Free The Goddess of Small Victories by Yannick Grannec

limited. I miss the cafés of Vienna. Mrs. Veblen sees to my social life and invites me to teas and musical evenings
.
    I am flabbergasted by the amount of food that people eat. Everything is huge: a typical steak might last me a week, a dry martini would fill a bathtub. I would be ill if I did not watch what I ate very carefully. I also monitor my temperature. I take long walks in the open air every day
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    I will not be in Vienna for your birthday. We will make up for it when I get back. What would you like me to bring you from New York? I have very little time to spend on this kind of project, but I can commission the wife of one of my colleagues. America makes so many exotic things that would appeal to your curiosity. Some music,perhaps? I have heard strange compositions here that you, I am quite sure, would find delightful
.
    All my love, take care of yourself
,
    Kurt ∞

    With my finger, I was tracing the small infinity symbol, already nearly erased, when I was startled by three loud knocks on the nightclub’s wooden shutters. Through the peephole I saw Lieesa, readjusting her girdle with a total unconcern for modesty. I hesitated. My friend had changed. She was no longer the blond tightrope artist who passed from hand to hand with a guileless smile and could match vodka for vodka with a Hungarian. I didn’t care for her new acquaintances, and she had never liked Kurt. I answered with three identical knocks and went out by the courtyard door. Lieesa was leaning against the ivy-covered wall smoking a cigarette.
    “Come for a drink? There’s someone I want you to meet.”
    “My father will be here any minute. I’m going home.”
    She dropped her cigarette stub and crushed it with a heel worn down from dancing too much black bottom. I’d always envied her small feet.
    “He’s not coming back. You were just a pastime for him. You’re thirty-four years old and you’re wasting the best years of your life waiting. Come on! The night is young!”
    I shivered in my light coat. The winter would be cold, and I no longer had the money to buy pretty things.
    “You’re clinging to a ghost. What do you still see in that mommy’s boy who can hardly bring himself to say a word?”
    I was too tired to listen to her criticisms. I scanned the street, worried only because my father was late. She forced me to turnmy face toward her. Her hands were scaly and dry. I pushed her away and settled my hat on my head.
    “You think he’s going to show up and ask for your hand, have children with you, and invite you to Sunday dinner with his mother? Jesus, wake up! He’s gone!”
    “He’ll come back.”
    “You know perfectly well that your guy hasn’t got both oars in the water! He’s a nut job and his friends are all Yids and Communists. You spend too much time at the movies, honey. There isn’t going to be a happy ending. Look after your fanny, toots, while it’s still worth looking at!”
    “He and I have something special between us.”
    “How long has this business dragged on? Six years? Seven? And have you even met his family? Not once!”
    “Who are you to lecture me?”
    “You’re putting on airs above your station, sweetie. Think of where you come from! As far as they’re concerned, you’re just a whore, Adele! But at least a whore gets paid! And you work as a serving girl so you can buy him luxuries. Christ, what world are you living in?”
    “Not yours, anyway.”
    She gave a snort and walked away, pumping her rump from side to side. It was at that moment that I said goodbye to my carefree youth.
    She had chosen to survive. And she was pressing me to do the same. Every person in Vienna had to make a decision, not on the basis of hope but of fear: Who was more dangerous? Was it the Reds or the Browns? Who would save Vienna as we knew it? Anyone who could was fleeing the city. The party was over. There was confusion everywhere. I was alone. I didn’t want to choose, I didn’t want to be afraid. I only wanted