Vienna Is Watching
Quarter past midnight. Hotel Sacher. Black gloves, hat pulled low. The doorman will swear later that he never saw her. The waiter will remember only her mouth, dark as a closed door.
They say she carries no papers. They say she works for the Americans, or the Russians, or for no one at all. A Hungarian count once followed her across the Danube and never returned to tell the tale.
She takes a table by the window and waits, a cigarette smoldering untouched as the gramophone plays a waltz.
In this city, the walls have ears, and the shadows have eyes. Secrets hang in the café smoke, each looking for a buyer. Some are sold twice. She knows this better than anyone. She learned it from those who didn't survive.
Look closer. She is already watching you.
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