The Thing I'm Most Afraid Of

by Kristin Levine

  When we tired of dancing, we wandered back to the courtyard. It was almost midnight. Waiters were handing out bubbly drinks in tall glass flutes. Dad, Marco, and Felix went to get some. I spotted Katarina, Sara, and Mrs. Tahirović sitting on a stone bench in a little alcove.

  “Becca!” Katarina called out. “We are having a lovely time watching all the dancers.” She jumped up, her red dress swirling like a rose in the wind. “Sit here, sit here. I’ll get us some Sekt for our toast!”

  I sat down next to Sara. Mrs. Tahirović looked better—still pale and wan, but she wasn’t shaking anymore. “Everything okay?” I asked.

  Sara squeezed my hand. “Mama started talking to me,” she whispered into my ear.

  Dad, Katarina, Felix, and Marco joined us, passing out glasses until we all had one. An old bell started to toll. Everyone cheered, and Dad and Katarina called out, “Prost!” We all clinked glasses and took a sip.

  It was sweet and fruity. The bubbles tingled on my tongue. It tasted like a liquid flower, not like any sparkling cider I had ever . . .

  “It’s champagne!” I held the glass away from my body.

  “Yes,” Dad said.

  I made a face and everyone laughed. Even me.

  The ball was wrapping up, so the grown-ups paired off for one final dance.

  “Felix?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Would you like to dance?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not.”

  I took his arm like they’d shown us in class, and he led me out onto the floor. We had a fabulous time, stepping on each other’s toes and laughing every time we messed up. “I’m so glad I came,” I said.

  “To the ball? To dance class? To Austria?” Felix asked.

  “All of it,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Me too.”

  * * *

  An old man in tails stood by the exit. “Fräulein!” he called out to me as I walked by. “Ihre Damenspende.”

  He handed me a gift bag with a little black box inside.

  “What’s this?” Dad asked.

  “There’s always a gift for the women at a ball,” Katarina told him, taking her own bag. “Ooh, it’s perfume!”

  Sara walked arm in arm with her mother. Mrs. Tahirović opened her box and pulled out a little bottle of light-yellow liquid.

  “Spellbound,” I read off the side.

  Mrs. Tahirović sprayed a bit of the perfume in the air. It was spicy and sweet.

  Felix sneezed. “Magical.” He sneezed again.

  “Do you want to get a taxi?” Dad asked.

  “No,” Katarina said. “Let’s take the night bus.”

  We all walked to the bus stop. There was a crowd of people waiting, all wearing tuxedos and ball gowns. Marco’s bus came first. He hugged everyone and kissed Mrs. Tahirović’s hand again before he left. Our bus finally came, and everyone filed orderly onboard. No one checked our bus passes.

  Katarina and Mrs. Tahirović sat in the front of the bus. Felix and Dad found a seat behind them. Sara and I sat across the aisle.

  “Sara,” I said. “I just thought of something. What was the first item on your list?”

  “Play violin recital,” Sara replied. “Why?”

  “You did that at my birthday,” Felix commented.

  “And two?” I asked.

  “Study language at Uni.”

  “You did that with Marco,” I pointed out.

  “Ballroom dancing was on the list too,” Felix added. “I remember because I thought, No way!”

  “I did that tonight,” Sara mused.

  “And Eldin got his cake! But I can’t remember number five.”

  “It was,” Sara said slowly, “‘get ice cream with family and walk across bridge.’”

  “We did that in Prague!” exclaimed Felix.

  “Now you’ve completed your list too!”

  Sara looked thoughtful for a long moment. Her eyes got so big and watery, I thought her mascara was going to start running down her cheeks like her mother’s had done. But instead of crying, she broke into a grin. “Yes,” she said finally. “I guess I have.”

  By the time we got home, my feet hurt and I had a blister. But for once, I didn’t worry about applying antibiotic cream or taking a shower after being in a large group of people. I just tumbled happily into bed and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 40

  So Long, Farewell, auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

  It was my last morning in Austria. My suitcase was packed. My Doomsday Journals too. Only my Pig Journal remained on the desk, the sketch of the Riesenrad looking up at me like an eye. Today, I was going back to Virginia. And even though I was definitely excited to see my mom and my friends and catch up on Love on the Evening Tide, as I walked down the stairs, I sort of felt like crying.

  Katarina was in the kitchen, wearing an apron, with powdered sugar on her nose. Felix sat with a book he was only half hiding under the table; Eldin raced toy cars on the tablecloth beside him. Sara poured coffee. As I looked out the window, I could see Mrs. Tahirović watering Frau Gamperl’s flowers. Dad was standing at the stove, frying bacon.

  “There you are, Schatzi!” Katarina called. “I made Palatschinken. They’re like Austrian crepes. Delicious. You sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Alas, something went wrong, but I’m going to try . . .”

  I laughed. “The table is already covered with food! Let’s just sit down and eat.”

  Just like on my very first day, there was a basket of round Semmeln fresh from the bakery. The butter, from mountain-pastured cows, was soft as always, since Katarina kept it on the counter and not in the fridge. There was apricot jam, ham, cantaloupe, coffee, and hot chocolate. Mrs. Tahirović brought in a bouquet of flowers. We all sat down, and then Eldin picked up his eggcup and pretended it was a hat, and Sara yelled at him, and Felix tried not to laugh. I ate a bite or two of pretty much everything—even the soft-boiled egg.

  “Well, Haider didn’t get his million signatures,” Dad said, glancing at the front page of the paper. “He only got four hundred thousand.”

  “That’s still a lot of people,” Felix said.

  “It is,” Katarina agreed. “But there’s a lot more that didn’t sign.”

  We were just finishing breakfast when the phone rang. “Oh, hello, Frau Kumar,” said Dad. They chatted for a bit while I cleared the table, then Dad handed the phone to me.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hey, Becca!” It was Rasheed. “I wanted to say goodbye. I’m glad we met.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “I hope you come back sometime,” he said. “I’m gonna keep taking dance lessons. Maybe next time we go to a ball, I’ll only step on your foot once.”

  I laughed. “Sounds good.”

  “Can I talk to Felix? Peter and I are riding bikes to the park tomorrow for a picnic. Thought he might like to come.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Felix looked surprised when I handed him the phone. But after a minute, he was chatting about what he was going to bring to the picnic.

  Katarina came over then and gave me a big hug. “Thank you for helping him,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I didn’t do—”

  “Yes, you did,” Katarina insisted. “And, Becca, you must come back soon! Maybe at Christmas? Oh, Christmas in Vienna is gorgeous! We have real candles on the trees. You’ve never seen anything so beautiful!”

  “Real candles?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “On a dead tree? Inside your house?!”

  “Yes, of course!”

  “Do you know how many fires start from unattended candles?” I asked.

  Katarina laughed. “That’s just what your father said.”

  I glanced at Dad. He shrugged. “It’s what they
do here, Becca. I’ll make sure we have a fire extinguisher on hand.”

  Katarina hugged me once more. “Just come back soon.”

  Sara and I went up to my room so she could help me finish packing. “Are you going to stay in Austria?” I asked.

  “I want to. Frau Kumar said with my language skills, maybe she can get me a work permit.”

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “Nothing definite,” she said, but she smiled. “For now, I stay with Katarina and take classes at the university in the fall.”

  “And your mom? And Eldin?”

  “I not sure. She has a cousin in Berlin. And another one in New York. But for now, I think she’s going to move in with Frau Gamperl.”

  “Really?”

  Sara shrugged. “She has more room than Katarina. And she said she enjoys company. Your dad already helped enroll Eldin in Felix’s school. I do not know how long they will stay, but for now, I’m glad we’re together.”

  “So much uncertainty!”

  “There’s always uncertainty, Becca. We not like to think about it, but we never really know what is going to happen. What is the expression? You could get hit by a bus?”

  “Or a Straßenbahn!”

  Sara laughed, then her face turned serious. “I thought a lot about this when I was in detention. It is important to prepare when you can, and of course you should always look both ways before you cross the street. But if you never cross at all . . .”

  “You miss out on a lot,” I finished.

  “I think the best way to deal with uncertainty,” Sara continued, “is to sit with it. Invite it in. Trust ourselves that we can handle it. And if we have family or friends to sit with us, well then, we are extra lucky.”

  “Stop acting like Fräulein Maria,” I said. “You’re making me cry.”

  “Who?” Sara asked.

  “Never mind.” I hugged her one last time.

  * * *

  Felix was waiting by the front door. “Hey,” he said. “Want to go for a quick walk?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ve got time.”

  We headed out toward the vineyard. Felix stared at his feet as we walked, shy again, as if we had gone back to our first day. “You know,” he said finally. “I called my dad last night.”

  “Really?”

  “I wanted to tell him about the ball and . . . remember how I told you about that tap dance class he took me to when I was a kid?”

  “Of course.”

  “I asked him about it. ‘I can’t believe you remember that,’ he said. ‘You were so adorable, standing in the back row, doing your best to follow along. I was so proud of you!’”

  “What?!”

  “Yeah,” Felix went on. “I was so surprised. I’d thought he was disappointed in me; and yet it turned out he’d remembered it in a completely different way.”

  “That’s wonderful!”

  A wind blew through the grapevines, making them rustle. “I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to ask him about it if I hadn’t met you.”

  “Aww, Felix. You should add it to your list.”

  “I did! Just so I could cross it off.”

  I laughed.

  “I’m going to add some more things to my list too.”

  “Cool. Like what?”

  “Maybe ‘join the choir at school.’”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “And at the ball,” Felix went on, “Mai mentioned she liked Alfred Hitchcock. They are showing North by Northwest at the English-language theater next week. Think I should invite her?”

  “Yes!”

  He smiled. “I’m gonna miss you, Becca.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, Felix.”

  We hugged, a bit awkwardly.

  “See you next summer?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  * * *

  Dad drove me to the airport. The rest of them wanted to come too, but I said I’d like a little time alone with my father. We didn’t say much in the car; I just looked out the window. “I like Vienna, Dad,” I said finally. “I like Katarina and Felix. And you picked a great au pair. I had a wonderful summer.”

  “Yeah,” Dad agreed. “Me too.”

  “Oh, Dad!” I exclaimed. “Did I tell you about my Pig Journal?”

  “No.” He laughed. “What in the world is a Pig Journal?”

  “I decided that instead of only focusing on what might go wrong, I want to spend some time remembering everything that goes right.”

  “Oh, pig!” Dad said. “Like good luck in German.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love that, Rebecca. Maybe I’ll start a Pig Journal too.”

  At the airport, Dad parked and checked my bag, and suddenly we were standing in front of the X-ray machine. I put my bag on the conveyor belt, and Dad walked right through. Too late, I realized I’d never told him how nervous I’d gotten going through the last time.

  There was a moment—okay, a long moment—when I wasn’t sure I could do it. But then I noticed a nearby TV playing CNN. Ms. Madden was on the screen, interviewing someone. I glanced around the airport and noticed a kid peeling a hard-boiled egg. And a teenager putting a luggage tag on a bike. A woman was hanging up a tourism poster with the Riesenrad on it. There were crowds of people around me, and I was about to get on an airplane.

  “Becca.” My dad had stopped and turned, realizing I wasn’t following him. “Are you okay?”

  And even though my heart was pounding and my hands were sweaty, I nodded. Because I was nervous and I was okay. I took a deep breath, imagined my friends holding my hands, and just walked through.

  Mom was waiting for us at the gate. She looked different. Her hair was longer—and messy. She wore a flowery orange-and-yellow dress with a ketchup stain on one sleeve. Her new bag was dirty and scuffed, her nose sunburned, and yet when she turned toward us, she looked so happy.

  “Becca!” Mom exclaimed, running toward me. We hugged.

  “You look different,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Mom agreed. “I am different.”

  I smiled. “Me too.”

  Dad gave me a snack in a brown paper bag to eat on the plane. Instead of peanut butter, it was an Apfelstrudel from Aïda. Mom snapped a couple of pictures, and I imagined getting them developed and sending them to Dad.

  “You have a two-day stopover in New York, right?” Dad asked.

  “Yup,” Mom confirmed. “I thought it would be fun to show Becca some of the sights.”

  “Well,” Dad said, handing Mom an envelope. “Make sure not to miss Broadway.”

  Mom opened the envelope, and a puzzled look crept over her face. “I thought we’d decided . . .”

  I grabbed the envelope from her and peeked inside. There were two tickets to see Les Misérables. I squealed with delight.

  “Don’t worry,” Dad said. “Becca will do just fine.”

  We grinned at each other.

  A minute later, Little Red Riding Hood announced that the Austrian Airlines flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport was boarding. I gave Dad one last hug, and as Mom and I walked down the gangway, I realized, Wow! I do have confidence.

  And I might have even skipped.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Between high school and college, I spent a gap year in Vienna, Austria, working as an au pair. I have long wanted to write about my time there. There was only one problem: I had a fabulous time in Vienna! Wonderful times are great to live through; alas, they are less interesting to read about. Conflicts and problems are what make for an exciting story.

  Still, something about the time period—the early 1990s, right after the end of the Soviet Union—intrigued me. While rereading some old letters I had written to my parents, I recalled attending a demonstration in Vienna in support of re
fugees and asylum seekers, the majority of whom were fleeing the war in Bosnia. The year was 1993, and far-right Austrian politician Jörg Haider thought it was time to “put Austria first.” The son of former Nazis, he was attempting to get a million signatures for a petition to limit the rights of refugees and foreigners in the country. The Lichtermeer, or “sea of lights,” was a counter-protest—and ended up being the largest demonstration in Austria’s history.

  The details of that protest were very much as described in my book, except it was actually a cold night in January, not a warm summer evening. (Becca seemed much more likely to visit her father in the summer, so I took a little poetic license.) I’m not sure I realized at the time what an important occasion it was. My letter mentioned that the candles looked pretty, I got a hot dog for dinner, and then I went to the opera to see The Flying Dutchman, which I didn’t like that much. (Although it is also true, as described in the book, that the standing-room ticket only cost me $1.50.)

  My letters also made me think about what was happening in the United States almost thirty years later. Politicians vowing to “put America first” eerily echoed Haider’s words. News reports about children being separated from their parents on the border and people being denied the right to apply for asylum reminded me of the Bosnian refugees. I remembered the other students in the German classes I took at the University of Vienna. Almost all of them were young women from Eastern Europe who had left their families behind in search of more opportunities. I recalled going to the police station to get my work permit and being waved to the head of the line because of my American passport. It was one of the first times I remember being so aware of my own privilege. I’d found my way into a Vienna story.

  And yet, I still had a problem. Au pairs are usually eighteen or nineteen, much too old to be the protagonist of the type of middle-grade books I write. But at the same time I was mulling the idea of setting a book in Vienna, my twelve-year-old niece was struggling with anxiety. Many days, just the idea of going to school literally made her throw up. I watched in admiration as she and my sister searched for (and eventually found) techniques to help her cope. I had been a child with lots of worries too. My niece’s struggle reminded me of how over the years, I have learned to tolerate anxiety—not to get rid of it, but to try not to let it stop me from doing the things that I want to do (most of the time).