The Empress and the Cake

by Linda Stift

  *

  When she no longer wanted to take me on her travels, engaging a younger woman in my place, I was deeply upset. For her I was not fast and strong enough any more. I could barely keep up on the long hikes, I had never coped well with the sea voyages and the permanent change of climate disagreed with me. Her restlessness, into which she dragged me and all those around her, gradually undermined my health, but I would have put up with anything just for the chance to stay near to her. She wrote me the sweetest letters, full of longing and love. I often had to go without seeing her for months. It was sad to be replaced just like that.

  *

  Everything is as it was before. The silent breakfast, the meat juice, the Greek lessons, a silent lunch after the Greek teacher has slammed the door, endless hikes, errands, shopping, secretly emptying jars, the baron at the corner – he never mentioned the money again. I keep it in the same envelope he handed to me. The envelope is quite crumpled. Every night I count the money with my trembling hands and I stroke the smooth banknotes. There are fewer and fewer of them. Ida doesn’t go to see the baron as much these days; she often has to lie down during the day as her legs swell up and she’s got varicose veins that are wrapped around her calves and thighs like string. My suspicion is that she’s diabetic, but she won’t go to the doctor. Now I wear a housecoat with a diagonal stripe, which I take off when we eat. I have it in a variety of colour combinations. It’s terribly practical. You slip it on and at once feel like you’re well dressed. Frau Hohenembs also gave me a wide lilac velvet armband. It feels nice against the skin. As soon as it gets greasy I’m given a new one. Two weeks ago we had a very promising guest: a girl who is as thin as a British model. Frau Hohenembs invited her over for some Gugelhupf and the girl took the other half of it home with her.

  * * *

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  AUTHOR

  Linda Stift is an Austrian writer. She was born in 1969 and studied Philosophy and German Literature. She lives in Vienna. Her first novel, Kingpeng, was published in 2005. She has won numerous awards and was nominated for the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2009.

  TRANSLATOR

  Jamie Bulloch is a historian and has worked as a professional translator from German since 2001. His translations include books by Paulus Hochgatterer, Alissa Walser and Timur Vermes. Jamie is the translator of three previous Peirene titles: Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius, Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe and The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke, winner of the 2014 Schlegel-Tieck Prize for Best German Translation. He is also the author of Karl Renner: Austria.

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

  Peirene Press Ltd

  17 Cheverton Road

  London N19 3BB

  www.peirenepress.com

  First published under the German-language title Stierhunger

  Copyright © Deuticke im Paul Zsolnay Verlag Wien 2007

  This translation © Jamie Bulloch, 2016

  Linda Stift asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-908670-30-4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Designed by Sacha Davison Lunt

  Photographic image by Jessica Arneback/Millennium Images, UK

  Typeset by Tetragon, London

  Printed and bound by T J International, Padstow, Cornwall

  The translation of this book is funded by Bundeskanzleramt Österreich.