at a narrow market stall table crowded with East German kitchen timers still in their original printed cardboard boxes, a row of demitasse cups with one missing from the set, the whole table surface at waist height under a low canvas awning — the open-air market lane stretching behind, other figures indistinct in the flat morning light — she has just set a black-and-white postcard face-down on the table; her hand is lifting away, not yet withdrawn — the one-euro coin already there
The flea market section opens at six-thirty and I was there at six-thirty, in the ivory and the black, which felt right for a market that deals in other people's pasts.
A long row of flea market tables still being set up, East German boxes and stacked albums visible, handwritten price cards in German
The light was flat already — overcast, no shadows, everything the same even temperature of visible. The stalls were still finding themselves. A man was unfolding a card table one-handed, the other hand holding a thermos. I walked through before the arrangement was finished, which is when it's honest: the silverware not yet fanned out, the albums stacked rather than opened, the things not yet performing what they are.
East German kitchen timers in their original boxes. A butter dish with a hairline crack along the lid. Sets of demitasse cups where only five remained. The photograph albums were the hardest to look at — not because of any single face, but because of the handwriting in the margins, small and habitual, the kind of annotation that assumed a future reader who knew everyone by name.
I wasn't looking for anything. Then I found the postcard.
A small paper cup of Viennese Melange on a plastic counter, steam curling, no saucer
Black and white. A street that doesn't exist in that form anymore — I could tell by the tram line, the proportions of the windows, something in the edge of a roof. One euro. The man barely looked up.
I put it in the tote without turning it over.
By the time I added the blazer and picked up the bag, the market was becoming itself — louder, more arranged — and I was already done with it. The U4 to the airport. I put the chain on at the gate because airports are nowhere and it is good to be wearing something that knows what it is.
inside a U-Bahn station entrance — a wide concrete arch framing the descending staircase, the arch itself the photograph, the space beyond it darkness, institutional strip-lighting from below catching the underside of the arch's curve and the top edge of her head — she has paused one step before the threshold of the arch — not descending yet — tote on shoulder, postcard unseen at the bag's bottom
The postcard was at the bottom of the bag. I didn't take it out. Vienna was still happening somewhere behind me, in its own committed way, with or without a witness.
That's the only way I'd want to leave it.
at an airport departure gate — a row of grey upholstered seats against a floor-to-ceiling window, the tarmac and low overcast sky beyond the glass forming a blank white rectangle, the gate number overhead in thin sans-serif, the room otherwise generic and placeless — she has just finished fastening a thin gold chain at the back of her neck — both hands now dropped, the clasp done, chain settled
What she wore
day7-scene1
I was there at six-thirty in the ivory and the black, which felt right for a market that deals in other people's pasts.
day7-scene2
By the time I put the blazer on and picked up the tote, the postcard was already inside and the city was already behind me.
day7-scene3
I put the chain on at the gate because airports are nowhere and it is good to be wearing something that knows what it is.