Ben and I are pretending to be Baryshnikov and Anna Pavlova on ice. Now the Christmas market has closed, there’s an enormous skating rink in front of the town hall. Great plastic snowflakes hang in the trees, and the town hall is lit up purple. Although it’s almost half nine in the evening, the rink is still full of people. Classical music plays from the speakers, which suits our made-up jumps, steps and pirouettes perfectly.
‘I think I have to rest a bit,’ I say when we stop in a dramatic pose. ‘Then we should play Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.’
Ben grins before pushing off with his left arm forwards and his right leg backwards. I try to skate to the ramp at the side without colliding with too many people. This evening is a bit different, because Ben has paid the entrance fee and skate hire. He’s got a job via the Poles in the third district. Before that was a failed attempt as a ticket seller for Mozart concerts – a job that most of the desperate, half-decent-looking guys in Vienna can get. All the Mozart costumes were too small for Ben, and he kept telling the tourists to go to the other Mozart concerts because they were better. After two weeks he’d only made twenty euros, because it was on commission. But now he’s got a job as a plasterer.
‘They’re a real bunch of bloodsuckers,’ Ben says. ‘An Austrian would have got twenty euros an hour for the work. I’ll get eighty cents a square metre. So even if I have to plaster a 100-square-metre house three times over, I’ll only get eighty euros. But it’s a job.’
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I say.
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not?’
‘If I was five and had made you a nice picture out of pasta shapes, you could say you were proud,’ Ben says. ‘This is a crappy job. But it will be great to finally be able to pay for food and so on.’
As I stand on the ramp, trying to wiggle life into my frozen toes, I spot Karen, who also works at Berlitz. Karen is so thin and pale that several times students have asked whether she was ill. One student even started bringing in sandwiches and oranges for her.
‘Hi Karen!’
Karen catches sight of me and comes over with a large bag in her hand.
‘Have you finished or are you about to start?’ I ask.
‘I’m off home now,’ she says. ‘Are you on your own?’
I shake my head and point at Ben, who’s stopped being a ballet dancer. Instead, he’s doing a robot dance in the middle of the ice with two children who are cracking up with laughter. For a long time, Karen and I just stand staring at him.
‘Hey, I actually wanted to ask you something,’ Karen says after a while. ‘Would you be interested in teaching an evening course at the university? It’s a beginner’s course I generally take care of, but I’m busy at the moment.’
‘The University of Vienna?’ I ask. ‘Absolutely!’
‘Great,’ Karen says. ‘The course doesn’t start until September, but they pay three times more than Berlitz.’
‘Wow, thanks!’
‘And soon I’m going to have loads of university essays to mark if you want a few,’ she says. ‘It’s well paid too but I won’t manage them all.’
When Karen leaves I can’t stop smiling. A university job. At Berlitz I’ve also started getting a higher hourly rate because I’ve taught more than three thousand hours. And to put the cherry on top, I had a great idea today for a story about a Catholic priest and a girl in Australia. And I even know what the priest’s name is going to be: Father Ralph. Which is odd, actually, because I’ve always thought Ralph was a bit of a dorky name but an author must listen to her instincts. What a beautiful, heart-breaking novel it’s going to be! I make my way over to Ben on the ice rink.
‘Ben! I’m going to start teaching English at the university!’ I shout.
‘Come here, university professor!’
Ben lifts my right hand and I do a pirouette. When he lets me go again I say:
‘I’m probably not allowed to call myself a professor just because I’m teaching an evening course, but it’s still cool.’
‘The plasterer and the professor,’ Ben says.
‘I don’t know if professors are allowed to go out with plasterers,’ I tease him.
‘Sorry baby,’ Ben says, lifting my hand so I can do another pirouette. ‘You’re stuck with me for the rest of your life.’
It’s not the wild times with Ben that I like the most; it’s the quiet, daily routines. Eating breakfast together, going to Billa or Merkur market to do the shopping, or sitting on the sofa in the evening – me with a glass of red wine, and him with a glass of beer (now I’ve convinced him that there’s no law that says you have to drink straight from the can), and eating Lindt chocolate with salted caramel. It’s in those moments that I feel such joy and satisfaction, a peace like never before. Part of me starts hoping that Ben might really have forgotten about Berlin.
‘Bubbles should ditch that loser Johnny,’ Ben says. ‘He’d be much better off without him.’
‘Johnny’s going to be Bubbles’ downfall,’ I say. ‘Without giving too much away.’
Since Ben’s never seen The Wire, we’ve started working our way slowly through all five seasons, and suddenly we’re talking about McNulty, Kima, Omar and Herc as though they were personal acquaintances.
‘Pawel at work was telling me you can go skiing just an hour from Vienna,’ Ben says suddenly.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Semmering.’
‘Why’ve you never mentioned it?’
‘Because I’m not interested in skiing,’ I reply.
‘But we have to go there!’ Ben exclaims. ‘If it’s so close to Vienna. Pawel said I can borrow his cousin’s snowboarding equipment and everything.’
I don’t answer at first.
‘Hmm … I don’t know,’ I say in the end. ‘The sight of me ploughing down the slope at five kilometres an hour might be a bit too much of a turn-on for you. I don’t know if you’d be able to handle it.’
‘It will be really fun,’ Ben says enthusiastically.
‘OK,’ I reply. ‘We can go there on Saturday. But only as long as you promise not to paint white streaks under your eyes or leave me on my own at the top of a slope.’
‘Deal,’ he says.
Then we watch yet another episode of The Wire.
Later, as we brush our teeth, we have a discussion about whether D’Angelo Barksdale should have snitched on Avon or not.
‘You just don’t snitch,’ Ben insists. ‘Never ever.’
‘Is that a rule in the underground?’ I ask lowering my voice dramatically: ‘Never snitch! Are there any more rules you follow?’
‘Me? I’m not in the mafia.’
I rinse away my toothpaste.
‘No rules then,’ I say. ‘But things you do and don’t do? In the homeless world?’
Ben ponders.
‘I reckon they’d be always sharing your alcohol when you have it, never taking anyone else’s sleeping spot, and never, ever speaking to the police.’
‘It sounds like the Berlitz world,’ I say eagerly. ‘We always share the blue Murphy grammar book because it’s the best; we never take someone else’s student, and we never, ever talk to Dagmar. The similarities are frightening.’
We turn off the lights and go into the bedroom.
‘What does “effervescent” mean?’ Ben asks as we lie in bed reading.
‘To be lively or enthusiastic,’ I reply. ‘Aren’t you the native English speaker?’
‘Yeah, I guess I am,’ Ben says with a sigh.
‘If you’d tried a bit harder in school, I think that maybe you might have known something like that,’ I say, half-joking.
‘Yes, Mom,’ Ben says, sighing again.
I try not to be bothered by his comment.
‘And speaking of mothers and things mothers have to put up with but not people like me,’ I say, ‘would it be possible for you to stop leaving your dirty T-shirts all over the apartment?’
Ben sighs again before replying.
‘Yes,’ he mutters, then fixes his gaze back on his book so I’ll understand he doesn’t want me to disturb him again. And I almost get the feeling he was about to add ‘Mom’ again, but caught himself at the last minute.