Katzenstrasse Autumn

Autumn has brought beauty and melancholy to Katzenstrasse. The wood at the end of the street is a tangle of brown trunks.  Through them, I can see the bronze litter of beech leaves carpeting the ground. Just in front of them, the leaves of the quince tree still shine bright yellow. A sweet gum tree blazes crimson and copper next to a slate grey roof. Beyond the bare trees, beyond the field to the south, the bulk of Untersberg, hidden all summer by a dense fence of towering trees, now can be seen blue on the horizon.

I’ve been turning over in my mind why these scenes are so moving. There is in the contrast of the bright warm colours laid against a background of neutral browns and cool blues and greys an emotional charge, like the striking of a minor chord, that moves in a particular way. Seen by the weak light of short days, the charge is potent.

It was late in the afternoon one day a week or so ago that I got off the bus at our stop, the last one on the route. The light was soft brown, as it is so often these days, filtered as it was through the veil of the trees, their slender twigs forming tracery like that of cathedral windows. Another woman had gotten off just steps ahead of me, and I followed her as she turned right at the corner. I lengthened my steps to keep up with her as we passed under gold of the beech leaves along the street. When she turn left at my turn, my curiosity was piqued. Usually I walk from the bus alone, for few come as far as my stop and fewer still head in the same direction as I do.

We approached the field; its strips of brown earth and alternating green lay under a light dusting of the morning's snow. In the middle distance, white steam from the Stiegl brewery smoke stack rose against a silver sky; Untersberg's bulk loomed blue-grey in the distance. When she turned right at the small wooden shrine that stands at the edge of the field I hurried after the woman. There are only a handful of houses lying in this direction; I didn’t want to lose sight of her. More and more it seemed the woman must be a neighbour of mine, yet I didn’t recognise her at all.

Her boot heels tapped the pavement, my own echoed hers. She passed the three houses on the right; she didn’t turn into the street on the left. When sheat last turned down Katzenstrasse, I quickened my steps even more, lest she disappear before I could see where she went.

At a gate about four houses along, she stopped and turned toward me. As I approached, she spoke to me, some friendly query, I supposed.

‘Es tut mir leid,’ I replied. ‘Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch.’ It’s my standard reply, trotted out now in shops, on the bus, in the street, in doctor’s office: I speak only a little German.

I could see comprehension in her eyes as she nodded her head in the direction of our house at the end of the street. She knew who I was. Then, without a word, she turned away from me, into her gate, leaving me standing in the street.

Before she could go, I stuck out my hand. ‘Ich heisse Lorraine,’ I said, and she stopped long enough to take my hand and tell me her name. We managed to smile at one another, and parted then with some faint warmth between us. Still, it shook me a little. She is a woman near enough my age, not unlike me in dress or manner, and yet the barrier between us was as great as that.

Hands in my pockets, I continued under the thickening light toward our house at edge of the towering wood. Mona, the grey-and-white queen of Katzenstrasse, met me at my doorway. She ran lightly ahead of me up the red stone stairs and waited at the carved wooden door. Once inside, she jumped onto the cushioned bench in the kitchen and, purring, set about grooming her smooth, clean fur.

In the gloom of the autumn evening, it was good to have her company, someone to talk to.

Awkward, continued

It was a late afternoon in autumn, about six weeks after we had arrived in Ireland to live. After wandering along the River Suir under drooping amber chestnut leaves, I was sitting alone at a small table in front of the Lazy Bean café, staring across at the Charteris memorial in the centre of Cahir square.

The transition to life in Ireland had been harder than I had expected. Despite having my husband’s family around us – my mother-in-law as close as next door – I felt isolated, cut off. Our shipment of  belongings was still somewhere on the ocean,  so we had little in the house and no cosy chair or sofa on which to relax. Eircom, the phone company, had promised a landline, but weeks passed with no action. Mobile phone coverage was spotty and nearly non-existent in the house. Which meant, of course, we had no internet – no mobile connection, no DSL, no dial-up – no way to stay connected to the world at large.

Our new house, surrounded by hedges and green fields, was lovely, and I was happy to be there. But still, I was finding it hard to settle. I missed my friends. I missed the long telephone conversations and spontaneous email exchanges, the lunches out and shared shopping trips, the special bond with my young friend’s daughters.

As September became October, and the days grew slowly but perceptibly shorter, I took to driving the five kilometres to Cahir, the nearest town, in the late afternoons to have a cappuccino at the sidewalk café, hoping to find conversation and incipient friendship.

This afternoon, though, foreboded rain, and the square was abnormally quiet. So the other tables were empty when the three women arrived and sat down near me. They were dressed in light tan waterproof jackets, beige hiking trousers and thick-soled shoes. And, not unusually for tourists in Cahir, they spoke with American accents.

I overheard them discuss their next stop, now that they had seen Cahir’s 11^th century castle, the town’s big draw. Should they go to Cashel? What about a tramp along the river? Or would they continue further along towards Dublin? They looked at the guide book and considered the possibilities.

The irony of this tale lies in my normal reluctance to engage with American tourists. I usually observe them quietly, deliberately keeping my distance. I suffer, badly, from what might be called the ex-patriot disease, a kind of smug arrogance felt toward one’s former fellow countrymen and -women. Maybe it’s evidence of a childish insecurity. Maybe it’s a natural response to the vulnerability one has felt as a tourist, conscious of the poorly disguised contempt of some locals, the uneasy notion, hard to push aside, that one is being sneered at by supercilious merchants, waiters and hoteliers.

Or maybe it’s my character flaw alone, not generalised among other ex-pats. (Though I did meet, on St Patrick’s night here in Salzburg, another American near the ladies loo in an Irish pub. She was about 22 or 3, a student, who, in our brief conversation as we stood in the queue outside the locked door, was at pains to insist: ‘I’m not a tourist, you know. I live here.’)

So, for better or worse, I tend not to greet other Americans in restaurants or on buses. I don’t engage with them when I bump into them on the crowded streets of Salzburg or in the shops of Cahir. I hear their accents, I spot the matching windbreakers and new white shoes, and I lower my voice and turn away.

But that dull afternoon, the bright Georgian facades lining the square did not touch my heart as they usually did. The charm of the Charteris memorial faded, and the pewter sky lowered oppressively. I studied the women, who seemed interested in some of the same things that attracted me to South Tipperary. I told myself that they might welcome my experience of my new home, experience gained through study and dogged sightseeing during 20 years visiting the area.

I turned toward them as they huddled over their map and caught the eye of one. In her mid to late thirties, she had short curly hear and a square face with an expression of assurance.

I spoke.

‘Cashel is definitely worth a visit. The Rock is one of my favourite places in Ireland. It's magnificent.’

She stared at me, not speaking at first. Her companions, also about her age, looked at me and then back at her.

‘Ah.' She squeezed it out. 'Thanks.’ 

The three women nodded at me. Then they leaned in over their coffees, talking softly. After a few minutes, they stood and walked away toward the river without looking in my direction.

Undoubtedly, they didn’t see a resident but another tourist, middle-aged and on her own, likely to try to insert herself into their plans. A nuisance.

I think of the sixty-ish woman encountered at breakfast in a hotel in Clare one morning. Overhearing the American accents of myself and my companion, a well-travelled professor making a brief stop to see me in Ireland, the stranger had tried to join our conversation. The woman, on her own at the table next to ours, leaned toward us and commented on the breakfast. She asked what we thought of Ireland, told us about her job in America, and wondered about our flight times. Then she broached the idea of sharing a taxi to the airport.

Focussed on our own conversation and aware that our time together was short, we found this an intrusion, and, after a few short answers, ignored her completely. I felt a stab of sympathy as she absorbed this humiliation, finished her breakfast and left without a word. But I was greedy for private conversation with my friend, whose demanding schedule makes time very precious and our meetings infrequent. It was a case of letting our own needs prevail in the moment.

So I understood the women’s need to establish, as they say, a clear boundary. But, oh, the sting. Oh, the irony.

Oh, the loneliness.

Awkward

If I thought I would escape the wet summers of Ireland by moving to Salzburg, I was more mistaken than can be imagined. Himself points out that the rains don’t bring winds as they frequently do in Ireland. At least the rain falls straight down. But it’s wet. And relentless.

So wet that on some Wednesday nights, I have to take the bus to my yoga class. When I do, a very pleasant 30-minute bicycle ride to the other side of the city becomes a 30-minute bus ride, with perhaps 20 minutes in addition waiting for connecting buses. Buses in Salzburg run efficiently, but they are less frequent by the time my class is over.

Which is how, on a recent evening, I came to be standing in a crowd at the bus Halt on the Alpenstrasse near Akademiestrasse. It had been raining heavily earlier when I walked to the bus stop, so I was wearing an old black rain coat, much too long and bulky for a late spring evening. I stood, head to foot in black, wearing a flimsy orange nylon backpack lumpy with a yoga block and blanket, trying to wedge myself in under the shelter and out of the rain.

Waiting, I rang Himself, home from work by now, to ask whether he’d meet me at the bus stop near home to save me the six-minute walk from there. After saying goodbye, I put away my mobile and looked around self-consciously, aware I must have been overhead speaking in English.

I looked up to see three young women, dressed casually, in short jackets and jeans and carrying book bags, standing near me, glancing first in my direction and then at each other. I felt the rush of embarrassment I always do when reminded how much at a disadvantage I am. They most likely understood my conversation, but I am still at sea with German.

We stood in awkward silence, trying not to jostle one another in the crowded shelter. I rested slightly on my umbrella and tucked my handbag under my arm, keeping my eyes from focussing on any particular face. It’s elevator behaviour, that delicate adjustment of personal boundaries in limited space. And the social convention in Austria is to keep oneself to oneself rather than engaging in small talk with strangers.

The girls started talking quietly to one another and I realised, suddenly, they were complaining about the rain. In English.

One said something about summers in Iceland, her home. Another remarked on her home in Finland. The third girl, from Spain, missed the heat and dry weather.

Realising they must be students at the nearby university, I looked from face to face. Impulsively, looking in the direction of the girl from Iceland, I said, ‘I come from Ireland, and it rains like this all the time.’

For an instance, she held my glance. Then she dropped her eyes. One of the others looked at her, then away. No one spoke.

I hugged my handbag closer to me, straightened my shoulders and stared into the street. We all leaned out slightly to study the thin but steady stream of passing traffic. Looking south along the Alpenstrasse, we could see approaching cars and vans, but no bus.

‘Where do you come from in Spain?’ I spoke almost without thinking, in the American fashion.

‘Near Madrid.’

‘Oh. I have a nephew who married a woman from Spain.’ And I named the town, mispronouncing it miserably, as I always do.

She murmured something indistinguishable, then . . . nothing.

You American readers will find my remark perfectly reasonable, even normal.

You European readers will find it, well, very American.

Which is how it seemed to me.

My non sequitur hung there, unanswered, as I studied the red-and-black check on her tan jacket rather than looking at her face. A few more seconds passed in silence, then I turned my body just slightly away – a few degrees, barely perceptible – and slipped a little deeper into the corner.

I imagined myself through their eyes. A stranger, middle aged – not even their own generation – I had insinuated myself into their conversation. With uninvited information of no interest to anyone, I had tried to establish common ground where there is none. To what purpose?

It’s common practice in the States, and among travellers it’s a way to stave off loneliness. But in their silence, I felt ridiculous. Things are done differently here, and it is as hard to adapt to new cultural mores as it is to learn German.

Keeping my back straight, I remained apart from them to signal my comprehension. Unwelcome, I had intruded. And how odd I must have seemed to have claimed I was from Ireland with my obvious American accent.

We waited. They began again to talk among themselves until the bus arrived. Boarding, I studiously ignored them in the crush. The bus was packed so tightly that flesh pressed against flesh each time it shuddered to a stop. Pushing my way off, I looked up to see my connection waiting and, just in front of me, the red-and-black check of the Spanish girl’s jacket. Boarding through the back door, I kept my eyes ahead and moved quickly to a seat just behind the driver. She should not fear I would repeat my solecism.

Staring out the window at as the bus pulled away from the kerb a few stops on, I saw the distinctive jacket again as she went into a small block of apartments. The bus was now nearly empty. I sat back in my seat, looked out at the wet dark streets, and thought of Himself and home.