Excerpt from House of Widows

Vienna, 1 May 2006: Morning

The most common grammatical error is the lie.

This came to me as I hurried down the stairs of my apartment building near the opera house and stepped, slightly winded, into the bristling air of the year’s first brilliant day. We live and breathe it, I thought, squinting. The lie. At the edge of the curb, I bent to tie a lace. I was late. I imagined Silvia’s brow arching as she glanced to the clock over the door behind which the ambassador sat in her meeting. I glared at the light–trapped, like so many, in the weather of the past–when a dark-haired girl in a yellow scarf across the street caused a catch in the breath. A prick at the heart. Unlikely as it seemed, I was sure it was Selena. She’d been on my mind. I raised my hand and was about to shout her name–on the off chance, since life is full of implausible turns—when a flatbed truck heaped with skinned hares heading for the Naschmarkt roared by, splashing my shoes with yesterday’s rain.

A second truck, glistening with imported tomatoes, obstructed my view.

I stared at the season’s unnatural fruits, then back at my shoes.

Yes, all around us the syntax of deceit rises up as the public realm of newspapers, television, the Web. Don’t expect it to change, either. If it did, so would we.

Unfortunately, the private sphere is no haven.

My father taught me this. Not in so many words. He preferred to lead by example.

Before killing himself—sixteen years ago this very week—he gave me a letter in a language he knew I couldn’t read. I was his only son. His patrimony consisted of the contents of a dusty studio apartment he’d rented after abandoning Sheila Donovan, his wife of thirty years. My mother’s bitterness was compounded by her self-imposed isolation. She was a proud woman. Her cardamom-colored hair and high cheeks deserved better. The hopes her own widowed mother planted were worth more than this. After he left, she refused to ask her family for help. Every one of them (except Uncle Bill) had warned her against the lanky Slav with the cold lapis eyes of a Husky who one night lingered late at the bar where she worked. Had I been around, I’d have warned her too.

By the time the trucks passed, the girl was history.

Walking across from the park, I felt the pulse of the new Vienna. Trees itching to blossom. The sweet ache of spring. No longer the city of pensioners, it’s now a cultural mecca. UNESCO sites everywhere. Blonde whippets from Prague giggle by, followed by tarts from Japan. Sushi in skirts. Bursts of tulips circle the chestnuts. The breast of earth’s going green again. The young from Central and Eastern Europe flock to it. The art market’s booming.

That’s not why I feel at home here. Until a decade ago, I had family living in the city: my grandmother Vera, and my uncle Kij. Both dead. Not gone are the scabs of war, for which I’m grateful. Only among the guilty do I ever breathe free.

At the Frauenhuber, I downed an espresso and gorged on a Dobos torte.

Too rich for the hour, but weight’s the least of my worries.

“Zahlen, bitte,” I signaled to Franz, who smiled and hustled over for this latest installment of his son’s college fees. Higher education cost almost nothing until Socialist Europe bought the American plan: each tub on Dad’s bottom. Tips must adjust for inflation if I’m to stay on terms with the natives.