It was in Vienna I met him, in the Prater, that mad fairground bordering broad avenues where locals walked their dogs by day and whores offered their goods by night. I was on the giant ferris wheel, the only ride on which I felt at ease, when he jumped into the cage as the wheels slowly turned.
I had been hoping to be alone, to slowly pull up to the top where the buckets sway and you can see the spires of Saint Stephen's, the Schoenbrunn castle where Sissi tried to be Empress before she was stabbed in a foreign land.
He pulled at the door of the wire cage and stepped in.
"May I?" he said. I shrugged. I could hardly say no. I remember thinking he must have been a local to break through the barriers.
"I've been watching you," he said. "I've seen you often."
It was a statement. What could I say?
Then he surveyed me. "You're not from here, are you?"
I shook my head.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'm harmless."
I nodded, averting my eyes, and the wheel churned
upwards.
"Look at that view!" he said. "All Vienna at your feet."
I scanned the horizon and everything was still. But, down below, the Prater was alive, with its booths and rides, the sausages, the beer, the chips, the kebabs and the fairy floss, the ghost train, the big dipper roller coaster. And the dealers, though I didn't know it, then.
As he looked to the side, I glanced at his profile, his blonde hair just grazing the blue denim collar. Then he turned and I quickly looked out over the other side. The Danube below wasn't so blue.
He moved closer. I shifted. He moved back and said, "Sorry." I tried not to look at him. There was something about him.
But I felt a kind of ... I didn't know what.
Electricity? Pleasant, but scary. The four-minute ride felt stretched into hours.
At the top he thrust out his right hand. "My name is Wolfgang."
I took his hand. It was warm, firm. Then I drew back.
"What's your name?" Wolfgang said.
I'd never been asked so directly, so simply, not since
I was a child. "Gwen," I said.
"Guewen." He said it in a long way, as if he were
tasting it. "Unusual."
No-one had ever called me unusual. Never to my face.
But he meant my name, didn't he?
No-one had ever called my name unusual.
The wheel inched on to its descent. I was feeling a buzz. Somehow, I just wanted to go round and round.
"Have you ever been on the looper, the roller coaster?"
Wolfgang asked.
"The big dipper?" I shook my head.
Wolfgang opened the door of the cage and got out. When he held out his hand, I took it again. "Will you have a beer with me?" he said.
I nodded slowly.
"Ha! I knew I could persuade you," he said. "Come this way."
Wolfgang led me through the fairground, heading for one of the beer stalls. On the way, he stopped at the giant octopus. I shook my head. He stopped again at the ghost train, but I shook my head once more and said the screams made me glad to be on the outside. Wolfgang laughed and dragged me on. When we got to the beer stalls he bought two Goessers and while I drank sipping the strong dark beer from a clear plastic cup, he smiled and said: "The mirror maze then?"
I gave in. We finished the beer and went across. When we got there, from outside I could see couples laughing and giggling at their distortions, feeling their way against the clear panes. Standing below, I could see the way out.
"I'm right behind you," said Wolfgang. His hands rested on my hips. It was nice. Exciting. I stretched my hands out straight before me. My eyes, wide open, were blind to the turns, yet I still found a passage and we laughed at the reflection of two keg-like forms wearing our clothes. We were everywhere, nowhere. Another passage. A left turn. No right one. I bumped my nose and Wolfgang bent to stroke it. Then he kissed me. It wasn't really a kiss, more like a flutter of butterfly wings.
Then he said "Let's try the big dipper."
I'd always been terrified of roller coasters, even as a child. I'd never have got on by myself. But Wolfgang took my hand and squeezed it. I found myself squeezing back. Then his lips brushed my hair.
Still holding my hand, Wolfgang took the first row.
When I hesitated his grip became firmer. "Come on," he said, easing me in. Then he slipped an arm around my shoulders.
The roller coaster creaked upwards like an enormous centipede, each foot locking then unlocking on the chained teeth of the rails. It slowed as if for breath on the summit of the greatest loop. I couldn't have imagined what it would be like to go way, way up and reach such heights and teeter out of control in screams of glee and fear, yet held firmly in check by endless links of metal. The long metal beast tugged around and up and around again. I sucked in cold air.
The looper gripped with its myriad feet and paused at the top. Then my heart jolted to my throat as it hurtled into a fall, twisting, turning, bucking in every bend. Down.
Around. Up again. Around. Then down. And then trapped in its own mad momentum, in a desperate attempt to climb again, straining at the rails, it jolted one last time and petered out with tiny impotent clutches as it faded to a standstill. I let out the air.
My heart pounded somewhere in my throat and I clutched my stomach as the roller coaster eased to a standstill. I tumbled out, drunken.
"You'll get used to it," Wolfgang said as he steadied me.
The next Saturday at the Prater I saw Wolfgang again. We rode the ferris wheel, strolled around. Then we stopped in front of a shooting stall where the stall-holder was barking: "Six shots. Any prize..." When he saw us he gave me a strange grin then turned to Wolfgang. "Hi Wolf," he said and held out one of the rifles. I looked away and then down as a creamy something scurried into hiding in the cage at his feet.
"It's his pet," Wolfgang said, taking the gun.
"A hamster or a guinea pig?" I asked
"Same difference," he said and cocked the rifle. Then
he turned and winked. "I think it's a hamster." He took aim
at the black and white bull's eye and the gun cracked. Once.
Twice.
The hamster sat trembling in its nest of dark yellow straw, cut off from the door by a latticed cylinder.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Wolfgang handed the rifle back to the stall-holder and, as if welcoming me to his circle, held out his hand. "Pick what you want," he said.
Oversized shocking pink bears filled the backdrop, plastic watches and cheap costume brooches and bangles were crammed in the front showcase. A faint whirring sound drew my eyes to the hamster. It was going around and around in its tiny wheel.
Wolfgang drew close. "The hamster?" he whispered.
I nodded.
"The hamster," he said to the stall-holder.
"Not a prize," the man said and wiped the back of his
hand under his nose
Wolfgang took out his wallet, opened it slightly. "How much?" he said and pulled out a green 100 Schilling bill.
The stall-holder smirked at me, then said to Wolfgang: "One fifty, with the cage and the wheel."
Wolfgang laughed, and held out the money. The man hoisted the cage over the counter and grabbed at the bills.
Wolfgang picked up the cage and swung it gently and, as we turned to leave, he murmured: "Walk you both home?"
I nodded and let him take my hand. But I couldn't help feeling the stall-holder's eyes on my back as we walked away.
My room looked over the fairground. Wolfgang helped me settle the hamster in a corner under the window and we watched as it sniffed at the air and burrowed into the damp straw. Then we made love.
Wolfgang didn't turn up the following Saturday. The one after, he sent flowers, blue cornflowers, with a note: "Wait for me." He came two weeks later. We spent the whole weekend in my room. The floor was our bed, our table, my heaven.
Then he was gone. But the letters almost made up for it. Nothing long. I never asked where he was the rest of the week, the weeks he didn't come. In one letter he added a photo of himself and a quote from Auden: "The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews." I wondered if he were married. I never asked. I longed for him.
During his absences, I'd talk to the hamster. I'd stroke its soft pale fur, hold a fingertip to its twitching nostrils and then let it run round and round and round in its little wheel. Round and round.
"Don't you get tired of it?" I asked. It got off its tiny wheel and seemed to look at me for a moment. I thought it had heard me, understood something. Then it twitched its nose and burrowed back into the straw.
My relationship with Wolfgang had been going for about three months. It was a Saturday and though he'd not contacted me for over a week he swept me off my feet again with flowers, roses this time, and perfume.
"I want you to look very special tonight," he said. "There's someone I want you to meet."
My heart danced and spun.
"Put on some high heels, something in silk" he said.
I felt electric. I slipped on a white silk blouse and a black velvet skirt, sheer black stockings and my highest black heels.
"Perfect," he said and kissed my head.
"Who are we meeting?" I said.
"Someone important." He took my hand and lightly kissed
it.
The ambassador directed his driver to a posh club in Baden about half an hour from Vienna. The three of us settled into a hidden alcove hung with burgundy velvet drapes.
"I have to leave now," Wolfgang said. "Trust me," he added as he stroked my cheek with his forefinger. "I'll be back soon."
I nodded. What else could I do? The ambassador, a slight genteel man in his fifties smiled warmly and took my hand. He ordered champagne. We sipped. When he slipped his hand under my skirt and it ran up my thigh, I was numb. His small fingers grazed my neck and dipped into my blouse.
Where was Wolfgang? I thought. Why didn't he come? And then the room started to spin. Faster and faster. It was going too fast. I felt stuck to the walls. A sweet cloying smell moved in on me like the night fog. I tried to pull away.
Then the spin slowed and I felt myself falling.
As he had promised, Wolfgang returned. The ambassador brought us back to Vienna. "Thank you," he said, more to Wolfgang than to me.
In my room, Wolfgang took me in his arms. "You'll get used to it," he said.
I trembled.
Then he held me and kissed me, so gently, so gently.
"Why?" The words grated from my throat.
"Because I love you," he said. "You're so fresh, so
unusual." Then he left.
I stared about me. Bile rose in my mouth as I rushed to
the toilet. I flopped down on my bed and saw the hamster. It
was whirring in its little wheel. I went to the basin and
rinsed my face.
Wolfgang had said he would call in a week. I had a number where he said I could call him, but I'd never used it. I slipped a scrap of paper from my wallet. The inky digits were blurred from where the creases of folding and unfolding had rubbed at the texture of the paper. Slowly I crumpled it until it was only a tiny ball and flicked it in the bin.
Left were the letters and his photo. I lit a match and touched it to the corners. The photo didn't want to take straight away, but as I watched the flame flickered then licked, swallowed, an ear, an eye until it raged through the head of blonde hair. The blue ink of the tightly looped writing gave less resistance than I thought it would. The letters weren't many. Black parchment ashes curled in the ashtray.
It was that time of the year when dusk sneaked in early and hovered about. I went to the window. The hamster had stopped spinning and sat tucked in the corner of its cage, nibbling from its dish. The roller coaster was still. There were no more riders. I watched as the ticket collector closed his booth and walked away. The ferris wheel, too, stood motionless, gazing over Vienna. The street lights went on.
When the phone rang, I clasped the receiver, held it an instant just out of its cradle. Then I hung up.