Hysteria by Jessica Gross

Author:Jessica Gross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

I awoke in the foggy haze of morning. I had hardly slept and was still half submerged in my dream. It had been raining in Vienna. The rain was gothic, the monstrous buildings looming over slick streets. My dream-self had felt awful, so I’d gone out for a drink. I’d forgotten my umbrella, and as I walked the rain grew from a drizzle to a downpour. My jeans and T-shirt stuck to me, my hair became seaweed, rain pounded the crown of my head. Birds swooped off the bare trees in arcs, their wingbeats amplified by the rain. Most times this acute kind of sadness made me panic, but I sank into it, finding a richness there.

The café was grimy, dark, overly warm, with too many tables and walls covered with magazine clippings and posters. At the bar, a thin, tall man with a pert mustache moved languorously.

“Could I borrow a towel?” I stretched out my forearms, which dripped onto the bar. My hair streamed in rivulets. He stared at me with contempt as he wiped the counter underneath, jostling my arms, before he handed me the now-dirty dishrag.

At a corner table, I wrung my hair out into the dishtowel. All around, people were leaning in toward each other, talking with varying levels of boisterousness, eating cake and sipping espressos even though it was already night. I slouched into my chair.

“Yes, what you want,” asked the waiter.

“Red wine and Sacher torte,” I said.

He scribbled onto his pad and turned toward the table next to me, people he apparently knew. They shared some words in German and exploded in laughter.

I turned away, staring now at a woman a few tables away, her thinning hair dyed a putrid red. She chewed big bites of her own Sacher torte, flecks of chocolate flicking out at her companion as she spoke. Her scalp shone through what looked like sparse implants. I looked away in disgust, stared at the safe sight of my ragged fingernails.

The waiter clanked my wine onto the table without looking at me. “Danke schön,” I said to his retreating form. I took a big gulp, and wine dribbled onto my chin—I wiped it quickly with my hand, then looked around. No one had noticed. I took another sip, felt my scalp melt.

The Sacher torte arrived. I took another sip of wine first on my empty stomach, to feel the rancid pleasure of it and the swift little ache in the temples, before I sank my fork in. I dunked the bite into the pile of schlag alongside it and chewed the dry cake, then ran my tongue along my teeth, worrying the spaces in between, where microbits of cake had taken up residence.

My table shook as a man wedged himself between it and the one alongside, trying to get to the seat against the wall. He had a beard, thick as a forest; he had eyes like outer space. I slid my table over, making room for him. He sank into the chair next to me and I felt his heat, wanted to shift over and press my arm against his.

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