Wait for Me in Vienna (19 page)

The pizza, the puff pastry, the meatballs, the bread, the dips and sauces, and the deviled eggs were all ready. Johanna was dressed in her cute new jeans and T-shirt. Her makeup was subtle, her hair was freshly washed and shiny; she didn’t have enough time for anything fancier. She had finished cleaning her room, watering the flowers. She stopped biting her nails nervously and finally finished rearranging the seating for the hundredth time. She was sure that, this time, she had put the yellow Ikea chairs in the right place.

“All right, now. Take it easy, Johanna! Everything is perfect,” said Linda, trying to calm Johanna down in her own inimitable way. Linda could stay calm in almost any situation. If she were ever captain of a sinking ship, she would know exactly what to do; she would manage to save everyone coolly and calmly.

“I know, I know. But this needs to be something really special for Martin,” she said as she tugged nervously at her hair.

“It will be. Don’t worry,” Linda said as she took Johanna in her arms.

Johanna realized how happy she was to have Linda as her future sister-in-law. The door rattled as somebody unlocked it. It was Martin. He’d gotten home punctually, not a minute too soon and not too late. Back in the apartment, he snooped around, inspecting all the goodies.

“Wow, this looks epic! Thank you,” said Martin with delight. He spotted the Viennese chocolate torte, which glistened with vast quantities of seductive-looking chocolate. “Chocolate! Fantastic!” Martin hugged Linda tightly, kissed her, then hugged his sister. “You’re the best,” he said, obviously moved. “Well then, let the festivities begin!”

Martin went to put on suitable music. “How about some Travis?” he asked, and turned the music up.

Everyone but me knew about Travis!
Johanna thought. The song Martin put on, “Where You Stand,” evoked memories of her date with Thomas. If she had to choose a song for Thomas and herself, like people did for their weddings—even though there was only the smallest chance they would ever get married—that would be their song.

The guests slowly trickled in. Johanna was excited to finally meet Martin’s friends. He proudly introduced his sister to them. She and Linda proved to be the perfect hostesses, taking people’s coats and jackets, supplying guests with sodas, alcoholic and nonalcoholic cocktails, and beer. They kept everyone well supplied with canapés, taking them fresh from the oven and putting them on the table. Most of the guests were couples. Martin had only a couple male friends who were still single, neither of whom he wanted to set up with his sister because they didn’t meet his strict criteria. One was a nerd, much too shy, poorly dressed, and kind of boring. The other talked too much and was quite enamored of himself. He’d been talking about his literary acumen for years, but he couldn’t get around to actually writing a book. In his own estimation, he was a master of his craft. It would only be a matter of time before he would become world famous, as long as he could keep on qualifying for public assistance.

The doorbell rang again. Johanna rushed down the hallway, carrying a tray filled with freshly baked rolls. The moment passed in slow motion as she grabbed the silver doorknob with her right hand, turned it, then balanced the tray, which was swaying precariously, as she carefully opened the door. The situation she found herself in was almost funny, as if she were on some sort of television show. The host would say something like, “And now . . .here is your sweetheart!” At that very moment, she saw Thomas. Thomas saw at her. Then Johanna looked at Clarissa, then looked at Thomas again, who stared wide-eyed at her. Then Martin came over.

“Hey, Thomas and Clarissa. So glad you’re here,” he greeted the two joyously. He kissed Clarissa on both cheeks.

“This is my sister,” he said, introducing them to Johanna, her face frozen. Clarissa reached out to shake Johanna’s hand, but Johanna couldn’t take it. It was as if her hands were paralyzed and her feet physically rooted into the ground; her thoughts, memories, and a thousand unanswered questions immobilized her.

“What is wrong with you?” Martin asked as he noted his sister’s and best friend’s sudden rigidness.

Johanna struggled to collect herself. She didn’t want to ruin her brother’s party even though she had the almost-uncontrollable urge to squawk, scream, cry, and flail around like a madwoman. Instead, she shook Clarissa’s outstretched hand before welcoming Thomas as if they’d never laid eyes on each other.

“I’m Johanna, Martin’s sister.” Then she averted her eyes and vowed to never look at Thomas again. She went back into the living room, where the party was in full swing. The guests sang the praises of the delicious party food, and enjoyed the wine, beer, gin and tonics, and whiskey sours, which the unsuspecting Johanna and Linda had happily prepared a few hours beforehand.

Johanna didn’t stay in the living room for very long; the happy voices, the laughter, and the music overwhelmed her. She couldn’t deal with the rage and hatred that threatened to escape from her with the force of a tidal wave. And even if she only released a fraction of what she was feeling, the celebration would be over.

Clarissa put her arm around Thomas, who stared into the void. He didn’t have the courage to look at Johanna, and he didn’t have the strength to take Clarissa’s arm from around his waist. It was as if he were a spectator, watching images pass before his eyes as he sat in the middle of the first row in a movie theater.

Johanna felt a crying fit coming on; she couldn’t hold back her tears for one more minute, so she left the room. She threw herself onto her bed and wept into her turquoise pillow. The Amazon River had nothing on Johanna’s tears.

Johanna’s flight did not escape Thomas’s attention. With the pretext of getting a beer from the fridge, he walked through the apartment to the room he knew must be Johanna’s, but Clarissa cut him off at the door.

“Well, Martin’s sister’s kind of weird, isn’t she?” she said to Thomas, then kissed him on the mouth.

He held his tongue and knew that he couldn’t react in any other way, unless of course, he wanted to get himself killed. He stood in front of her door, but couldn’t knock on it. Clarissa cheerfully led him back into the living room.

Johanna rejoined the party forty-five minutes later.

“Where have you been all this time?” Linda asked, slightly agitated.

“I was on the phone,” she lied.

She helped Linda light the candles on the cake. They carried the torte into the living room and Linda started to sing “Happy Birthday.” Johanna would have preferred to throw the entire cake into Thomas’s face, lit candles and all. When she noticed that they had forgotten the knife, Johanna hurried back to the kitchen. Thomas jumped up to follow her.

“Johanna, please, I need to talk to you,” he pleaded.

She turned around, holding the kitchen knife threateningly. Then she pushed past him and went back into the living room. Thomas followed her. He took a swig from his beer bottle, though he would have needed to chug at least five bottles to calm himself down. Johanna carefully cut the torte, a smile frozen on her face as if nothing had happened. Linda distributed the pieces of cake in a flash.

“Delicious,” the guests proclaimed, each longing for a second piece.

Johanna appreciated the paean to her baking skills, but she couldn’t enjoy it for very long as sorrow threatened to swallow her whole. She drank a glass of Prosecco, followed by a three-to-one mixture of gin and tonic as she scrutinized Clarissa. The sight of Clarissa’s perfect hair, beautifully curved lips, high cheekbones, shapely breasts, and everything else stabbed Johanna repeatedly in the eyeballs. Clarissa undoubtedly cross-trained every day until she was dripping in sweat. She hoped to find the tiniest imperfection on Clarissa’s body, but the blonde model was unrivaled.

Bitch
, Johanna thought.

“Hello, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Tobias,” the writer said to Johanna as he extended his hand. “You’re Martin’s sister, I presume. I’m his friend and a writer.”

Just when she’d thought the evening couldn’t get any worse, now she had to talk to this creep. Johanna chatted with him for a while; she even smiled deliberately as Thomas stared at Tobias and Johanna as if he would have loved nothing better than to drag the wannabe writer away and beat the living daylights out of him; he decided against it.

“Sorry, I have to go for a second,” she apologized, and stood up to join the smokers on the balcony, making a small detour through the kitchen to pick up some ice for her gin and tonic.

In the meantime, Thomas sat next to Clarissa. He wasn’t a bit surprised when she started talking about New York again and raving about the pulse of the city and its glorious nightlife. As Clarissa continued to wax euphoric, Thomas decided to use this time to track down Johanna. He found her in the kitchen as she picked up an ice cube from the floor.

“Don’t you want to get back in the glass?” she mumbled at the ice cube as she turned and swayed slightly. She looked at Thomas with contempt and threw the ice cube at his chest, right where his heart was. How appropriate. “A heart of ice, no, that’s not right . . . a heart of stone!” she slurred.

“Johanna, I know how this looks, and yes, Clarissa is my girlfriend. I was planning to end it with her, but . . .”

She wouldn’t let him speak.

“Shut the hell up! You’re an asshole,” she yelled. “Clarissa will find about this, I tell you that. You’re not going to get away with this stupid game.”

As she stormed out of the kitchen, he tried to grab her hand.

“Let go of me. Are you crazy? Don’t you understand that I want nothing to do with you?”

“What about the text you sent?”

“I didn’t know what was going on then.”

“I swear to you, I was going to tell Clarissa everything tomorrow and break up with her.”

“Kiss my ass, you jerk.”

Thomas was desperate; he didn’t know what to do.

Martin came into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He could sense the tension between his sister and his best friend, but he didn’t know what to make of it.

“Nothing,” Thomas said as he slunk back into the living room.

Martin followed Johanna. “You all right?”

“Yes,” she slurred.

“Oh boy, have you had too much to drink?”

“No, too little. Not nearly enough for tonight.”

Martin thought his sister’s behavior was inappropriate, but he also didn’t want to make a big deal about it. If she cut herself off now, maybe everything would all right.

A short time later, Johanna came up next to Clarissa, who made no effort to talk to her and even turned in a slightly different direction as she sipped her Prosecco.

“Your boyfriend is a jerk,” she said as she pointed to Thomas, who was standing in a corner, conversing with Martin.

Clarissa shook her head. “What the hell are you talking about? How dare you say such a thing? Are you completely crazy?”

“Why don’t you ask him who he took to the Travis concert and the Salsaria?” Johanna took another gulp from her glass. “Ask him about the cooking class,” she continued aggressively.

She was so drunk that she fell back onto the couch, closed her eyes, and drifted into a state of semiunconsciousness. She missed the scene that played out between Thomas and Clarissa, which most of the guests didn’t notice because the party had gotten rather loud. Clarissa confronted him with the allegations, and Thomas told her everything. Everything. He didn’t omit the smallest detail. Clarissa ran out of the living room crying. She snatched up Thomas’s unattended car keys, ran downstairs, climbed into the BMW’s front seat, and drove off. A few moments later, she crashed the car into a wall.

23

Martin shook Johanna unrelentingly, trying to wake her up as Thomas followed Clarissa, who’d disappeared outside. He didn’t realize until later that his car keys were missing and the BMW was no longer parked on the curb.

Martin ran after Thomas. “What kind of an asshole are you anyway?” he screamed.

He spotted Thomas on the street and threw a punch, but missed because he was too drunk.

“My sister’s your new girl? You started something with her without ending your relationship with Clarissa?”

Martin was furious to find himself an unwilling participant in this grueling, uncomfortable situation. He felt just as betrayed as Johanna or Clarissa.

“Hey, I was serious about Johanna.”

“You should have broken up with Clarissa first! Can you imagine how they both feel now?”

Thomas ran down the street, looking for Clarissa. Around the next bend, the BMW had already crashed into a wall. The local police showed up, passersby gathered around the vehicle, and an ambulance zoomed around the corner, its siren wailing. While the sirens grew louder, the paramedics frantically hopped out of the ambulance. The police pushed the passersby aside as a streetlight fell over. The full weight of what Thomas had done hit him like a ton of bricks. Clarissa climbed out of the BMW, howling. She seemed more or less okay, not severely injured. At least she wasn’t so hurt that she couldn’t get out of the car by herself. When Thomas rushed over, she angrily pounded her fists against his forehead.

“Shit,” he shouted as he examined Clarissa for injuries and scratches.

“Go away,” she whimpered as she pounded Thomas’s chest. The police interviewed Thomas, took down his information, tested Clarissa’s blood alcohol level, then entered something in their computer.

“It would be best for you to go to the hospital to make sure you have no internal injuries,” a police officer said to Clarissa as he helped her into the ambulance.

Thomas stood by helplessly. He should never have let it get this far. It all was his fault; he reproached himself bitterly. He’d lost everything in just a few hours.

PART TWO

24

Streetcars kept rattling down their tracks, subways kept their schedules, supermarket managers opened for business, commuters hurried frantically down city streets, cars honked, joggers ran their laps around the park, dog owners walked their dogs every morning; it was as if nothing had changed but the weather. Everything else was just like it always was—at least in the big picture. But for individual city dwellers, lots of things changed; it was just that the rest of the world wasn’t aware of their unique experiences. Couples hooked up, separated, fell in love, and got married. Some people cheated on their significant others. Babies were born, people died, houses were built, cars were bought and sold again. Students passed their tests, got an education, and graduated. People went to bars and discos on the weekend, and then cursed their hangovers Monday morning. People got sick and then well again. Every day, there were a hundred thousand things happening that seemed important only to those people directly affected by them. Each small individual world existed parallel to every innumerable other. Life went on as usual for some—for others, not so much.

After a bitterly cold January and February, the sun slowly spread its rays over the city. Gravel filled the streets, a remnant of a snowy winter, which inevitably formed vast mountains of mud and filth once the busy street cleaners began their work. Most people still wore their warm coats as temperatures hovered in the low forties.

Meanwhile, over three months had passed. Thomas had ended his relationship with Clarissa. She’d fled to London, Paris, Milan, New York. The devil only knows where else she may have traveled. She didn’t try to contact Thomas. In light of what had happened, it was the best thing for all involved. Sometimes he saw her on billboards or in print ads; apparently, her career really had taken off. Thomas spent the Christmas holidays with his family; the family celebration was nice, but somewhat tarnished by his mother’s inability to accept the breakup. In fact, she talked about it incessantly.

“It would have been perfect if Clarissa and Thomas could have moved to New York together,” she frequently lamented.

Thomas stopped reacting to such declarations, as nothing he could say seemed to help. Oddly enough, she seemed to suffer the most; he could tell she’d need a long time to accept things. On top of her heartbreak over her son’s love life, her dearest friend, confidant, and travel companion, Gertrude, died shortly after New Year’s.

Thomas kept himself busy with work. The company had been planning the new location in New York for quite some time now, and Thomas was feeling more ambitious than ever. Work was a welcome distraction as he tried to get over losing Johanna. For a while, he tried daily to reach her. He drove to the cooking school and tried to contact her through Martin. It was all in vain. Johanna refused to talk to him. His relationship with Martin was also shattered. Gone were the countless nights of PlayStation, the road trips into the unknown, major-league soccer games together, the Saturday jogs, and the after-work beers at the local pub. The two saw each other casually, when friends invited them to various events or birthday parties. They accepted the situation, but they were anything but happy about it.

“You shouldn’t work so much,” said Thomas’s new assistant. She was pretty, but not everyone’s type. She was a five-foot-eight brunette with a pageboy haircut and inviting curves complemented by the dark-blue suit she was wearing.

“I’m almost finished. You can go home if you’d like. I don’t need your help anymore today,” Thomas said as he waved her off.

He was careful not to give her so much as a questionable glance; he’d become distant, an unnatural state for him. He’d become a grouchy, broken man who had lost his will to live. He cleared his throat and stroked his beard, which he’d been growing for weeks now. He knew he needed a haircut, but he had no time and even less desire to go to the barber, so he’d let it grow out. Thomas wasn’t eating enough; he’d lost weight. He buried himself in work and took little time for himself. He socialized less but ran a lot more. His body reflected his emotional and physical state. His days were unremarkable, and he was bored stiff. Nobody would have wanted to trade places with him.

It used to be different. In school, everyone had wanted to be like Thomas. Everyone wanted to jump like him and throw a ball like him. Later, he was a welcome guest at teenage birthday parties; he always received a steady stream of little notes with messages like,
Do you want to go out with me? Yes, no, maybe—please check one.
He’d always gone on extravagant vacations twice a year with his parents—to ski resorts in Tyrol every winter then every summer the family preferred to fly to the beach especially since his father didn’t like to drive. A leader, he’d founded an elite study group during college, and Martin had been a valued member. Many fellow students eagerly campaigned to be accepted into this group. Its members earned excellent exam grades but never lost sight of having fun; they went out often, usually three or four times a week, including weekdays, weekends, holidays. When there was an exam, they holed up at home and turned down every party and festival.

These days, that seemed like another lifetime, but it really hadn’t been that long ago. In college, Thomas would stumble home drunk at six o’clock in the morning and sleep until five in the afternoon. The following day, still hungover, he’d slink into one of the lecture halls’ back rows and throw himself right back into academic achievement.

Since the calamity at Martin’s birthday party, Thomas had become a hermit. Early in the morning, he either went jogging or to the office, sitting in front a large pot of coffee and a mountain of paperwork; despite working his fingers to the bone, there never seemed to be less to do. However, even this pleased him in a weird way. He saved himself considerable time in the morning by not shaving. He stopped eating breakfast. He didn’t quite feel at home in his own apartment anymore, even though he had eliminated almost all traces of Clarissa and her purchases, and the apartment was 99 percent back to its former self. Still, something or someone was missing. The PlayStation collected dust, as he rarely felt moved to play. He skipped all social events, parties, and concerts. At work, he made a beeline from the elevator to his office, evading the obligatory chitchat with colleagues. He quickly closed the office door behind him and avoided going to meetings, delegating most of them to his colleagues. He brooded for hours about the New York project, answering e-mails or talking on the phone. Somehow, he had to keep in contact with the outside world; otherwise, he was afraid he might lose his ability to talk to people altogether and end up grunting an order at a street food cart or panting like a dog over hors d’oeuvres at a company function. He smiled about as often as celebrity sourpuss Victoria Beckham. His friends and colleagues noted that there wasn’t much left of the charismatic, handsome, funny Thomas. Nevertheless, everyone felt quite certain that he’d pull himself together one of these days.

Johanna had taken over purchasing and marketing for the school, which made her an indispensable asset to Ms. Geyer. She had her own small apartment now. It was in an old building right in one of the central districts. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but it was close to the cooking school, which made it all worth it. She lovingly decorated her two-room pad. The heartbeat of her living space was the kitchen, where she built a lovely island. It cost a small fortune for her meager budget, so she skimped on all the other furniture; she bought a used bed, hardly worn out at all. She needed the kitchen more often than the bed anyway and spent most of her time cooking. When she couldn’t sleep at night, she would often try out new dishes, creating new tortes, pies, and cakes, perusing cookbooks as she drank a good glass of red or white wine—a Cabernet Sauvignon or, preferably, a Muscat.

She created a pleasant life for herself. She didn’t want to fall back into the old emotional patterns that had crippled her back in her hometown, though it took all her resolve to do so. She couldn’t forget Thomas, no matter how hard she tried; he was still in her head and, what was worse, in her heart. She was happy to invite her brother, Linda, and Linda’s friends over on the weekends. She cooked for them and served her best wines. Cooking and entertaining became her passion, and through them, she found a kind of self-realization.

Paolo came to visit often. They watched DVDs, listened to music, or made a mess in the kitchen as they chatted about love and life. Johanna had found a good friend in Paolo, and he’d helped her get over her initial heartbreak and disappointment in Thomas. She learned she could count on him when she couldn’t get out of bed for days at a time, called in sick, wouldn’t pick up the phone, or found herself surrounded by a sea of used tissues, listening to Travis’s “Where You Stand” on repeat. Now, though, things were getting better again; she no longer listened to Travis and didn’t spend a fortune on tissues. Her mood was more often good than bad, not always, but at least over 50 percent of the time, and that was an improvement.

Johanna woke up early every morning, earlier than she used to, brushed her teeth, and gently removed the remains of the poppy seeds from between her teeth. Her latest thing was eating poppy seeds. Then, around seven thirty, she rode her bike through the cold morning air to the cooking school, sat in her office—yes, she had her own office now, a nice room with sloping walls on the top floor of the building—and sometimes helped Paolo out in the kitchen. At night, she rode home exhausted. She’d turn down invitations to go out and dissuade spontaneous visits.

Sometimes, Linda tried to set her up on a date. But Johanna didn’t want to meet anybody: no nerds, no wannabes, no metrosexuals, no macho men, no terrifically good-looking or amazingly likeable men, no average Joes, no yuppies, no new-agers, and certainly no seniors or retirees. She didn’t want anything to do with any man except maybe for friendship, if that. Johanna preferred to stay inside her own four walls, cooking whatever her heart desired, writing down recipes, and reading good books. The most exciting thing that had happened was a phone call from Daniel at Christmas. She didn’t answer it, but sent him a text back that said,
Fuck you, don’t ever contact me again.
This text was motivated more by her hatred for Thomas than for the clueless, pushy Captain Quickie, who happened to be in the line of fire.

Simply put, Johanna and Thomas were both somewhere between mediocre and completely miserable. Their daily routines were listless, unromantic, and downright dull.