As I’m coming out of Berlitz a few days later, I hear a voice:
‘Spare a little change for the homeless?’
I turn and see Ben sitting against a building. He’s holding a paper cup from McDonald’s. At first I say nothing. I’m happier to see him than I want to admit.
‘You shouldn’t give money to beggars,’ I say in the end. ‘If you do, they won’t survive when they’re released back into the wild.’
I notice he’s wearing new, unpatched clothes that I don’t recognise.
‘How come you’re still in Vienna?’ I ask.
‘I live here now, whether you want me to or not,’ he says. ‘And I’ve signed up to a foundation course in mechanical engineering.’
I decide not to tell him I knew he’d been accepted onto the course six months ago.
‘Are you going to be an engineer?’ I say in a slightly sarcastic tone that I immediately regret because it makes me sound like I’m thirteen.
‘Yep,’ Ben says. ‘I’ve already been to a couple of the classes. The other students’ voices have just broken, so it’s like I’m their grandad. But the teachers are really cool.’
‘So what made you come over to the other side?’ I ask. ‘I thought you were happy plastering walls and picking earthworms and living outdoors.’
Ben ponders a while.
‘Stinky feet,’ he says finally. ‘I don’t want to be someone who always comes home with stinky feet, because then you know someone has a shitty job. And you probably had something to do with it as well.’
‘How are you going to support yourself? While you’re studying?’
‘I’ve got a job as a porter at the university,’ he replies. ‘It seems they constantly need benches, chairs and books moved between different departments. And the job is legal and everything. I’m even going to be paying tax now.’
‘And you haven’t burst into flames yet?’ I say. ‘Where are you living then?’
‘Not in a bush in Stadtpark, anyway,’ Ben says with a smile. ‘I’m renting a little room in the fourteenth from a guy I thought was called Bogdan until he said after a month,’ Ben goes on with a Balkan accent, ‘“Ben, please stop calling me Bogdan. My name is Bora.” I could have sworn he was called Bogdan. I want him to be called Bogdan. He should be called Bogdan.’
‘Everyone needs a Bogdan,’ I say.
We both smile and fall silent for a while. Ben suddenly rummages for something in his pocket.
‘I’ve even got a mobile,’ he says. ‘Take my number.’
Out of politeness I put his number into my phone. We fall silent again.
‘I have to go,’ I say in the end.
‘Meeting your Austrian banker?’ Ben asks.
‘Unfortunately, my Austrian banker is too busy exploiting the poor,’ I say. ‘But on the other hand, he does have a BMW and he buys me fur coats every day. Those ones that are made from lamb foetuses.’
‘But I bet he doesn’t have a Bogdan,’ Ben says.
I shake my head and smile.
‘Honestly though, where are you going?’ Ben asks.
‘I’m going to sing in a church choir,’ I say, throwing my arms wide. ‘Ta-da: new person!’
‘Can I come too?’ Ben asks.
‘You want to join a choir?’
‘God no,’ Ben says. ‘But I can wait until you’re done?’
Suddenly my heart seems twice as heavy.
‘It’s probably not a good idea,’ I say.
Ben stands up.
‘I want to apologise,’ he says. ‘Because I was so bad at trying to get in touch with you when I was in Canada. It was stupid, and I realise how sad I must have made you. Sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘That said, I don’t care how angry you are with me right now,’ he goes on. ‘I’m going to wait. You can’t get rid of me that easily.’
An image of Jordana and Ben outside Donny’s pops into my head.
‘Ben,’ I begin. ‘I’m never going to be able to trust you again so there’s no point in us being together. I need to be able to trust my partner.’
Ben looks at me and his jaw tenses. I’m unable to make eye contact with him.
‘Don’t say “partner”,’ he says in a low voice. ‘It makes us sound like cowboys.’
‘Goodbye,’ I say and start to walk quickly up the street.
As I try to swallow the lump in my throat I think about the choir to cheer myself up. In less than half an hour I’ll not only be meeting a load of exciting new people, I’ll also be singing beautiful songs and be spiritually enriched by doing so. I was wrong in Canada. You don’t need anyone to share fantastic experiences with in life.
I’m the only one under seventy-five. In the ice-cold Catholic church Zum Göttlichen Heiland I stick out a mile in the flock of wrinkles, liver spots and cataracts. I’m at least forty years younger than the next-youngest person there. I’m also Swedish and, in actual fact, Protestant.
‘O, ein neues Chormitglied!’ several people exclaim when they first see me, which makes me think it must have been a few years since the choir got a new member.
Everyone looks at me before turning to kiss each other on the cheeks or take off their coats. Everyone is well dressed and some even look dressed up. One elderly man is wearing a cravat, and several of the women are wearing elegant scarves and over-sized necklaces. Around us, the church is full of the kind of heavy, gilded ornaments and statues of saints with empty eyes and serious mouths you always find in Catholic churches. Everything is wreathed in the scent of dust, perfume and incense.
‘Are you an alto or a soprano?’ the choir leader asks.
‘I actually don’t know,’ I say. ‘Is there some kind of test I can take to find out?’
Apparently there isn’t, since the choir leader just waves at me to stand somewhere in between the altos and sopranos. Because it’s so cold in the church that I can see my breath, I keep my jacket on. When everyone is gathered, we spend ten minutes doing a few warm-up exercises for the voice and body, before the choir leader stands behind the piano and starts looking through a heap of papers.
‘We’re going to begin with a new song today,’ he says. ‘Who wants to do the solo?’
‘Me!’ I immediately shout, flinging my hand up.
Everyone turns to stare at me.
‘That was a joke,’ I say quickly. ‘I don’t even know what I am.’
I forget to add that I meant alto or soprano. Only one of the basses laughs, so I decide to keep quiet unless it’s time to sing.
‘Der gute Hirte leidet für die Schafe …’ the choir leader begins to sing, and we follow.
Singing in a choir turns out to be much harder than I thought. Firstly, I can’t read music, so I have to listen to the others, and secondly, it’s actually physically demanding. My jaw starts aching after half an hour, and singing in all seriousness about angels seems rather silly. The other choir members continue to look at me with curiosity.
‘What a beautiful young lady,’ a man says when we’ve finished, taking my hand and patting it.
His hand is incredibly dry, and bearing in mind that his glasses are a centimetre thick, I don’t know how seriously I can take his compliment.
‘Where are you from?’ the man asks.
‘Sweden,’ I reply, and everyone around me bursts out in happy little ‘oh’ sounds as though I were the reincarnation of Christ.
‘But what are you doing here?’ a woman says.
‘You mean in the choir?’ I ask a little nervously. ‘I’m Catholic,’ I lie.
‘In Vienna, I mean,’ says the woman.
‘I just really love Vienna, to be quite honest,’ I say, and once again the group around me gives its approval. If they weren’t all suffering from back problems, I get the feeling they would have lifted me up on their shoulders and formed a procession – that’s how glad they seem to be about the choir’s new, and moreover young, member. But instead I shuffle out with them all, already looking forward to next week’s choir practice.
On the way home, I start wondering whether there’s a hidden goldmine of other pensioners’ activities for me to discover, and whether all these elderly people can perhaps become my new friends.
‘I fought in the war,’ they’d tell me, tears filling their eyes.
‘Me too,’ I’d say. ‘Or at least, I’ve seen a lot of films where people fought in the war.’
‘The bloom of youth is lost on the young,’ they’d say.
‘I agree,’ I’d say. ‘But really, what’s the secret of life?’
And then they’d tell me.
When I’m almost home, an elderly gentleman suddenly stops me outside the haberdashery shop that’s always closed. His jacket looks worn and dirty.
‘Excuse me, do you have a cat?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say.
The elderly man starts fumbling with a plastic carrier bag and gives it to me. I take it from him, unsure what it is he wants.
‘My cat died,’ he says. ‘Please, take this.’
I look in the bag and see some cat food and a couple of cat toys.
‘But …’ I begin. ‘Don’t you want to get another cat?’
The elderly man quickly wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.
‘No,’ he says.
And then he walks briskly down Kaiserstrasse and I see him wiping his eyes again. I look in the bag again and see the cat food is the cheaper kind, and that the cat toys look worn. I see too the lonely, cruel reality of old age.
‘Please Optimus, just taste a little,’ I say when I’m back in the apartment.
But Optimus refuses to eat the elderly man’s cat food or to play with the toys.