The Thing I'm Most Afraid Of

by Kristin Levine

  “Flu,” Felix translated.

  “Flu,” Sara repeated. “All better. But bad timing. Very bad.”

  “So you took the bus to Vienna all alone?” I asked.

  Sara shook her head. “The bus took me to Croatia. I have a friend there from dance class. She had a cousin in Vienna. I took another bus here to stay with her. I applied for asylum; they said no. I received temporary protected status instead.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I allowed to stay but not work,” Sara explained. “But how can you live without work? My friend’s cousin cleaned offices. I worked with her for two months, at the newspaper office, where I met Katarina. I am bad at cleaning but good at languages. Katarina and I became friends. About a month ago, she invited me to come live with her.”

  Sara turned to look at me. “It is true what I say to the police, Becca. I not lie. Katarina explained she cannot pay me money, cannot hire me as au pair. But as friend, yes, she can help. And I can help her by watching you.”

  “What about your mom and brother?” I asked. “Why are you looking for them if you know they are still in Sarajevo?”

  Sara got very still. “I called them once from Croatia. Phone was disconnected after that. I sent them many letters, but I only received one. I have not received any since I moved in with Katarina. Maybe they found a way to leave. Maybe they are on their way to Vienna.”

  Or maybe they were dead.

  The beautiful day suddenly seemed wrong. Why were kids skipping by with ice cream and balloons when Sara’s family was missing?

  “How can you just sit there?” I yelled, suddenly irrationally angry. “How can you be so calm? I would be a mess. I would be hysterical!”

  “How would that help?” Sara asked quietly.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I say. “I couldn’t stand it! All the worrying. I could never get on a bus by myself and travel across a war zone!”

  The more I yelled, the calmer Sara got. “Rebecca.” She was almost whispering now. “You are braver than you know.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t even get on a Ferris wheel.”

  She patted my back. “I was very scared too. But I knew I must get on the bus. And to help me be brave, I made a list of the things I want to do when the war is over. When I go back to Sarajevo.”

  Sara reached into her green pocketbook and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a simple lined sheet of notebook paper, as if ripped out of a school binder. There were five items listed on it, written in a language I didn’t understand.

  “What does it say?” Felix asked.

  Sara cleared her throat and translated. “Number one: Play violin recital.”

  “You play violin?” I asked.

  “Yes. Number two: Study languages at Uni.”

  “University,” Felix translated.

  “I not sure I smart enough, but I try.”

  “You speak six languages!” I said. “Of course you’re smart enough!”

  Sara blushed. “Number three: Perform ballroom dancing.”

  “Aha,” I said. “So that’s why you’re teaching that dance class with your friend!”

  She ignored me and kept reading. “Number four: Bake cake for brother.”

  I understood that one—I remembered her dream.

  “Number five: Get ice cream with family and walk across bridge.”

  I was quiet for a moment. It was a great list. Simple things. And yet . . . hard too.

  “I like lists,” I said finally. “The make me feel safe. They make me feel focused.”

  “Yes,” Sara agreed.

  “I want my own list,” I said. “Things I can do here in Austria.”

  “Like go to concert? Go to museum?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want a sightseeing list. I want a list like yours! A list of things that are important to me. What if I make a list of things I’m scared of—so I can be brave and do them?” And then my dad won’t think of me as the girl who worries too much anymore.

  “Okay,” Sara said. “I help you with your list.”

  I got my Doomsday Journal out of my purse and pulled out a pen. What am I most afraid of? What do I want to do?

  “I don’t know,” Felix said as he bit into a peach. The sun had brought out the freckles on his nose, and his hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it back. “Sounds kind of weird to me. What are you going to put on your list—eat a soft-boiled egg or something?”

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “That’s perfect.” In my careful, neat handwriting I wrote down, 1. Eat a soft-boiled egg. And I immediately started to feel nervous. I mean, salmonella.

  “What?!” Felix asked. “I was joking.”

  But Sara smiled. “That good thing to start with. Not too hard.”

  Next, I wrote, 2. Learn to ride a bike.

  “You don’t know how to ride a bike?” Felix marveled.

  “Hush, Felix,” Sara said. “You make a list next.”

  Felix rolled his eyes.

  I added 3, then stopped to think.

  “What else you scared of?” Sara coaxed.

  “Nuclear war,” I said. “Cancer. Zombies.”

  Felix laughed.

  “Car crashes, scorpions, large crowds.”

  “Crowds,” Sara repeated. “You mean large groups of people?”

  I nodded. “You could get trampled. You could get robbed. You could—”

  “Write that down,” she said.

  So I did. Hang out in a large crowd. Then the next one came to me without effort: 4. Go on the Riesenrad.

  “I thought you hated Ferris wheels,” Felix said.

  “I’ve never been on one,” I admitted. “How do I know if I hate them or not?” I paused, chewing on the end of my pen as I thought of number five. I wanted something big. Something so large, I wasn’t sure I could do it. I slowly wrote down, 5. Travel somewhere.

  Felix peeked over my shoulder. “You’ve done that.”

  By myself, I added. “I mean, what if Dad stays here? Mom can’t come with me every time I want to visit.”

  Sara looked over my shoulder. “Good list.”

  “You’ll help me, right?”

  “Of course!”

  We grinned at each other.

  “Okay, Felix,” Sara said, turning to him. “You next.”

  “What? Me?” He shook his head. “I’m not scared of riding a bike or going on a plane or eating an egg.”

  Sara shrugged. “Everyone scared of different things.”

  “Well, I don’t have any fears,” Felix said.

  “All right,” Sara said, letting the matter drop. “Let us go see Gloriette.”

  The Gloriette was the fake Roman building on top of the hill behind the main palace. It was a long, hot walk in the sun, trudging up a switchback gravel path. But when we finally made it to the top, the view was beautiful. Bright-yellow Schönbrunn was in the foreground, and the rest of Vienna in the back. I could see St. Stephen’s and the green from all the parks, and off to one side, I even caught a glimpse of the Riesenrad.

  For a moment, I was so sad that I had missed it. But now . . . I had this list. Would it really help?

  Dr. Teresa had once asked my mother to come up with a few examples of things I was afraid of. Dogs were on the list. The next week, Dr. Teresa wanted me to go pet her neighbor’s dog. I told her no. It might bite me. It might not have been vaccinated properly. It might have rabies! She said okay, then we could just look at it through the fence, but I refused to budge from her couch. She finally let it drop.

  But I was older now. And last year when my friend Chrissy got a dog, I had eventually learned to tolerate it. I guess it made more sense to me now what Dr. Teresa was trying to do. The thing was, Sara had actually lived through something awful. She was still living through horrible un
certainty now. And even though I knew she was worried, she still seemed to be enjoying the ice cream we had bought at the café on top of the hill, smiling as she licked her cone and looked out at the view.

  I wanted to be like her.

  CHAPTER 17

  Another Item for the Doomsday Journal

  That evening, while Dad made spaghetti for dinner, I told him about our day. “Did you know Sara doesn’t have a work permit?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Katarina explained the situation to me before you arrived.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  “I didn’t think you’d be interested in her exact legal status,” Dad said, stirring the sauce.

  “Dad!”

  “You worry a lot, Becca,” Dad said seriously. “I didn’t want to give you one more thing to write down in your Doomsday Journal.”

  “It helps me to write things down.”

  “That’s what you and your mother say,” Dad said. “But sometimes I think focusing on all the things that could go wrong just makes you feel worse.”

  Well, that certainly made me feel worse. I guess Dad really did see me as the girl who worried too much. My eyes felt itchy as Dad plated the spaghetti and grated a block of parmesan cheese over the top. We sat down at the tiny table.

  Dad sat upright, his posture perfect, as if he were meeting with a four-star general. I slouched down further in my chair.

  “Becca, don’t pout,” Dad said. He still had his dress shirt on, his tie loosened around his neck. His eyes looked tired.

  “Maybe I would worry less if you told me more.”

  “Fine,” Dad said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why can’t Sara get a work permit?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I’ve got a lot of spaghetti to eat.”

  Dad sighed. “During the Cold War, it was very hard for Soviet citizens to immigrate to the West. Vienna is actually further east than Prague, and so it was the closest Western city to a number of former Soviet-bloc countries. Austria could afford to be generous about granting asylum to refugees who did manage to get through, because there were very few of them.

  “But after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, things started to change, and with the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, large numbers of Eastern Europeans began to move west, looking for more political freedom and more economic opportunities. Wait, I need to back up. Do you know what asylum is?”

  “An old-fashioned word for a mental hospital?”

  “Yeah, but not in this context. Asylum is an official legal status granted to someone who has left their country due to persecution. It gives the seeker many benefits, including the right to work and settle in the new country permanently. That was fine when it was only a trickle of Soviet scientists or artists fleeing a repressive regime. But now that it’s become a flood of refugees escaping a war zone, some leaders here have started to worry about these new immigrants overwhelming their social services: unemployment, health care, schools, et cetera.

  “So in June of last year, a new immigration law went into effect. Now less than 10 percent of applicants in Austria are granted asylum, and instead, most receive TPS—temporary protected status.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It means they can stay in the country, but they are not allowed to work. They get a certain amount of money for food, shelter, and health care, but no work permit, because the goal is, once the fighting stops, for them to go back home.” Dad shook his head. “It’s a little confusing even to me. Apparently, there are different agencies in Austria for work and residence permits, and they have different quotas. All sorts of strange things can happen, like a foreigner having a work permit but not being officially allowed to live in Austria or vice versa.”

  “What do I have?” I asked.

  “You have a tourist visa. It’s good for three months.”

  “Do you have permission to live in Austria?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a work permit?” I asked.

  “Of course!”

  “Why did they give you one and not Sara?”

  “Because I’m an American and they know I have enough money to support myself and . . .”

  “If Sara could get a job, she could support herself too!”

  “True.” Dad sighed. “The pasta is getting cold. Let’s eat.”

  I twirled a bunch of spaghetti around my fork, but I wasn’t very hungry anymore.

  “I wish Sara hadn’t taken you to the police station,” Dad said crossly. “I just want you to have a fun time in Austria this summer. I don’t want you to worry.”

  I wanted to tell Dad about my list, about how Sara was going to help me face my fears. But I was afraid he wouldn’t understand.

  * * *

  The next morning, after my dad left for work, Felix and Sara came over. I watched Sara as she took three eggs from the carton on the counter and placed them in a pot, then added just enough water to cover them. My stomach started to hurt. “We eat egg with you,” she said. As soon as the water began to boil, she set the timer.

  I began to shiver as the clock counted down. I set the table, putting out tiny spoons, little eggcups, and a knife to cut the shells off the top.

  My head was throbbing. I felt like I was going to throw up. The oatmeal I’d eaten for breakfast sat like a lump in my stomach. I had no room for an egg even though I’d only eaten half my normal serving.

  Felix set the eggs down on the table. Sara cut off the tops. The yellow yolk oozed down the side of the shell. Felix added salt and pepper to his egg and dug in. “Yum.”

  “Becca?” Sara asked. “Tastes best warm.”

  I picked up my spoon, feeling like a prisoner being told to walk the plank over shark-infested waters. Except I had asked to be there. What’s wrong with me? Why did I ever think I could do this? They’re crazy. Raw eggs can kill you!

  “It is cooked,” Sara said. “Not like you used to. But cooked. Try.”

  I stuck the spoon into the egg, and the yolk coated the metal spoon yellow. It dripped like pus.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, standing up and pushing in my chair. “I just can’t!”

  “Is safe egg,” Sara coaxed. “From nice chicken.”

  “I don’t know that!” I yelled, in a panic now.

  I ran to my room and slammed the door, throwing myself on the bed. This was so embarrassing. I was so disappointed. I really wanted to try it. But, but, but . . . I started to cry.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later I heard a knock on my door. “Becca,” Felix called out.

  “What do you want?”

  “Sara has an idea.”

  “I’m not eating an egg!”

  “She doesn’t want you to eat anything,” he said. “She wants you to meet a chicken.”

  That was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. I jumped up and opened the door. “Meet a chicken? That’s the best you could come up with?”

  “I’m not joking,” he said.

  “No joke,” Sara called from downstairs. “Grab bus pass.”

  “Come on,” Felix said. “We might as well go. I’m gonna bring a book.”

  I had asked Sara to help me with my list. And I didn’t really want to spend the day crying in my room. “Fine,” I snapped. “Guess we’re going to meet a chicken.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Egg

  This time we took the bus in the opposite direction, away from the city. “Lovely day to visit a farm,” Sara said. “See cows. Feed happy chickens.”

  I scowled. “I’m not eating—”

  “No eating,” Sara agreed. “Just meet animals.”

  The bus took us up into the hills outside of Vienna. It was a pretty ride; I’ll give Sara that. Finally, we got off at an isolated house
with a sign that read, “Gasthof Müller.”

  It was big yellow house, the same color as Schönbrunn Palace, with dark wooden balconies and window boxes overflowing with flowers. A woman with gray hair in braids pinned up on her head came out carrying a tray of drinks. She was wearing a dirndl, her dress light green with a pink apron.

  Sara spoke rapidly in German to the woman for a moment. The woman looked confused at first, then her face brightened. “Grüß Gott!” she said.

  “This is Frau Müller,” Sara said.

  I shook her hand.

  “Meine Tochter zeigt Ihnen die Tiere,” the woman said.

  “She said her daughter will show us the animals,” Felix translated.

  We followed her around the back of the house to what appeared to be a small outdoor restaurant. Long wooden tables sat in the sunlight, covered by an awning overgrown with grapevines for shade. There were two other groups there, drinking and chatting in the dappled light.

  A moment later Frau Müller’s daughter came out of the house. She looked about my age. Unlike her mother, she wore jeans and a T-shirt. Honestly, she wouldn’t have looked out of place at my school.

  “Hi,” she said shyly. “I’m Tanja. You want to see animals?” she asked in English. She had a thicker accent than Felix.

  “Ja, bitte,” said Sara.

  “Come,” she said.

  There was a small barn beside the house. Inside was a large white cow with brown spots, chewing some hay. “This is our milk cow, Gertrude,” she said, patting the big animal on the nose. “We call her Gerti.”

  I was a city girl. I mean, I’d seen cows before, of course, but usually from the car as we drove by. I hadn’t realized they were quite so . . . big.

  “You can pet her,” Tanja said.

  I looked at the stall. It was made of strong dark wood. It looked like it would hold. Cautiously, I patted the cow’s nose, as Tanja had done. The cow ignored me.

  In a stall next to the cow were two goats. “Max and Moritz,” Tanja told us. “Even though they are girls. They make good cheese.”

  Outside the small barn was a pigpen. “Franz, Fritz, and Frederike.” The girl turned to look at me. “But you want to meet chickens,” she said.