It didn’t take long for the new socialist city government to get to work. Overnight Vienna became a workers’ paradise. Everyone saw the change as the government tackled enormous problems…an empty treasury, massive unemployment, not enough coal, hunger, severe health problems, and not the least the need for housing. Mixed up with this disaster was an explosive political climate. Though the socialists were in control, the Christian Democrats were never complacent. Frederick realized then that though the government was doing all it could, there were still many people who were unhappy. This led to more unrest and political polarization. An increasingly difficult economic situation added more fuel to an already heated climate, and as you might have expected from someone as loud and coarse and rasping as he was, Frederick frequently called attention to himself by expressing his views in public. It was the kind of attention Pauline didn’t appreciate. She thought it might lead to him getting hurt.
She hated it when he shouted from tabletops. Yet she admired him for it. She felt, not for the first time, that he’d make a great political leader. But though he told her that he wasn’t interest in running for office, it didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified whenever he spoke out.
She was more preoccupied with him than she was willing to admit. His confidence and forwardness inspired her (though she wouldn’t have wanted him to know it), and her fear for him…that made her stronger, for how else could she have stood it.
She said, “You’ll be the death of me someday.”
Really? She felt that he had no right to drag her into political debates like he did. Weren’t they all working as hard as they possibly could? She certainly was. And what more could they have done? To think that they could’ve done more was ridiculous.
She asked, “What are you trying to do? Set the house on fire?”
“They’re idiots.” She knew he was talking about the Christian Democrats.
He used the word “idiots,” and it sounded very menacing coming out of his mouth. The Christian Democrats were gaining momentum then…that was clear…but Pauline couldn’t understand why people couldn’t disagree without it turning into a brawl. And all at once, Pauline knew that she loved this firebrand and this would explain why she continued to go out with him in spite of her fear.
She said, “He says he’ll behave. Then he doesn’t.”
That should’ve told her that she couldn’t trust him. They, however, in many ways shared the same values. They both believed in the Socialist agenda, and Pauline…at least she thought that through her work at the Margareten shelter that she was helping lay the foundation for a future utopia.
She said, “I need to be with him to keep him in check. He knows how he sometimes frightens me. What am I going to do with him?”
She was really frightened. She never knew what he would do. She told him, “If you want me to go out with you, you better not start something.”
He joked, “You can crawl under the table, if you wish.”
She said, “That’s not funny.”
“Do what you think you have to do.”
After he said that she knew that he’d won. She would give him that much.
For months now she had been following a strict routine, tirelessly following it, impersonating sweet Charity and ignoring her own needs, and without any romantic notions about what she was doing, and then Frederick came along and upset the apple cart (about which she intended to say nothing), and generally felt upbeat about it. Now everything changed for her. It was as though, the end of the world…the war and the collapse of the Empire…all of it…had been part of a master plan, which when she thought about it made her feel good. And she gave much of the credit to Fredrick. And indeed she began to feel again. And life for her was no longer dull and boring, and she regained some of the excitement she had experience during the war as a whore.
Randy Ford
