Chapter 2

I got up the next morning and Manfred was there to pick me up.  We piled luggage back into the car that I swear he stole from a circus – it was one of those European cars that after you add more than two pieces of luggage to it, it looks like about ten clowns will come out any minute.  As we drove through the town towards my apartment, I noticed the buildings were looking older and older.  We turned onto Kaiserfeldgasse and stopped at number 27.  My heart leapt as I saw the building.  It was just as I had thought it would be:  18^th or perhaps 19^th century façade painted a lovely shade of cream with a wonderful green trim.  It even had window boxes with petunias!  I was certain the inside probably had beautiful parquet floors, lots of large windows for maximum light, and if we were on the top floor, maybe even a skylight.  It even had an archway you could drive through to get to the center courtyard that was for the whole block of buildings.  In my mind, I heard the “clop-clop” of horse hooves pulling a carriage that had perhaps some wealthy lady inside.  I paused to go in one of the doors on either side of the driveway, but Herbert chuckled.  “I am sorry, but this is not your building,” he said.  I was taken a bit back but followed him, my suitcase wheels clattering on the wooden blocks that made the drive.  I was wondering what my lovely room would look like when I smelled something foul.  I realized we were walking by several trashcans, each in a different color, but all stinking like old fruit and stale beer.  I breathed out of my mouth so as not to inhale the noxious fumes.  We stopped across the courtyard in front of an ochre building with paint peeling off the brown doors.  The building had the potential for being quite nice, but failed.  We walked inside and I noticed that my suitcase wheels did not make too much noise on the granite floors.  The walls were stark white.  “Not bad,” I thought.        

   Manfred helped me haul my luggage up the six flights of stairs.  I quickly changed my opinion of the place.  After the first story, we walked past peeling paint and walls that had been re-spackled a few decades ago, but had not yet been repainted.  The place seemed like it had been built a while back.  There were two apartments on each floor, one at either end of the landing that led to the next flight of stairs.  The floorboards and the stairs were very well worn, to be polite.  A nice feature of each floor, though, was the four huge windows on each landing that allowed for daylight to come in, just like I had hoped for.  We arrived at the door of my apartment.  Manfred got out the key and opened the door to what was to be my home for the next twelve months.

   It was what my Aunt Ellen calls “neo-attic” and Cosmo would call it “shabby-chic” but without the chic.  The first thing you saw when you walked in was a robin’s egg blue door.  This led to the bathroom.  On the left was another door in the same shade of blue.  It led to what I assumed was a bedroom.  The kitchen was on the right and rather small.  There was a table against the wall that seated three, two small refrigerators, a counter, a sink (no dishwasher in sight), and a small stove.  The counter looked like it had been someone’s project in shop class back in 1987 with a typical Euro-print curtain across the bottom.  The ceilings were at least twelve feet, a very appealing feature.  All in all, not terribly impressive, but for college students who don’t have a lot of money, not that bad.

   I walked through the kitchen into the hall.  It was dark and spooky.  Then I realized it was because there were no windows.  There were lots of doors, all of which I assumed again went to different bedrooms.  “I seem to have a lot of roommates,” I thought.  I followed Manfred down the hall and around a corner.  The second door on the right was mine.

   It had been white at one point, but was now the color of grunge.  It had a single bed, a desk with a chair, and a moldy-looking papasan.  There was a set of shelves in what had once been a doorway with double doors.  The doorway had since been closed off, but due to the indentation, someone had the bright idea to put a set of shelves in.  They, and the trim around the doorframe, were painted a lovely shade of doo-doo brown.  A dusty, white paper globe further enhanced the 15-watt bulb handing from the ceiling.  I had a set of windows with two sets of panes, the standard in most Germanic homes until a few decades ago.  They are two sets of panes that can be opened or closed and insulate quite nicely.  They are great at noise insulation and keeping the place warm when both sets are closed.  On days where it was cool outside, I could open the interior set and the room would cool down without my having to open the second set.  I also had a lovely view of Radetzkystrasse, which was a main thoroughfare.  I knew I’d learn the bus schedule fairly quickly the amount of noise they make.  Before the year was over, I had decided that if I ever won the lottery, I’d buy new brake pads for the entire Graz bus system.  Their squeaking at all hours greatly annoyed me.

   The floors at one point had been parqueted, but time and neglect had worn the finish off completely.  I thought it was an odd-shaped apartment.  It was like a backwards upside-down L – not very typical of a Germanic layout, but I shrugged it off.

   As I surveyed my new digs, Manfred placed my suitcase in the room.  “Your landlady’s name is Frau Steckrübe.  She said that none of the other roommates would be here until the end of September – classes at the University do not begin until October.”  So I was going to be there almost a month before anyone showed up.  Wow.

   “The rent is due at the first of the month and her business card is on the corkboard out front.  It has her phone number and address should you need anything.”  Corkboard?  I must have been too busy taking in the sights of the pink bathroom to see that.

   Manfred left soon after giving me my key and making sure I had his and Dietlende’s telephone numbers in case I needed anything.  I had already planned not to call them for anything short of dismemberment or house fire because they had a new baby; the last thing they needed was some American kid calling twice a day asking for grocery store recommendations and U.S.-metric conversions.

   As soon as Manfred left, I decided to explore and see how things were around the apartment.  The rooms on either side of mine were unlocked, but the rest were tightly secured.  The last one at the end other end of the hall next to the two toilets was unlocked as well.  One of the rooms next to mine was huge and what I had imagined mine to look like originally.  Since it was unlocked and obviously not taken, I thought about moving in.  But then I started waffling.  Were we actually assigned rooms, or was it more of a first-come-first-served?  I decided not to risk it and planned to stay put.  At the other end of the hallway was a huge cabinet with sliding doors.  It was painted the same shade of brown as my shelves.  “Must’ve been a big sale at the local hardware store on Düdü Brown,” I said to the dust bunnies that were piled in a corner.  I slid open the cabinet doors and peeked inside.  There were four shelves and as the doors slid open at either end, it made enough space for eight people to store things.  Eight seemed a large number of people in one little apartment.  After counting the bedrooms, it dawned on me that the only communal spaces were the toilets, bathroom, and the kitchen.  The apartment was large enough to house eight people and the only communal space was a ten by fifteen area.

   In the kitchen there was a window with frosted glass.  It was very tall, but as it opened to the stairs, it had a metal grate on the inside.  In the giant windowsill/counter was the phone.  It had a couple of buttons with symbols that I didn’t understand.  There was also a small screen-thing plugged into it.  Next to the window on the wall (and above the small kitchen table) was the corkboard that Manfred had mentioned.  There were a LOT of things on that corkboard. 

The stove was small, about half the size of a stove in the U.S.  There was no dishwasher other than what was at the end of my arms.  The counter was actually a table, I discovered, with a Formica-themed contact paper top and a curtain covering its underneath.  The material of said curtain was a seizure-inducing geometric pattern with colors of fuchsia, turquoise, yellow-orange, purple, black, and white.  It looked like an 80s home ec project from hell.  I pulled back the curtain expecting the great and powerful Oz, but found several recycling bins instead.  It dawned on me that the stinky bins I passed in the courtyard were for the recycling.  In Austria you are charged for the Restmüll, or “everything else trash can.”  Anything that cannot be recycled went into the Restmüll.  The trash men would weigh it and you were charged for over a certain weight.  I think it’s definitely something the U.S. can and should implement – local governments could make excellent money that could go to education or homeless shelters or something else useful.

   I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.  I knew no one in town and was a bit scared of getting lost.  The sun went down relatively early compared to the U.S., so I didn’t want to be out too long and get lost in the dark.  I decided a small walk around the neighborhood would be nice.  After dumping open my suitcases, I dug out a short-sleeved t-shirt, a long-sleeved t-shirt, my sweatshirt, and grabbed my raincoat.  I wasn’t expecting rain, but I figured another layer couldn’t hurt in keeping out the cold.  I made sure I had my key and walked down the stairs.  I tried putting my house key in the lock for the mailbox, but it wouldn’t fit.  I shuffled past the stinky recycling bins and trashcans and turned right onto Kaiserfeldgasse.  There was a Gösser pub on the corner.  It looked warm and inviting.  Then I realized I had very little money.  Today was Saturday and the banks were all closed.  I had the equivalent of $50 and knew I needed to save at least half for emergency reserves.  (I had American dollars, but they wouldn’t spend as well as Austrian schilling.  And my account back home was not going to have money until Monday.)  Knowing that things were more expensive here, I decided to spend the next few days very frugally.  I walked up the street and passed a restaurant.  “Note to self,” I thought, “must try restaurant once schillings are procured.”  I got two blocks up and to the main stretch of the Altstadt or old town.  The streets weren’t paved, but cobbled.  I walked down the street looking in the windows.  It was like the States, but not.  Things were just cooler, especially at the glasses shop.  They had some very funky and neat specs.  I bought a cheese sandwich (Käsebrot) at a food cart and nibbled it as I walked along the other side of the street.  There was an ice cream shop that was actually doing a brisk business.  It was September and summer, as far as my calendar was concerned.  In the South, summer doesn’t end until November.  However, the high that day was in the low-60s and I was cold.  On my way back, I passed Kaiserfeldgasse and kept going to where the strassenbahn tracks came together.  The area was called Jakominiplatz (“yahko- mini-platz”) and was the main hub for the streetcars.  In the mornings and afternoons, there were vendors selling their wares out of very nice stands.  There were also pay phones.  I had already called my parents to let them know I had arrived in Vienna safe and sound, but I figured I should let them know I was all right in Graz.  I took out the little AT&T international calling instruction card and dialed.  For some reason, I was not able to make a free phone call the way it said I should.

   An interesting thing about collect calls from Austria:  In order to use the AT&T collect number, I had to pay for a call to Vienna.  Back then, a trans-Atlantic phone call was quite pricey; nowadays they are about as expensive as calling someone across town.  It took me about four tries to figure all this out, though, and by the time I was able to talk to my mother, I was practically in tears.  My brother answered the phone; he was eating something.  
   “Hi Turner, it’s Mac.”

   “Ooooh, well hey there, big sister.  It’s my big, elite sister calling me all the way from Europe!”  He was going through his smartass stage.  It was an ongoing phase.  It’s been over ten years and he still hasn’t grown out of it.  “How’s The Continent treating you?”  He sounded like he was eating peanut butter.

   “Oh, not too shabby.  How are the parentals?”
   “Well, aside from Mom’s sudden bursts of tears and Pop looking off into the distance and weeping, not bad.”

   I sighed.  “Sounds like they’re doing splendidly.  Is Mom around?”
   “Yeah, sure.  They’re swell.  Hold on, I’ll get her.”

   He made no attempt to cover the phone as he yelled, “Mom!  Hey MOM!  It’s your world-traveling daughter taking time out of her busy schedule to call you!”  I made a mental note to send him something nasty in the mail.  As soon as my mother picked up the phone, all I wanted to do was burst into tears and tell her how much I wanted to come home.  I wanted to sob and tell her how miserable and cold and hungry I was.  But I knew if I did, she would worry, and that was not something I really wanted, nor would it solve anything.  This was the biggest step I had ever taken and I needed to prove it to everyone – including myself – that I could do this.  I took a deep breath and told her I was doing great, but I was a little cold.

   “Are your roommates nice?”
   “Well, I haven’t met them or anyone yet.  School doesn’t start til next month, so they’re all still away for the summer.”
   “So you’re in that apartment all by yourself?”  Her voice went up.  She was getting concerned.

   “Yeah, but I made some friends at the youth hostel.”  Oh dear.

   “Youth hostel?!  What on earth were you doing at a youth hostel?”

   I told her the story of the apartment not being ready and going out with Claudia (though I was minimal on the details of the excursion).

   “Good God, MacEachin!  Well, at least you can spend tonight in your own place and settle in before everyone gets there.”  Oh yes, I had failed to mention the state of said apartment to my mother.  I did tell her it had hardwood floors, I had my own room, and the kitchen was cozy, but that was it.

   After I hung up the phone, I realized it was getting late.  I decided to go back to the youth hostel; I needed to see a friendly face and that was the only place in town where I knew anyone.  I bought a slice of pizza on the way, and I somehow made my way across the river and back to the place that I had arrived in a blur.  Andro was still there and he and I spent a good portion of the evening playing card games with some of the other kids.

   After several rounds of Spades, I looked at my watch.  It was after midnight and the front doors locked at midnight.  Personally, I thought that was a silly time to lock doors on a place young people would be staying; 1 AM would be better.  My next thought was, “What if there’s a fire?  This seems quite unsafe.  Perhaps I should write the American embassy to let them know about this.” 

   Then it hit me:  I was locked in the youth hostel.  I had nowhere to sleep, I didn’t even have a toothbrush.  How was I to get out?  I tried not to freak out and calmly asked my fellow card players what their take on the situation was.  Veronika, a girl from Slovenia, suggested the windows in the laundry room downstairs. 

   “While I was waiting on my laundry, I noticed that they are actually at the street level.  We could lift you up and then you could crawl out of the window.”  It was certainly a better option than what Bernie from Germany’s idea was – he offered to let me stay in his room with him.  Silently I thanked my stars for Veronika.  Bernie appeared to be the sort, who after his bi-monthly bath, would put on the same underwear he’d been wearing for a week.

   Then we heard knocking.  I looked up to see two girls and boy outside the hostel, tapping on the door.  They were from Sweden – I remembered that from the previous evening.  Andro went over to the door and asked them through the glass if they had a key.  They didn’t, they were hoping we would be able to open the door.  Finally someone decided to suck it up and get the landlady/matron on duty.  She was a blonde woman in her late 30s who was not at all thrilled about being awakened close to 1 AM, and she made sure everyone knew it.  She pulled a set of keys from her bathrobe pocket and unlocked the door.  While three of the members of ABBA raced in and were getting a good lecture on following house rules, Andro and I slipped out unnoticed.  He had agreed to walk me home.

   The walk home was very quiet.  For a European town in the summer, I thought there would be more people out on the street, going from club to club.  We saw two people on the two-mile walk back to my apartment.  I had no idea how to get there, but after I gave Andro the specs and included the Gösser pub, he knew where we were going. 
   He asked me about my family and I gave the general description – parents, younger brother who was an utter and complete smartass.  I was hesitant to ask him about his family since he had mentioned he’d lost some members in the Balkan War. 

   He asked about my apartment and I gladly told him what a shithole it was.  After listening to me talk about how the kitchen was so tiny for eight people, he said, “Mac, you know I just rented a place and it’s big enough for, say, two or three people.”

   “Really?  That’s great!”
   “Yes, but my roommate decided to not go to university this semester….”  I waited for him to finish, but he didn’t. 

   “And?” I finally asked.
   “I need a roommate and you would like a better place to live.  You can live at my apartment.   With me.”  I must have given him an incredulous look, because he started to try to explain further.  “I …Well, I…I am sorry.  I’m having a difficult time finding the word in English.  I believe you?” he said hopefully.
   “You believe me?”  I was confused.
   He sighed.  “That’s not the right word.  Um, okay.  I tell you a secret and I believe you will keep it because I believe you.”
   “You’re going to tell me a secret?  I don’t know if that’s a good idea – I don’t know you that well.”
   “NO.  I’m not really going to tell you a secret,” he growled exasperatedly.   
   Suddenly, I felt quite stupid.  “Oh,” I said in a small voice.

   “The word I’m looking for is like ‘believe’ but it’s not that word.”

   “OH.  You need a synonym!  Okay, well, let’s see, there’s confidence, faith….”

   “No, no, neither of those is it….”

   “…trust, reliance….”

   “That’s it!  That’s the word:  Trust.”

   “Great!  What were we talking about though?”

   He chuckled.  “I was saying that I trust you to live with me in my apartment.  It’s got new appliances and you’d get your own room.”

   I am normally really awful at reading people, but on this my shit detector went off.  Here was a guy I hardly knew, offering to let me live with him.  For all either of us knew, the other could be the world’s largest cokehead or a pimp.  A long list of unsavory activities ran through my brain at high speed.

   “Wow, that’s really nice of you, Andro,” I said, not wanting to hurt his feelings or piss him off.  I wasn’t entirely sure where I was, and had no idea where the police station was in case he decided to go attack me.  “But I think I’m kind of locked in to this place.  You know, like with a lease?”

   “Oh, I see.”

   “I mean, I think I could get out of it, but I’d need to find someone to take over my room and I don’t really know anyone, so it would be kind of difficult,” I added, trying to sound like I wished I could, but it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t.  “Plus, Graz students don’t come back for several weeks, so even if I did know someone it would be hard to get in touch with them.”

   He shrugged.  “Oh well.  Maybe later in the year.”

   I smiled with what I hoped looked like an honest smile.  “Maybe then.”

   We had finally arrived at Kaiserfeldgasse 27.  Praise baby Jesus!

   “Well, this is me.”  I gestured to the dark archway that led to the dark courtyard.

He glanced at it skeptically. 

   “Please don’t think me rude, but I think I should at least walk you to your door.  It doesn’t look quite safe.”
   I was a bit offended.  “Hey now, I know I look cute and all, but I’m a badass.  I hand out fat lips like they’re Halloween candy.”  I was joking, but then realized by the confused look on his face, he had no idea what I was talking about.

   “Huh?” he asked.

   “Never mind.” I sighed.
   “So you’re not scared to walk through here?  Alone?  At night?” he asked me.

   “No.  Why should I be?”

   “Someone could be waiting in the shadows, ready to attack you.”

   I snorted and dug in my pockets for my key.  It was at this moment that Andro decided to prove that I should be more wary and pay attention to my surroundings.  He grabbed my shoulders and shouted, “RAAAH!”  He was not trying to hurt me, just to scare me in a stupid boy way.  This was the evening that reaffirmed that when given a fight or flight situation, I tend to fight.  Without even being conscious of what I was doing, I punched him in the face.  He recoiled, clutching at his face with both hands.

   “WHAT THE HELL, ANDRO?!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs.

   “You hit me!  You hit me in the face!” he whined in disbelief.

   “What were you thinking?!  You don’t try to spook people like that, Goddammit!”  I was pissed.  High pissed.  I suppose a nicer person would’ve felt guilty immediately, but I was mad at him for doing something so stupid.  I unlocked the door and stepped into the lobby, with a whining Andro following me.  I found the light switch glowing and punched it.  The fluorescent light came on and both blinked like stunned possums.

   “Let me see your face,” I said, walking over to him.  His lip was bleeding and a good chunk of it was torn.  I pulled a wadded up – but clean – Kleenex out of my pocket and dabbed at it.  “That’s what you get when you try to scare people.”  I tried to be calmer and took deep breaths as I mopped up his face.

   “I yust tought you kreem a rittuh.  I wuh tryeena pwove a poin to you – tha you shuh be more carefuh.”

   “Thank you.  Message received.”  I sighed.  “Come on up.  You can wash up in the bathroom.”

   We trudged up the nine flights of stairs and walked into my apartment.  Andro took in his new surroundings without comment, though I saw him raise an eyebrow raise when I showed him the bathroom.  “Don’t mind the shower curtain, it was like that when I got here,” I said as I walked into the kitchen and got a paper towel.  I handed it to him as he was examining his lip in the mirror.  He washed it off and tended to it.  I got two glasses and poured us some water from the tap.  I handed it to him when he came out of the bathroom.

   We sat at the kitchen table and I watched him as he tried to drink the water.  About half of it dribbled out of his mouth.  I tried not to laugh or snicker even, as I handed him another paper towel.  Even though he was pitiful, I kept my guard up.  I had no desire to show him my room.  I said a silent prayer, thanking my stars that the toilets were at the other end of the hall from my room.  I had left my door open and it would’ve been fairly obvious which was mine, as the streetlights would’ve been shining through only one that was open.

   Andro and I made small talk for the better part of an hour.  I just wanted him to leave, but was unsure how he would react now that he knew I was the type of person who would go down swinging when threatened. 

   He told me that I was lucky he hadn’t fallen back on his military training.  He actually told me that he had a black belt in karate, a statement I found laughable.  However, I tried to act like I believed him, as I didn’t know what he was capable of.

   After several fake yawns, Andro finally got the hint and decided it was time to leave.  I ushered him out and made sure he knew how to get back before locking the door behind him and breathing a sigh of relief.