I start working so much that my life consists of nothing but my apartment, Berlitz and the various companies I’m sent to: EON, Strabag, Creditanstalt, Tele2Mobil, Andritz, Wien Energie, BAWAG, Polytec Holding, and a small but enthusiastic jumper-clad group of curators at the modern art museum, mumok. I find pleasure in the tiredness I feel at the end of the day as I haul my bag up the stairs. My bag contains nothing but photocopies on how to write emails correctly in English, because that’s all the companies are interested in. If I’ve taught them well I sometimes manage to get my corporate students’ emails to go from sounding frighteningly militaristic – ‘You send now the invoice!’ – to a smidgen less frighteningly militaristic. A major part of the lessons is spent trying to explain the importance of being indirect when speaking English. My students look at me then with a mixture of incomprehension and mild nausea at the idea that anyone would choose a roundabout route when they could just use the Autobahn.
‘Good morning,’ I say to the receptionist at the language school, who looks like he’s 12 years old.
‘Good morning,’ he replies.
I find the folder with my name on which contains all the day’s information cards. A few students are already hanging out by the water cooler, and laughter can be heard from the staffroom. While I look through the day’s lessons I notice with irritation that two periods are empty in the middle of the day. I prefer to teach all day long with no breaks.
‘There were no students for me at eleven o’clock?’ I ask.
‘Sorry,’ the receptionist shakes his head.
It suddenly occurs to me what I should do during that time.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, and grin.
At eleven, when my lesson finishes, I hurry over to the optician in the sixth that I’d passed a few days previously. To my relief the sign saying ‘free hearing test’ is still there. When I step into the shop a little bell rings. Everything in the shop is white apart from the hundreds of pairs of glasses and sunglasses displayed on round panels. A woman of around twenty with stop-sign-red lipstick comes out from a room in the back. Her hair is in a tight bun and she’s wearing a white coat, just like a doctor.
‘How may I help you?’ she asks.
‘Do you really offer hearing tests?’
‘Absolutely,’ the woman says. ‘We sell hearing aids too.’
‘Then I’d like to have a hearing test, please,’ I reply.
At first the woman (Frau Ruthofer, I see now from her name badge) doesn’t move.
‘Of course,’ she says finally. ‘Would you like to do it now or book an appointment?’
‘Now would be perfect,’ I say. ‘If it suits you?’
The woman goes to the door while I sneak a look at a pair of Bulgari sunglasses costing 402 euros. I quickly calculate that I’d need to teach about thirty lessons to buy them.
‘My colleague is at lunch right now,’ Frau Ruthofer explains as she locks the door to the shop. ‘Come with me.’
A minute later, I’m sitting behind a desk in a little soundproofed room with dark-brown walls full of millions of tiny holes. On the floor there’s a thick, light-brown carpet and in front of me there’s a glass wall. Frau Ruthofer is sitting on the other side. She leans forward and speaks into the microphone.
‘The tonal audiometry will consist of ten test sequences per ear. Are you ready?’
‘Sorry?’ I say.
‘The tonal audiometry will …’
I shake my head. ‘I was just joking. You can begin.’
For the next ten minutes I sit there, pressing a button whenever I hear various sounds in my left or right ear. I have butterflies in my stomach; it’s a long time since I’ve felt this happy. Instead of filling out a questionnaire, it’s now my body and my hearing that are being tested and categorised. Still, the whole time I feel like Frau Ruthofer is watching me suspiciously, and her expression seems to darken with every minute that passes. I worry that it might be because my hearing is so dire.
‘Well, that’s it, we’re finished,’ Frau Ruthofer says.
Disappointed, I stand up, and we go out into the shop again. Frau Ruthofer fetches a few sheets of paper from a printer in the back room.
‘Here is your audiogram,’ she says, peering at the paper. ‘This contains your results, what types of sound you were able to detect and at which decibels.’
With curiosity I wait for her to continue. Frau Ruthofer finishes the report before putting it down, slightly frustrated.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she says, in a tone that borders on sharp.
‘Of course,’ I reply.
‘Do you ever suffer from tinnitus?’ she asks.
I shake my head.
‘Glue ear?’
Again I shake my head.
‘Middle-ear infection? Noise damage? Otosclerosis? Ménières disease?’
I shake my head for a third time.
‘Does anyone in your family suffer from any hearing problems that you’re worried may be hereditary?’
‘No,’ I reply, my voice faltering. ‘They all have good hearing.’
‘Do you have any kind of hearing problems at all?’ Frau Ruthofer almost barks.
‘No,’ I say wretchedly.
‘So why did you come here?’ Frau Ruthofer exclaims. ‘Normally it’s older – much older – people who take this hearing test.’
At first I don’t answer.
‘It was free and I had nothing to do,’ I admit at last.
Frau Ruthofer says nothing. Then she gives me the papers.
‘Congratulations,’ she says. ‘You have exceptionally good hearing. Particularly in your left ear.’
‘Do I?’ I cry.
‘The details are in the report.’
I take it and try to make sense of the figures and the small diagrams, as I process my newly-discovered talent.
Behind me I hear someone knock on the door. Frau Ruthofer unlocks it, and in comes a somewhat older woman, who is also wearing a white coat under her jacket. In her hand she’s holding a paper bag from the sandwich shop Anker, and a Pago apple juice. Angrily, Frau Ruthofer starts telling her colleague that I’ve just had a hearing test because I had nothing else to do. As though I wasn’t standing two metres away from them. With super-hearing.
When I say goodbye and leave the shop, neither of the women replies, but with my new superpower I’m oblivious to their anger.