Vienna Read online

  Vienna nodded. “Where are you from, Mr. Grant?”

  Justine rolled her eyes, glad they were hidden behind her sunglasses’ oil-slick lenses.

  Grant smiled, he was too aware of being in public not to. “America—a small town in Nebraska.”

  In a frozen heartbeat, so quickly gone Justine wasn’t sure she’d even seen it, Vienna’s lips twisted into a leer of purest loathing.

  “What town?” Her voice as empty as ice on a lake.

  Grant looked at Justine, who could only summon a shrug. “Kearney.”

  “The elm trees there are lovely.”

  Grant smiled. “Especially in autumn.” He glanced at his Breitling, reflections from the bezel skipping across the plaza. “We’re running late.” He nodded toward Vienna. “Good to meet you.”

  Grant guided Justine to the car. James Hargrave sat shotgun, wearing his annoyance in a gunfighter scowl. Doors shut. Justine looked back at the girl, standing alone by the church. Motionless as a statue. Or as motionless as any statue except that idiotic manikin in Prague.

  Just get me out of here.

  The limo turned down a canyon etched in the gothic landscape, and Vienna was gone.

  I have to call Bernoulli this afternoon. Paris in the off-season sounds perfect.

  2

  And she was alone in the courtyard of Eglise St.-Jean-du-Béguinage, her shadow fractured across worn cobbles. Why had Heather’s boyfriend lied about who he was? But then, Heather had lied, too. Vienna knew this because she’d stood outside the bathroom door after she’d heard the shower go off. Her ear to the hollow wood, the paring knife she’d used for the strawberries forgotten in her hand. Surgery syrup inching down the blade. The angry person on the phone had called Heather “Justine.”

  Would it have been so hard to tell the truth about her name? So hard to pretend it mattered? So hard to stay a little longer?

  Vienna walked to one of the friezes that flanked the doors of the church, if only for the sake of appearing to be doing something. Other than crying.

  Christ waited there, beseeching weathered apostles. The Agony in the Garden. There were words that went with the scene, written in italic red letters: Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. Vienna had read the passage as a child, growing up near Bath. Scampering down the tomblike ruins of a Roman hypocaust when the world got too big and twisted inside her head.

  Ironic to see the words here, outside a chapel dedicated to the widows of crusaders. But then, their flesh had been weak, too. Ripped apart by swords and trampled under horses, leaving behind only grieving lovers. Vienna’s own apartment housed such a widow, centuries ago.

  The architectural elements of the Béguinage in Brussels are unique from the standpoint of … Vienna closed her eyes, consciously letting the words go. It’s because my mind doesn’t work right. There was nothing new in the thought. Then why cry now? She wiped the tears away.

  Footsteps; a shadow next to hers.

  “I meant no harm,” a man said. Vienna shied from the voice, turned, and saw a short, sandy-haired man. Jeans and a plaid shirt. Vienna’s mind slipped into the patterned fabric. Endless tunnels of squares, hypercubes that shifted perspective every time the man moved. Ratios of sides and surface areas blossomed in Vienna’s mind. It would take 172 of the large red squares to tile the uneven shape of the fabric, but some would be wasted. A better pattern would be …

  She looked away, into fresh tears.

  “They’re replacing them all,” the man said. “I don’t know why. There’s a good amount of gold inside, but not enough to pay my commission.” He handed her a scrap of paper. She glanced at a nearly illegible scrawl:

  Au 5 gm / Ag 3 gm

  Au 3 gm / Cu 18 gm

  Au 7 gm / Fe 21 gm

  Au 11 gm / Pb 14 gm

  “I don’t understand,” Vienna said. She felt a shiver of alarm beyond the whirling geometry of his shirt.

  “Show this to her.” His voice had a Scottish burr. “I was lucky to get measurements from the piece in Rome. They’re paranoid of everyone.”

  “What do you mean?” she whispered. Am I in danger?

  “I saw you with Justine Am last night. Your apartment was being watched—a Yank in dark glasses. I couldn’t approach while the limo was here, they would have recognized me. You have to tell her.”

  “Tell her what?” Vienna kept her eyes away from the nightmare squares.

  “What happened in Prague was my fault. Rush job when the first one broke—lorry smash-up on the E50. She has to forget it.” His voice grew quiet and quick. “Andries is dangerous. They say he murdered an art dealer a year ago in Munich. I’ve seen it in his eyes. She has to let it go.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You have to tell her!”

  The rough cough of a lorry echoed from the walls. Vienna heard the man step away and then race across the plaza. She stood for over a minute, carefully focusing on the frieze. What just happened?

  It’s none of my business. Vienna crumpled the paper and threw it in a rubbish bin at the side of the church.

  She left the plaza by the same street Heather’s black limousine had taken—past a sign showing a car with a red slash through it. Stupid Americans. A few turns and she entered the Galleries Saint Hubert. She loved the spider web of iron and glass that covered the long plaza, hung from the heavens with spectral grace. It was so familiar by now that it rarely made her dizzy. And if it did, there were always window displays to distract her. Chocolate and shoes and watches and photographs of beautiful people in beautiful places.

  The stores had yet to open for the day, and the corridor smelled faintly of bleach. Brussels had thrown its customary Saturday night party, and the Sunday morning custodians had already engaged the citywide hangover of garbage in the gutters and piss in the alleys.

  Vienna wondered why she’d tried to join the festivities. Cecile had asked to meet her at Holler, though Vienna never expected her to actually show up, and of course she hadn’t. But Vienna had been too hot and too afraid of another night lost in the sad memories of widows. She’d stepped out a few times before with no harm coming from it. Only this time she was propositioned by a woman with blue hair, cut in straight bangs down to liquid emerald eyes. Vienna had thought her beautiful, but maybe her exotic appearance kept her from dating.

  And she lied about her name.

  As for the night, Vienna didn’t like thinking about it. Cecile had suggested sleeping with a woman might be a good tonic for Vienna’s shyness. Vienna wouldn’t have considered it back in London. Her foster father would have been horrified. But here, sinking ever lower in the city’s social strata, she didn’t see any harm to it.

  Still, it had been too overwhelming and too foreign to be anything other than shameful. Vienna hadn’t known what was expected—had never been with anyone—though she knew in one respect her coworker had been right. With a woman, she at least knew the topography well enough to guess a route. The wrong one, apparently.

  I should forget it happened. Now that was funny.

  It was Christmas in Bath all over again. Gifts under the tree and everyone talking too loudly and eating too many sweets and lights blinking in discordant cycles and it was never anything she wanted anyway. It always passed in a blur, as if Vienna were missing some internal switch to reach out and experience it as others did. Which was true enough.

  Anyway, maybe it was best to add sex to the list of useless things, because then it would be one less thing to worry about. She’d done it and now there was no reason for anyone to tease her about it. So she never had to do it again.

  She cut across Rue des Bouchers, lined with cafés and salons. Briefly into the wavering sun before entering the Galerie de la Reine. There were words to go with this as well, set in the blurry ink of a manually typed dissertation. Her eyes traced across a phantom page:

  The Galeries Royal Saint-Hubert comprise the Galerie du Roy, the Galerie de
la Reine, and the Galerie des Princes. They were conceived in 1836 by Jean-Pierre Cluysenaer … It went on for pages. There was the barber who slit his throat over the structure’s tangled property rights. And here was the aesthetic reason for the bend in the middle of the structure. Vienna didn’t have the energy to go back to the beginning and see who wrote it. If she kept walking, the words would slip away.

  Coffee steam and the yeast smell of fresh pastries rose through the air. The bells atop the massive Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudule called the faithful to Sunday mass. Maybe she would go after work.

  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

  Across Rue du Marché aux Herbes. Vienna relished the sound of the French names, the way they tasted like spring. But after four months in Brussels, she knew little French, or Flemish for that matter. She recognized the sounds and some meaning, but with no education in it she lacked any idea of syntax or grammar. Which had come as an unpleasant shock.

  Into the Grote Markt—the Grand Place. Built in the twilight of the Northern Renaissance, the town square was surrounded by layers of baroque architecture. Vienna felt like a playhouse princess lost on a stage of narrow steeples and filigreed stonework. There was even an evil king, compliments of an encyclopedia entry she’d read back in London:

  In 1695, King Louis XIV ordered Brussels to be bombarded with red-hot cannon balls. The resulting firestorm engulfed the entire Grand Place, with the exception of the Hotel de Ville …

  The same Hotel de Ville in front of her as she crossed the plaza. Archangel Michael on the highest steeple, trampling a demon. Vienna imagined Grant Eriksson under Michael’s pitchfork and immediately crossed herself. Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?

  She continued across the square, letting her thoughts dance through words, even though her doctors told her never to do that. The Hotel de Ville was designed by a Flemish … The word Flemish means “that which is flooded” … The deadliest flood in history was the 1931 flooding of the Yanktze, Huang He, and Huai Rivers, in which four million people were … There was a picture there. Long rows of dead children, stiff limbs twisted in mud.

  She stepped up to a lemon-yellow door on Rue du Marché au Charbon. A rustic sign, implying history where there was none, marked the Gelataria du Cygne. The store’s window sported a deco golden goose in the upper left corner, leaving room to display a rack of stainless steel gelato bins. The sunshine was warm on Vienna’s shoulders; it would be a busy day. She produced the right key from a small chain and unlocked the door.

  By noon, she’d served 124 customers 186 scoops of gelato. She said the right phrases in French to collect euros, switching to English for British and American tourists. Vienna knew by late afternoon the day’s heat would drive citrus flavors to the top of the chart she kept on scrap paper. She thought a lot of inventory might be saved with the information she was collecting, but the manager was a busy man and there never seemed a chance to get a word in.

  At 2:17, two men appeared at the shoe store across the street. They removed the old poster for Versace and put up a new one for Step Out. It featured a girl who was nude except for a pair of white stiletto heels, straps set with diamonds. She was seated on white-blue fur, her body turned away from the camera, but her eyes gazing back over her shoulder. Her long, smooth legs were curled under her, showing the shoes to good effect. She was positioned in such a way—her closer arm behind her bottom—to avoid being outright pornographic. But the raw sensuality of her face was intoxicating. She had blue hair and emerald eyes and a small tattoo of a lizard on her left hip. The poster said the woman’s name was Justine Am.

  Pedestrians gawked at the image. Vulgar laughter over imagined bedroom scenes.

  For the next four hours, Vienna served melting scoops of gelato under the poster’s sensuous gaze. Her stomach twisted around a knot of anger. Easy enough to find words for Justine: Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually.

  No doubt the strange man wearing the shirt-of-squares had been a gently used article left by the wayside. He’d said something about “killer” and Vienna was certain the word was used in America to describe people of sexual prowess. “She’s a man killer,” and the like. Not that sleeping with Justine had been all that great. Or even great at all.

  Everything had gone pear-shaped, and the more Vienna thought about it, the more it was her foster father’s fault. Arthur Emerson Grayfield, Earl of Idiots and Knight Commander of Nothing Anyone Had Ever Heard Of. Titles or not, he was just a miserable old git in a miserable old flat. “It’s time for you to make your own way, Vienna.” As if he knew what was best for her, even though he wasn’t really her father. “I have prepared a modest room for you in Brussels. I know you can do this.” Because he didn’t have the courage to say: “I never wanted you in the first place.” And …

  Stop being petulant.

  But if she was petulant, then it just proved she was right about not being ready to be alone and Grayfield was wrong. A real knight would admit his mistake, and he would come and rescue her. And …

  To complete the day Cecile showed up just before closing, suspended between aluminum crutches. Long, brown-gold hair that always looked better than Vienna’s. “Sorry I didn’t make it last night,” she said. “I twisted my ankle.”

  “Okay.”

  “I heard what happened, Vienna. I’m so sorry. They had no right.”

  “Okay.”

  “They were paid to set you up by some wealthy perv, an American.”

  “Okay.” It wasn’t, really, but she only had herself to blame.

  Cecile looked as if she wanted to add something more, but she only nodded and limped from the store.

  Vienna closed the shop at seven, cleaned up, and locked the door.

  Night came on and she was running back to Holler. She was going to tell Justine or Heather—or whatever her real name was—that even if she wasn’t on any posters at least she wasn’t a whore. But the club was closed because it was Sunday and Justine was probably far away. Probably in another person’s bed. And that was okay, because Vienna wouldn’t have yelled at anyone. Wouldn’t have even opened the door.

  She was home by nine, crying into the sheets. Her doctors said that was bad, too.

  Stop it!

  Vienna peeled herself from the bed and went to the sole dresser she owned. In the bottom drawer, buried under shirts and folded jeans she never wore, she felt the smooth edges of her Apple Air. She pulled it out and plugged it in, connecting a thin cable to the room’s phone jack. Dressed in its aluminum shell, the computer looked sleekly sinister. But it was safe to use it tonight. She didn’t work on Mondays until noon.

  The log-in screen was forest green, without a single icon marring its surface. Grayfield had set it up that way. His kind voice filling his London flat, his silver hair smelling faintly of cinnamon. Vivaldi playing on a real phonograph because Grayfield said it sounded better that way. Vienna looked at the composer’s name and saw that he’d written his most famous works in a home for abandoned children. And it was just perfect, the way everything fit together.

  With a theatrical sigh, Vienna pressed a key to call up hidden icons. She ordered the computer’s ghost fingers into the net. The screen filled with ads and banners. Don’t look!

  A pointless reflex arriving far too late. Fix your credit now! The secret to whiter teeth! And she knew every word. Earn 2,000€ a week! Your stomach can be this flat!

  Vienna closed her eyes to a squint and made certain the cursor was in the Google window. She typed out “Justine Am.”

  3

  The Brussels Clay to Flesh shoot was set at the Atomium, a mansion-sized model of molecular iron left over from the ’58 World Expo. Justine thought it looked like a chrome Tinkertoy on HGH, but she wasn’t paid to think. She was paid to be in platinum hair, slate lipstick, silver nails, and the scratchy plastics of Dexter Collins’s latest collection of highly textured, wildly popular, deepl
y symbolic crap. She fidgeted with the Velcro that anchored the towering shoulder pads.

  The girl doing wardrobe looked increasingly suicidal—her big break shot to hell by the ludicrous getup. “Could be worse,” Justine said. “You could be wearing it.” The humor fell flat. If the session bombed, Justine was too valuable to take the fall. Scapegoats would materialize down the food chain.

  A rising crowd flowed around the yellow tape cordoning off Heysel Plateau. Those in front waved glossies from Justine’s recent projects. Careful not to upend the polymer subdivision on her shoulders, Justine scrawled her initials a few times while the lights and umbrella reflectors were being set up. As per recent instructions from James, she stayed near the cops who had been called in.

  Justine could see Lower Town in the pastel distance. She heard cascading bells calling the faithful to Sunday morning mass. Was Nowhere Girl there now? Hypnotized by the threaded smoke of votive candles and praying that God might notice her at last? Long odds on that.

  Justine turned back into the Atomium’s latticework shadow. Mathews and his two assistants had the Brussels manikin decked out in a replica Coco Chanel little black dress. Bias-cut with full sleeves and a flawlessly proportioned V-neck. They’d sliced the seams and pinned it together over lifeless wood.

  Mathews caught Justine’s thought. “Our tupelo lady fetched the better designer,” he said.

  “Understatement of the decade.”

  Justine remembered from the Clay to Flesh media guide that this manikin’s namesake was Duchess Joan of Someplace. A fourteenth-century warrior queen who tried to unify embryonic Belgium. Having failed to die horribly, she’d been largely forgotten.

  Since Joan’s creation a hundred and fifty years ago, some philistine had stained her blue. The caustic dye had distended the grain, giving her a corrugated appearance. She didn’t even feel like wood anymore. The manikin stood upright, palms on hips. Below a flowing brunette wig, her expression was wistful, lips frozen in a sad smile. Her gaze downcast, as if surveying life’s bitter defeats. Justine guessed that the sculptor—she couldn’t remember his name—had been a hard-luck case.