Strangers in Vienna

by Angela L.

  “You’re doing it, too,” he pointed out. I wanted to say that it was what I did, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to win this argument either way.

  “I wasn’t following you,” I said. He didn’t say anything so I continued. “I’m actually here on vacation, and I thought Krems an der Donau was a pretty nice place,” I explained.

  “Don’t people usually go on vacation with friends or family?” he said skeptically.

  “You calling me a loner?” I asked. I didn’t want to admit that I was here alone. For one, I didn’t trust this guy.

  “You sure look like one,” he replied.

  I rolled my eyes. “What do you want?” I said, changing the topic back to him.

  Suddenly, a shattering whistle blew from our left side. He and I turned our heads and realized that two screaming cops were galloping toward us.

  “You two! Stop!” one of the cops yelled in a German accent so thick you could hardly understand it. From afar, I could see his face was red with veins popping out from his neck. He looked like he was determined to kill.

  “Run!” the violin boy yelled and bolted in the opposite direction, pulling me along with him.

  “Hör auf zu laufen!” the police continued yelling, this time switching to German as if it was going to do any better.

  “What? I didn’t even steal!” I yelled at him.

  “Yeah, but we were talking, so I guess they just assumed we’re partners!” he yelled back, his words coming out from between gasps of breaths.

  “Dude! Not cool! This is why you don’t steal!” I shouted as we kept on running. We raced through narrow streets, alleyways, and small twisted roads that I would have never known if I walked by. Still, the cops managed to catch up to us. Their stamina was pretty high considering one of them had a beer belly that jiggled up and down like jelly as he ran.

  “STOP!” I wondered if they knew that yelling stop was never going to work in this situation. It was like those scenarios where the cop yells out, “Surrender yourself,” and expects the criminal who is trying to get away to actually stop and surrender. It also reminded me of those stupid horror movies where the girl who’s alone in the house yells out, “Who’s there?” and expects an answer. No legit killer would actually give out their name unless they were dumb or part of some brilliant master plan.

  After a few minutes, my breath turned to gasps and my muscles were cramping. I hadn’t run this much since…forever.

  While running, we managed to topple over a farmer’s market fruit stall.

  I looked back and took in the apple seller’s traumatized expression as he watched his precious apples roll down like a waterfall onto the hard concrete floor.

  “Sorry!” I yelled back.

  Chapter Four

  (July 27, 1992 in Vienna)

  We ran for our lives until we reached a tall building, the clock tower that had stood out among the other buildings when I first arrived at Krems an der Donau.

  “Here,” he said in between breaths and quickly opened a rusty, old metal door that was situated on the side of the clock tower.

  “Are we even allowed to do this?” I paused and looked at him. Then, after hearing another boisterous whistle blow from the cops who were about to catch up to us, he pushed me inside along with him and slammed the door behind us.

  The inside of the clock tower was shadowy, except for a faint light that shone down in the middle of the room. There was a random desk against the wall, but it looked like nobody had used it for quite a while. I could make out a set of stairs going up from my left side with cobwebs stuck between them.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he whispered. “Follow me.”

  “Wait, I think we lost them,” I said.

  “Check,” he whispered. I opened the door a little bit and peeked out. The cops were still standing outside surveying the area. One of them was going into shops and checking the insides while the other one stayed out.

  “Never mind,” I murmured.

  “Yeah. They usually don’t give up.” He laughed silently as if he knew this from experience. “Come on,” he said.

  I slowly followed him up the metal staircase. I didn’t know whether or not it was safe to trust him and follow him up the stairs. For all I knew, he could be plotting to kill me, but the thought of getting caught by the cops in this foreign place freaked me out, so I just kept on walking up the stairs. A faint glow cast down from the top of the clock tower.

  “Hey, so, um, what’s your name?” I asked, wanting to know who I was kind of trusting. My voice echoed through the vacant spaces of the clock tower.

  “Alaric,” he replied and turned to me. “What about you?”

  “Skyler,” I lied. That was actually my mother’s name and the first name that popped into my mind.

  The dust floated around like feathers under the light. I could feel us getting higher and higher by each step. Just one tip from my left side and I could fall right down over the railings. My legs felt weak just by thinking about it.

  When we reached the final steps, there was a ledge where all the sunlight poured through. Alaric was tall enough and managed to boost himself up the ledge while I stood there awkwardly, overwhelmed by how short I was.

  “Here,” he said and held his hand down to help pull me up.

  “It’s okay. I got it,” I said and left him dangling.

  “What, you afraid I was going to let go and drop you?” he said.

  “There’s always a possibility.” I didn’t trust him. He was a stranger, after all. When I got up, my body froze as I looked across from the inside of the clock tower.

  It was absolutely amazing.

  We were, from the looks of it, a hundred feet up. Looking between the big empty spaces of the dusty clock parts, I could see the entire city of Krems an der Donau and beyond, and I suddenly felt so alive. I took in the view and let the image hang in my mind. Even though we were high up in the air, I wasn’t afraid when I looked down. I was free. And I wanted more than anything for the entire city to wrap around me and engulf me in its secrets.

  “Breathtaking, isn’t it?” he commented from behind me.

  “Yeah.” I could see the narrow streets that we had walked on, the railway station, the gate, and the tiny herd of tourists taking pictures with funny-looking naked statues. I could see the sparkling lake that ran in between bundles of trees as it slowly faded away in the horizon. “How did you find out about this place?”

  “One time, this officer was chasing me, so I was running. I saw that same door down below where we came from, half opened, and I snuck in. I kept on running until I reached the top.”

  “So, technically, you brought me to a place that a criminal used as a hiding place.”

  “Criminal? Really?” He laughed. “You’re technically also a criminal. The cops were also looking for you.”

  “Yeah, for a crime I didn’t commit.” I snorted.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never done anything bad.” He looked at me, waiting to be amused. I could tell he wanted me to confess all the dirty little sins that I’ve done.

  “I have. Like…going out past curfew. Nothing like breaking the law,” I explained. A wind blew from outside, making the cobwebs on the clock parts sway back and forth. I ran my finger along the hour hand, leaving a clear trail among the thick layer of dust.

  “Going out past curfew,” he said. “That counts.”

  “Are you seriously comparing me going out past curfew to you stealing and breaking the law?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Well, you did something you weren’t supposed to, so yeah, it counts.”

  “Going out past curfew is far less serious than stealing money,” I replied.

  “So, you’re telling me that you’ve never done anything worse? Never drank alcohol with your friends in high school or…?” He gestured with his hands, wordlessly asking me to fill in the blanks.

  “Nope, and even if I did, it’s still better than thievery,” I said.

  “St
ealing a couple of bucks would only end up with one person missing money and one person with more money. Drinking could lead to death.”

  “But usually people don’t purposely chug down alcohol until they can’t breathe.” I rolled my eyes. “And don’t you Europeans drink every day?”

  “Guilty,” he laughed. “My dad used to chug down beer faster than he could drink water.”

  “Doesn’t that make him an alcoholic?”

  “No. We’re not addicted to it. We enjoy it and if you count him as an alcoholic, then pretty much ninety percent of the Austrian citizens are alcoholics.”

  “Whoa. Sort of sounds like Sin City.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s just another name for Las Vegas.”

  “Why is it called Sin City, though?” he asked, confused. He was biting his lower lip, and it made him look so cute that I had to rethink what he had just said.

  “From what I heard, people over there get drunk until they pass out, party until death comes, and gamble until one’s butt is fully naked,” I replied.

  “Well, truth be told, at the end of the day, we’re all sinners. Some of us are just closer to the devils than others.”

  “Clearly,” I hinted and rolled my eyes.

  Wow, I was getting pretty cheeky. For some reason, this guy was easy to talk to.

  I was never good at meeting new people. I was usually that girl in the back of the classroom trying to avoid awkward conversations. But with him, I just didn’t care. I wondered if it was because he was a stranger that I didn’t care what he thought of me. Yet, at the same time, it felt like I’d known him before, and I didn’t mean from another life. More like, I was so comfortable around him.

  The sun was beginning to set. The pale yellow rays turned gold as it painted half the sky. Purple and red blotches reflected among the clouds leaving Krems an der Donau in its shadows.

  I turned to my right and found him lost in the scenery. He was humming this old tune. I stared deep into his eyes, and I saw a glimpse of something comforting and familiar. He was gazing out at the horizon, but there was an existence of something wild in his eyes, something…chaotic and reckless. I’ve seen that look before in my friend’s eyes back home when she was drunk, screaming from the roof of the car with the radio blasted on full volume.

  My heart suddenly started beating faster than the speed of sound, and I could feel my entire body buzzing. I wondered if he could hear me. I moved a step back from him just in case.

  He seemed like the kind of guy who was an open book with fine clear print, yet also the kind of guy who was hiding a million unspoken thoughts beneath those deep green eyes of his, and all I wanted to do was to find out what they were.

  Chapter Five

  (July 27, 1992 in Vienna)

  I totally forgot.

  It was pretty ironic that even though we were stuck inside the clock tower, I couldn’t tell what the time was. We weren’t stuck in time either. I wished we were stuck in time. That way I wouldn’t be having this problem.

  “What?” He looked at me, confused.

  “Do you know what time it is?” I prayed for him to say it was still before eight o’clock.

  “Eight-forty,” he replied, looking at his watch.

  “I’m screwed. I have to go back to Vienna or else my uncle’s going to freak,” I said with frustration. I actually didn’t know if he was going to freak or not. I’d only just met him, but if I were him, and my niece was placed under my responsibility and went missing in a foreign country, I would freak out.

  “I can take you back.”

  “No use. I bought the ticket today for the last stop at eight o’clock, and I missed it,” I groaned. I wanted to pull my hair apart and yell in frustration. “Is there any way back besides by train?” I asked.

  “You can always hitchhike, but I wouldn’t suggest that,” he said genuinely.

  I shook my head. There was no way I was going to hitchhike. I mean, I was pretty strong, but I was also shorter than five foot five with sort of a baby-like face. Plus, I basically had no money. If I hitchhiked, I was going to be murdered along the way.

  I was going to have to find a place to stay tonight. I should have brought more than a few schillings, even though I usually didn’t spend much. It had never occurred to me that I would be in a situation like this. What if I got killed tonight? What if I starved to death? What if I got lost and I never returned home to Missouri?

  I had a feeling this was going to be an end to my life’s song.

  “Do you know where I can make a call?” I asked before I assumed anything more.

  He pointed downward at the phone booth that stood next to a rusted brown statue of a little boy near the clock tower. “Come on,” he said and started to climb back down the edge.

  I looked out of the clock tower one last time. The sky had turned into a dark raspberry color with light blue cotton candy clouds floating in between.

  Krems an der Donau.

  I was in Krems an der Donau in Austria. I was halfway across the world with hardly any cash and a guy I just met who was also an annoying thief, yet I was surprisingly okay with that, besides feeling a tad bit screwed with the problem of getting home. The sudden overwhelming feeling of anxiety rose over me like a tsunami but, at the same time, I felt like I was ready for anything that came at me.

  “Hey, you coming?” His voice echoed from below.

  “Yeah,” I responded and climbed back down to join him.

  Walking down the stairs was freakier than walking up. I felt like I was going to trip at any moment then tumble down to my death. I grasped the railings for dear life. We exited out of the clock tower and the door slammed shut behind us.

  The police were long gone, but I had that creepy feeling that they were still lurking somewhere in the shadows, ready to arrest us.

  “You have any coins?” he asked me. I shook my head.

  "Here,” he said, reaching down into his pants pocket before giving me a coin to stick in the phone booth.

  “Thanks,” I said and punched in the numbers scribbled on the paper, but what I got instead of Marcel’s voice made me want to punch somebody. “This sucks.” I slammed the phone down as if I were going to break it into a thousand pieces.

  “What?”

  “The number he gave me doesn’t exist.” I sighed. He must have written down a digit wrong.

  “Maybe this is the universe telling you to stay,” he replied, leaning against the wall.

  “Or maybe it’s just bad luck.” I sighed again. “If this is the universe telling me to stay, then I’m going to assume the universe hates me.” I’d never spent a night alone out this far from home. The overwhelming thought of dying tonight out on the streets washed over me. What was I supposed to do now?

  “Who knows? Maybe the universe is controlled by a grumpy old midget with one eye who hates everyone. Especially lost brown-haired girls with blue eyes,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes and ignored him. “Do you know a place I can stay for tonight? A motel nearby, maybe?”

  “Nope. I never stay in motels. But one of my friends lives here. I can call in a favor and ask her if you can stay for tonight,” he said. “She sort of owes me.”

  “Or I could just go and try to find a motel,” I said. I wasn’t that idiotic girl naïve enough to stay at a stranger’s place in the middle of nowhere. “There’s got to be a motel somewhere around here, right?”

  “I have no idea. We can go find one and ask, but if you don’t have enough money, my friend’s place is always free,” he offered. “It’s ok, I’ll be staying over at her place too, but just for tonight.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” I asked him. I was pretty sure babysitting me was the last thing on his list.

  “It’s okay. Think of me as returning a favor for you not going to the cops immediately…and also for being mistakenly blamed for stealing because of me,” he continued. “And if you don’t trust me and think I’m
going to murder you in the dead of night, fine by me. I promise you that you’ll still be alive and breathing tomorrow,” he joked.

  “See, how am I supposed to take your word for it?” I said. “You could be lying.”

  “Fine. You caught on to my master plan to kidnap you at my friend’s bakery and kill you when I get the chance. I’m secretly an assassin, and I usually choke my victims with frosting and sprinkles. After that, I bury them under the kitchen floor so that nobody will ever know,” he said sarcastically and rolled his eyes.

  “Bakery?”

  “Yeah. My friend owns a bakery and she lives right on top of it.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Come on. What do you say, Skyler? A little adventure?”

  I cringed a bit when he called me Skyler. It made me feel closer to my mom, as if she were right here next to me, but that was never going to happen.

  To him, I was Skyler. Not Demi, but Skyler.

  The name tingled on my tongue as I silently said it to myself. I was a completely different, adventurous person with no past of an absent mother and a drunk father living in a confined town without any future. I was Skyler, everything that Demi had never had and failed to be.

  I had planned to write my own song, but now I guessed I was writing Skyler’s song. Truth be told, even though the logical, safe side of me told me not to follow him, in the back of my head, I wanted to run off with him. I wanted to forget my past, and I was excited more than ever for this new adventure that awaited me.

  This was it. I was going to really have to get out of my comfort zone this time.

  “Fine,” I said firmly, after a long silence of thinking to myself, accepting that I’d just have to take this risk. I sighed with relief at the thought of not sleeping on the streets tonight. “Did time pass that fast?”

  “Time always passes faster when you’re having fun, especially when you’re with a dashing gentleman like me.” He smirked and ran his hands over his hair like those models in commercials.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”