little German here and there. It was as if we embodied the power of multiple boundaries that spies had used after the war. I imagined the Gürtel must have been a frequent meeting place. I had seen a map showing this edge between the seventh and fifteenth Bezirk to be the transition point from American to French control. 

I told him about the painting. I was careful not to tell him about any people I had spoken to besides Frau Grüber, mostly to protect him. I also didn’t let him know about the plan for it that Josef had relayed to me. Instead, I told him: ‘Trust me, there is a good purpose for it. And at the end, it will be displayed for the public.’

‘Ok, sounds good. I’ll help you. I mean, it’s only a painting, after all. I don’t think we will be in any danger.’

‘It’s a multi-million dollar painting though! People have been killed for a lot less. Are you sure you’re ok with this?’

‘Yes. Let’s check out this church.’

⬩

We walked back another twenty minutes to arrive at the entryway. ‘It looks closed,’ Akahiro said. 

‘Pull hard on the metal ring.’ The door jostled loose and we opened it just enough to squeeze in before it sealed shut again. 

I expected the same woman to be seated where I had seen her, as if she haunted the place at all times. Instead, the priest was sitting in the same pew. I was sure of it because it was the one completely in darkness. No light from the high windows reached it due to the large wooden beams that crossed overhead. 

He did not stir. I glanced at Akihiro and pointed at him. He whispered in Japanese, ‘He’s praying, I think.’

The priest turned, and I prepared to run out.

‘Anata wa nihongo o hanashimasu. Hai?’

‘Wow!’ Akahiro continued in his native language, ‘Yes, we do. I am from Japan and she also speaks Japanese. And you, sir, er - Father - why do you speak Japanese?’ 

The priest laughed. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? I rarely get to use it anymore…sorry, it’s a bit rusty. I once lived in your country. I came to learn about Zen Buddhism.’

‘What? But you are Catholic…’

‘Precisely. It’s good to learn about other religions. In fact, I loved it so much I would have converted, but I don’t think I would have as big a congregation here. Instead, I am a Catholic priest, yes, but I include a lot of Buddhist ideas in my teachings. Don’t you think this is a good way to reach people? Maybe it’s a little sneaky.’

I was impressed. This man had his a covert operation. I thought it was a good time to ask about Wolfgang, since somebody else could walk in at any moment, including the freaky woman. The conversation was moving fast, but then I had learned the Viennese-like directness. 

‘Do you happen to have known Wolfgang Lechner?’ I also spoke in Japanese, hoping it would impress him. 

The priest looked up at one of the stained glass windows a while before returning his gaze to me. ‘Yes. I knew him. A little. He was a friend of my sister.’

Both Akihiro and I silently nodded. 

He continued: ‘They were friends in school. Helena is a little crazy but loveable. She often sits in this church. Over here, always,’ he pointed toward the area where the strange lady had been sitting the last time, ‘She was traumatized from the war — even though she was just a toddler. I wasn’t even born yet. And then during the Allied occupation, she was in school. She had to move from the Russian zone to the British one every day. At least twice a day as a child, she showed her papers there and felt like there were people constantly watching her. She quickly learned English in order to communicate better at the borders and with the soldiers in general. My mother warned her about them. As a young, pretty girl, she could have been taken advantage of. Instead, she always said they reminded her of her brother or father to catch them off guard and remind them of home. Their visages shifted quickly when she did this. It was a trick, as was moving between languages, German and English, mostly, but a few words of French and Russian as well. My whole family loves languages, you see, but she is especially gifted at it.’

‘I think the whole thing messed her up. She never moved out of our family apartment and became an English teacher at the local school. It gave her some community and purpose. 

‘At one point, I thought she must be a spy. She was so clever that I couldn’t imagine her being content in the small life she had created. There must be a double life she had hidden from us all. But I never found evidence, and now she is in her nineties ten years older than me. I would think she would have told me by now. 

‘Come back sometime when she is here. She would be pleased to speak with some other linguists! 

I promised that we would, and we left. 

As soon as the door closed, I whispered, ‘That must be it. The woman on the pew.’

Akihiro laughed, ‘There’s no way some old lady in a church could be your answer.’

‘Why not?’

’She would have done something with the painting ages ago, probably return it to the owners.’

‘I guess you’re right. Dead end. Or maybe the priest is hiding something.’

‘I think you should just move on. Tell them there was nothing. Maybe they’ll leave you alone. Go back to being a carefree interpreter instead of freaking out about weird stuff and making us walk on the ugly Gürtel just to have a conversation.’ He was sort of laughing but I could see him looking at me in a way that showed genuine concern, and a little annoyance as well. 

‘Maybe. Yes, maybe the spy life is not for me.’ 

‘What’s in it for you anyway? Did they offer you a cut?’

‘No. I guess I just wanted to do the right thing.’ 

I realized it then. Something had shifted inside of me. Although others saw inaction and isolation, I had found a reason to live. I no longer craved importance or status as I once had. Instead, I wanted to simply do something good. Marija had been able to have both. But her ambassador life and flashy clothes, even her husband, were all a show. The only real part of her had been the work she was trying to do for her people, knowing it was dangerous. I guess the other part had possibly been her love for Josef. Things could get messy, though; she or Josef would have killed the other for their cause if necessary, despite this love. 

Better to stay alone. I can accomplish more for this world in that way. I parted ways with Akihiro, vowing to leave him out of it from then on.

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Claustrophobia

noun: an irrational fear of confined places; a feeling of discontent due to a restrictive situation or environment

Chapter 24

Just when I thought I was going to burst, they really did open the borders like Josef said they would. We were caged animals by then, though, and few dared to leave their protection.

The train to Budapest was empty compared to normal. We all wore our masks diligently unless drinking or eating. I imagine we all felt we could hide our guilts behind those masks. The high-speed train let us escape something about ourselves we had discovered during the lockdown. 

With the lack of human warmth, my breath echoed off the metal of the dark Hungarian train. I thought of my mother. I was in a box all to myself but it made me feel trapped, as if I were underground, traveling through the sewers of Vienna through a secret passageway to another land. Though there was hope of something else on the other side, there was no escaping if things went awry. The train would keep going. 

Life is that way, too, isn’t it? We’ve all chosen our paths, sometimes switching rails, but ultimately we can’t get off, can we?

I wondered what Josef wanted. I wondered if things were going to get dangerous. What if they already were, unbeknownst to me? What if someone, the same who had killed Marija, was following me? Or what if it had been a suicide and I, too, was moving farther down that same black hole?

When the conductor came and quickly opened the door, I almost had a heart attack. She held out her ticket scanner like a gun. I thought she was a murderer. 

Gloves covered her fingers, and she reached her arm into the carriage, standing as far away as she could. She didn’t have the confidence of a typical conductor behind that mask and those gloves. Rather than creating a sense of formality, they made her into a machine. 

As she left me back inside my little moving room, I felt lonelier again. I wanted to beckon her back just to sit with me. 

I could feel the heart palpitations starting again. Some kind of mysterious anger was brewing within me. I could hear my mask move as it filled up with anxious breath. I sat in silence and looked out at the early brown spring, still with snowcapped hills.

The driver was just outside the station. I had no trouble recognizing him since he looked a lot like a younger version of Josef. 

‘Marie? Please—‘ 

He held the back door open for me and I continued to look out the window, but I didn’t feel claustrophobic anymore. The movement was relaxing and I felt as if I were entering some imaginary space. All the dangers of the world disappeared. 

The driver was silent. We both had our masks on, so it would have been difficult to speak anyway. He turned up the music. I recognized it as Portishead but didn’t know the song: ‘…in a half-lit world…I’m trying to believe…’. 

⬩

At Josef’s home up on the hill in Pest, the driver stopped to let me out before parking somewhere in the back. ‘Just open the door and wait in the living room. Josef will be there soon.’

Although already April, a light snow was coming down as I made my way up the steep staircase to the gothic entrance. I went into the large space with emerald green couches and a fireplace to sit. 

I tried to settle into a calm space in my mind, but excitement had the better of me. I know now that this was my downfall: the need for excitement. Why couldn’t I have just remained a normal interpreter like Akihiro and Danae? 

Josef came in rather suddenly, ‘Marie! You look fantastic, like Marija always did.’ He didn’t say this in a strange or embarrassed way. He must’ve either had her on his mind or had calculated this introduction, because - although somewhat strange - it came off his tongue rather naturally.

‘Thank you for having me here.’

‘Of course. You’ve been cooped up in Vienna far too long,’ he smirked, ‘You know how I feel about that place…great for short bursts.’

‘It is nice to be out. Your place is beautiful!’ 

‘I forgot you hadn’t been. Yes, you stayed at the hotel when Marija brought you along that time. I remember now.’

I was silent. I guessed he was grieving. It was the second time he had mentioned her in a matter of seconds. 

‘The snow – sometimes we get these strange spring cold bursts…I find it…magical…’

‘Yes, it’s also beautiful!’ 

‘You must wonder why I asked you here?’

‘Um, yes, I mean, it’s nice just to visit.’

‘Sure, well to be honest, it’s for both business and pleasure. Shall we get the business out of the way first? Then you can just relax here a while and we can have a nice evening.’

‘Ok, that sounds good. Can I help you with something?’

‘Maybe. Ok, so there’s a lot going on under the surface. You’re probably aware?’

‘Sure, I’ve been warned.’

‘Well, I think you’re also a little involved in it, no?’ He said it kindly. It wasn’t threatening and, in fact, it made me feel powerful for a moment.

‘I know some things.’ 

‘Good! I think I can trust you. You can certainly trust me. I actually work for the British occasionally. Did you know this?’ 

‘No.’

‘Well, it’s true. I know your friends Fred and Roger…’

‘We’re not friends!’ I cut in.

‘Well, friendly, I think. They’re good guys. You should trust them, too.’

‘They never mentioned you specifically.’

‘No, they wouldn’t. Not many people know I work for the British. I keep my cards close. Anyway, I’m trying to show you the loop. Do you get me?’

’Ok, yes, I think so.’

‘Good. So remember when I met you at that party? At your boss’s place. Well, I bugged their room.’

I hope this is not a shock to you, Gregoire and Julie. This is when I first learned that Josef was at odds with you, and I got very confused about him and the British and, well, everything really.

Josef could see the shock on my face, so he assuaged my fears, ‘Ah! Do not worry. We spies do not only bug evil people or our direct antagonists. No, we often even bug our friends. It’s a little sad, I realize. It’s just something that has to be done. It was a bit of protection for them as well. I had to see if they knew about the vaccine.’

‘The vaccine? What is it? And did they?’

‘Well, faux vaccine I should say. Marija was a good person,’ he turned away, ‘I loved her. I think you know this.’

‘It was clear to me. I’m sorry about her.’

‘It’s not your fault. Anyway, it’s part of the business. So, this vaccine. She was working with some Russians of the bad variety, government-connected. Oh, and don’t worry, we are in a safe place here. I pay the right people.’

I nodded. I still felt like I was in an imaginary space. The scene played out without fear and my heartbeat was extremely regular. I checked my pulse subtly at that moment to make sure I was in the real world. 

‘Yes, so she was working with them. Undercover, of course, dangerous stuff. She was hoping to get this early COVID vaccine to her people in Bulgaria.’

‘But wasn’t all that before the pandemic hit?’

‘You’re right. It started in China in December. But that trip you made here was November…and it wasn’t the start. The virus is not my area of expertise, but I have heard that the US is investigating whether or not the virus started in a lab. Or if there were earlier cases from animals that were covered up. I’m sure we’ll get the findings soon.’

‘I see…wow.’

‘It doesn’t affect us at this point. In any case, Marija only found out recently that the vaccine was a fake. It was a placebo with all sorts of fake research they were going to publish in Russia. To be fair to them, I know that some placebos work very well to protect people. However, she was under the impression that the deal was about the real thing. 

‘Well, I told her all this. I guess I’m the one who indirectly got her killed. She was working with some dangerous people, and probably making some profit herself, but she was a good person. She thought she could save her people since many would be susceptible. When she realized they were going to not only trick her but put Bulgarians at risk, she confronted them. I don’t know exactly what happened. Her plan was to tell them she would expose them to the international community unless they gave her dibs on the real vaccine they were also working on. I’m sure that didn’t go down well. You can guess what these people were like.

‘It wasn’t the worst way to go. She wasn’t afraid of death. We talked about it sometimes, and she knew what she was doing carried a lot of risk. This was why she didn’t want children.’

‘She told me that got in the way of her job.’

He turned away a few moments again at this point. ‘You’re right, they did, but not in the way she probably let on. They could have been in danger. I’ve never told anybody this but I asked her to leave her position and her husband and come live in Pest and have a child with me. I love Finn as well, but those two were not a real married couple. It was just a convenient relationship. I think we would have had his blessing.

‘Well, she said after this vaccine deal was all done, she would think about it.’

There was silence. 

‘That’s shit. I’m so sorry. It makes me like her even more. I mean the fact that she was so committed to her citizens. I don’t think I could be that brave.’

‘Well, there’s a chance for you to show some of the courage we’ve already seen from you. I hear you’ve been checking out the churches for information. Nicely done. I would try the one near you. I’d look myself but somebody would follow me.’

‘What about it? What should I do?’

‘Just do what you’ve been doing.’

‘It’s not really courageous though. It’s just a missing painting.’

‘It’s an important one. The painting is a piece of cultural heritage. I think that’s truly important; it shouldn’t be kept in some crypt or wherever Wolfgang stashed it.’

‘You knew Wolfgang?’

‘I know about him. And with the money from that painting, I have a plan to fund a real vaccine in Germany. Some of my country’s people are working on it. But they’re facing xenophobia as they apply for grants. They’ve got the ideas all set. They could save millions of people.’

‘Don’t you have a lot of money? Sorry, maybe that’s rude.’

‘I don’t mind. It’s an important question regarding the situation! I live well. This house has been passed down for generations. The security I mentioned and everything about this place is paid for directly by the agencies I work for. I’m in the business of doing good, you see, although some of the stuff we do to get the best result might involve some bad along the way. But it doesn’t involve taking people’s money, and I’m a bit safer without much money to be had. I don’t actually have that much cash around, unfortunately. Maybe if I did, though, I wouldn’t be as good of a spy. I would just donate money and go to charity balls like the other rich folks do, like my parents used to do. It only gets us so far.’

‘Ok, I’ll look in the church. I’ll let you know.’

‘Good! Thank you. It might be dangerous. I should warn you.’

‘That’s ok. Like Marija, I wouldn’t really be leaving anybody behind.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ he did have some direct Hungarian mannerisms, ‘This is part of the reason you were targeted by one of my agencies.’ He quickly added, ‘Don’t worry; we didn’t kill your mother though. I’m so sorry about that. This new vaccine could save people like her.’

‘Thank you.’ We had nothing else to say at that point. Neither of us wanted to talk about the dead.

⬩

He showed me to a room where I could stay the night. I wondered where his room was, if it was close by. I didn’t have feelings for him, but the idea of having him as a lover, like Marija had, began intoxicating me. Nothing was stopping us. If we became lovers, would people think I had killed Marija to get to him? She had humiliated me in the papers already, after all. What if this were my revenge?

I needed to quiet my mind. After a large mid-afternoon meal of venison and wine, I went on a walk, at Josef’s suggestion, following a ridge above the city. I went alone; Josef did not want us to be seen together. It was too obvious in the current situation.

I borrowed a large wool coat from the front closet. The snow had accumulated in thick cover, hiding the undulations of the street. 

Josef knew so much. Too much? I felt I had no choice but to obey him. And I did think I trusted him at that point. His story was too strange not to believe. He seemed to be doing everything for the purpose of good. 

As I walked on, I considered my options. I could do nothing or pretend to at least. Josef knew a lot, however. I didn’t think I could get away with pretending. Did I even care about the painting? It was fascinating, but why would I be able to find it when so many others hadn’t? 

My movements became rhythmic, in harmony with the snow itself. I felt more a part of the world than I ever had been before. I could be a key player in the flow of humanity moving toward a better world. 

A few others had passed my way during the walk, but I felt someone’s presence behind me, moving in a similar rhythm to my own. It wasn’t so strange, I thought, but my curiosity propelled me to find out who was there. 

I stopped, pretending to look out at the view and to stretch my arms. The follower kept coming toward me with a large hood and scarf covering most of his face. His rhythm didn’t break until he was standing right in front of me.

‘Marie, it’s Farkas. You know, Josef’s driver.’

‘Oh,’ I hesitated, ‘It’s beautiful here isn’t it? I was just looking at the view.’

‘No, you could feel me following you. You were right. Josef sent me to keep an eye on you.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

‘Are you getting cold? Let’s head back together. He also said I should take care of you.’

It was uncanny how much they looked alike, although Farkas was about twenty years younger. Maybe I just didn’t know many Hungarians, so they all looked a bit alike to me. 

We walked back in silence, just like the car ride.

He held the large door open for me to walk in and took my coat, back to being a butler. 

But his next move surprised me completely: we kissed. I mean, he kissed me, but I participated freely. I’m not sure if it was the wine or the surreal place we were in, but I let all inhibitions go and followed his movements upstairs to the room I had previously been shown into. 

Then, it got really weird. 

‘Hello, lovely,’ came a voice from inside the room. Josef was standing near the window and didn’t approach us. Farkas didn’t look surprised. 

‘What is this?’ 

‘Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to have a threesome or anything. Farkas is going to have sex with you. Only if you want to; I assume that’s why you’re up here? I specifically asked him to let you decide if you wanted to come up with him.’

‘You’re right. I mean, I thought that’s where we were heading…’

‘Good. I want to watch. It’s like watching a film I’m a part of, no? I can see you more clearly from over here and can imagine all the sensations. Possibly the imagination will make the experience even better, don’t you think?’ then he quickly added, ‘Only if you want to, of course. Is that alright? I’ll dim the lights.’

Farkas cut in: ‘What? Whom are you talking to?’

‘I…um…,’ I saw his reflection in a mirror over the wardrobe thanks to the light coming through the window. Nobody else was there. I imagined Josef secretly watching us in the dark. My rational mind would reject the notion, but my imagination of his presence had been so vivid that I couldn’t deny the possibility.

We were all playing games, and nobody was living in reality anymore. Part of me was afraid of what would happen if I said no, stopping to assess the situation fully. I wasn’t sure if the business part of things was totally separate from all this. Even if Josef were not there, did he know about Farkas in my room? Had he set it up to control me? And in that case, could I gain some power in turn from this experience? I just didn’t know anymore. But I also hadn’t had any kind of human contact in months. While I would have more happily taken a hug from my mother, this form of touch would have to do.

I looked at Farkas again. His dark hair and cosmopolitan beard were cut in exactly the same way as his employer. They also had a similar build, as if they went to the gym together. I figured maybe it was just the foreigner effect that they looked like doppelgängers. 

 I imagined Josef telling him to undress. ‘Make love to this girl. No, fuck her in exactly the way she tells you to. Marie, we’re relying on you.’

I heard this all in a serious, emotionless tone. His spirit waited patiently on the side without interrupting us again.

The sex was good, but I’ll spare you the details. That’s not the point here. And anyway, I would be making a lot of them up as the wine from dinner began to hit me more as soon as we began. I’m not sure if the whole event was minutes or hours. 

Farkas slipped out of the room quickly but not unkindly. I was grateful he was gone. 

As I think back to this experience, I can’t help but think of Foucault. This sex was power. It was Josef’s power over us. But it was also my power to narrate the story. I had captivated him somehow. I was controlling the scene and he was a passive observer, even if he had actually been down the hall in his room. I wondered what it had been like with Marija in the house. Had the driver been involved then as well? Or were we both players in his memory capsule, a way of grieving his lover? 

And although I still had no idea what other secrets were being passed around in my presence, I thought that maybe if Josef enjoyed the experience enough from afar, I could later use it to my advantage. I mean, if he wanted more, I could use that for something. 

Maybe, I considered even at the time, it would help me stay alive.  

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Chapter 23

There was nothing to do other than continue.

Walking through the labyrinth of the city eased my tension. Mainly I walked the same streets over and over again, often with Ishmael as I did the next morning. Though we didn’t have the strict square kilometer mandates like the French, there was safety in sticking to one’s neighborhood during this uncertain time.

Still, the streets began to confuse me. The more often I walked them, the stranger they felt. It was as if something was haunting them, lingering and waiting for passersby to swirl around and discombobulate my mind.

The side streets from Westbahnstraße looked like perfectly set up perspective drawings. The lines of all the bricks and pavement stones converged over and over again at the focal point with nothing in its way, nothing moving. They moved slightly downhill toward Burgaße.

I moved down narrow Stuckgaße and it felt like the buildings might come together and flatten me. Once I got halfway, I realized that, of course, they wouldn’t. So I stopped for a moment to look up and around. Who lived here? Who died here? 

I continued and looped around and up Kirchengaße. I had walked it many times and even entered the large church at the other end, but still, I saw new things. I had never noticed the park just off the road. It was a bit rundown and of course, now there were huge locks on the gate. The space, however, gave me some peace. I hung on the rails for a few moments, just imagining life in the park: children on the swings or someone having lunch on the bench. 

Along the street, I bought the local newspaper at a kiosk to look at while I stood in line at Joseph Brot for a fancy coffee and croissant. 

I waited like the rest of them, each a couple of meters away. These strange habits had begun to feel normal, even to my dog who waited patiently for nothing. We waited for expensive bread and coffee. The price, long queue, and quiet, gray mies-en-scene would make you think it was wartime rations we were after. I guess the pandemic was a kind of war after all, and everybody wants a tiny luxury during those times. 

The lead story in the paper was about a fear for the traditional dancing schools. The fear was not that children would get sick from dancing in close proximity or bring it back to their grandparents. No, instead it was that a generation of children would miss out on a year or two of dance lessons and the whole aesthetic of future ball seasons was in jeopardy. For how could they make their debutant appearances with a little less practice under their belts? The government was ready to bail out these schools before many other businesses, so the fear was not really financial. Although I had no clue how to ballroom dance, I was moved by the story. 

What a sad world without the waltz. Is this how traditions die? 

On the contrary, a revivalist effort was in hand to force all the children into isolated dance practice with imaginary partners, molded to move through their lives in the same way as their ancestors, lacking the ability to be agile in thought and response.

I once listened to a podcast that talked about longevity and our brain function. The guest neuroscientist concluded that dance classes were the best thing we could do for our brains, not only because physical movement and fitness can impact brain health but also because we had to calculate our movements as well as the social factor. 

But mainly, he said, humans are social creatures. Even extreme introverts need human contact to prosper. It’s not just about feeling good; it impacts our brain cells on micro-levels. 

At this time, my mind was swimming around with ideas like this but no outlet. It’s so great to write it down now; at least you guys will see it. I don’t imagine I have any mind-blowing ideas, but it feels good to tell someone what you’re thinking. 

I ordered the largest size mélange, which is pretty much café au lait, and walked out again into the cold, uncanny streets with Ishmael at my side. It was just becoming light. 

Even after things opened up that summer, the world seemed strange to me. And I felt strange with the world. The city that had at first awed me, then become allergic to me (or I to it, I wasn’t sure), was at that point in peace and harmony with me through our strangeness. We both had become closed off from outsiders. We both had hard formalities that were difficult to break through or understand. Neither of us had any need for affection and care, for empathy. The old buildings that had lasted through the war and been occupied by Hitler stood grand and impenetrable. Statues protruding from buildings were made visible on my walks with Ishmael due to the lack of people on the streets. The emptiness gave me peace. I felt like the still cherubs or gods that adorn the windowsills and entryways. We were all forever emblazoned, holding traumas within us silently and holding up our untempered visages to the world. I imagined these faces as mummifications of the past and studied them intently any time Ishmael stopped to explore a tree. 

At these times, I also thought: what is to become of me?  

I realized then that I had no future before me and that Vienna was the place for me to live out my years and peacefully rest in eternity. I am nearing thirty and have no aspirations for a family of my own. When Ishmael dies, I will find a new dog to replace him. There will always be translation work and within thirty years, I will have my pension available. I thought then about all the solitude before me as a blessing. No one to make decisions for me. No one to care for. No one to worry if they approved of me or were angry at me. I had learned with that whole media thing that it was probably better to remain invisible from people. 

It was true that I had changed the way I navigated the city. I started to notice it with the absence of people around me, just something to reflect on. I had begun by habit to take the little side streets instead of the grand boulevards. I preferred to be out in the early morning or late night when the only others I would see were the loners like myself. The transitions between light and dark felt comfortable to me. I avoided the areas with bars and cafes in the evening because I knew people were looking at me and maybe talking about me. The ball photo had damaged my reputation and I didn’t want to face any questions. 

But some days I felt like Ishmael kept me softer than that. It wasn’t fully possible to harden myself and take away the human needs that had once driven my life: feelings of love and affection, desire for nourishment, and acceptance by others. I mostly shunned these things now. I had become skinny and hard. I wanted to just blend into the stone and so I tried to become as hard as the rocks of the city herself. But sometimes when I was home with the dog, he would come over to jump onto my lap to sleep or ask me to throw his ball. At those moments, I forgot my resolve and freed myself into a connection with another being. The hangover of that feeling was always one of loss and emptiness. I could nearly taste the void of human connection. And so, I would open some wine and nourish my soul while watching a detective show with murder or rape, the hardest criminals, and fill my heart with intrigue and fear and that kept it beating, even while it was alone. 

I wondered at times like this, just before putting on the detective show but after the first glass of wine, if I were doomed to this for eternity or if there was some possibility for a way out. I had been enlightened to the loneliness of man. In high school, we learned about Descartes’ ideas of solipsism. I guess this is why I’m explaining to you here even some things that sound bizarre or imaginary – my mind’s inner life is my reality. This is how we are, we are all alone. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we stop searching for happiness through others. 

I am in that in-between moment now as I write. I have drunk the first third of the bottle of a Zweigelt, and I am waiting with my weapon ready. It is the same type of moment I have had many times in the last month or so. Right now, I want a lover. Or, I want my family in Bretagne back. But maybe it is too late for me, I consider. So, if I keep drinking the wine and dive into the horror, I will at least feel alive. I imagine the worst is just to lie around all day wishing you had a companion or a family, so I use it as a tool of energy. 

That evening, on a second walk after a few glasses of wine, I saw her again. I saw Marija but from a distance as she turned the corner. I knew it was impossible but at the same time her green coat was recognizable and her hair was just like mine.

I followed until she turned, still fifty meters away or so, and slowly approached. Was it a desire for absolution from her ghost? 

As Ishmael started barking, she called out to me in French: ’Marie! Wait, it’s me, Marija!’ 

I wanted to scream and yell that I hated her. But shock and formalities got the better of me. ‘Hello,’ was all I could say at first, but then I managed to add, ‘It’s so nice to run into you.’

‘Sorry I haven’t reached out sooner. Are you ok?’

’No problem, I have been very busy.’

‘Oh? What have you been busy with during this pandemic?’

On impulse, and I’m not sure why at this point, I wanted to say: hating you. Instead, I said, ‘I got a dog.’

‘Oh, how lovely!’

A van then drove between us, for there was a side street in the middle of where we were standing. As it drove off, she had disappeared. On the side of the building where her face had been was one of those mirrors to help drivers and pedestrians see around tight corners. Had I been talking to myself?

This was some kind of ending, some kind of goodbye. I recalled the last time I had seen her alive and hadn’t thought much of the goodbye. And then I thought of the goodbye with my mother at Christmas. She had asked for a second hug and kiss before I left which I had delivered in haste and rushed off to the taxi waiting and put on a playlist.

I always think it’s strange to say goodbyes when you know it’s the last time you’ll see someone: isn’t it a kind of death? I left people in Tokyo and New York that I would never see. People who had shared intimate conversations and experiences with me. 

And now, without Maman in Bretagne, would I ever go back? Were all those people from my childhood dead to me, too? 

The frightening part meant that I was dead as well…many times over. 

⬩

When I got home, I watched a show with the rest of the bottle of wine before moving to bed. I could feel the fear rising in through my body as deep night came. At once I felt both lighter, as if a helium energy had taken over my body, and a burdensome and growing stone taking over my soul. I could not rest myself. I could not right myself. I could not move forward. 

I let out a small scream, just to see if I was really there. It came out of my mouth with some force, so I did it again.

‘Help!’ 

I wasn’t sure whom I was asking for help or why exactly. I’m sure a neighbor must have heard me though. It was certainly loud enough and I could often hear people simply walking around their flats. 

But nobody came.

Maybe I had to be more specific.

‘I’m stuck. I’m scared. I can’t breathe!’

But I said this more quietly. Even if the neighbors had heard a noise, they wouldn’t have been able to discern to words. They may have thought I was watching a film. Perhaps I said it for myself. It was a reminder that things were not ok. It didn’t mean I had a solution. Everyone was suffering now, weren’t they? It would be selfish to assume I had it any worse than anybody else. People were dying. Or they were trapped inside. Or they were trapped inside, dying.

I had seen the videos of people in Italy, taking their last breaths in their homes while the medics looked on with nothing they could do. There were no more ventilators to put them on. No medicine that would help. It was better, they reasoned, to hold their hands dying in their beds than to transport them to a parking lot to wait to see if they could enter a hospital to wait to see if a tube could be put down their throat, and where they would probably die alone and encased in plastic under fluorescent lights.

When you say it out loud, it’s obvious. But we hang onto a hope for life. Even a few minutes more alive, we reason, is better than death. Even if it means we suffer unnecessarily or have to be alone. 

I continued to lie down, thinking sleep would come eventually. I rolled over on my left and suddenly my heart was popping out of my body. That’s what it felt like. I paid closer attention - I didn’t have a choice - and the beat was not exactly fast but it was all over the place. I continued to put my hand where the pumping was, no longer like pumping now like random movements as if it had a mind of its own. 

I thought I should probably call emergency or at least just head over to the hospital. But I wasn’t sure if that was even allowed anymore. I didn’t want to get the disease and - worse - I didn’t want to get admitted to a room in isolation and get treated by doctors in hazmat suits, possibly die there. Like maman.

I realize this probably sounds stupid as I was totally isolated at home anyway but I guess at least it was home and at least my dog was there to keep me company. He was sleeping at my feet and didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary. I remembered the story about the dog alerting parents their baby wasn’t breathing properly and thought I must be ok because he was sleeping well and maybe at least if I died in my sleep he would alert the neighbors to get me out. Well, at least when he wanted his breakfast. I now knew they would call the police over perturbing noise. 

My phone broke into these thoughts. It was a text from Josef. 

They are opening the border next week. Come to Pest?

‘Ok, which day?’ I didn’t want to sound too excited, so I made it simple.

‘Thursday. The nine o’clock train. I’ll send a diplomatic note just in case there are problems at the border. Then my driver will collect you at the train station.’

The rhythms of my heart turned from fear to excitement and radiated through my body. I would make my parents proud. I would live with purpose. But it was the promise of live human connection that allowed me to fall asleep soon after that.     

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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∞ Author’s Foreword
∞ Podcasts about Layering Fiction
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Chapter 22

I used to relish the silence that enveloped me on those nights. Though it was freezing cold and damp in Vienna all through that March, I would crack the window and read something or just sit with a glass of wine on the couch, feeling the silence. There were small sounds, of course. Doors closing in the building or the owl on the roof that persevered in winter. The movement of the weather also echoed in the courtyard and entered my realm through the small opening in the window.

The calm seems eerie in retrospect. It was only so quiet because people were silently dying and a curfew had been put in place. Ambulance alarms came a few times a night as well despite the lack of people on the streets; it was as if they wanted to remind us of this death, those of us cocooned in our tiny living spaces, waiting for the virus to permeate. 

At some point, I would stop reading and stare out into the darkness with my wine glass in hand. The world felt strange at these moments, as if I were just a player in someone’s game. 

I started to think I was losing my mind. And at these moments, I thought I should get out of the game I had started to play. 

But there was no way out. I knew it even then.

⬩

My mother was so far away. I don’t just mean physically. It was as if she were occupying a different realm of existence, a parallel universe. I couldn’t imagine her reality. 

Every day, the call came around the same time in the late morning. I imagined they were updating many families. Even those who lived right down the street were at the same distance. Some of them must have felt relieved that they were not expected to face the virus themselves. 

Would it ever feel real? This whole episode or what was to become of it?

Her health had been stable the first few days, and I even got a couple of texts on the third day. Bonjour, Marie! T’inquiète pas. Je t’aime, cherie. And then she had also asked me about the weather in Vienna and had I read a good book recently. The normalcy of it all made me worry less. I guess maybe that was the point; she was always trying to make me run free and not be burdened by my roots. 

They helped her to do it when I asked about it. I was a little disappointed she hadn’t tried herself, but I didn’t know what the situation was like in there. 

On the fourth day, they said her oxygen had dropped and they would have to put her in intensive care. She was in ‘luck’ because a bed had opened up. They would likely put her on a ventilator and asked me if this was ok. Of course, I said yes. I had no idea why you would say no. They said she was a good candidate for it — not so old and not sick in other ways. She was likely to respond well and just need it during this dive, like they had seen in other patients. 

I felt reassured. Doctors always know which thing to give you and what the outcome would be. That had been my experience. My dad’s death was different. It was sudden and without warning. 

So I carried on with my day. I had a work Zoom. Gregoire, you were meeting with a few locally based diplomats to discuss citizens’ rights, do you remember? As usual, I was mainly shadowing; you didn’t really need me. But a couple of times you asked for clarification of esoteric medical terms. All the official interpreters had been briefed on these terms to ensure we were well prepared with COVID-specific language; it wasn’t the kind of stuff we usually talked about.

There were so many hypotheticals…when borders open, should people visit their homes or risk getting stuck or infecting others? What kinds of tests would be available? What was more valuable—having time with a family member during the summer or staying put to be first in line for a vaccine trial or just to stay healthy? 

The ethical considerations were vast. They talked also about dead bodies and what to do with them, as well as the issue of Vienna’s full graveyards. Most international families wouldn’t have the money to send bodies home and when would they even be able to? 

One of the others from Slovakia asked about Marija: ‘The news was so terrible! That woman was so clever, so full of life. Do we know what happened? I mean, the real story?’

There was fear on her face that she had disguised from her voice. You tried to ease her mind, Gregoire: ‘She was, wasn’t she? It looks like it was just a bad accident. I haven’t heard anything on the pipeline.’

The Slovakian continued, ‘What will they do with her body? I heard it’s been at the morgue for weeks.’

’They will cremate her and bring her home to Bulgaria when it’s safe. Her husband, Finn, you know he is Swiss?’

The others nodded, seeking a leader among none. ‘Yes, he is well connected like all the Swiss,’ he laughed, ‘And he knows how to get things done. It was sad news, but you needn’t worry.’

After we ended the call, my phone rang and I saw it was you, Julie. 

‘Marie! It’s both of us here. Want to go for a walk?’

‘Is that allowed?’

‘Yes,’ Grégoire laughed, ‘Weren’t you paying attention at the start of the call?’

I knew he wasn’t bothered. So I forced a laugh as well, ‘I guess my mind was drifting.’ I hadn’t told either of you about my mother, so there was no way you could know.

‘Well, do you want to go? It is allowed if we keep a distance of a meter apart. We could meet over in Spittelau and walk along the canal away from the city.’

‘Of course, thanks.’ I only realized then how lonely I had been, but I vowed not to tell you about my mom. I didn’t want it to be real.

We were walking by the water, keeping distance between us. Others were doing the same and most gave a wide berth when they passed. 

We were passing by the Hundertwasser incineration plant. Such a strange and beautiful sight. We all naturally looked up at it. 

Julie, you were always commenting on art: ‘I love this building. We are so lucky in Vienna! All this beautiful art,’ you paused, ‘‘Don’t you think art should be for everyone?’

‘What do you mean?’ 

’Accessible. Not hidden away by the rich and powerful?’

‘Yes…of course…I mean, there’s no way I could afford any masterpieces. It’s great that so many are on display in museums.’

‘I agree! And also many of the buildings here are art,’ and then you came closer to me while Gregoire kept slowly walking ahead. Rather than fear, I felt a desire for closeness, to anyone. ‘You know, Marie, Frau Grüber might be hiding that painting I told you about.’

‘Hiding?’ My heart started to race. I didn’t want to mix you both up with this awful mess I had gotten myself into. 

‘Oh, not on purpose. She’s a good lady, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, of course,’ then I realized I hadn’t mentioned my visit to her flat, ‘I saw the wall you painted at her apartment. I wanted to tell you how beautiful it was!’

‘Haha, I don’t mean my wall! That’s not a masterpiece, just a decoration. No, she is keeping that Klimt from the world. I’m not sure if it was her lover’s or what. She must have told you about him. She’s always talking about him, crying about him…’

I started to feel uncomfortable. I can tell you now because it’ll be all sorted when you read this and I’ll either have taken the fall or killed the real culprit. You went on with only a nod, ‘I think it belonged to a Jewish woman who owned the Viennese Cabaret and got passed on to somebody. I love that woman, your landlady, but if she is doing that, we must stop her. Do you think you could try to find out? I mean, if somebody else found out, say the police after she dies or her cleaning lady, the painting could fall into the wrong hands or her reputation could be tarnished. Imagine if she were forever remembered as a woman whose lover had conspired with the Nazis to take wealth from Jewish people, and then never give it back after the war?’

I hadn’t thought of these alternatives. I mean both that Frau Grüber could be hiding something, though I didn’t think so, I mean besides what she had already told me, and the way it could affect her if I didn’t find it. 

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure Frau Grüber wants to do the right thing. She’s probably hoping somebody will ask her about it to relieve her of this burden and help her. I would do it myself, but she thinks I’m after it. Haha. She told me about it once and I asked too many questions! She thinks I’m a spy!’ 

‘Oh, that’s funny. Well, sure, I can try to find out. I’m supposed to go over there once we’re allowed. I heard it might be soon.’

‘Perfect. Just don’t tell anybody else about this.’

We walked on. And don’t worry, I never did tell anyone that you had asked about this. I just knew at this point, I had to figure out a little more myself. I kept my cards close.

⬩

Maman didn’t have one of those preexisting conditions they kept talking about on the news. But she was alone. She had been pretty careful, had worn her mask, but also had had to get her groceries and essentials sometimes or just go on a walk. The little town in Bretagne didn’t have delivery the way they do in the city. And when she went out, she always ran into someone she knew, whether the grocer himself or a friend walking their dog. They would stop and talk a while, even if a meter apart. Risk was unavoidable. The virus could have been on something she ate or lingering in the air after a sneeze. It could have been enveloping her, invading her at any time. Unknown and certainly unbidden, it could have entered her system with the sole motivation of taking it over, feeding off of her nutrients to stay alive to be passed on to the next victim. 

I received a call from the hospital number just after getting home. It wasn’t the typical time, so I was hopeful she was getting out.

‘Bonjour? Oui, c’est Mademoiselle Thibaud.’

‘Mademoiselle, I’m so sorry to tell you this. Your mother died today. We did everything we could.’

I was silent.

‘Are you ok? Well no, probably not. I’m sorry it is all like this, so impersonal. I have to tell you that we will keep the body here for up to a day only because of the problems. I know, it’s not something you want to hear. Shall we go ahead and organize the cremation or do you have someone who will prepare a funeral?’

‘No. It’s just me.’

‘Ok, so can we go ahead with the cremation?’

‘Oui.’

‘Mademoiselle, this is a good choice. I will organize it all and send you the information as I understand you are in Austria?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

I recited my email address and hung up. My mother would be dust, back to the sand and salt of the earth. 

Maybe she had waited too long to go to the hospital. Maybe the virus had already caught her too strongly. Or maybe it was better to have had a few extra days in her home, with her dog. Would it have changed things if I had been there? 

Or would we have died together?

⬩

In the hours that followed, I tried to wrestle with the concept of her death. I wanted to feel it and to make some sense of it. There was no question she had been a good woman, so at least there was that. But what impact had she had on the world? She lived a small life, even more so after my dad died. She enjoyed it and was kind to people. Would they remember her? Did it matter?

I didn’t know if she had suffered or not, so I tried to imagine that she hadn’t, that the drugs in the hospital had calmed her. Anyway, she would have been isolated besides talking to some nurses behind plastic. But she had always been a solitary person; maybe being alone wasn’t all that bad. I realized I was trying not to feel guilty for not being there, but there was no way I could’ve been. I guess I could’ve been there before, when she first got sick. 

There was nobody to talk to about it or about her. Even if I did call someone, what would we talk about? 

No matter what the story: she was dead. 

I wrote a long email to my uncle, her brother, and my aunt, my dad’s sister. I just made it longer so they wouldn’t think I was an awful person for not calling. I said it was too hard for me to talk right now so they would pity me. I sent nearly the same email to two of her friends. I then sent a small memo to the local news at home. There was nobody else to tell. 

I felt like I was watching myself from the ceiling and just waiting for some emotion to come through on my face. I couldn’t get any tears to come until forcing them by cutting my thigh with a kitchen knife. It was just a little cut, enough to feel the pain. I felt stupid because her pain must have been so much worse. Then I realized she would never have pain again. I wasn’t sure if this was a positive conclusion or not. 

⬩

By evening, I was struggling to cope in my little flat. It wasn’t sadness exactly, more like imprisonment, but this time the prison was my mind, not the quarantine in my flat. I screamed out of desperation of not knowing what to do or feel. Maybe a part of me wanted to be heard by someone with an answer or at least a hug.

Unconsciously, I then smashed a bottle of red wine on the floor. It startled me after it happened as if something else had moved my hand into the action. I left it in the kitchen and went into the living room to curl up under a blanket. The violence inside had been let out, and I felt somewhat better.

Fifteen minutes later, the police showed up at my door.

The neighbors must’ve called; but why didn’t they come to check on me? Was it the virus? They could have simply called through the door. 

The police asked me if I was alone, that somebody had heard shouting and something breaking. Then they asked if I was ill. I still had the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I sputtered out that my mother had died. Nobody responded to this. I didn’t understand what they were doing until it dawned on me that they weren’t concerned for my well-being at all. Instead, they just wanted me to shut up and not disturb the others. They also didn’t want to get sick. 

After noting I did not appear ill, they entered my flat to have a look around. I had forgotten about the wine bottle. 

‘You are definitely alone?’ they switched to English because of my foreignness though we had been speaking in German.

‘Yes.’

They looked at me with suspicion while pointing to the kitchen, ‘What happened here?’

I think I held my breath for almost a minute while my face turned red behind my mask. Eventually, I exploded: ‘My mother fucking died! Did you not fucking hear me?’

But it was as if my words were ghostly: ‘That looks dangerous. Please be careful cleaning it up. We need to take your name, miss — ?’

‘I don’t want to give you my name.’

‘Well, do you live here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ok, we’ll just look at the records. Auf Wiedersehen.’ 

They left without another word.

The other neighbors must have heard my final declaration, which also pleased me. Now, maybe they would leave me alone again.

I heard them murmuring in the hallway as they closed the door. I had a rage inside me still and I didn’t know where to put it, so I pulled out a clump of hair and smacked my face, again and again, until I fell to the floor. The spilled wine moved slowly toward me until it soaked my light blue jeans an irreversible shade of pink. 

This time, I screamed silently out of fear. I opened my mouth to its largest hinges. Ishmael licked the wine from my jeans. I placed him on my lap and stroked his fur, keeping him away from the glass

There was nobody outside anymore, no one waiting for me or coming to my aid. No one waiting for a telephone call or sitting in the other room. Even my spare key sat in a cold ceramic cup without a friend to hold it.

Emptiness was all around me. The agoraphobia reached me even in my apartment now, so I knew I had to get out, either by jumping on a plane with a few of my belongings or jumping out the open window to forever remain a horror of this city, staining the streets with my blood and streaking the media with headlines about the fate of that girl who was fucking in the photograph.     

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

Subscribe now

∞ Table of Contents | Blurb
∞ Author’s Foreword

Chapter 21

In the coming weeks, I continued to visit churches at random. At first, it felt like a duty or a calling.

It soon started to feel pointless…what was I even looking for? I couldn’t take apart the walls of the churches. I thought about being bold and attending confession to ask the priest if he knew anything about it. That was always something people did in mafia films. I mean, secrets were exchanged in the confession box. However, it wasn’t allowed during the lockdown. I was learning, in any case, how to be a better spy. I knew the dark parts of the city much more than the open ones. 

I think this was why I enjoyed attending the churches, both for the walk outside with purpose rather than ambling around my neighborhood and for the solace and forgiveness of the church. I still wasn’t sure if the intermediary work I was doing would lead to good or evil. Although I had lost my faith over the years, I reasoned that all these church visits might help me not to be good or reach Heaven or any nonsense like that but to feel at peace with myself. I wasn’t knowingly doing any harm after all. I decided that I would do my best with any information that came my way, and that was all that I could do.

Occasionally, I would encounter a priest and awkwardly ask him if he knew Wolfgang. I didn’t ask about Krätzl right away as they were all likely to know him a little at least. It would only be significant if there was a reaction to Wolfgang’s name. The visits were especially awkward with the distance we had to keep and the masks we wore. But it was also less risky to ask them about Wolfgang than the painting. What if others knew of the painting and were trying to get their hands on it for evil, or at least for personal gain, which I guess was a kind of evil? I certainly didn’t trust priests to be good. I’m sure some of them were; Franz seemed like a good guy. I also knew, though, like everyone, about the riches taken from the poor and the problems with pedophilia in the Catholic church, and I recalled the story from Fred and Roger as well as other issues I saw as evil, like homophobia and refusing women the right to abortions. 

Because I never expected much, I was surprised when one priest at a simple church in the fifteenth district who had replied, ‘No, no I don’t know this man,’ continued by offering me a talk, ‘Are you troubled by something?’

It was as if he could read my mind. However, I soon considered that most people in the world were currently ‘troubled’ by the pandemic and all sorts of things related to it. If he was trying to sound like a psychic, he could use this on anybody. Still, I guess I was feeling lost, so I replied, ‘Thank you. I am…in the middle of something,’ then I added quickly, ‘Not something bad! But I am a little confused by it all. I’m not sure how I got where I am.’

‘Hmm. This happens to all of us. Try not to focus on what got you here, but where you are heading. How will you get out and how will you do good by helping others?’

I remained silent for some time and closed my eyes. 

My work here wasn’t selfish. My intuition told me that finding the painting would do some good in the world. Then I could disappear into abstract greatness. My self didn’t matter anymore. Isn’t this enlightenment? Paradoxically in the search to become someone meaningful, I had allowed myself to sublimate, hopefully without a trace except for this letter of explanation when this was all done. 

As I opened my eyes, I spoke out loud, ‘Vielen Dank! Yes, you are right…’ my voice trailed off as I realized I was talking to nobody. The space before me was empty. I twisted around in the pew, but it looked like the entire church was empty. ‘Father? Are you there?’ 

There was no response nor any sound of movement or breathing in the void between the walls of stones. 

My breath became quick and I couldn’t get enough oxygen from behind the mask. In a fit, I threw it off my face, leaving it on the floor to mark that I and this moment had existed, and ran out into the gray city evening.

I felt slightly better. There was more air and whoever had been talking to me was back in the church, whether some hallucination or a strange disappearing priest. Perhaps he had been afraid of the virus and retreated quickly after speaking. Or was I going mad? 

But I could feel something else coming. A weakness, a fear, rather than a rage or aggression. I was retreating into myself. It was as if everything were created from my mind: the pandemic, this strange hunt for unclear reasons. Most of my conversations had been one-on-one; who had witnessed anything between me and Marija or Josef, or Fred and Roger, who functioned as one person in my brain? Who else had spoken with me about Marija’s death? 

I began attacking outward for fear of completely incinerating in an implosion of reality. I kicked a tree, then a bicycle. I punched the hard ground. It all felt real, as did my throbbing knuckles. 

The pain also snapped me awake. I remembered that you both had messaged me about Marija. Maybe we hadn’t been able to meet in person, but the texts should have been there on my phone. With fear, I opened up to our conversations and found the evidence I needed. A short discussion of this sad demise with you, Julie. Another with Gregoire about some work I had to do on a Zoom call that also mentioned my trip to Salzburg, without details of the trip’s purpose of course. 

You both saved me. I knew you were grounded. Having you exist, even digitally, there before my eyes proved to me that I wasn’t in some kind of purgatory or mind simulation. The things that had happened the few months previously had been real. 

⬩

It was now late March, but a huge snowstorm was starting in on the city. As I was making some soup for lunch, I got a call from a strange French number. 

‘Bonjour?’

‘Bonjour Madame Thibaut. C’est vous?’

‘Yes, it is. Who is calling?’ I continued in French.

‘This is the hospital. Are you the daughter of Céleste Thibaud?’

My hand tightened its grip on the phone, ‘Yes…’

‘Your mother has been admitted to the COVID ward of the hospital. I’m very sorry to tell you this. So far, she is ok, but she is taking some oxygen. We are monitoring her as closely as we can, considering the recent influx of people.’

‘Ok, thank you. How can I get information? Does she have her phone?’

‘She does, but she might find it difficult to use. We will update you once a day. If you need to reach us, you can try this number I’ve called you on, but please be aware it may be difficult to get through.’

‘Merci madame.’

She hung up without any further information. So that was it. My mom was in a hospital, and I was not allowed to cross the border. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to get into the hospital. Maybe she would be discharged soon, I reasoned. 

I tried messaging her though she was not so responsive on her smartphone. There was only one check; perhaps the phone was switched off. 

On Austrian television, they showed the frozen Danube, which I learned to be a rare occurrence these days. It had been very cold for the last couple of weeks, but a river doesn’t freeze all that well ever, and a teenager had dropped through and died last night. They could impose lockdowns and quarantines, but other dangers still existed. 

I turned off the TV and thought of my mom. Maman. What was she thinking or feeling? I tried to enter her skin, thinking that somehow I could help by taking her pain. But I couldn’t imagine without more information. 

Was she afraid? Or was she holding onto love? Why hadn’t I stayed longer at Christmas? We had barely had time to talk. 

I tried to push the thoughts from my mind. She was on oxygen, not dying. And the French hospitals were good. 

I watched the snow coming in clumps like ashes from all the dead bodies. 

And then I tried to tell myself: no, your mind is not taken over by darkness. This is beauty. This is truth beholden to you.

Instead, I conjured Klimt’s beautiful scenes of Japonisme. I imagined the scene out the window as one of these paintings, mundane as it might be of a few plain apartment buildings and the simple church steeple. It transformed before me. Colors emanated from the grays and falling white. I felt like one of those people with synesthesia. 

I checked the weather in Bretagne to find it was snowing there, too, although perhaps not as heavily. Its presence joined my reality with that of my mother, who I imagined looking out her hospital window at the changing seasons of life and thinking of me in Austria. 

This gave me comfort even if it were a trick used on myself. What are our emotions anyway but choices of perception? 

I turned the television back on, seeking some distraction that wasn’t so morbid. It was then late enough that the news was over. On the same channel, there was a special performance of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Of course, it was a recording from before. I wondered what the musicians were doing now and if they watched these performances, too. I imagined it was something designed to soothe the masses into harmonious obedience. I had turned it on in medias res and it was hard to grip onto a melody; rather the various string sounds merged into soft waves moving up and down while most of the winds held their instruments on their laps in poised positions, except for the bassoons who were humming along like humpback whales under the surface. 

The melody changed, though; rather, I could finally hear a melody emerge from these harmonies. A single clarinet began playing a richly hopeful tune. It wasn’t quite optimistic but perhaps joy with the knowledge of sadness. As the player’s fingers moved through slow trills, I could hear her keys and the imperfections of the breath. This gave it a fully human quality, much more than the cuckoo clock. These players were following a score, a conductor…but they were breathing individuals, telling stories. 

I listened until the applause when a voiceover came on to tell us it had been Beethoven’s Sixth. After applause, the conductor addressed the audience briefly to say they would be playing Luigi Dallapiccola’s Piccola Musica Notturna. He told us that Dallapiccola’s twelve-note system was a special embodiment of freedom in his eerie music that spoke for humanity’s freedom of expression. He had used his music to oppress tyranny. First, there had been the question of cultural identity, when his small hometown in Istria was swallowed up by the Austro-Hungarian Empire then the fascist views of Mussolini came after Dallapiccola had married a Jewish woman. His music attempted to give people hope for a better world.

I listened with my eyes closed on the couch and Ishmael lying on my belly, as I imagined I had done many times with my mother as a baby. Together, we fell asleep there in the cold night and the TV eventually shut itself off.    

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Chapter 20

I began doing strange things at home. I burned the incense that had been under my bed for months. I had bought it after a few yoga classes with Danae when I was still looking to belong in some way. At times, I lay on the floor in a savasana pose for hours without any physical practice before it. I made designs out of masking tape and tiny pieces of trash I found in the corners of the flat. I felt the floors and walls for cracks or irregularities and knocked along any that I found. The sound reverberated through the building. I felt exposed. I stayed away from open windows after catching a young couple gazing at me with pity. I could hear few sounds from the others, whom I imagined must be home. There were no children in the building. I did hear a kind of subtle wailing noise from time to time but the voice was indistinguishable. Anyway, we were not allowed to visit one another. I could only assume this person had a phone should one need to call the ambulance. Also, I reasoned, they could call out for help or other kinds of assistance, since we could clearly hear the wailing. 

Sometimes, though, I wondered if the sound was emanating from my apartment. Or even from myself. 

I often thought about the painting and the money. It gave me something to do, I guess. I didn’t particularly want any of it myself. I’d have no idea what to do with it really, being unaware of black markets and how to actually reap the rewards. But I figured if I found it, I could decide whom to go to. Probably you both. Anyway, I was more focused on the act of finding than on actually knowing what to do with it. I felt like a dog digging up a lawn for a bone, although I didn’t want to damage the apartment in any way. 

At some point, I realized that it would be unlikely the painting was in the apartment. I mean, it had been abandoned, refurbished, inhabited…somebody was bound to have found it if it were indeed hidden there at the start. So instead, I searched my brain for answers, wondering if I held the clues to unearth this discovery. A church, Frau Klammer had said. It sounded vague, but what if her instincts were right? What if she knew more than she was saying and she was certain it was a church? 

I thought of the frightening encounter at the church nearby. It had kept me from entering others to see the art or architecture, but now I felt silly. It had just been a grumpy old woman. 

Still, something haunted me about her presence and the way she had looked at me. 

Austria was one of the few places in Europe where you could still enter the churches. They had stopped public worship but allowed people to enter with masks at supposedly safe distances. I guess they all thought God would save them or that they were doomed already so maybe this would get them to Heaven. Who knows? But I did realize that I could do some investigating and it would give me something to do during the long, slow days of solitude.

⬩

I rarely left the seventh Bezirk at this time, but on that day I felt like a long walk. I figured I could then visit a couple of churches on the return journey when I would likely be seeking warmth. We weren’t allowed to take public transportation, though it continued to make ghost-like runs across the city, carrying the odd doctor or nurse who needed to get to work. 

I walked through the center of the city and continued right along the canal to Rotundenbrücke across the water to an entrance of Prater Park. I thought the long open walkway would relax me and make me feel comfortable in its normalcy. I had left Ishmael at home, fearing it was too far, but I imagined others would be walking their dogs or children along the open path. 

A cold mist was in the air, and only a few were there enveloped in it.

Something happened as I approached the other end of the path where the amusement park lay to the right. The deserted space was perfect for a horror film. I could hear ghostly sounds of children laughing and sausage sellers calling out for Käiserkraner as well as the creaking of fun rides. I looked up and an uncanny aura filled my mind. Nothing was making these sounds but my mind and the wind. Rationally, I knew this, but something else wasn’t right, was missing. 

Then it struck me. The Ferris wheel was gone. I couldn’t see it, no matter what angle I looked up from the path. Instead, the mist was moving toward me from all sides, threatening to drown me. 

I recalled Graham Greene’s story: “The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower.” Could this be a manifestation of the surreal story? Was Greene haunting this city? Had I stolen it without meaning to? 

Suddenly someone tapped me from behind and I whirled around in fright, ‘Who’s there?!’ I tried to sound threatening enough that they would run away. 

In what felt like minutes but was actually a split second or so I imagine, my eyes refocused to find Fred and Roger smiling in front of me. 

‘Got you!’ announced Fred who clambered back toward me.

‘I told you not to scare her.’

‘Oh come on! Have some fun. The world is ending!’ Fred laughed.

‘What are you guys doing here? I was just going on a walk…’

‘Yes, we know. We’ve been following you for ages! Thought you’d never arrive at a good spot.’

Roger added, ‘Don’t worry. We’re not here to harm you. We followed you from home to find a safe space to talk with you — safe for you. Shall we all go into the park? There are some benches in there and the fog will hide us from view.’

‘Sure, ok.’ I didn’t feel afraid of them and was hoping I could trust my instincts. We turned to walk the 200 meters or so to the entrance. The Ferris wheel was looming over me again. I was certain the fog couldn’t have covered it completely and wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me or if someone was playing tricks on my mind.

We walked casually through the run-down gates and weaved through abandoned food stands and rides. Roger opened a back door to a small wooden food stand, ‘Quick guys, in here!’

We huddled together in the small space. ‘It’s warm isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but Roger, is this really necessary?’ Fred rolled his eyes.

‘Better to be safe. Marie, we’ll keep this quick. We’re sure you’ve heard about Marija’s death, right?’

‘Yes, very sad.’

‘Sure. Ok, has Josef contacted you?’

‘He did, just to tell me the news pretty much.’

‘Good. When he invites you to his home, when things open up a little, you must go. Alright?’

‘Am I in danger?’

‘No. I mean, no offense, but you’re just the go-between, the interpreter. You don’t have anything that valuable.’

Fred could see I looked a bit dejected by this statement, so he added on to Roger’s directness, ‘This is the most important piece of the puzzle! The person who can go between without essential information makes it all work, you see? Nobody can get you. Nobody has a desire to get you. You’re just there, everywhere, like the mist.’

I smiled at this, ‘Alright, I’ll go.’

‘Good! Just go with the flow. And here’s a cellphone you can call or text us on. It’s a burner, so just throw it away if you have to use it. We’ve put our secret numbers in it. Keep us posted if you go and also if you find anything out. What about the painting? Any news there?’

I hesitated, not knowing if it was Josef or these two who were bad. I had also trusted Marija after all, and she was in allegiance with Josef. They were on opposing sides and I was stuck in the middle. 

‘No? Well, let us know about that, too. We have ways of protecting it, should it be found.’

I didn’t have much time to consider the repercussions of saying anything to them, so on a whim, I told them about the extra information. ‘Frau Klammer in Salzburg thinks it might be in a church.’

‘A church?’ they chimed in unison, and then Roger continued, ‘I thought Wolfgang was an atheist.’ It was evident they had done some research.

‘That’s what I understand, too. But according to our source, he liked church spaces and thought it would be a good hiding place.’ 

Fred looked exasperated: ‘There are a million churches in this country! Where to start…I don’t even like going in them after that priest kicked us out of a christening.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘No gays allowed! Not openly at least. This city is quite welcoming to us, but the churches are not.’

‘Awful. Well, I can investigate the churches.’

‘That would be great, but we can, too. Fred is a little fixated on that but we are spies. It’s our job to go in foreign territory.’

It made me laugh, ‘Churches feel quite foreign to me as well. I used to go as a child, but there is a veil made between it and us. Maybe this is why Wolfgang thought it would be a good place to hide a painting.’

‘She’s brilliant! I think you’re right. I also think it must be in a less touristic church. The big ones - even beyond Stephansdom - are constantly being renovated and poked at. Probably not a cathedral in any case. We must do a bit of research about churches Wolfgang may have been connected to.’

‘Ok, and I can look at some of them in person. Actually, I had planned to do this today.’

‘Good. Ok, you have the cell phone. You’re a smart girl! You would make a good spy. I don’t say that lightly. For now, though, do yourself a favor and lay low. You must embody the interpreter that you are. A good spy does not reveal her strength.’

Once we left the little hut, they disappeared into the mist again. I knew it was intentional, so we would not be seen together. I couldn’t help but feel lonely though. I told myself to toughen up and just get on with things. 

On my phone, I discovered there were over a hundred churches in Vienna. I chose three on my path home.

The first one was Ruprechtkirche in the old town. I went through the little square below where the church that was over a millennium old rose out of the other stonework as if they were all natural elements of the earth. The building had a tall steeple but was unobtrusive, lacking ornateness or much design at all. 

One of the large wooden doors was cracked just slightly open, and I slipped inside after pulling up my mask. Just after the entrance, a sign proclaimed that Saint Rupert was the patron saint of Salzburg. That detail immediately caught my eye. Could it be a connection to housing the painting in Salzburg all those years? 

There were several lit candles at the altar. I moved slowly up to the front and could see no one, nothing in the empty space. For that reason, I didn’t even bother to mutter a prayer. I simply sat in a pew and had a look around. The furnishings were sparse. I couldn’t imagine something being hidden here. 

Without event or interaction, I got up and moved on toward Michaelekirche. I passed by the cuckoo clock - the Ankeruhr - on the archway near the fancy Billa grocery store where the hourly animation was just beginning. I paused, alone, to witness the passage of time through the wooden creatures moving by mechanics designed long ago by Klimt’s friend Franz Matsch. The sonorous quality of the display filled my ears as if cutting through the fog to reach me. Somehow the hazy quality of the historical figures moving awkwardly along a rail made it feel more real, as if the characters could be living slaves made to repeat these movements over and over again.

I recalled the lines from the film: In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Although I knew it wasn’t true, the clock had been invented in Bavaria, I thought of Finn. Could he be like the Swiss were painted in The Third Man? A thorough timekeeper, seemingly peaceful but perhaps plotting with enemies? 

Like the previous church, Saint Michael’s was probably too touristic as well, but I had heard about these. Also, they were both technically Kirche not Dom. Although Roger had suggested avoiding cathedrals, I hadn’t given them this detail of my conversation in Salzburg. 

I had read about the crypt at this church that American soldiers had discovered after the war. Mummified elite Viennese of long ago had been placed there when they ran out of burial space. It sounded a lot like the current situation; I thought of Marija’s frozen body again. Although this was also a very old and touristic church, I wondered if these hidden spaces offered possibilities. There was no way I was going to sneak into the crypt to look for a painting, and I thought they had tours there anyway, so it was unlikely the painting could be hidden. However, I gazed up at the magnificent paintings. The decorations were a huge contrast to the previous church. I imagined the priest working there would have a particular affinity with art; maybe this was a connection. 

Two others were praying, so I lit a candle and pretended to pray at the altar, when in fact I was scrutinizing the walls. Of course, I could find nothing here as well.

In a strange moment, one of the other visitors to the church sneezed. It echoed through the emptiness. Me and the other perked up, alert like a deer who hears a runner approaching in the woods. Then he sneezed again, and again. We both ran out of the church. We could have been leaving him to die, but we didn’t care. As long as the disease did not get us. And if he were marked already, what could we do? 

I didn’t think I had been worried about the virus at all, but this moment made me consider my thoughts about it. Perhaps it wasn’t the sickness that scared me but the idea of being placed in an even deeper quarantine than lockdown or ending up in a pile of bodies at the hospital. In any case, I was clearly on edge, likely for many reasons. I decided the best thing I could do was continue with my mission, which gave my life at least a small purpose.

Saint Anne’s - Annakirche - was next and last on my journey that day. I could feel my low blood sugar and worried that I would pass out and hit my head on the marble, left to die in solitude.

It was over near the opera house. This one was quite plain outside but ornate inside, like an exquisite cake without decoration being sliced open. I had seen a Mozart concert here back toward the start of my time in Vienna and imagined the sounds filling the hollowed space again. Alone, I wandered around the exterior of the pews, gazing at the pastel frescoes. There was a sign about the painter named Daniel Gran and a recent in-depth restoration. I noted this was a point against this church holding the Klimt somewhere. 

I sat in a pew and let my mind wander. Perhaps the first district was the wrong place to look. There were so many other churches; I had no idea where to begin. But there was also time. It didn’t cross my mind that I might not find the painting. You see, that feeling of living inside a film was real for me. I naively trusted that somehow a conclusion would arrive. 

Suddenly, a door near the altar opened and a priest in his full robe appeared. His eyes bore down on me like the devilish face of Krampus at the Christmas market, designed to cause children to feel shame for their sins. 

Out of instinct, I started to get up and move backward away from him, as if he were a rabid dog. He was not moving quickly, but he did continue to approach me with his hands folded together and the black of his cloak moving like a phantom across the stone floor. 

He stopped at the first pew and allowed his arms to open as if he were a marionette. He tilted his face slightly and smiled. ‘Meine Dame, bleiben Sie. Bitte schön! Gott ist für alle!’ 

Why did he want me to stay? Why did he think I needed God? I quickly considered the notion that this man may have information central to my mystery and decided to put my fears aside. ‘Danke schön!’ I gathered my thoughts, then spluttered out in German, ‘Where would you look for a missing painting? What I mean is, do you know of anyone hiding paintings for the purpose in this church?’

He looked struck by this notion. ‘My child, this is a wonderful idea. Art moves us to be good, even if the subject is not. We find the beauty in the world and seek the difficult truth. Do you have reason to believe there is a painting in my church other than these beautiful frescos on the walls?’

‘I…perhaps. I know there is an important painting hidden in a Viennese church. A man - Wolfgang Lechner - he placed it there for safekeeping years ago.’

‘I know this man. Knew. We spoke about a different affair. He was a good man. I don’t know about this painting though.’

‘Ok, thank you for your time.’ I turned to leave.

‘Wait! I don’t have more information about this painting. But let me help. This man was good. He was doing secret and dangerous work. I am a good judge of character, and I can see you are like him. I know most of the priests in this city, so please give them my name as well when you ask. They will be more likely to help you. Maybe they will even send me a text or we can do a video call!’

‘You have a smartphone?’

‘Of course!’ he laughed. I realized then that the costume made him appear like something completely anachronistic when he was just as much a part of 2020 as I was. He even more the mask to prove it. ‘My name is Father Franz Krätzl. Remember it. Why don’t you take my number? I cannot type it in because of this disease. Here, I will call it out to you — ‘

I took the kind priest’s name and number in my phone and tried to sound as thankful as I could from behind my mask. He graciously thanked me instead for doing good in the world. In reality, I had no idea what or whom I was working for, but I reluctantly accepted his gratitude before turning to leave. 

Was it serendipity? Fate? I guess the fact that Father Krätzl knew Wolfgang is not that strange. The Viennese are a tight-knit group. Still, I felt as if someone were writing the plot and I was a mere pawn in my lonely movements across the city, vulnerable due to the empty streets.   

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Agoraphobia

noun: a fear of leaving one’s safe environment; an anxiety of having a panic attack or embarrassment in public 

Chapter 19

When the lockdown came, I thought of the plague that comes to Germany in Nosferatu. The messenger comes with his warning drum — the drums of fate that remind us we shall all perish one way or another. As the townspeople naively come to their open windows, their visages slowly turn to terror as the proclamation is made that those suspected of disease shall be sent to the hospital. They then slam their windows shut. A doctor comes along to mark infected homes with a cross, but his passage is blocked by men carrying a coffin out from a home. The empty, stony streets echo each footstep as if a continuation of the drum of fate, not unlike the clicking of the clock all day long every day, reminding us where we are heading. There was little escape or little hope. 

On social media, I had seen videos circulating of people waiting for hospital beds in Italy, completely alone. They were going there to die without loved ones or any kind of human connection at all. And in China, the film director Chang Kai and his entire family had died, documenting the grief of this plague from his deathbed. As an artist, he captured the horror freshly from looking in at his own mortality. 

They had to lock us in. It all made sense.

From my position on the couch, I looked at the outline of the doorway between my living room and entryway. I had never looked at the odd shape before of angled sides and slightly unparallel walls reaching the floor, as if the entrance to a coffin. 

I returned to my computer, looking for information about Marija’s death. All I could find instead was a news briefing on her burial:

As I thought of Marija’s body in a frozen morgue, I could not sympathize with her. Instead, I recalled frightfully how similar we looked to each other. I imagined my face, my body lying there and became terrified.

With all the news about the virus and lockdown, her death would be buried in the news. The authorities would not bother to investigate and simply rule it an accidental death, meaning a suicide they did not want to label due to damnation by the Catholic church. 

⬩

In the end, socialism and a small, rich nation cushioned the pandemic for Austria. Everything was taken care of. Nobody really had to see the sickness and suffering, or the piles of dead bodies. They had enough space in hospitals to deal with the dead, to keep them off our minds. Most of the Viennese were in their countryside homes anyway, living not so differently from how they normally did. 

The first couple of days of lockdown, people were slightly friendlier on the streets and it sort of weirded me out. I would be walking in the neighborhood and someone would smile at me and say hello. I thought they were probably a pervert or someone looking for a friend. It seemed desperate. Or a bit creepy, like a secret psychopath trying to draw me in.  

Luckily that only lasted a few days. Everyone returned to the cold ignorance of others or the occasional grumpy complaint. There were not many people on the street anyway, so we kept to ourselves. Life was so much easier that way. 

They said we weren’t allowed to leave our neighborhood at first, but then we were, as long as it was by foot and we kept our distance from others. After a few days just huddled in my apartment with Ishmael or walking the small neighborhood circuit around Neubau, I decided to go out for fresh groceries and to go on a long walk. I had to escape the repetition of my days.

I went out and began gazing at others on the streets who gazed back at me from afar. We each kept a safe distance with our cold, stone eyes.

I started to crave living in a place where there were fewer people so I could have this sensation all the time, but I realized at least for the time being that I needed this job. Also, I needed the anonymity of the city. I could walk around and nobody knew where I lived. Nobody knew my name. I could blend into the buildings as long as I followed the rules of society. 

We never had this kind of anonymity in Brittany. The emptiness of winter meant we were even more visible. You couldn’t escape to a cafe or even the beach without someone who knew you seeing you and striking up a conversation, mostly out of kindness but probably just out of politeness and habit as well, or even boredom. It wasn’t until I lived in Paris that I knew true freedom. And in Paris everybody said exactly what they thought on the terraces, speaking with passion and moving their hands in animation of ideas. Tables were filled with opposing views, and if not, someone would often play devil’s advocate just to spark the debate further. Freedom here was a kind of expression of self, of life. I guess we had it a little bit in my hometown, too, this French way of thinking about the world. But the difference was that Paris is where the artists and philosophers, as well as the protestors and politicians, all go. New York City was a little like this, lots of opinionated people, but many didn’t listen as well. The conversations were more affirmations or self-expressions rather than dialogues. In Tokyo, debates were there but were more orchestrated and often the best ones, in my experience, happened late at night after lots of sake or Sapporo. It happened not just during my conversations with the international world there, but sometimes I would continue interpretation during social gatherings and not only observe but transmit the opposing views.

But here, everybody follows the rules. Although we were silently responsible - along with Switzerland and Italy all along the ski areas - for the seed of the terrible outbreak in Europe and although we were very slow to act (despite a rewritten history to the contrary), we still managed to keep the virus to a minimum. Some of it was luck: less population density, fewer factories or busy workspaces…but some of it was also just our ability to obey. 

We were robots of the state, following orders about masks and distance requirements. Everything was safe because we were happy to obey. We knew it was safest. And everyone will get some money and everyone can eat. 

I lived my daily life as normal except that the little work I had was all online. We used video which was somewhat challenging as an interpreter with the terrible local Wi-Fi, but they soon gave up on any sort of immediacy and instead sent me messages to translate carefully for our team and vice versa. It never took me very long but I was careful because, unlike the live interpretation, this was written and could be scrutinized for error. 

As I unconsciously moved farther and farther from home, I considered my surroundings. I imagined invisible horrors as sirens moved by. 

I noticed more of the grand doorways. The way they hide something inside. I imagined people lurking on the other side and peaking at me through the cracks. They might have the disease. They might be afraid of the disease. They might be dying of the disease at that very moment. 

They peeked out at me from every doorway. As I would move along the street, I thought of the many sets of silent eyes peering out silently, creating a series of film stills. I was the subject of the film: the foreigner walking the empty streets of the pandemic. I was awaiting my fate, and they wanted to witness it. 

I felt safer on the tiny side streets, less exposed to multiple views at once. I told myself that if just one or two pairs of Viennese eyes could look at me at once, I could handle it. I could escape without much struggle, or they would not even try to attack.

But on the more open boulevards, I felt vulnerable. I would witness empty trams floating by on the same schedule they had before when they were filled with commuters and tourists. I would imagine violent crimes taking place through those windows, witnessing them without the ability to stop or even yell for help. 

I heard many sirens on these large streets. Police and ambulances delivering the dying to the hospitals or separating contagions from one another. I considered what would happen if they witnessed me sneeze on the streets or take off my mask. I didn’t think they would stop to ask if I were alright or take me for medical care. I thought they would throw plastic over me and dump me in the back of the police car. If I did not suffocate, they would bring me to my apartment and put a padlock outside my door and a sign: Achtung! Covid Virus!

If one cannot face one’s faults, do they not become insular and cold? Do they not lash out at others for what they consider minor offenses? 

To be first part of an evil, even if simply by staying or through silent complicity, and then to be occupied by all sides of a cold and silent war. A war of ideology and science and power. An invisible war that was everywhere and nowhere. Who could be trusted in a situation like this? Of course, you would keep your four lifelong friends and forget about everyone else. You could watch these four closely to make sure they were not to be feared as well. In this way, you only had to spy on a small part of the population to keep yourself safe.

What if you find out your one friend is your enemy? Do you kill them? How does that affect you in the end? 

Although I was always partial to wintertime, I found the cold at this time of year to be particularly brutal. It was dark and gray. The moist freezing area penetrated layers of coats and scarves.

It is something about the energy in this city. The city doesn’t change but becomes uncanny — unheimleich, literally unhomely. After all, it was Freud who invented this philosophical idea and I was about to walk by his home in the ninth district of Alsergrund. He must have felt like a stranger in this city many times. As we all do. One can never be at home if there is never any warmth. 

The coldness becomes expected. And we start to act the way we once found so offensive. After all, everyone wants to blend in. Everyone wants to become a part of a community, even if that integration means adopting a standoffish persona. It can be fake, but it helps you to be accepted as a local. Acting impersonal and cold to feel accepted. I know it sounds paradoxical in nature, but I’ve figured out that it’s true. 

At this point after seven months, even with limited German, I had learned to do all the formalities to look local. I did not smile at people in the streets or give an appreciative wave when a car stopped for me. I did not cross the road if the green man did not come on. I did not try to pack my groceries at the register but took them swiftly over to the packing station so as not to wait thirty seconds of the next patron’s time. 

So you do this paradoxically to blend in. But the killer is that you will never be accepted. You will always be a stranger. You will always be the target of xenophobia. Even Christophe, the Austrian mountain man, felt he was an outsider to the Viennese. 

I know you both do it as well. 

I walked a circle onto the beautiful old streets with now abandoned cafes. Even at these terraces in the summer - when they are outside on the grand boulevards and you can sit and sun yourself with a coffee or a large beer - the energy is dead. Or at least flat. You start to get used to it. You think it is normal. You are brainwashed into ambivalence. You do not hear debates on the terraces; you do not hear funny stories; you do not see people stop and greet each other and decide to stay impromptu for a drink. I mean, I’ve seen it happen, but it always feels like a massive exception to the rule. And those partaking always look exposed as foreigners. In fact, they usually are. 

You get used to the bad energy and then you start emanating it yourself. It comes out of your nostrils and blends with the cigarettes. 

Finally this year they banned smoking indoors. It was the last Western European place to hold out. And for what purpose? We were each on our own again anyway and would welcome the toxic stench of cigarettes instead of the silent, invisible, and odorless virus.

 When home does not feel like home anymore.  When the familiar suddenly is strange. This is what had happened to all of my surroundings during the lockdown. Not my actual home, my apartment, but the public spaces in Vienna. I felt like I had traveled in time or split into a parallel universe where people no longer inhabited the streets: the virus did. It was lurking, waiting. The police and military also represented the virus. They waited on street corners to catch bad behavior or drove slowly around town behind closed windows and face masks, making announcements on megaphones to keep moving and to stay apart from one another. They were not viruses nor human; they were authoritarian manifestations of power disguised as socialists looking out for our welfare and our health. 

But it was a facade, just pretense: I saw how they would approach someone, possibly a vagrant, with mask, gloves, trepidation. They were just as afraid as the rest of us. Dissembling as authority but only in uniform and layers of protection. They, too, did not recognize this space and these people before them. They were only trying to survive. When a society behaves out of survival instincts it only becomes more selfish, narrow-minded, and dehumanized. The only motivation for action now was one’s survival, and I wondered if the underworld webs were continuing to weave their evils or if they had been abandoned for this instinct. 

I became a strolling spectator like Baudelaire’s flaneur but not in a romantic way. That dreamy transcendence had worn off. Instead, I was the epitome of otherness with a disconnect between reality and my perception of it. At once, I was experiencing things in a surreal manner and realizing this subjectivity to what was truly mundane. 

I stood at the gate of the playground, staring at the police tape that marked the territory. It looked like a murder scene. As if someone had chopped off another’s head whilst coming down the slide. Or candy had been laced with arsenic for children to find. But the tape was protecting us all from these virus-spreading children. They touched everything and salivated freely, bringing contagion home to their grandparents and killing them. 

I dared not enter that gate. The police cruisers slowly made their way around, all the officers hiding behind masks. My dog would bark every time they came near, and he was barking now. Sure enough, they rounded the corner, this time on bicycles. I continued, looking straight ahead, knowing that they did not greet laypeople. All I could hear was the March wind. Like cremated ashes, small flakes of snow began drifting through the streets. What was once a beautiful sight was now the ominous sign of a city facing death. 

I wandered the lonely city streets in a labyrinth of longing. 

⬩

Finally, back near my flat, I tied Ishmael to a post near the grocery store. For a moment, I wondered if I should bring him safely home first, not trusting that people in their current state would leave him here unharmed. I realized, though, I didn’t have much energy left and would be unlikely to make it back out for the supplies I needed to stay alive. After securing supplies for several days, I made my way back. 

Suddenly I didn’t recognize my street anymore. I knew I was on it because of the turns I had to take, but it had taken on a life of its own. It’s as if the emptiness had created demons lurking invisibly all around. Ishmael began barking either at the demons or the way I was hesitating, which caused certain denizens to bring their faces to their windows. I should have welcomed the human connection, but I only felt I was a target of their stares and hurried along home in fear.

There was a safety in retreating to small spaces where others were not allowed to enter. I took the stairs up to the seventh floor, trying to get a little more exercise before many hours at home. Ahead of my passing through the fourth floor, someone closed the door slowly while cackling. 

Inside and safe, I looked out at the flats across the way. Most of them were dark or had their curtains drawn. But I could see several families and couples doing things together: playing a board game, cooking, watching something on television. Then I caught the eye of an old woman who was also looking out. She gazed back steadily and motioned shhhh with her finger over her mouth.

I drew my curtain and thought about what I would do the rest of the day. There was some work to do, thankfully, and I would take time to make a soup from scratch.

I hadn’t heard from Josef again. Part of me wondered if I ever would.

I opened my phone to look at his messages and could see that he was online. At least he wasn’t dead, I thought. Was that a good thing? 

I hesitated. Should I leave a message about the funeral? Could he have missed it? 

It was stupid but I did it anyway: Did you see this? And I attached the link. A sad face seemed trite so I left it at that and threw my phone to the other side of the room, afraid of the reply, or no reply at all. 

Barely five seconds passed before I heard the vibration on the floor. I forced myself to wait two full minutes before going over to pick it up. As my count reached 120, I lunged for the phone:

Thank you, Marie. Yes. You must come to Pest when the border opens. I will be in touch

Suddenly my life had direction again. What else did I have to look forward to besides this secret meeting? Even if he meant to use me as a pawn in his spy game, or even to kill me — the thought crossed my mind — it was something to propel the plot of my life that until this point had been completely flat.  

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Chapter 18

It was the eve of a total lockdown on the city.1 Well, not total, not like Italy where one was forced to stay at home except with a ticket to purchase groceries for one’s family. Legend is that we were saved by a dog-owning parliament member who asked the group what one could do with one’s hound if bound to the house. Surely one could not suddenly toilet train these animals and expect them not to turn miserable and aggressive by being cooped in. He imagined some would turn on their owners, their cohabitating family members, in rage or hunger or simply boredom.

And so the parliament elected to save the dogs from this fate, not realizing the man had been speaking in metaphor for humanity. We were at least free to walk the streets, alone.

We could see it coming for weeks as the city braced for infection. The ski resorts on the borders of Switzerland, Italy, and Slovenia first reported cases after Italy’s numbers exploded. I imagined a map with little pins showing the spread like wildfire. People continued to ski, to party in the chalets, to sweat together in the saunas while they heard of the virus. They thought they were an invincible people: the best skiers in the world, mountain men. This continued for a couple of weeks until suddenly everyone in Tirol seemed to have it. They quarantined the entire region and kept people from driving at all. The military were there but they didn’t have to be: everyone obeyed. 

That Chinese disease, that foreign thing, had infected them, had brought them to their knees. People gave the disease nationhood as if its passport had marked it somehow. Sure, most of the infected in the mountains would survive, but their grandparents might not, and their ski seasons were over. We saw one-two-three…fifty cases pop up in Vienna, maybe from the skiers or maybe from the traveling UN population. Who knew? It didn’t matter, but it was here.

Suddenly the adolescent slick-haired prime minister had to make decisions to impact families and nations and set the course for Europe. We were the epicenter. He waited too long; he couldn’t make decisions. But because Austria is sparsely populated and has many hospitals, he would get away with it. Because it’s so small, decisions could be made easily and swiftly enforced. 

At that time of waiting, it felt like a giant tsunami coming for us. We didn’t know how dangerous it was, and we also didn’t know what the government would do, what it would mean for our lives. You could feel the panic in the air. Eventually, the government decided we would lock down, but with the possibility of going on solo walks, unlike our Italian neighbors. The strange thing was we had several days before it would be enforced…time for the rich to move to their country homes…time to raid the grocery store shelves …time to have one last catch-up or party or session in the gym. Time to spread the disease so after its incubation period, people would get sick alone in their homes, waiting hours for professionals to arrive at their doors wrapped in plastic.

I could see this, but I, too, wanted to see some people for the last time. I knew it was stupid; I guess the fear of being alone is worse than the fear of dying. We still had a couple of days and in some ways, it felt like the last days of our lives. 

Akihiro, Danae, and I met at a hotel bar and restaurant in Neubau. They both lived in the eighth district — Josefstadt — so we could all walk and at least avoid the cesspool in closed public transportation cars that would soon be off-limits as well. 

Others still crowded these trains. Maybe they had no choice with work or school. Everyone feels a false sense of safety and security if the government says something is ok. 

Our waiter had a nervous energy, ‘Hi guys, this is so weird, right? Like what’s going to happen?’

‘Will you still get paid? It occurred to me that if you’re not on salary, this could be awful,’ Danae reflected, even though it was only to be a few weeks at this point.

‘Oh sure, thanks but don’t worry. They say we will all get paid our normal wage. Pretty amazing. I think it’ll be a great little staycation. I want to write some songs with my guitar…’

‘That’s a great perspective. Do you also live alone? We all do.’

‘I do. Yeah. Hey sorry, but it’s super busy tonight. You guys want drinks?’

We ordered cocktails and appetizers to start. I was getting anxious, ‘Hey, have you guys thought about what it will be like being alone for so long?’

‘I don’t mind. It’s my space, that’s great.’

‘We could live together instead?’ Akihiro suggested.

‘But none of us have big apartments or extra beds. We might kill each other,’ I laughed, trying to keep the tone light though we were talking about something that petrified me. ‘Maybe we can still talk on walks together?’

‘Nope. They said the police will stop you from that. Even at the grocery store, you have to stay far away from people.’ 

‘This is mad. I don’t know if I can do it.’ 

‘Let’s just drink a few more cocktails and try not to think about it. I mean, we can’t control it anyway, right?’

⬩

On the second day of lockdown anticipation, I decided to share the information I had about the Klimt with Fred and Roger. Some of it at least. I still didn’t know who they were really, but I needed to have someone on my side and they were as good as any. I didn’t want to get you two mixed up in any of this. I decided only to tell Frau Grüber if we actually found it.

I made my way to their little shop and noticed huge sales in the window. 

Fred saw me from the cash register, ‘Marie! How have you been?’

‘Fine, thanks, besides the obvious. You’re clearing inventory?’

‘Well, who knows how long this thing will last. Have to think of the business first.’ 

I had always thought the shop was just a front and a pastime, so the business-minded element surprised me. Clearly, this could have been part of their cover as well. ‘Fred, I heard it’s foggy in London today.’

‘Oh, me too! The weather has been so awful for so long. I just got off the phone with a dear friend who’s going absolutely mad with the threat of lockdown there and just the grayness everywhere.’

He hadn’t remembered the code, so I tried again with emphasis: ‘Ok. I heard it’s foggy in London today.’

‘Are you alright, Marie? You’re repeating yourself…oh! Silly me. Yes, yes, come hither, Roger is around the back.’

‘No worries, thanks.’

He left to get Roger who came out with a stern face saying, ‘Good day, Marie. Let’s all go on a little walk, shall we?’

They locked up the shop and we ventured out to the side streets of the sixth district. Eventually, we came to the huge mural of butterflies at Hofmühlgasse.

‘Well?’ asked Roger.

‘So my landlady told me about the Klimt.’

‘She did?! That’s fantastic.’

‘Hold on, Fred, let her speak.’

‘Thanks. Well, she doesn’t know where it is, but her dead lover — Wolfgang Lechner — I guess he took it to his friend in Salzburg, then he got it back again when the friend died. But neither of them knows what happened to it after.’

‘Do you know this for sure?’

‘Well, Frau Grüber and the lady at the inn don’t have anything to gain by lying. I mean, they could be wrong…’

‘Ok, this is useful. Did they say anything else?’

‘No.’ I hesitated, but it was enough for now.

‘Thank you for coming to us. You must be sure not to tell anyone else this information. Do you know if Frau Grüber told this to anyone else?’

‘I don’t think she confides in many people. She doesn’t trust Wolfgang’s family when it comes to inheritance. I’m not sure who else she sees. Her cleaner. Neighbors in passing. She always says she is lonely.’

‘What’s the name of the inn?’

‘Hotel Goldener Strauss.’ I hoped that I hadn’t put the innkeeper in danger.

‘Excellent. Ok, now you go that way, and we’ll go back to the shop. Watch yourself. We will be in touch somehow during the lockdown.’

They vanished instantly into the cold Vienna air.

⬩

Finally, there was just one more day until the lockdown would be imposed, so I decided to go to the movie theater. It wasn’t to see just any show but to experience The Third Man at the Kino, like you had told me, Julie2. 

I wore a cloth mask to the cinema, hoping it would keep me from getting sick. Something about this communal experience made me feel comforted. Sure, I was experiencing the film in my mind but also with the rest of the audience. Even hearing them eat their popcorn made me feel connected somehow.

The film runs every day of the year. Why is this strange film so famous? Why is this the only famous film to take place in Vienna, a city with history and architecture? Perhaps Vienna was too hard to capture in cinema. Perhaps its hidden shames were too difficult to articulate. Perhaps its culture wouldn’t allow a looking-in. 

I had read the novella before attending the show, so I kind of knew what I was in for. I mean, I knew it wasn’t a feel-good film or anything. Graham Greene said The Third Man was written as a story to be turned into a script. He says it’s unfinished; it’s not as good as the film. How unusual. It was as if he sketched a story through language, but with only verbal language, he couldn’t fully tell the story of this strange place controlled by the four powers — the Russian, the British, the French, and the American —“through the common language of the enemy,” which was, of course, German. I started to understand why the Viennese insisted on their dialect.

I was curious to experience a cinematic representation of the allegiances Greene had set up in his story. Rollo Martins tells us: “There are some people…whom one recognizes instantaneously as friends. You can be at ease with them because you know that never, never will you be in danger.” Of course, there is an irony in these words: mistrust is all around in the story. 

I think if I had to do it all again, I would’ve become a film critic. As I write this part of my story now, I realize how much faith I have in the cinema. What I mean is, I get so much of my world from it and maybe I live as if I’m in a film sometimes, to protect myself from real emotions. France, of course, offers a lot of opportunities in that field. I could watch many foreign films to continue my passion for languages. My real world would become the film world completely. Perhaps this is what I will do if I make it out of here alive. 

The film takes us to iconic places like the Ferris wheel and the Sacher Hotel, but also down below into the city’s sewers. The cinematic city is sometimes more real than the actual. In a virtual space, the collapse of time and experience in many images creates a timeless identity. 

You spend the film mostly confused. The people are cold and mysterious. And then the ending suggests freedom comes from the underworld, from filth. 

Nothing has changed. 

I guess the film had tried to reflect some sort of secret horror to this city, some sort of hidden guilt. Allowing the infestation by Nazi parasites. Standing idle in huge countryside homes while Jews were gathered up. Not even standing up for their beloved Freud. Maybe there was nothing they could have done, but there was still a traumatic feeling of inaction or witnessing horror.

As I got out of the kino, I saw I had a text from Josef. 

Have you seen the headlines? 

There was a link he had sent through as well, and I opened it promptly. 

A photograph of Marija was under a headline in German that roughly translated to: Bulgarian Ambassador Found Dead and Intoxicated Outside her Embassy.

Quickly skimming the German, I could see that they were investigating whether it was an accident, suicide, or murder. Apparently, her husband had been at home earlier but didn’t call the authorities that she was missing until the next day. I knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything; they lived largely separate lives. I wondered for a moment if I had misjudged Finn. Though he seemed a friend, he could be the biggest evil of all, the sort of center of whatever this web was about that I had wound myself up in. He wasn’t particularly in love with his wife after all and he was smart. I could also imagine a very drunk Marija falling over the edge, perhaps sitting there aloft in that cloak of invincibility she often wore. Was she capable of suicide? I doubted it. My mind was going in a million directions, trying to solve the puzzle with what little information I had.

But I didn’t give it much thought emotionally. She was dead and I felt very little. That realization shocked me a little. No sadness, anger…not even any vengeful relief. Nothing despite the kindness she had shown me. I was only mildly curious about what had actually happened. And why.

Then I remembered that Josef had sent me the text and was probably waiting for a response.

How awful, how sad.

Then I remembered that maybe he had feelings for her and added: Are you ok?

He responded with unusual promptness: It is exceptionally sad. A short pause, then: Can I come over to your place tonight? Before the lockdown?

I was shamefully excited by this request and did not consider it odd at all. I had started to go with whatever came my way. He was perhaps in need of discussion or comfort and I was alone. 

I returned home to Ishmael and gave him dinner. I threw on my best lingerie under my jeans and T-shirt and began to imagine what Josef might do to me and decided to fully surrender to his desires. He was intoxicating and this fantasy filled the void of what I knew were proper emotions.

My phone was ringing and his name popped up.

‘Marie! Hi. Good evening. I’ve had to turn around; they’ve closed the borders.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that…’ I wasn’t thinking about Marija or his sadness, only the night that had been created in my head.

‘It’s fine. Listen: I had wanted to come to warn you but I’ll risk it on this line. Don’t talk to any strangers. Don’t let them into your flat.’

‘Well, thank you, but the lockdown starts tomorrow anyway…’

He went on as if not hearing me, ‘Don’t tell them about anything in Budapest. Just keep to yourself.’

The way he spoke to me made me feel like a child, so all I said was ‘ok.’ 

‘Sorry to be so abrupt. Marija was a complicated person. You need to distance yourself from this. I’ll be in touch.’

He hung up without my reply. I sat to try to interpret the meaning behind this conversation. Was Marija evil? Was Josef her murderer? Was he trying to help me or protect himself? Would I ever see him again? 

I don’t think I was ever in love with him, but I did like the idea of his mysterious power. 

Sometimes I feel like this story I’m trying to convey to you is too abstract for language. It’s like I need the language of the camera to also show the haunting that has taken over my soul. I could show you the way the tiny passageways and grand open spaces alike invaded my psyche with their ghosts and their psychotic tendencies. 

Because at this time in the story, Julie and Grégoire, I must tell you that I started to go a little mad. At this moment of incertitude and possible ensuing violence, I can see more clearly. The dark energies of the city had surrounded me; her secret webs had clouded my brain. This had already begun and then in my isolation, the spider continued to weave within the lobes, now unobstructed by the warding off of others’ voices. I can only tell you the way I experienced the few months after lockdown began as I try to piece the puzzle together.

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

Subscribe now

∞ Table of Contents | Blurb
∞ Author’s Foreword
∞ Podcasts about Layering Fiction

Chapter 17

I was worried that the window of the possibility to travel could close soon. People were talking about this virus more and more. It was paranoid, but I imagined that in the least, perhaps we would not be able to travel for a while. 

I couldn’t sleep on the train. I was trying to make sense of it all. Plus, I was worried somebody had followed me. 

Of course, I had booked a room at the inn Frau Grüber had told me about. I check into the Hotel Goldener Strauss with ease. I had thought about giving a fake name but realized I would need identification. I was really not cut out for this and it reminded me I was merely the interpreter. 

The room had old wooden beams and a few antiques, such as the mirror and dressing table. But the rest had been modernized. I realized then how futile this would be. Surely the hotel had changed hands and been sorted through several times over. It was impossible that the painting could still be there. 

It was around seven o’clock, so I decided to go to the hotel restaurant for dinner, partly because I was alone and partly to begin my investigation.

At the entrance to the grand dining room, I waited, alone, for the waiter to bring me to my table even though many were empty. He greeted me with formality and I was ushered to my table. This would, of course, be the same table for the remainder of my meals during the two-night stay. They had already set my single place, including two different-sized wine glasses and the complete set of silverware. The way it was set had my back to another man sitting alone and facing me. He would be watching me for the entire duration of the meal, and I would be facing a group of three men. Next to the man behind me, at another table, was another man eating alone. There was another in the far corner away from me, also with his gaze in my direction. A few other tables were filled on the other side. Of course, this had all been set up by the hotel staff. It felt like a conspiracy. 

I heard different languages around the room. I could understand the French and English, of course, but also a lot of the German and Italian. There was another table speaking something else, maybe Polish. 

The room was small and felt confined with no windows and only the opening of the small doorway on the opposite wall. The voices bounced around the room louder and louder as I could, unfortunately, understand most of the tables. 

Only then did I hear Russian from a far corner. My ears gravitated in that direction as I became quickly convinced that they must be talking about Marija or working with her. Although I only knew about three words in Russian, I tried to listen for names or places as clues to their conversation. It was, of course, futile, and I attempted to switch my ears off by looking instead at the objects in the room.

Trying not to make eye contact with the people themselves, I noticed many trinkets around the room and several photographs adorning the walls. One was labeled with the family name of Klammer. It was an old photograph and the famous skier was front and center. Another adjacent was a modern photo of a family in traditional Austrian clothing. I recognized the woman immediately as the person who had checked me in.

A man came back with my wine. I scoured his visage for a likeness but he appeared unrelated to the Klammers. In my eye movements, I caught a mirror on the wall as well and realized it reflected myself, although small, along with my side of the room. Staring back at me in the glass was the man seated behind me, his brow furrowed and his fist tightly clutching a mug of beer. 

On instinct, I turned to gaze at him. I had nowhere to turn and the thought of his eyes on my back petrified me. Somehow facing him in this glass was better, even if it meant facing my death. To my surprise, it was then the man who started and abruptly left his table, not bothering to push in his chair and avoiding all eye contact with me. 

I decided to stay. Nothing much was usually gained by following strange, large men who stared at you up into dark passageways of old hotels. Perhaps my ego was getting the better of me. He was probably just a slightly drunk and lonely guest who had nothing better to look at than the items on the wall…hadn’t I done the same thing? 

After finishing a plate of chicken cordon bleu and potatoes, I retreated to my room to consider my options. I realized the only way was to talk to the owners. There was no way to look through the entire hotel. The painting could be anywhere and most of the doors would be locked, especially if the one that might hold a missing Klimt painting.

I looked at my phone for some distraction and came across some young woman’s blog from Wuhan that the BBC was publishing in translation. There were cute pictures she had drawn of her movements within her apartment. At this point, I had already heard that there was a kind of lockdown happening in that region. She was healthy and had a decent place to live; it wasn’t like she was crowded on top of other people or something like I had imagined.

But in reading the blog entries, I realized maybe the solitude was worse. She didn’t know how long she would be there. Her movements were rhythmic, mundane. She focused on staying alive and healthy but also questioned her entire existence. I guess her blog was a little way of reaching out to the world. She probably never imagined the BBC would pick it up and someone would be reading it in Salzburg. 

I thought about writing her a note on her blog page if I could find the original. But I had no idea what to say. I was as lost as she was. And something else held me back: envy. She had been a nobody like me but now she had used that to her advantage. She was famous for her existential misery and her fight for survival. Even if China decided to simply wipe out everyone in the area possibly tainted by the virus with some kind of poisonous gas, she was immortalized through her blog.

At the moment, I wished so badly to be her. 

⬩

The next morning, I got up early to suss out the lay of the land. I love those morning hours in European cities when only a few people inhabit the place. During those moments, I am able to notice more: the other denizens, the stones, the doorways. They come to the surface as if they are normally drowned underwater. 

At breakfast, the same waiter greeted me and brought me a large pot of coffee then let me be in the empty room with a long table of butter, cheeses, sliced meats, boiled eggs, and a large basket of Semmel, the twisted rolls ubiquitous in the countryside. 

About halfway through my plate, I noticed the woman from the photograph getting things ready in the foyer. In a quick decision, I abandoned the end of my breakfast to catch Frau Klammer discretely.

‘Grüß Gott!’ 

‘Grüß Gott! Are you Frau Klammer?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She puffed up straight in her dirndl and fixed the curled blond hair to fall correctly at her shoulders.

‘Wunderbar! My friend - well my landlady - told me about your wonderful family. She is Frau Grüber of Vienna. I don’t suppose you know her?’

Frau Klammer furrowed her brow in thought, ‘I don’t think so…should I?’

I tried to keep it light with a burst of laughter, ‘No, of course not. But her partner was I guess friends with Christophe Klammer.’

‘Oh, Grandpa! Yes, he died years back. Ein guter Mann.’ 

‘Sorry to hear that.’ I then leaned in, and with nothing to lose, went for straight-shooting: ‘Do you, do you know about a…Klimt? A painting I mean?’ 

‘Well. I see! That’s what this is about.’ I was worried I had offended her, but she then continued, ‘Your friend’s partner must be Wolfgang?’

‘Yes!’

‘He is known as an invisible good spirit around here. I met him once, years back, when he came to visit my grandfather. Oh and then at the funeral as well. Yes, this is when he took the painting.’

‘He took it?’

‘Right. Well, it was in the will that Grandpa had written, only for the family’s eyes of course. My father was upset that Grandpa had given the painting away, out of the family. But we knew that he was always trying to do the right thing and that Wolfgang was also this kind of spirit, as I said.’ She paused as if to catch her breath, ‘I’m not sure why I’m telling you this but I guess because you know of Wolfgang, it seems alright,’ she laughed, ‘Nobody has ever asked about this.’ 

Why hadn’t Frau Grüber known this detail? That it had been given back to Wolfgang again? I felt closer to solving the puzzle and also more confused. Besides, Wolfgang was dead. How could we ever figure out what he had done with the painting if Frau Grüber didn’t know? Then I realized that the woman in front of me might know more, ‘Did you stay in touch with him? Did he tell you what he did with the painting?’

‘Frau Grüber must be wondering about it. Did she send you here?’

‘In a roundabout way, yes. I hope that doesn’t upset you.’

‘Not at all. This is a welcome visit and memory. The painting was…exquisite. Maybe something good will finally come of it.’

‘You saw it?’

‘Just the one time, when it was handed over. Its foreignness enticed me. The Japanese-style foliage and the way the perspective shifted were beautiful. It felt like Klimt wanted us to experience our surroundings with imagination. I know I look like an Austrian country bumpkin but that’s just for the hotel. My family and I love traveling. I went to Japan once during my student years. I stayed on a tatami mat for a month near Mount Fuji.’

‘You did? I lived there a while. Isn’t it a wonderful place?’

‘It’s…magic. Mystical. I found that beauty again in the Klimt. I mean, I liked the Japanese scrolls in the Tokyo National Museum even more, but something about the blending of cultures, of ideas made me feel…blissful. It was like an antidote to my country’s shame.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean…I detest that I look like this: blue eyes and blond hair. I’m proud of the good part of our history, but I want to erase the shame of our nation that lives on in our hearts.’

‘Aren’t you doing that in the way that you live?’

‘Sure, we try to bring guests from everywhere and every walk of life here. Do you know the city well? Salzburg may surprise you. It looks like a crypt of tradition but can be very progressive.’

‘I’m only discovering it now. I’ll have a close look around. Thank you.’

‘But wait, if you want to find that painting, I would look in a kirche. Wolfgang said he would hide the painting somewhere the Nazis had already scoured long ago and a public place that might be protected by someone. He didn’t mean God; he was an atheist. After all he had seen…Anyway, I don’t know which church, but he mentioned with a wink to me that this would be a good place to hide something. I think it would be in Vienna. He kept friends everywhere in that city, and he also took care to wrap the painting for a journey. There is a kind of underground web in Vienna, well likely several webs, but there is also a good one besides the evil work of dictators and other rich trying to capitalize on information. Perhaps ask for him by name.’

‘Ok, thank you. It may be long gone but I guess it is worth a try.’

‘He would have been very careful. I think there’s something special about that painting but I’m not sure what it was. Besides being a Klimt, obviously, I mean. But don’t worry about that now — go! Discover Salzburg! And you are welcome here anytime, Frau Thibaut.’

‘Many thanks, Frau Klammer.’

The amount of formality framing a conversation between peers feels anachronistic when I write it here, but this was the way they do things, as you two know very well of course. For our readers though, I add these elements into my story to explain the way I felt as if I were in a novel or a spy thriller. Even the kind interactions, like this one, felt uncanny.

With a large coat on, I walked to the old, famous Cafe Bazar by the riverbank, just past the Mirabelle Gardens and the house where Mozart lived. There were already three patrons there at eight o’clock but they looked like regulars. 

The waiters were formal and friendly. They continued to be so even after I spoke poor German to order coffee. They reminded me of the waiters in Paris, not as casual as those in Bretagne, not as desperate for tips as those in New York. They made me feel like I belonged even though I didn’t. 

I sat and observed people reading the newspaper on wooden spindles, looking out at the moving green river, or keeping their dogs and children from misbehaving. Every now and then a cyclist went by on the path below or I spotted a scooter on the other side of the water. It seemed to me like nobody was going anywhere, like we were all stuck in a painting forever. 

Life felt dangerously stuck. What trauma has trapped a whole nation? What fear has kept progress at bay? On the other hand, the country’s socialism was something to marvel at. I knew about the history already, but I did not understand why the nation could not move on, perhaps like the Japanese example I had witnessed.

Then I realized: the war was still happening here. The visible costumes and demonstrations covered many invisible layers of violent thoughts and coordinations among those attempting to use xenophobia or related fears for power and money. One could see it in the politics. Perhaps this was the breeding ground for ideas and interchange among the world’s evils. I began to wonder if Trump’s America, fueled by Russia, had been born here? Or if Brexit’s trick on Britain’s own people, threatening to plummet them into vulnerable isolation with their citizens dying of starvation was something predetermined in this web?

I thought of Marija. Finn. Of Fred and Roger. Danae and Brian. Akihiro. And especially of Josef. What parts of the web were they functioning on? 

What part had I weaved myself into? 

⬩

Although the tourists weren’t here in this dark time after Christmas, besides those from Vienna or the countryside like myself, the main street on the other side of the river was packed. I imagine it was also locals filling these streets as it was an unusual time and people were changing their habits. 

The streets snake in strange patterns as if the river had one day overflowed and carved out tributaries. Along the uneven stones, I felt more natural, like the Austrian artist Hundertwasser imagined1. When manmade spaces become too flat, too square, too unnatural, we may forget that these spaces, too, are a part of the earth. We may forget that we move through time and space naturally — and that sometimes time slows down in the same way a space of road may bulge. A natural path is never linear.

⬩

The old streets have Louis Vuitton and Prada as well as Zara and H&M. But the prevalent fixture, or rather the unique one perhaps, are the dirndl shops. People were wearing dirndls like they are a normal fashion. I wondered as I walked around if some people wore them every day. If they have one for each day of the week, or perhaps some for each season. If not, why should today mark a day to wear one? I had seen people in Vienna wear them for holidays already and was told that some of the balls are in that kind of outfit. I thought about getting one myself at that point; I was still trying to fit in and didn’t realize it would be impossible. I was concerned that maybe they would laugh at me if I went into one of the shops with my broken German or that perhaps wearing one meant a certain kind of political allegiance. 

⬩

I sat again for an early drink to watch. Crowds moved past me. There were families and groups of tourists and people coming back from office jobs. A man with a large dog whose snout was covered by a muzzle walked slowly by. He was smoking a cigar and greeted the waiter near me. A tall, skinny drag queen in a black cut-out coordinating separates of a mini skirt and small shirt covered by a puffy, open coat came next. She walked easily over the stones in five-inch heels and was the only one to stop for the guy with deformed legs who was limping and asking passersby for change. She didn’t just give him money; she talked to him for several minutes. 

I thought that maybe she had something of the Sissy Syndrome, too. I hadn’t eaten more than apples and croissants in passing during this trip so far and began to wonder if I, too, had it. Maybe if it worked, I could just disappear and nobody would pay attention to me anymore. The less I ate, the easier the wine affected me and I felt like I was floating on air. 

I walked back to the hotel for the second night though it was only midday. The river flowed through the rich houses in serenity. Its denizens could be seen peering out from upper-floor windows with curiosity or condemnation. 

The sky had cleared up and I could see the snow-covered mountains from my hotel room. They rose behind the train station, churches, rooftops, and a big castle on the hill. If I had been on that mountaintop, looking down instead of up, what would I have been feeling? Would I want to dive back into civilization or retreat in an igloo for eternity? In other words: why the urge to live in the city but dwell in my apartment space? What was I doing in Salzburg now – watching television until dinner time?

⬩

I returned in the morning and had some work to do with Marija that evening. She told me to meet her at Do & Co at Stephansplatz. She had some diplomats to entertain and I could be her in-between in English. 

It wasn’t especially crowded, likely due to the heavy snowfall that evening. The host guided me toward a table by the huge window opposite Stephansdom where snow was covering the gigantic roof. 

Marija was there in a black dress, poised at the center of discussion with her martini. I was introduced briefly to the others: three men and two women from Moldova, Portugal, and Taiwan. I gathered it was a rather ordinary affair among diplomats.

Eventually, Marija invited me up to the rooftop, typically reserved for private parties. It was empty that evening and she knew the host. Everyone else remained with their drinks, not noticing our absence.

Of course, the roof was closed in for the winter, but it still felt grand, and I knew it was something I could only gain access to through my employment as an accessory to power. I followed Marija over to a tall table by the glass where we propped our drinks.

‘So, where have you been? Secret mission to Salzburg?’

I had told her where I was when she sent the text, and this was said with some humor, but I didn’t like the suggestion. ‘Oh, just doing some sightseeing. I haven’t seen much here yet. Salzburg is really beautiful.’

‘That it is. But in February?’

‘Well, to be honest, I’m a little nervous about that virus. You know, the one in Wuhan? That maybe our movements will be constrained.’

She looked straight into my eyes and became quieter, more deliberate, as if the other comment had been for show, ‘Really, try to forget about it. It was probably made in a lab. There are powerful people who control things like this. You have to just keep your head down and carry on. There’s something coming…and when it does, you must simply stay away from it. Don’t go digging into anything.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Oh, I just mean if something strange were to happen. To me perhaps.’

I realized that rather than looking out at the sublime rooftop cut of various triangular designs whose sharp angles were now softened by a thick covering of snow — instead of this, she was looking down. Straight down, with a strange morbid expression. As if trying to determine how far a fall it would be or if the snow would indeed cushion somebody who jumped…or was pushed.

In following her gaze, I too looked into the abyss. I could only conclude that the snow would perhaps mute the sound of crushing bone and even screams if the person were to fall face down.

‘Marie, there are others who know much more than I do. If the virus arrives, when it does, promise me you will stay in your apartment and just do what you’re told.’

I assured her I would. I still wasn’t sure what side of things Marija was on, but at that moment I didn’t care. Though I felt the sting of my small insignificant naivety, I was also deeply comforted by the fact that there was somebody who cared for my well-being. 

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Chapter 16

After I got back to Vienna, I decided to visit Frau Grüber again. I wanted to somehow tactfully ask her about the painting. I mean, her flat — the one I was in — had a connection to the cabaret. I deduced that it was something worth crossing off the list. There was also her lover. The son of the conductor. Had he also been a spy? 

I didn’t feel so afraid anymore. Six months in Vienna had chilled my insides. Somehow, I felt less human perhaps, more a machine of the system that must either do good or evil; otherwise, be made into a pawn. I could only trust myself completely, so this was one way to seek the truth.

I was still finding new places as I walked through the city. I had visited several of the city’s markets, but never the famous Naschmarkt, so I went through the third district and then down the center of stalls and little restaurants toward my destination in the first. Murmurs in German broke into sharp, declarative questions in English directed my way. I had made the mistake of coming when it was relatively empty, unable to blend in. 

‘Would you like to try an olive?’

‘What, you don’t like olives?’

‘Have some falafel then…’

‘Hummus?’

‘Candies…these are excellent…’

‘Surely you need a gift for someone!’

Only the glass cases holding their wares protected me from their arms that reached over at me like many giant octopuses in a row. Ahead, I could see several who had stepped out from behind this wall of separation. I kept my head down and my shoulders hunched. They were closing in on me as if I had tunnel vision.

‘Hey, I have a question for you!’

‘What’s wrong with her? Come back!’

Pushing my shoulders up to my ears, I was able to hide my face behind my scarf. These people need to leave me alone! My heart went cold. All I craved was empty streets and peace. 

At that point, I realized I was becoming a part of it. Like the effect of an invisible Medusa spread through the cracks of the city, we were all slowly turning to stone.

I made it safely to the other end close to Karlsplatz and looked up at the beautiful art nouveau designs of the Secession building. I didn’t know what it was, so in an attempt to break free from my recent trauma (which feels kind of stupid to write down, because I do realize they were simply trying to sell me some olives, but the feeling was real), anyway, I looked up the building online and found out that Otto Wagner had designed the building and that a bunch of progressive artists, including Klimt, who wanted to bring their new ideas to the public.

I turned to look back at the surrounding buildings, with several designed by Wagner. The facade of his apartment building was surreal. It didn’t strike me as Viennese. Gold, pink, and bright green designs adorned it with joy and with care. 

Was it possible for the city to return to this optimistic state? I felt it was a sign. Maybe the signs were all around — the preservation of sites like this, the gay street lights, the floral steps in Museum Quarter. These were places of hope and kindness. Could a discovery of the painting Fred and Roger had told me about add to this progression of the city? I had thought that something huge would be needed to change an aura such as this one when in fact it would be millions of tiny acts to change a place. 

Although my soul was no longer defeated, I felt that I had to double down even harder on my mission and leave any feelings of joy for later. I had to devote myself to this work and carefully take away any emotion to see it all quite clearly.

With this in mind, I continued on my walk over Karlsplatz and through the porticos of the opera building to the center where Frau Grüber lived. I transformed myself into a hawk of complexity, seeking meaning in trivial things. Constantly alert, I began to willingly poison myself with adrenaline that became a perpetual drip, at once keeping me very, very alive and also moving me toward the stony existence that was coming.

I soon made it to the now familiar entryway on Essigaße, directly in the center but on a narrow side street few tourists made it down.

Frau Grüber was, of course, very happy to receive a visitor. I called her to let her know I would be in the area, and could I come by just to say hello. 

At first, we exchanged pleasantries and I told her about my ski trip. She mentioned her lover Wolfgang’s passion for downhill skiing; at one point as a child, he had dreamed of being an Olympian. Franz Klammer was his best friend’s much younger sibling who became the Austrian legend. I saw this as my opening: ’Can you tell me more about Wolfgang?’

She paused a few moments then spoke with poise. ‘Well, they say it was a heart attack. He was eighty-nine so nobody will look into it. But it doesn’t make sense…’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean about how he died…the nice things?’

‘Oh yes, I know. But it’s important. I want to talk about it. I mean, his hands weren’t clean. Maybe he was a spy? I don’t know, but all I know is he was always on the good side of things.’

‘You think he was killed?’

‘I don’t trust people here. It could have been the government or his inheritance-crazed son. My Wolfgang is dead. I guess that’s what matters. He was old, but I miss him so much. I know he had another mission he was working on as well. He wouldn’t tell me because he never wanted me to be in danger.’ She started sobbing a little, so I tried to move things back to positive memories.

‘Did he spend time in your apartment? The one I’m staying in?’ 

‘Oh yes! When I first moved back to Vienna and met him, I was living there. It was only temporary. You see my parents had just died and left me that flat as well as a lot of money. I stayed there until I could rent it out and buy this flat in the first. Wolfgang loved your flat! He was always talking about the keller, how it had ghosts. I imagined maybe somebody died there or they were buried in the walls. You know, we are known for our kellers here in Austria…ha ha.’

‘What do you mean?

‘Haven’t you read about people keeping children in the basement? Well, it’s only in the rural areas. We Viennese are much more civilized. Bernhard writes about it — here, borrow this book.’

She handed me a well-used copy of Verstörung, which I had read in English translation as Gargoyles.

‘I jest. I’m Austrian so I can say this. You would find people in the country more open and friendly if you knew them. But there have been a few cases, maybe it has to do with our history, all that strangeness after the war1. I’m happy I avoided most of that.’

She looked at the dark wall for several seconds in silence, then remembered I was there and turned with a new sparkle in her eye to look at me with what felt like faith.

‘Wolfgang also knew there was some mystery to that flat. I only hope he didn’t say something to his selfish son!’

‘A mystery?’

‘You see when that young man visited, he told me there was also a painting, a Klimt. It had belonged to the great uncle. Klimt paintings were a mark of success back then. Perhaps you have heard of this about the Jewish community back then? The Nazis seized many of these paintings, like the true story in that film - Woman in Gold. Anyway, this was something different but similar. He had reinvented the performances of the cabaret and brought in many clients as well as raising the level of the Viennese Cabaret to high art. So, the owner, who was quite a wealthy Jewish woman, gave him a Klimt. He knew the man wanted to travel, so he chose one that was particularly influenced by Japonisme.’

I couldn’t believe it. It was too easy to solve this mystery. I had the feeling I had been placed in the middle of it as in a game, like those murder mystery dinner parties. The interpreter of cultural crime.

‘What does it look like?’ I wanted to grab as many clues as I could while I had the chance. Frau Grüber was quite old and sometimes in the hospital. One never knew when her secrets would die with her.

‘Well, it uses this Japonisme method as I mentioned, a lot like some of the Monets. These sort of outlined floral patterns. Monet used it on fabric, like the famous red kimono. You can see it slightly in his landscapes as well, but Klimt used it more clearly in landscape as well as fabric.’

‘You mean like the gold in The Kiss?’

‘Yes, that’s right. But then, when you went to The Belvedere do you remember the room next door as well?’

‘Of course, that was my favorite. It had that style you are talking about in the design of the flowers and trees, even somehow of the country homes.’

‘Oh, I knew you could see these things deeply, Marie! This painting is in that style. It’s not only the print-like elements. It’s also the strong diagonals that give the work a complexity and a kind of flattened perspective as if creating new shapes. 

‘Anyway, they told me that they wondered if I had come across it after inheriting the apartment, that maybe it was in the keller or even the walls. I asked why it would be in this apartment if the Maurer family had owned it? And they told me there was somebody who had kept the riches of a few families all together,’ she was looking off into the distance out of the window with a sadness in her eyes, ‘I wanted to help them. I felt this deep in my soul. Anyway, I told them if I ever found it that, of course, I would send it all. But they were more concerned with the painting itself than the money. They kept saying that of course we all know how cruel the Nazis were to Jewish people, and others as well, and hell probably even each other, but more than simply money and power, they wanted to destroy culture. Yes, they did this by killing a huge group of people of one culture as well as other subcultures, but they also did it with art — paintings and music, books, controlling the way we feel.’

‘Was Klimt Jewish?’ 

‘No, he was an atheist. But I guess the fact that his work was honored by the Jewish community (who were sometimes his subjects) made the Nazis really hate him. I mean he was already dead, but they hated the idea of him or wanted to have him for themselves.’

‘I guess they did a lot of stupid things.’

‘Yes, precisely,’ Frau Grüber went on as if in a trance: ‘They hid it. They didn’t even want the money; they just wanted it to survive. They didn’t want history to be erased. And now this family who knows about it - only by word of mouth from their grandparents who lived here - they, too, just had hope the painting had survived. It might be worth millions, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t sell it or would maybe give it to a museum.’

As I listened to her, I wondered if one day all the art in the world would simply be destroyed in the name of progress or under an asteroid. Why do we bother to preserve and protect it? To pay millions for it? But I knew the answer. Our human spirit, that thing that makes us something more than just beings that survive, is embodied in that art. 

Somehow I thought that if I became involved in these undercover escapades between countries and languages, I could save or expose or curate this artistry. I knew I was never born to create myself. I responded to the in-between; I did the work invisibly, hoping my name would one day be attached to a gigantic discovery. And now I feel I was just a tool, with little to offer society, because I even failed at saving this piece of art for you to put in the right hands. 

I have failed over and over again. I thought, as an interpreter, I could do something important politically, make discoveries and sway opinion…carefully navigate the world’s infringements on humanity. But no, I was merely redundant; most people who used my services did not even need them; they were a formality to hide behind. As if I were the red cape to entice a bull or a feminine scarf to let flow in the wind or wrap tightly around one’s neck.

In seeking more than that, I failed as well. And so, I failed in the meantime as a daughter. As well as a friend. The most frustrating part of it was that I had nobody to even tell this to. 

I had been lost in thought, looking out the window at the rooftops, when Frau Grüber cut back into my thoughts.

‘You know, there’s something else. I’m an old woman, and I don’t want these things to die with me. Let me write this down; you never know who is listening.’ She motioned around the room. Everyone was paranoid, maybe for good reason. 

She picked up a golden pen and tiny pad of paper, perhaps for writing grocery lists, and wrote in a strangely affected cursive that I could just barely make out:

‘Thank you, Frau Grüber.’ I knew not to say anything. 

To my amazement, the wrinkled old lady winked at me: ‘Do the right thing, Marie. I am too old to be of much good.’

‘Nonsense. Thank you for the wonderful coffee. I will see you soon.’

Of course, I wouldn’t see her soon, because soon the virus would come to us and we would all be kept in our little crypts. Most of the rich would vide the center for their country homes and Frau Grüber would be left with nobody to hear her if she were to scream. Or if they did, they wouldn’t come for her. One could pretend not to know where the echoes of sounds in the apartment mazes came from.

I took a tram home because it was starting to snow and slush was gathering on the streets. 

Looking out the window, I reflected on the information I had been given. Perhaps Wolfgang was good but had been afraid that the painting would be moved to New York and away from its heritage. Or maybe he and his friend were attempting to unearth the gold for the families to whom it belonged. Maybe he was evil and was trying to sell it on the black market himself. 

Or perhaps it was all nonsense and Wolfgang had found nothing at all. I figured, however, that I had nothing to lose. My life had no particular destination, so I might as well take a tangent to its course. 

I booked a train for Salzburg the next day.

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Acrophobia

noun: extreme or irrational fear of heights

Chapter 15

January in Vienna was rather depressing. Things were gray and cold with little snow and little life. Many people were in the mountains, at least on the weekend, and all the lights and colors of Christmas were gone. The darkness enveloped my mind. 

Akihiro had a welcome suggestion to join the UN ski club that weekend for a trip to Schladming. Penelope was also going and a few others I had briefly encountered. We met Friday after work with our bags of warm clothing and snacks. It felt like a school trip; everyone jostled for the best seats and I imagined a lot of hooking up usually took place on these trips. 

I sat next to Akihiro and the two girls across the aisle started talking to us. There was a Serbian and a Brazilian; neither had ever skied before but an instructor was accompanying the group. After sharing their five-minute life stories, they returned to their private conversation. Akihiro had a book and I plugged into the latest Foals album: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost. The double album kept me going until the rest stop.

We stopped for dinner. The rest stops in Austria were impressive. I had a sausage and the salad bar. All was very fresh. Some people even had steaks or Cordon Bleu, things like this, from the hot line, but I wasn’t very hungry. The group formed the kind of long table I couldn’t stand, but I grabbed a seat toward the end and dove into the food. People started talking about skiing. Although I had only been maybe a dozen or so times over the years, I realized that I was more advanced than many in the group. It was an opportunity to ski alone. Akihiro was an expert having grown up near Nagano; he said he would do a few runs with me. Penelope would be with the beginners. The instructor on the bus tried to convince me and Akihiro to take lessons and implied we were being egotistical. If he had called us loners, we wouldn’t have taken offense. 

When we finally arrived, I was happy to have paid the single surplus for my own room and quickly snuck away to read a little before bed. I had the book from Finn with me. I was beginning to see how easy it could be to become a little like the Underground Man.

After stuffing ourselves to ward off the cold at breakfast and getting our rental gear, we were finally on the mountain. Akihiro and I quickly jumped in a different direction, letting the others know we would meet them for lunch but ‘not to worry or wait for us if we didn’t show up.’ 

We progressed to a second chair to reach the top of Planai fairly quickly. It was a bluebell day. I was lucky to be with someone who already knew the mountain, more or less, so we didn’t spend loads of time pouring over maps: ‘Come this way, it’s really beautiful.’

We skied down a narrow intermediate trail with lots of fun turns. Then, we went back up and took a different trail to zig-zag over to a gondola leading us to the Hauser Kaibling peak. 

‘There’s nobody here in the mornings. Shall we check it out?’

‘Sure, but go ahead when you’re bored. You’re a lot faster than me.’

‘No, you’re great, really. But don’t worry, after a few runs, I’ll head to some of the off-piste stuff here. There aren’t loads of expert trails. You’ll be fine on anything that’s marked.’

‘Ok, thanks a lot. I’ll follow you!’

Akihiro was a kind leader, always stopping or slowing to look for me when the trail bifurcated. 

The motion and nature took me completely out of my worries. I wasn’t completely sure what my worries were at that point. I just knew that maybe the ball, the trip to Hungary, the strange encounters in Vienna…they were all telling me something. Like I was in the middle of something evil and in danger of moving into that kind of dark energy. 

Here, these thoughts felt like nonsense. Clearly, I was just experiencing a foreignness I had to get used to. There were surely spies around, but what was I doing? Visiting museums and balls? Interpreting for people who barely needed translations? This idea of evil was likely just to make myself feel relevant.

On the third or fourth trip up, the gondola stopped as we reached the highest elevation of the lift. It shouldn’t have been a big deal as this had happened to me countless times while skiing. But the wind was strong that day. Looking ahead, I could see empty cabins swaying at frightening angles. Ours moved less so with our weight holding it down, but a small gap in the doors beckoned my imagination to consider what would happen if our little plastic box moved completely ninety degrees. I felt dizzy and disoriented. Akihiro’s gaze floated toward the horizon. Just as I was about to grab his knees out of desperation, the cable began moving again. I was saved from embarrassment and awkwardness. 

After getting off, we separated with the idea of meeting at a nearby lodge for a late lunch. I stayed mostly on the Quatralpina gondola while Akihiro went to the more adventurous Gipfelbahn, where he promised to find me some nice routes to follow him after lunch. 

I barely noticed anyone around me besides a couple of snowboarders moving at about the same pace and cadenced into a rhythm of down and up that felt timeless. After a few runs like this, I allowed myself to float all the way to the bottom and found a smaller gondola to take up. These closed lifts were welcome on such a cold day. My fingers were becoming numb and the wind was picking up.

I moved into the next empty one, happy to have some space to myself. But then the two snowboarders ran to get in at the last minute. I felt a little unnerved when the doors clicked shut and the speed became quick. Their mirrored goggles reflected my slightly disturbed visage.

Only when we took off our helmets did I realize who it was.

‘Fred? Roger? Hi!’

‘Oh wow, Marie. Funny seeing you here! Have you come with that UN group?’

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘Oh, we did that a couple of times. It’s a nice way to get around Austria. We like the flexibility with our car though. We’re still on the mailing list so I was on the lookout for a few people we know there…like yourself!’

‘Cool. So you came here to see friends?’

‘Oh, not exactly. A gondola is a perfect place to talk, don’t you think?’

‘Um…sure. Yeah, I mean it has nice scenery and no distractions.’

‘And no bugging!’ Fred glanced at Roger who gave him the go-ahead sign, ‘Honestly, Marie, we wanted to talk to you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, partly because we like you.’

‘Ok…’

‘I mean, we like you completely!’ Roger chimed in with a laugh, ‘But we also have some business to discuss.’

‘I see. Sure, go ahead.’ Although I felt nervous, I was curious and probably felt more worried about saying no to them.

Fred took over again: ‘We will keep this brief, so you can get on with your day. There are discussions on the wires about a long-lost Klimt painting. I mean, there were several from the war that either the Nazis seized from the Jews or that people put into hiding places, perhaps never to recover. Have you heard about this?’

‘Only a little. After I went to the Belvedere I was reading about it online. I was surprised there was nothing written in the museum about it.’

‘Well, they’re not exactly proud of it here.’

’What’s going on?’

‘I mean, it could even be related to the government. I’m sure you’ve heard about some of the recent corruption. Strache and Gudenus meeting with the Russians about media representation…and more. Who knows what the FPO is up to now? They make it sound like organized Fascist politics, which some people want to vote for — who knows why, but it’s always just power and money at the top. And this could be a lot of money.’

‘Wow, I see. What does it have to do with me? I don’t speak Russian and my German is only ok.’

He looked for acceptance from Roger again, ‘Well, you see, the things we’ve heard are maybe coming from people you are working for. We can’t say who exactly. Anyway, this particular Klimt is not only valuable itself but has a secret message behind it. We think there is a score written with musical cryptography, which not only makes it even more valuable due to the rarity but also may tell us where some of the hidden Jewish gold is stored as well as that of several gay performers from the cabaret. This has never been recovered, as far as we know, and somebody may be trying to take it for themselves. Have you heard about the Viennese Cabaret?’

I tried to hide my shock. I was afraid to say too much for fear that these men could be after Frau Grüber’s work. I thought they seemed trustworthy, but I was beginning to doubt everyone. All I said was, ‘Sure, somebody mentioned this to me’ and figured I could do some investigating myself.

‘It was a huge thing before the war, but it was all closed down in fear of the Nazi hatred for anything queer. Probably a smart choice.’

‘So how can I help you guys with the painting?’

‘Well, basically just keep your ears open, ok? You know you can trust us. If you hear anything related to a lost or stolen Klimt, please please come see us first. If you don’t, the money and art will probably fall into the wrong hands. Find us at the shop. It might be bugged so just say I heard it’s foggy in London today and we’ll find a way to talk to you. One of us will come outside the shop.’

‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ They were easier to trust than Marija or Josef, and I assumed they were talking about Marija, although the story from Frau Grüber had me confused. I felt I better investigate that angle a little more before telling them about it.

‘Good. Now Marie, don’t be afraid, but this could get dangerous if you’re not careful. Be sure to come see us, ok?’

‘Yes, ok.’

‘You’re all alone, which makes it easier to do your work but also easier as a target. We work as a single unit in these tasks to stay safer. We always have each other. Think about that for the future. We’ll help if we can.’

The gondola was approaching the end and we all put our goggles and gloves back on to face the cold. They could have had recording devices in their helmets. I was happy I hadn’t said much at all. They invited me to do a run with them, but I said I had to meet my friend. In truth, there was over an hour before meeting Akihiro. They told me they were off to Obertauern the following day, so they would see me back in Vienna. I let them go down faster and took the right turn when they went left. Even if they were the good guys, one conversation like that was enough for today. 

The day ended well. After a traditional Tirol Gröstl of potato, eggs, and bacon pieces and a large glass of wine, Akihiro kept his promise and showed me a few back routes on the mountain that were still easy enough for me to handle. We met the others at the bar near the bus for a schnapps where the ski instructor was back in a good mood and asked us about the joys of our day.

Later at dinner, the Serbian woman started talking about news of the new coronavirus out of China. I had read a couple of weeks before about some cases in Wuhan, but it just sounded like weird China stuff, like pig flu and other things. Sad for them, but nothing to do with us. But now she said it had spread to Thailand and that the WHO was sending people there for an emergency mission. Apparently, she worked in communications for them. She didn’t know anything about this virus other than the media briefing. Paranoia was in the air.

‘I heard they are considering locking people in.’

‘What do you mean? That’s crazy!’ the Brazilian chimed in. 

‘Well, they sort of did it during SARS. I mean, this isn’t totally new.’

‘China has so many problems. I’m so happy we live in Europe!’

Everyone quietly ate their tiramisu and Apfelstrudel. Outside, a thick snow was falling, covering the tracks made from today, quietly pushing everyone into the same interiors that would soon breed the virus out into Europe, especially down the road in Ischgl. The government would then control our movements and monitor whom we were with, not allowing us to have the company of those outside our homes. And for most of us on that trip, it would mean we were completely isolated. 

But while we weren’t quarantined to our own little apartments, we drank together in the little bar across the street, mixing with locals and other skiers from out of town. Akihiro was dancing with the Brazilian. Maybe they hooked up; I never asked and didn’t care. Anyway, he was shy about these things.

I retreated long before the others to spend a little time with my book unaware that I would soon be craving this kind of togetherness. 

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door…at the threshold where she believes one of them will die.

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Chapter 14

Of course, I didn’t have to do anything. Marija handled the papers. 

It felt like everybody recognized me on the streets. I knew this was silly as you couldn’t even see my face in the paper.

When the streets and metros were busy, I didn’t feel so on display. But in the morning, on the way to work, and everybody reading the news, I felt repulsively exposed. I attempted to hide behind my scarf. Then, people just looked more closely at me. 

⬩

 I was ostracized at work that Monday, but, if I’m honest, I actually enjoyed it. Less formalities. Less needless small talk. I just went in to do my job and they respected me for it. In fact, I think Gregoire let them know it wasn’t true, but probably some of them didn’t believe it and thought he was just protecting me. 

It’s possible I was just being awkward around everyone else. Part of me liked the power of it, or the attention, if I’m honest. 

⬩

Frau Grüber had invited me for a pre-Christmas coffee at her place in the first district. I didn’t have much of a choice to turn down my landlady, but I also was starting to feel this fondness for her, or at least a curiosity. She was one of the only Viennese I was able to get close to.

The flat was very dark with walls painted plum that hung dark paintings of various scenes in the countryside in the entryroom. Some I recognized as French. The drapes were long and black, and the furniture was a deep shade of brown. Adorning many side tables and chests of drawers containing decades of secrets and collected documents were countless vases, statues, photographs, …almost all were in glass, colored or completely transparent. It felt like a land mine that my movements would set off.

‘Would you like a coffee?’

Without waiting for a reply, she ushered me toward the sitting room and retreated, I presumed to the kitchen. 

In her absence, I noted the crystal chandelier, nearly the only source of light in the room that was mainly closed off by floor-sweeping curtains, and the navy blue wallpaper with cream-colored Greek designs as well as a large mural before me, painted on the naked wall.

Frau Grüber came back out with two coffees in crystal glasses

‘Is this the wall that Julie painted?’

‘Yes, isn’t it magnificent?’

A soft lime green background complemented dark, nearly black designs of birds and trees with accents of coral and rose. Although the subjects were living creatures and the wall appeared an organic being all its own, the effect was one of abstract design that was more focused on the aesthetic of the shapes and positions of colors that invited the eye to weave around the wall. Frau Grüber had placed only a single wooden table along the wall. On the table were a few items — a large glass vase, three candles on a circular gold tray with a black lighter, and a framed photograph of a man whom I assumed must have been her lover. 

She entered the room while I was examining the wall. ‘Julie painted one of the walls in your flat, too, as you know, just the mauve-colored one. When she did the work, there were many layers of wallpaper that were rather recent and untidy. I thought that maybe this was where my visitor’s grandfather had helped his Jewish friends hide some of their gold when they had to leave so quickly. She stripped the wall and found a hole big enough to place the gold inside. However, nothing was there. I’m not sure if it ever was or if the Nazis — or poor Austrians — at the time maybe got to it first. Anyway, this didn’t surprise me, and I really wouldn’t know whom to give it to if we had found it. Surely not the government! Ha, they like to take these things themselves.’

‘Wow. Well, this wall in your home is beautiful.’ 

‘Yes, I adore it!’ 

‘I brought you something…from the Christmas market. I guess maybe it is not so unique for you…’

As she opened up the package, she began to cry. I was afraid I had done something wrong.

‘I’m so sorry, Frau…Christa…what’s wrong? I’m sorry I gave this to you.’

‘No…’ she managed through tears, ‘No…Marie, danke schön. It is beautiful.’

I waited a few moments as her tears continued to press on: ‘Why are you crying then? Is everything alright?’

She got up, slowly in her fragile sort of way, and walked with the globe toward the small crack between the dark curtains. Standing there in the light, I witnessed a glow from her youth. She moved the weighty object carefully upside down. Then, she turned it back around to witness the falling snow, until the last flake fell on the scene. 

She moved with the globe in front of her as if in a somnambulatory state and placed it purposefully on a region of the wooden table by the painted wall, then turned back to me, more relaxed, and sat again on the sofa. 

‘I’m sorry…it just reminds me so much of Wolfgang. We used to go to the Ferris wheel together sometimes. And my parents, too. Ah, it is perfect. Everyone I have loved in Vienna is connected to this place. It is not like the old churches and palaces that have been used also for evil. How silly; I know it is just a carnival ride! But it has been around since 1897 and has witnessed us all; it has reminded us of our goodness.’

I thought about the Klimt painting you had mentioned, Julie, but she was too emotional. I didn’t want to push her further, so I changed it to a jovial tone: ‘I went on the wheel once!’

‘Good! One must experience joy whenever possible!’

‘Yes, the city looked beautiful below.’

‘Ah, it is. I am happy to be back. You know there was another reason I left here a while…there’s something about this place. Vienna, I mean. It’s as if it’s haunted by the ghosts of the past. Nobody has ever really clarified what happened here. I mean we have documents and treaties and things like that, but nothing made sense. I can’t explain to you what my parents were doing during the war because they couldn’t explain it to me. I never pushed it; I didn’t want to know. They always got along with everybody but they also wouldn’t have wanted to ruffle any feathers. At that point, it could get you killed anyway, and they had me, a baby…sometimes I think I prevented them from doing the right thing…it makes me feel like my life, I don’t know, like in my life I should have done something that really mattered…’

‘I also feel that way a lot.’

‘You have plenty of time! And now maybe I have a chance with something small at least. Marie, I like you. I trust you. There is something I think we can make right. Not yet, though. Go enjoy your mother at Christmas! I will tell you about it after the holidays.’ 

I faced the cold but the oxygen was welcome after the closed apartment space. Though it was only five o’clock, it had been dark for two hours already. Only the hanging lights between buildings illuminated the sky for clouds covered the moon and the stars. I was quickly in Stephansplatz1. The Christmas market there was fairly empty as it was a Tuesday. The gothic structure loomed above like a reminder of some penance I should be serving. Perhaps it was for leaving my mother alone in Bretagne or for simply not doing enough to help the world get better. 

As I gazed at the massive doorway, they began to open slowly. Several people began streaming out into the spitting wind. Among them was Finn who recognized me immediately even with my long, dark coat and scarf. 

‘Marie! Guten Abend! What are you doing here in the cold?’

‘Hi Finn. I was just visiting a friend nearby. Do you go to this church?’

’Sometimes. My mother was religious. I’m not, but I like to go to this huge space to think about things. I like to counter the grayness, you know?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, Bernhard said in Gargoyles: “It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad.” I don’t think it truly is. But maybe what he meant, or how I understand it, is that we can’t ignore the evils all around us, even within us. We have to face them. We have to create a kind of inner joy precisely from this sickness. Do you know what I mean?’

I looked up again at the ominous structure and felt the understanding deep within: ‘Yes. I guess we need to stay close to sickness to appreciate health. We need to understand how sadness creates dangerous actions. Something like this?’

‘Yes! Marie, I knew there was something special in you. It is because you are a reader, too. Have you had a chance to read Dostoyevsky yet?’ 

‘I’ve only just started. I plan to read it over Christmas.’

‘Kein Problem. Let us discuss when you finish. You can come early for your next appointment with Marija, ok? I will wait for you in the parlor.’ 

‘Thank you, Finn. Merry Christmas.’ 

‘And to you, my dear. Fröhliche Weihnachten!’

He drifted off in the other direction. He felt like a grandfather, though he was only a decade or so older than me. There was some wisdom and personal comfort within him that I wish I had. He didn’t care what others thought of him and he was happy doing not much at all. Unless he had a secret life like so many here. Somehow, though, I trusted that he was genuine and imagined he really did spend much of his time reading books. 

⬩

A week later, I left for a few days back home. I didn’t realize it was the last time I would see Maman. 

It was a strange place because, in the summer months, our population more than doubled in Le Conquet — people in their summer homes and others on holiday. But the rest of the year, ten months really besides a few early birds in May and June or lingerers in September, we were a community of just over two thousand. We all knew each other. As a kid and a teenager, I used to see all these people coming from elsewhere, even though most of them were French. On the one hand, I felt lucky to live in such a coveted spot; on the other, I felt like I was missing out on real life by staying in the off-season. Why didn’t anybody else stay? What was in the cities where they came from - Paris, Lyon, Marseille as well as London, Tokyo, Moscow. I wondered if they ever thought the same about us: why do they stay? What are we missing? But I imagine they just pity us, too poor to afford multiple homes or a good urban life. I know though, for example, the oysters they eat in Paris came from Bretagne and the champagne that accompanies it is from that sparsely populated countryside a couple hours to the East. 

I wanted to know for myself. That’s why I went to Paris for school and then Tokyo and New York for work. Those cities were incredible: vibrant, vivant. But they were also noisy. I don’t just mean the cars or jackhammers or drunk people late at night, whom I was sometimes a part of. I mean the constant pushing on my brain. Overstimulation. Culture, yes, but also a busy life. Difficulty finding space, mentally, for oneself. Living in tiny flats. Navigating one’s way through the labyrinth. There were many joyous encounters with friends or strangers or art in this wandering. There were many ideas, too, that blossomed. After New York, I felt I couldn’t go back though it was all I wanted to do.

My father - Papa - had been an oyster man. Once a week we ate oysters at home with a Sancerre wine, even a little bit in a glass for me, and pretended to live in luxury. Papa died when I was only ten. He smoked a lot even though Maman hated it. He said it was his solitary vice, so that wasn’t so bad. It was true that it was the only thing he did that was wrong. He didn’t drink a lot, kept a few kind friends, stayed in touch with his brothers in St. Malo, and generally lived a good, simple life. But the doctors said it was the smoking that gave him the stroke. Luckily he didn’t have a long battle with lung cancer or emphysema or something like that. He didn’t even know it was coming. But the problem was it happened when he was out with the oysters, alone, and it was a few hours before anyone knew. Maybe he could have been saved, but the doctors pretended this wasn’t the case so we wouldn’t have more regrets or sadness than we already did. He was already dead when Francois, his friend at work, found him. 

We didn’t know what to do with ourselves so we just kept going. I went to school every day as normal and Maman started working more hours in the fish market. We started to eat fish almost every day because she was allowed to bring home whatever was about to expire at the end of the day. The house always smelled like the sea but now its smell has become one and the same. We still had our oysters once a week; Francois always brought them around to us and wouldn’t let us pay. He brought the Sancerre as well and sometimes stayed for a glass before bringing the other oysters to his family down the road. Sometimes we would talk about Papa in those moments but that was pretty much the only time. It was as if the pain was too much to navigate when it was only Maman and I. Francois always invited me to do things I used to do with my father, like going down to the oyster beds or taking out one of the sea kayaks from the neighbors who rented them to tourists in the summer. I didn’t go all the time, but I knew that when I did, it made Maman very happy. I also knew that she cried the whole time I was there because I saw it on her face and sometimes on a pillow or a scarf when I returned. 

⬩

Maman and I ate oysters and scallops for Christmas dinner and exchanged our gifts on Christmas Eve, as was our family custom. She gave me a handmade blanket. I placed it on my cheeks and felt the softness of a mother’s caress, the one I often missed when I was gone. 

I only saw my mother and a few of the neighbors when I went home. My friends say I have changed over the years. I’ve lost many of them. They feel like they can’t relate to me, but I just live in different places doing the types of things they do back home. 

We went on a walk each day by the beach. People would approach me kindly who remembered me from childhood and ask all about her adventures abroad. Maman looked proud as I told them of my work for the UN and the places I had visited.

She also seemed older to me though she insisted her health was remarkable. I guess she was just getting a little run down. She drank more wine in the evenings than before and took longer to move up and down the stairs. But overall, she was happy or content, I guess. I wondered how I could get to that stage in my life. 

We had a few short days together, as usual, knowing we would meet again soon. 

To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

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