Viennese Night

My apartment here is the most beautiful I have ever seen. A classy mixture of glass and concrete on the third floor of a museum styled house overlooking Vienna. Now its nearing midnight and a recently full moon is hovering over the city, casting its yellow eye into my living room. The reflections covering my glass walls are distorted by street lamps and city lights from below, and as I look out over this Viennese summer night my diaphanous belongings stare back at me. German books, notes about my days here, a half drunk bowl of tea, lots of space. All this space mixed with the concrete, the big city below, the glass walls, and the silence reminds me a little of that final fightclub scene.

I am not at home here. But there is no reason for me to be, really. There are many things charming about this life that I am leading here.

I really like learning spoken languages. Its strange when you come to from a reverie and realize that it was in another tongue. All too frequently for me these days, it is in some strange mélange between French, English, and German. After I come home from German class, I’m often tired and want a nap. If I lie down for a few minutes, and relax, my head starts Germanizing. I don’t know how to explain it really, but it feels like my head is downloading the things I have learned throughout the day. Its not thinking, certainly nothing linear, but its all in German syllables. I remember it happened with French too, after about the same amount of time (one month). But then by month three or so, this had stopped. French no longer exhausted me, nor did my head play frantically with French syllables when I lay down for a few seconds. This must be a result from learning a language so quickly, you know, moving to a new country with next to zero knowledge of the oral language. Do other people have similar experiences? I imagine they must. But its rare to meet someone in this transitional stage of language learning, maybe because it lasts such a short time. I don’t know.

This morning I spent my last euro on French books. After German class, I sought out la librarie Française, located in the ninth district, a stones throw away from Freud’s old digs. The delightful madame there helped me dig through old volumes, organized in that quintessentially French manner until finally we came upon something that resembled a social history of the 19th century. Et voila mademoiselle! I like the French so much. I don’t know what it is, their pleasantries perhaps. The quality of their voices as well. I bought two Balzacs, one Flaubert, and a history of France’s political crises from 1871 to 1968. Raphael and I are planning a 19th century conference of sorts for my June trip to Bordeaux via Paris. Ça me plait bien, evidemment. Et finalement, j’ai la lecture qu’il faut.

I wonder if in my rather short sejour in France I have unwittingly become French. I miss France much more than any other home I have ever had. Not that my thoughts don’t wander every once in a while to Athens or Saint Louis. Though somehow those places are different, because I didn’t choose them. Athens, Georgia was chosen for me, as the best free education I might have, growing up in the southern states. Saint Louis too, was not a choice of location, rather of education and money. With 24 years, I chose Bordeaux, never having been to France and barely having been to Europe. It was, however, my choice, and one based solely on place. Here in Vienna I feel like an expatriate. I go see French films, I listen to French music, and am ever excited to meet French people. It’s not some mania with fashion, or pastries, or snobbery, or I don’t know what. It’s because I feel comfortable there. At home, even. With the humor especially. Why should we think of our birthplace as somehow definitive of ourselves? Why shouldn’t this, like our wives and husbands, our careers, or our clothing be something we choose, once we have become an adult and acquired those distinguishing faculties.

Tomorrow is Der erste Mai, and I wonder how this socialist holiday will be feted here in Austria. Eva and Thomas have already voiced their disdain for the whole affair. But I’m looking forward to it, naturally. I like the community spirit that comes with communism, her strikes and manifestations. And with these thoughts, gentle reader, I bid you a good night, condemning myself to a fitful moonbright night.

Fait à Vienne, le 30 Avril