I woke up because someone was taking a truck apart beneath our window. At least that was what it sounded like. First a dull rumble, then a metallic crash, and finally a beeping that simply wouldn't stop. I pulled the covers over my head. It didn't help. George was snoring above me. The Carinthian managed to work the noise from outside into his sleep and add a few sounds of his own.
It was just after two. I kicked the underside of his bed. George smacked his lips, rolled over, and kept snoring. I envied him. There he was, an arm's length above me, completely oblivious to all this shit.
Perhaps I should start by explaining where we lived. Our staff apartment was on the third floor of Schönbrunn Palace, directly above the Great Gallery. Our window overlooked the Ehrenhof. A magnificent view. There was a kitchen, a shower, and a toilet we didn't have to share with half the men's shelter. The combined living room and bedroom had a couch, a table, a wardrobe, and our beds stacked one above the other. George on top. Me underneath. Even lying down, I couldn't get away from him.
How had two men like us ended up with an apartment in a palace? Not by inheritance. Our official home was the Vienna Men's Shelter on Meldemannstraße. George had experimented with burning matches there and set my bed on fire. We managed to put it out just in time. The people in charge needed somewhere else to put us, so they sent us to Schönbrunn. Other people spent decades working their way up at court. George had needed one box of matches. I still wouldn't recommend the method. You had to live with him afterward.
We belonged to The German Integration Scheme, the state-run employment and integration program for German migrants. I had come to Vienna from Germany after studying geology. George came from Carinthia, which hadn't kept him out of the program. He regularly explained that he wasn't German. The relevant authorities listened about as carefully as I listened to his snoring.
The goal was to become a good Austrian one day. For that, we needed a certificate. Until then, the German Integration Scheme division of the Vienna Employment Office sent us from one workplace to the next. At Schönbrunn, too, we were interns, not lords of the palace. We had sworn loyalty to the imperial household before the Lord High Steward and could stay as long as we made ourselves useful. The emperor being dead didn't make the work any easier. There were plenty of people to keep us busy in his name.
I got up and opened the window. Three horizontal iron bars kept an overtired Piefke from falling into the Ehrenhof. I leaned on the top one and looked down. Floodlights shone into open trucks. Men in high-visibility vests moved between them. Metal parts were being unloaded, a vehicle was backing up, and somewhere someone was hitting something. The beeping wasn't coming from George. At least I'd established that much.
I liked Schönbrunn. Especially after the visitors had gone and you could stand at the window without constantly feeling you were taking part in an event. Now the smell of diesel was drifting up toward me. Another crash from below. I shut the window, pulled on a pair of pants over my underwear, slipped into my shoes, and looked for the key.
George slept.
I took the elevator down and stepped outside through the door beneath the Ehrenhof staircase. Squinting, I walked up to the first man I saw standing beside a truck. I didn't care whether he was in charge. He was awake. That would have to do.
I explained that people lived here who wanted to sleep. That I hadn't been able to get a wink for what felt like an eternity. Did this really have to happen in the middle of the night? I pointed up at our window as though he could make out the two beds from down here. The man waited. That made me even angrier. Finally, I threatened to call the police.
The moment I said it, I was wide awake.
The police! Of all people, I was going to call the police to Schönbrunn. So they could take down my details, check my residence status, and ask whether I was a good Austrian yet. I wasn't. Neither was George. We were still two Piefkes who could be deported at any time. Me to Germany, and quite possibly George along with me. His pointing out that he came from Carinthia wouldn't save us this time, either.
I immediately took the threat back. Of course no one needed to call the police. Reasonable people could sort this out among themselves. I understood they had a job to do; none of this could be easy. As I talked, my voice grew friendlier and friendlier. I practically heard myself apologizing for having a bedroom above his truck.
The man pointed to one side. I was in the way of a vehicle.
I stepped aside and went back into the palace. We couldn't afford to complain. Apparently we couldn't afford to sleep, either. Upstairs, I took off my shoes and lay down again. George let out a long, contented sigh. I considered waking him and giving him a detailed account of my successful conversation. Then I left it. At least one of us should get something out of the night.
The alarm went off at five. George was in a foul mood immediately. He claimed he'd barely slept. I let that pass. We had to report to the Ehrenhof at six. According to the German Integration Scheme work schedule, we'd been assigned to help build the grandstands. The men I'd complained about had been delivering our materials.
At the end of September, the Ehrenhof was to host the big equestrian festival, an international show-jumping tournament. Horses and riders would compete for victory in front of the palace. Our job was to make sure the spectators had somewhere comfortable to sit while they watched. A position of responsibility. That was how it had been explained to us, anyway.
In the morning light, the Ehrenhof looked even more crowded than it had at night. Semi-trucks, stacked construction materials, and work vehicles stood between the fountains. Everywhere you looked, there were parts that still needed carrying somewhere. I recognized one of the trucks and avoided eye contact with the driver.
We were given gloves and started hauling heavy metal frames. George went first; I held the other end. After the first few meters, an edge was digging into my palm. I asked him to slow down. He told me to hold the thing higher. When we finally tried to put it down, a good Austrian pointed to another spot. We were supposed to carry it over there. A second good Austrian shook his head. Back again.
We waited for them to agree. The metal wasn't getting any lighter.
Our foreman was called Jakub. He was Slovak, had powerful forearms, and took the frame from us before George and I beat each other to death with it. Jakub showed us where to grip it and helped us carry it part of the way. He sang as he worked. I couldn't understand a word, but it sounded considerably friendlier than the instructions we'd been getting.
Above Jakub was Sebastian. A young good Austrian with freshly combed hair and a walkie-talkie he was forever holding up to his mouth. He wanted to use this horse tournament to move up the ranks at the Schönbrunn court. He didn't tell us that. He told people important enough for him to lower his voice around them.
There was no need to lower his voice with us. We had to carry things faster, stack them more neatly, and spend less time standing around. Whenever Jakub pitched in himself, Sebastian reminded him he was supposed to assign the work. That was what the Piefkes were there for, after all. Jakub still didn't let go of the frame until it was safely in place.
Sebastian inspected the grandstand while we hauled over floor panels. Then he glanced at a window in the side wing. The Lord High Steward sat there, the head of our imperial household. Even without a living emperor, this court had a strict hierarchy. Sebastian wanted to be sitting on the other side of a window like that as soon as possible. We were supposed to make sure he got noticed from there.
By ten, I'd pinched my fingers, my back hurt, and sweat was running under my waistband and into my underwear. A good Austrian stood beside us with a cup of coffee, explaining that you had to bend your knees when you lifted. He didn't demonstrate. The coffee was probably too hot.
I looked up at our window. Behind it were our beds. It was the first construction site where I knew exactly how comfortable I could be a few meters above my head. George followed my gaze. For a moment, we both stood still. Then Sebastian pointed to the next stack.
At noon, the palace kitchen gave us Fiaker goulash. Free. A deep plate with plenty of gravy, a sausage, a fried egg, and a pickle. You could pull the meat apart with your fork. After that morning, the mere prospect of sitting down to eat something hot was a highlight.
George suddenly stopped chewing.
A Fiaker, one of the horse-drawn carriages, went past us. The horses walked slowly, and one turned its head toward us. George looked at his plate, then back at the horse. I knew what he was thinking. Fiaker goulash. Why was it called that, anyway?
I examined a piece of meat on my fork. There was no telling what it had once been. George said there had been more horses standing beside the carriages earlier. I hadn't counted them. It would have been too late now, anyway. We watched the two animals go by and carried on chewing more cautiously. Perhaps we were eating one of their colleagues.
Then I held the pickle against the edge of my plate to keep it from sliding back into the gravy. You could overthink these things. The meat tasted excellent, and I was hungry.
There was cold Czech beer to go with it. I took a long drink and felt my mood improve. At last, an integration measure whose purpose I understood immediately. George wiped the foam off his stubble and moved his plate a little farther from the roadway. That way, he didn't have to look the horses in the eye anymore.
We weren't being paid for our work. We were specifically told that the food was a gesture of goodwill. I would still have preferred wages and paid for my own beer. On the other hand, I probably would have used my wages to buy this very beer. I decided not to let Sebastian confirm that thought for me.
The beer made me think of the Schönbrunner Stöckl by the Meidling Gate. Viennese and Bohemian delicacies. Just what you needed after a day like this. I'd have liked to be sitting there with George, working my way through the menu. Anyone visiting Schönbrunn ought to make time for it. I generally had time when I had no money. And when I worked, I didn't get any.
Jakub sat down with us. He came from Gajary, a small village on the Morava River in Slovakia. As he ate, he told us about home and asked how the two of us had ended up in the palace. George explained the business with the matches. His own part in it turned out to be surprisingly small. Jakub thought we should let our shower overflow next. Maybe they'd give us a bigger apartment. He laughed so loudly that Sebastian looked over. George glanced up at our window. I kicked him in the shin under the table.
We liked him. He asked our first names and actually used them. If something was too heavy, he grabbed hold instead of explaining that we just needed to try harder. And he could even make George laugh without someone having to fall over first.
His favorite singer was Karol Duchoň. Jakub sang his songs all day whenever he wasn't using his mouth to eat. He especially liked belting out “V dolinách” across the Ehrenhof. You couldn't always see him between the trucks, but you could always hear where he was working. After the lunch break, George was already humming along. He didn't know the words. That didn't stop him from joining in at the loudest parts.
With Jakub, we could have made it through the afternoon just fine. Unfortunately, Sebastian was still part of the furniture. He had us move a stack to keep an access route clear. A little later, he needed it back where it had been. Jakub argued with him. We waited beside the parts and tried not to look particularly available.
Then Jakub had to go over to the next truck. I bent to pick up a metal brace and, when I straightened up, discovered that George had vanished. I looked behind the stack, by the remains of lunch, and at the grandstand. Nothing. Typical. The moment I had something heavy in my hands, he found something else to do.
Then I heard the crane's engine.
George was sitting in the cab. Bolt upright, both hands on the controls. Beaming. I hadn't seen him that happy all day. His mouth was moving behind the glass. He was probably still singing with Jakub.
Over lunch, he'd told us that he'd wanted to be a crane operator as a kid. Lift things, move them through the air, and set them down somewhere else. From A to B. He imagined it would be a very satisfying job. No one could step on his feet while he was carrying something. Now I was paying for not having listened to him earlier.
George was the technical leader of our resistance group, The Rebel Piefkes. I was its strategic leader. We fought the German Integration Scheme, the program that sent us to work every day. That afternoon, our technical leader seemed intent on improving our working conditions without consulting the strategic leadership first.
I should have stepped in immediately. But I didn't feel like hauling so much as one more frame. If the crane did the work, maybe we'd finish early. George had set all kinds of other machines in motion before. The trouble usually came later.
A fully loaded Euro pallet hung from the crane hook. It carried heavy metal parts for the grandstand. Slowly, it rose off the ground. I put down the brace and took a few steps to one side. George looked out of the cab and nodded at me. It really was impressive how easily he could move the parts that had been ruining our backs for hours.
Then the crane swung around.
I pointed to the empty space beside the grandstand. George briefly raised a hand. The pallet kept moving. Not toward the empty space, but in the other direction. I waved harder. George leaned over the controls.
Behind me, Jakub stopped singing.
I turned my head. The Lord High Steward was standing at the window in the side wing. He held a cup and was watching the construction work. Beside me, Sebastian started screaming.
George pulled a lever.
The fully loaded Euro pallet was heading straight for the Lord High Steward's office window.
To be continued.