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.
Read about the gothic cathedral. If you go to Vienna, enjoy views of St. Stephen’s roof from the Do & Co bar across the platz.
I enjoyed this expansion into Marie’s family history. It’s well placed in the story as a sort of respite or in-breath, and deepens her as a character.
Such idyllic scenes - both at the landlady's with the beautiful mural, and at Marie's maman's - both touched with a mirrored sadness. Lovely episode, Kate.