Mario and Anita turned round when they heard her. Anita, a boyish woman from southern Austria with short bleached hair, whom Norah had immediately taken to, was complaining to Mario (who reminded Norah vaguely of her friend Sandra’s brother) that just because she happened to be friends with the niece of the new Burg Theatre director, the boss had charged her with getting an exclusive interview with him. As if it made any difference; everyone knew the man refused to give interviews. Norah just nodded to her colleagues, not wanting to intrude, and returned to her own thoughts as she busied herself with the espresso machine. It was a shame she hadn’t been able to get hold of Sandra, when she was such a fan of this actor she was interviewing. But she knew what she’d say to win him over. It was easy. Everyone knew he’d been pursued by a stalker for years, so if she could manage to work it into the conversation, she’d tell him about her own stalker, a man who’d followed her everywhere until she’d managed to shake him off by moving to Berlin. That was good common ground. Norah would start the conversation with innocent questions about his latest film which he’d come to Europe to promote, and then gradually—
‘Arthur Grimm,’ she heard Anita say. ‘But as far as I know, nobody’s really aware of it.’
Norah stopped in her tracks. Had she heard right? Slowly she turned around. She saw Anita fish a teabag out of a mug and drop it in the bin.
Norah must have made a mistake. It would be too much of a coincidence.
‘Do you need any help?’ Mario asked, and Norah realised that she had frozen mid-movement next to the coffee machine.
She cleared her throat, flicked down the On button and the machine sprang to life, gurgling and hissing like a mythical beast stirring from sleep.
A thought flashed into her mind. Was this whole fortune-telling thing an elaborate joke on the part of her colleagues? Rubbish, she told herself. Who’d do a thing like that?
‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘I can manage.’
THE WOMAN
My happiest childhood memory isn’t celebrating Christmas or going camping in the summer, but watching a boxing match. I went with my father, although in those days it was unusual for children to be taken along. We sat right at the front, by the ring, and I could hear the sound of flesh slapping against flesh. The place smelt of blood and adrenaline, and whenever a boxing glove smashed against bone, I saw a spray of sweat and saliva dancing in the air like dust motes in a beam of light. It wasn’t a championship or anything, and I couldn’t even say for sure what weight class the boxers were. They were both giants to me, and they went at each other like wild beasts.
There was no knock-out, though I’d hoped for one, if only to see a man that size crash to the floor like a felled tree. The fight went the distance and ended in a draw, which disappointed me, not that I knew which of the men I wanted to win; I suppose it just seemed unsatisfactory to me that something as dramatic as a boxing match could end in something as banal as a draw. When my father told me some days later that one of the boxers had died after the fight, I was fascinated. I suppose, in a way, that was my first encounter with death.
For some reason I was reminded of that evening the first time I saw her. God knows why. I’ll never understand how my brain jumps from one thing to another. It fires salvos of associations at me and I just take them as they come.
I saw her in a bar the other day. I didn’t follow her in, but I watched her for some time. She was sitting alone, drinking a colourless drink from a thick-bottomed glass and smoking a cigarette, and when the barman alerted her to the smoking ban, she rolled her eyes and stubbed out the fag in a corner of silver paper torn from the packet. Soon afterwards, a man came to her table—tall, with short dark hair, dressed in jeans and a white shirt. I saw him only in profile and couldn’t hear what he said or what she replied, but I saw that the exchange lasted only a few seconds and that the man, who had been smiling as he walked to her table, was no longer smiling when he left it. Perhaps one should admire the arrogance with which such women go through life. But for some reason I can’t.
In my experience, there are women you get round with flattery and women you get round with insults. But this woman, I feel, would laugh in your face, whichever you tried.
I have spent a great deal of time trying to work out what it is about her that interests me. She looks fragile, but moves as if she owned the world. One day she chain-smokes, the next I see her out jogging. There is something dainty, almost girlish about her, and yet you get the feeling that it would be a mistake to mess with her. She is strangely beautiful, but cynical and aggressive; she rarely smiles, never bows her head, and constantly interrupts others. All that repels me. But there is unquestionably something dark about her, and something vulnerable, too. That interests me. That’s what I want to get at.
6
An icy chill, a clear blue sky, a weak morning sun giving no warmth. Business people and joggers, braving the cold. Cyclists, their faces wound about with scarves.
Walking to work with hunched shoulders and the east wind whistling around her ears, Norah thought of the people who lived on the streets in this weather. She had decided to structure her series on Vienna’s homeless around four or five particularly fascinating stories, but she didn’t want to write mere feature articles; she also wanted to inform her readers about what they could do to help the homeless. For two days she’d been working like a woman possessed. But she hadn’t managed to track down the fortune teller. You’d think there was a jinx on her.
Although it was still early and bitterly cold, the girl with the Alsatian had already claimed her patch. Norah took a twenty-euro note out of her wallet and put it in the girl’s hat. The girl immediately whipped it into the pocket of her parka, as if afraid that Norah might change her mind.
‘I’m looking for someone,’ said Norah, crouching down. ‘The woman who was standing over there with a begging bowl the other day. A tall woman, at least six foot. Fairly old. Dark hair in a plait, and very bright eyes. Kind of creepy. Do you know who I mean?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘She was standing just there.’ Norah jerked her chin towards the middle of the street.
‘Dressed in black,’ she added.
The girl shrugged.
Norah stared at her, trying to work her out. How could she sit there all day and not notice what went on around her? Norah stood up and turned to go. Then she stopped.
‘It’s cold,’ she said. ‘Tonight it’ll be even colder. Do you have somewhere to go?’
The girl hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
‘Sure?’
More nodding.
Norah gave her another hard stare, then rummaged in her bag for her notebook. She jotted down her phone number, tore out the page and held it out to the girl.
‘If ever you need somewhere warm to sleep, just give me a call, okay?’
The girl frowned at her. She didn’t take the piece of paper. Norah left it on her blanket.
‘And if you see the woman or come across anyone who can tell me anything about her, then let me know. I urgently need to speak to her and I’d be happy to pay for it, okay?’
This time the girl replied. ‘Okay.’
As Norah walked away, she thought she felt someone looking at her, but when she glanced back, the girl was rummaging intently in a plastic bag. Norah could see nothing out of the ordinary, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched until she was safe in the office.