KATHARINA RAZUMOVSKY

Nearly ten years ago I moved to Vienna. I was married and had four small children. No, I'm not going to tell you the story of my life, not to worry, only the beginning of my relationship with my present partner, the coolest guy in town.

Speaking from the time I meet him, I am divorced for quite a while, my children are not so small anymore, my partner is a handsome lawyer. We are a couple since four years, the lawyer and me, and all runs smoothly, just that I am bored. Boored.

Then I get to know HIM : tall, spindle, yellow-green speckled eyes like a saurian. And fun. No, I have to start again. Flashback: My daughter Olga is 5 years old. We have just moved to Vienna. She is loudly screaming downstairs on the street, right outside our front door, under my window, as she doesn't want to go to the park with her siblings and the au pair girl. My husband - I am still married then-, blocks his ears and pretends not to hear. Our Olga is shouting MAMI! Me too, I don't listen as I have to work and my au pair girl has to be good for something too after all.

Somebody rings our door bell. And then once again. A sharp bell. A skinny woman, unknown to me, stands in the half open door, looking angry. Holding her hand and looking triumphantly, is Olga. “You seem to have forgotten your child downstairs,” says the skinny woman with a sourish voice. “I am returning her to you”.
“But no, I am retorting, I am working, the au pair...” I stop in the middle of the sentence: Now I am a bad mother, Oh great! And where did I strand, in a city, where everybody schoolmasters everyone else!
The meager woman gets more angry, she had expected gratitude.

During five years I see her again and again as she lives just opposite me, and during five years she ignores me totally, also when we nearly bump into each other on the street, or if we bring our children to the same school, or when we cue together at the supermarket. We meet constantly - but she doesn't see me.

And then: the man with the crocodile eyes is a friend of the lawyer, an architect who comes often to visit for business reasons. Strangely he keeps crawling across the floor, sits on the parquet of the living room or leans tightly against the wall. At the opening of the architecture fair the skinny woman stands next to him. We are getting introduced, Edeltraud warms up and emerges as a cheerful affectionate person, as someone to be fond of.

Edeltraud and me return home together from the fair, as we are neighbours. Vis à vis, bon amis, as it is said in French. The two of us wait on our mutual friend, the crocodile-eye-man, whith whom I have fallen in love a bit, just slightly, as I am living in a partnership - and we drink tea as we wait in vain and finally we eat dinner. She cooks exquisitely and also in the next days and weeks there is always something tasty for all of us. We become friends. I consider myself fortunate to have such a nice neighbor. In the meantime I am head over heels in love with the skinny architect, although his behaviour continues to be very strange when he visits me: he runs to the entrance door, stays covered in the shadow, and in my living room he still favors the floor. Edeltraud and me have grown together to a real team.

And then, all of a sudden, it is FINISHED.
I am leaning against the window of Edeltraud's dining room, we joke about how one can see into my flat from this spot, and we tell each other stories of our hearts: I tell her about the end of my relationship to the lawyer and that I have fallen in love again, and she tells me about the man who just left her, like a pig: MY crocodile-eye-architect.

I return to my flat and test the view. From my couch you can see into the flat of Edeltraud. From the left corner in the room to her bed room, from my dining table to her kitchen. If you sit on the floor, you are invisible to Edeltraud. Also when you hide in the corners. OK, now I understand!

Since then years have gone. My distrust in the coolest guy of the world has vanished in the meantime, we are still a couple.. soon ten years have elapsed since my moving to Vienna. I walk on the street with Olga. Olga is nearly grown up. In two to three months we will move out of this flat. Then I see Edeltraut. She doesn't greet me.