by Linda Stift
*
Three days had passed since the attack on the statue and there was still no sign of Ida. Even though I didn’t miss her, it made me nervous. Being in contact with Ida meant unpleasantness; not being in contact meant uncertainty and waiting. This time the internet was full of reports; sitting hunched and apprehensively at my computer, I scrolled through the news as if this approach might disguise my traces on the Web. Madman Blows up Empress Sissi Statue, Another Cowardly Attack on our Sissi, Booby Trap in Volksgarten – these were the headlines. I reassured myself with the thought that my interest in these articles would not be particularly suspicious; they were the lead stories for the news sites and most Viennese probably read them. There was all manner of conjecture about the incident. Evidently no one had seen us, although we’d behaved so conspicuously. In their old-fashioned black clothes they must have looked even more conspicuous next to me, who’d been dressed normally. A lone male culprit, possibly a critic of the defunct Monarchy and a misogynist, sexually frustrated, this was the view of most of the daily papers. Or the opposite, a supporter of the Monarchy, who regarded Sissi as an anarchistic element who accelerated the downfall of Imperial Austria. Very few drew parallels with Luigi Lucheni, the man who stabbed the real Sissi with a sharpened needle file in Geneva. In the absence of the Prince of Orléans, whom he’d actually wanted to kill (the prince himself being a substitute for Lucheni’s favoured target, King Umberto of Italy, ruled out because Lucheni didn’t have the money for a ticket to Italy) he made do with Sissi, because she happened to be near to him that day, plus she was an empress. I also read online that the dynamite attack had probably been a sort of ersatz murder, a mix-up, an accident or – and this seemed plausible too – the rehearsal for an attack on a living person. It would never occur to Charlotte that I might be involved. We’d joke about it later; over a glass of wine I’d tell her how I’d unwillingly become an accomplice in this crime. But now I whiled away the time getting rid of food, although whiling away is in fact the wrong term here. Ever since I’d started again, time was passing so quickly, as if someone was in the room next door, devouring the hours from me. In truth this someone was myself; I was eating away my hours, gobbling them down at lightning speed. In next to no time I polished off the last of my savings. My father always used to say that I might as well chuck straight down the loo the money I spent on food – or the food itself, without taking the detour of my body. It would be healthier for my organism and show me how absurd my behaviour was. I ought to have followed his advice. The paralysing emptiness that sometimes grips the exjunkie, and the feeling that when the addiction dies part of the I dies along with it, were nowhere to be seen; I was more animated than I had been in ages and constantly had something to do. I’d only been outside once, with my checked shopping trolley, to buy newspapers and unhealthy foodstuffs. I indulged in so many products that hadn’t existed twenty years ago, particularly not in XXL family sizes. When I ate, I was my own family. Finally I could give in to the temptation that so many different foods had exerted on me for years, but which had always been taboo because they were too industrial (microwave ready-meals), too fatty (filo pastry with cheese, chocolate sauce, crisps), too sweet and too soft (plaited buns, oversized cream puffs, apple strudel). I loaded up the trolley with gastronomic delights. I didn’t care what the cost was, so long as the cashpoint still spat out money. It had to be this way. Never in my life had I done such a monstrous shop. I wondered whether people could tell the real reason behind what I was buying. I looked at the other shoppers defiantly and primed myself for defence. They were all so preoccupied with what they were doing that they wouldn’t have noticed if I’d piled my trolley high with slabs of bloody meat. I then had an unpleasant experience at the checkout. A supermarket detective in a beige trench coat asked me to open my handbag. He reminded me of the anonymous figure from the advertising campaign for a large supermarket chain, although that character had only ever appeared as a black shadow. Not aware of having done anything wrong, I thought this was just a random check and so opened my bag unsuspectingly. Inside were three shiny tins of caviar, each 250 grams. Erm, um, erm, I began to stutter, I-I’ve no i-idea how they got into my bag, I never eat caviar, I can’t stand the stuff (I hate it when the tiny balls burst in your mouth and I also hate the intrusive fishy, salty taste). Someone must have planted them on me. I pointed to the contents of my trolley; I’d bought so much that I’d hardly run a risk like that just for three tins (even if they were the most expensive things in the shop). The woman waiting behind me came to my assistance; she’d seen a squat old lady wearing a peasant-style headscarf fiddle with my handbag while I was spending ages in the baked-goods section. I looked at her in astonishment. Why didn’t you say anything, then? I asked. She turned red and shrugged. I didn’t want to get involved, she murmured. The old woman looked so down-at-heel, I thought she wanted to steal a bit of cash for something to eat. I was speechless. In the end I was saved by the cashier: This woman’s been coming here for years. Why would she start stealing now? I removed the tins from my bag and handed them to the detective. He gave them a thorough examination, twiddling them between his fingers and behaving as if he were reading the Cyrillic writing. Do you really not like caviar? he asked. You might have been going to give it to someone as a gift. I shook my head. And why would someone sneak caviar into your handbag? Was someone trying to play a trick on you? I shrugged my shoulders. I was exhausted. I just wanted to be alone with my food. Eventually he let me go; maybe he didn’t fancy notifying the police. Not wanting to hang around, I left the shop. It was the last time I’d be going to that supermarket.
*
She was amazed that people cheered her when she appeared in public. That they gawked and called out to her when she did her neck-breaking riding exercises. Grateful for a fleeting glance. She was always accused of caring about nothing, of showing no interest in government business. They took exception to her engagement with my homeland, after which her energy was exhausted. What else should she have done? Her son knew that the Monarchy’s time was up. And that it would not end without bloodshed. His farewell letters to his sister and her were quite clear. It just took a little longer than he had thought. And his daughter took a socialist as her second husband! No one would have imagined that this pale Belgian child could have caused such a scandal in the family. Szeretett angyalom, how difficult your life had already been made when your brother married the actress. And then that. Your granddaughter!
*
I was learning a new vomiting technique and was eating by colours. I started with chemical sweets such as bright-green gummy frogs or pink foam bacon bits or claret so-called laces and snakes. These took time to mix with the mush of food that followed, which meant that my vomiting could be monitored. I would puke until I’d arrived at this tough, lurid mass, so I could be sure I’d got everything out. I always ate chocolate, ice cream, or cakes and tarts at the end, so that these things would be regurgitated first of all. This gave me the guarantee that they’d be completely out of my body. It was the ideal scenario, which is only possible, of course, if you’ve got the time. In my break times, that’s to say those short periods when I wasn’t eating or vomiting, I trawled the internet for news about the explosion. The analysis of the surviving shreds from Ida’s rucksack had revealed nothing, except for the fact that it was an Eastpak rucksack, which was probably used by a hundred thousand people in Vienna alone. Or I lay on the sofa and let the television anaesthetize me, or browsed the papers and drank litres of jasmine tea to stop myself from becoming totally dehydrated. I fancied I was giving my body a detox. I calculated my body mass index and took my measurements. Only on the hips had I reached the stipulated benchmark of ninety centimetres. My waist was still too big, way off sixty, over seventy! My chest was a few centimetres over ninety; for my liking it could have been smaller, but that wasn’t so important. Only the waist counted. I’d put the scales beside the fridge; once again they were my only point of reference in
the world. I’d already lost two kilos! I felt fresher and lighter than I had in ages. My waist would get smaller in good time! It was a shame that lacing up was no longer practised. If I could be sewn into clothes I’d soon have the ideal waist. That would be more effective than wearing things that were too tight, like Karl Lagerfeld, who kept his weight down this way. During the course of those three days I stood on the scales more times than I had done in all the years before. Often I’d leap up in the middle of reading the newspaper or watching an advertisement for diet products, stand on the scales and prove to myself that I hadn’t shifted a gram either way since the previous weigh-in fifteen minutes earlier. This was mostly true, but sometimes I’d suddenly be half a kilo or even a whole kilo more, which made me check my weight three further times, one after another. I attributed the increase to the enormous volume of tea I was pouring down myself, even though I had to pee just as often. Something wasn’t working. I stood in front of the mirror to check my bare tummy. I cried. It was too big. It’s always too big and if you’re thin it’s never flat, it always curves outwards, bloated, forming rolls when you sit. Hanging over the band of your knickers. Swelling to twice its size unless you’ve fasted the whole day, then the upper half of the tummy is acceptable, but the lower part is still too big. A glance in the mirror: the tummy’s still there. Even if I tell myself, My tummy’s quite normal, no washboard, but a tummy that has to accommodate metres and metres of intestines, I still have a fundamental hatred of it. It’s always to blame, two, three kilos more, obviously on the tummy. It’s the home of gluttony, always hungry, always wanting something. Forever having to be pulled in. It makes the brain a slave, forcing it to think continually of food, cooking, shopping, everything as fatty as possible. It wants butter, butter, butter. Cream. Fluffy, sweet, yeasty dough. Fatty cheese, rich sauces. A bottomless barrel. I was too nervous to keep calm; only when I was scoffing everything was I able to stay sitting down. I took advantage of my restlessness to tidy up. I’d been sitting in the kitchen and living room; the bedroom alone was free of empty packets and bottles. I hadn’t put a foot in there during these three days; I’d slept on the sofa. I slept with the television on, having fetched it up from the cellar. My telly addiction had flared up again. If you watched telly while gorging you could convince yourself that you were doing something more important than eating. On the other hand, television is so dreadful that it’s only bearable when accompanied by food. The comfort I’d taken in the past from being connected to the world by television, and being part of it too, was absent these days. There were too many channels; the whole thing was too random. There’d been two or three reports about the explosion, you could see the ruins of the statue, only the plinth had remained intact. An old woman spoke angrily into a large microphone: Wasn’t it enough that poor Sissi had been so gruesomely murdered? She’d never done anyone any harm, this noble lady, and she’d suffered enough already, so why someone had to go and desecrate her statue now, she was ashamed of being Austrian, that sort of thing wouldn’t have happened in Germany, there they know how to treat people like Sissi. It was probably the Italians again, she went on, what can you do about it, the EU lets anyone go where they like, even though it’s common knowledge how much the Italians hated us. At the time of the Monarchy they even called for a smoking boycott to damage the Austrian tobacco monopoly, that says it all, doesn’t it, if the Italians decide to give up smoking. The microphone was prised from her hands, then a clip was played and a man dressed as Punch announced the weather forecast. Punch’s job was clearly to confuse the viewers so that by the end your head would be swimming with downpours and instances of the sun breaking through as well as highs and lows and you’d have no idea what the weather was actually going to be like and what to put on if you decided, or were forced, to leave your flat. I, at any rate, had no plans to step outdoors.
*
In the 1980s the Swiss government sent the head of Luigi Lucheni, preserved in formaldehyde, to the Museum of Pathology and Anatomy in Vienna, the ‘Fools’ Tower’, on the condition that it would not be exhibited, to avoid feeding the population’s appetite for sensationalism. The Swiss wanted to rid themselves of all memories of the assassin. Nobody knows why they declined to bury the head with the rest of the body; indeed, it remains a mystery why they cut it off in the first place. Perhaps they wanted to squeeze something out of the head, an untold secret explaining everything that was absent from the writings left behind. But as the Viennese had no idea what to do with the head – there was nothing more to be got from it and they were not permitted to exhibit it – some years ago they wanted to burn the thing and bury the ashes in Vienna Central Cemetery. She spoke of the head all the time. She was obsessed by it. When Lucheni pounced on her she could barely see him and he vanished a moment later. Sometimes I think she ran into the murder weapon on purpose; she did nothing to protect herself. Who can say? Certainly not poor Countess Sztáray, who tried to jump in the way. She often said how she would like to stand facing his head in a glass jar. My proud, cold-blooded kedvesem, perhaps she can get in contact with him.
*
We’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow morning. We’re going to the Fools’ Tower. Ida hung up, I wasn’t able to say yes or no any longer. I dragged myself back into the bathroom to continue puking until I felt totally empty. It was seven in the evening; I’d spent the entire day between the sofa and the toilet bowl, and had been stuck in this loop for a week now, uninterrupted by any other activity apart from two shopping trips. Quivering and with my heart pounding wildly, I lay down on the sofa and stared at the telly without taking in what was happening. I’d strained so hard the last time that tears were running down my cheeks. I didn’t even get on the scales again. I groaned out loud. My stomach felt as if there were a vacuum inside it. I imagined it like a compressed plastic bag. The thought of our appointment pleased me and I didn’t care what was going to happen tomorrow, whether we razed the old asylum or plundered it. The important thing was to get out of the flat, which I’d turned into a rubbish dump. Then it occurred to me that the Museum of Pathology’s collection in the tower was only open to the public two days a week and would be closed tomorrow. I knew that from Charlotte, who’d worked there years ago as an attendant. Blowing up such a large and solid building would surely need more dynamite than could be carried in a rucksack. And what about the people inside? There were employees looking after the preserved specimens and medical students drawing them. Charlotte used to wear a white coat, like Ida when she waited on Frau Hohenembs. She would have fun scaring friends who came to visit her in the museum. She’d hide behind a door and jump out, or jangle her bunch of keys beside the huge, slightly stained, marble mortuary slab and smile as she pointed out the drain hole in the middle, through which the bodily fluids of the corpses flowed. If you looked away in disgust, you’d see a second mortuary slab in the cell next door, on which the contours of a body could be discerned beneath a white sheet. Yellowish hair stuck out at one end, yellowish feet at the other, and behind was a wall full of drawers needing no further explanation. The round building with its rooms arranged in a circular layout (these were once cells in which the mentally ill were chained up) was home to glass jars of deformed children’s heads and children’s bodies, crooked skeletons, old medical instruments – including a dental practice from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century – and wax moulages, lifelike replicas of diseased or deformed organs and body parts. I wanted to get up from the sofa to make myself a camomile tea, but my knees gave out. For a while I stayed where I was, motionless. Then at some point I toppled over and fell into a deep sleep, which was more like a blackout. I didn’t wake up till the following morning; it was six o’clock and my limbs ached as if they’d been battered. I could barely see out of my eyes, my stomach ached, my head hurt and I had a terrible thirst. Eventually I made a camomile tea and stood on the scales – four kilos lighter than the previous week. In the middle of the chaos I stood there with my cup of tea, surveying the
scene. Charlotte would not have been pleased; she was so neat and tidy. And I imagine Hoarders Unlimited would have cancelled my contract there and then. The floor was littered with empty packets. Encrusted plates and cups covered every surface. Below the table lay books about dog breeds and dog magazines. And the smell of sick floating above it all. Oh, Charlotte. It spoke more clearly than anything I could say. I took a shower, letting the water get as hot as I could tolerate, and I promised myself that this had been my last ever relapse. You’ve got to stop, I insisted, before correcting myself, saying into the spray of water that I had already stopped, That’s the very last time! A reminder of the past, so not even a relapse, but a painful commemoration to prevent me from ever falling back into addiction. I spoke to myself as I might do to a sick horse, repeating it again and again and again and again: the mendacious and self-deceitful mantra that I’d deliberately planned the eating binges to be absolutely sure that I wasn’t addicted. Forgotten was the hustled compulsion I’d surrendered to, forgotten the automatic eating I didn’t think about as I did it. Forgotten, that I’d made use of the most random, banal opportunity to break my abstinence. I’d been offered a Gugelhupf and I’d had nothing better to do than to stuff myself with it. As if I’d merely been waiting for this encounter, like a sleeper who leads a perfectly normal life for decades before being activated by their terrorist cell and blowing up a carriage on the underground. I’d visit the Fools’ Tower. Then I’d ask Frau Hohenembs to let me go. Calmly and in plain words, no angry face or insulting accusations, no incriminations, preferably with mock gratitude. I’d lie to her about just how exciting the time I’d spent with her had been and what an interesting person she was. I was convinced that she’d let me go and I felt strong enough to have the conversation. She’d be touched, moved by the childish trust I placed in her, by the fact that I didn’t bear any grudge and because I considered her capable of making such a grand gesture to someone who was at her mercy. That must flatter her vanity. In my euphoric state I was desperate to call Charlotte. But she must never find out about any of this. I was still in my underwear when the bell rang; it was nine o’clock. I put on a dressing gown and opened the door a crack. Putting her whole weight against it, Ida forced her way in, behind her came Frau Hohenembs. With her gloved hands she removed my dressing gown. You’ve lost weight! Bravo! I blushed. She’d noticed! Then my face turned hot, from anger. Anger at myself. Such comments ought not to affect me any more. You could do with a cleaning lady, she said. She’d made her way into the living room and was taking a look around. Have you had guests? Yes, I replied, as you can see. I haven’t got round to clearing up yet. She went up and down the room, inspecting everything thoroughly like an estate agent valuing a flat. She picked up items of clothing and magazines to check whether there was anything lurking underneath, and kicked an empty box beneath the sofa. Show me the other rooms. Ida seemed to be searching for something too; she rummaged among the chocolate wrappers on the table and indeed found a bar with strawberry and cream filling that I had missed. Without asking, she took a bite and continued to delve into the paper and foil. Do you have any milk? Frau Hohenembs called from the kitchen, and while I put on my jeans in the bathroom I could hear the squishing sound of the fridge door being opened. It was closed again. I never had milk.
