The Fist of God

“There is no comparison,” she said. “Mozart is the master of them all.”

His smile widened, showing even white teeth.

“He lived here once. Perhaps he sat here, right on this bench, and made his music.”

“I’m sure he did no such thing,” she said. “The bench was not here then.”

She rose and turned. The young man rose too and gave a short Viennese bow.

“I am sorry I disturbed you, Fraulein. But thank you for your help.”

She was walking out of the park, back to her desk to finish her lunch, furious with herself. Conversations with young men in parks—whatever next? On the other hand, he was only a foreign student trying to learn about Viennese opera. No harm in that, surely.

But enough is enough. She passed a poster. Of course; the Vienna Opera was staging The Magic Flute in three days. Perhaps it was part of the young man’s study course.

Despite her passion, Edith Hardenberg had never been to an opera in the Staatsoper. She had, of course, roamed the building when it was open in the daytime, but an orchestra ticket had always been beyond her.

They were almost beyond price. Season tickets for the opera were handed down from generation to generation. A season’s abonnement was for the seriously rich. Other tickets could be obtained only by influence, of which she had none. Even ordinary tickets were beyond her means. She sighed and returned to her work.

That one day of warm weather had been the end. The cold and the gray clouds came back. She returned to her habit of lunching at her usual cafe and at her usual table. She was a very neat lady, a creature of habit.

On the third day after the park she arrived at her table at the usual hour, to the minute, and half-noticed that the one next to her was occupied. There was a pair of student books—she did not bother with the titles—and a half-drunk glass of water.

Hardly had she ordered the meal of the day when the occupant of the table returned from the men’s room. It was not until he sat down that he recognized her and gave a start of surprise.

“Oh, Gruss Gott—again,” he said. Her lips tightened into a disapproving line. The waitress arrived and put down her meal. She was trapped. But the young man was irrepressible.

“I finished the program notes. I think I understand it all now.”

She nodded and began delicately to eat. “Excellent. You are studying here?”

Now why had she asked that? What madness had gotten into her? But the chatter of the restaurant rose all around her. What are you worrying about, Edith? Surely a civilized conversation, even with a foreign student, could do no harm? She wondered what Herr Gemutlich would think. He would disapprove, of course.

The dark young man grinned happily.

“Yes. I study engineering. At the Technical University. When I have my degree, I will go back home and help to develop my country.

Please, my name is Karim.”

“Fraulein Hardenberg,” she said primly. “And where do you come from, Herr Karim?”

“I am from Jordan.”

Oh, good gracious, an Arab. Well, she supposed there were a lot of them at the Technical University, two blocks across the Karntner Ring.

Most of the ones she saw were street vendors, awful people selling carpets and newspapers at the pavement cafes and refusing to go away.

The young man next to her looked respectable enough. Perhaps he came from a better family. But after all ... an Arab. She finished her meal and signaled for the bill. Time to leave this young man’s company, even though he was remarkably polite. For an Arab.

“Still,” he said regretfully, “I don’t think I’ll be able to go.”

Her bill came. She fumbled for some schilling notes.

“Go where?”

“To the opera. To see The Magic Flute. Not alone—I wouldn’t have the nerve. So many people. Not knowing where to go, where to applaud.”

She smiled tolerantly.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll go, young man, because you won’t get any tickets.”

He looked puzzled.

“Oh no, it’s not that.”

He reached into his pocket and placed two pieces of paper on the table.

Her table. Beside her bill. Second row of the orchestra. Within feet of the singers. Center aisle.

“I have a friend in the United Nations. They get an allocation, you know. But he didn’t want them, so he gave them to me.”

Gave. Not sold, gave. Beyond price, and he gave them away.

“Would you,” asked the young man pleadingly, “take me with you?

Please?”

It was beautifully phrased, as if she would be taking him.

She thought of sitting in that great, vaulted, gilded, rococo paradise, her spirit rising with the voices of the basses, baritones, tenors, and sopranos high into the painted ceiling above. ...

“Certainly not,” she said.

“Oh, I am sorry, Fraulein. I have offended you.”

He reached out and took the tickets, one half in one strong young hand, the other half in the other, and began to tear.

“No.” Her hand came down on his own before more than half an inch of the priceless tickets had been torn in half. “You mustn’t do that.”

She was bright pink.

“But they are of no use to me.”

“Well, I suppose ...”

His face lit up.

“Then you will show me your Opera House? Yes?”

Show him the Opera. Surely that was different. Not a date. Not the sort of dates people went on who ... accepted dates. More like a tour guide, really. A Viennese courtesy, showing a student from abroad one of the wonders of the Austrian capital. No harm in that ...

They met on the steps by arrangement at seven-fifteen. She had driven in from Grinzing and parked without trouble. They joined the bustle of the moving throng alive already with anticipatory pleasure.

If Edith Hardenberg, spinster of twenty loveless summers, were ever going to have an intimation of paradise, it was that night in 1990 when she sat a few feet from the stage and allowed herself to drown in the music. If she were ever to know the sensation of being drunk, it was that evening when she permitted herself to become utterly intoxicated in the torrent of the rising and falling voices.

In the first half, as Papageno sang and cavorted before her, she felt a dry young hand placed on top of her own. Instinct caused her to withdraw her hand sharply. In the second half, when it happened again, she did nothing and felt, with the music, the warmth seeping into her of another person’s blood-heat.

When it was over, she was still intoxicated. Otherwise she would never have allowed him to walk her across the square to Freud’s old haunt, the Cafe Landtmann, now restored to its former 1890 glory. There it was the superlative headwaiter Robert himself who showed them to a table, and they ate a late dinner.

Afterward, he walked her back to her car. She had calmed down. Her reserve was reasserting itself.

“I would so like you to show me the real Vienna,” said Karim quietly.

“Your Vienna, the Vienna of fine museums and concerts. Otherwise, I will never understand the culture of Austria, not the way you could show it to me.”

“What are you saying, Karim?”

They stood by her car. No, she was definitely not offering him a lift to his apartment, wherever it was, and any suggestion that he come home with her would reveal exactly what sort of a wretch he really was.

“That I would like to see you again.”