HellerTraveler

There is the man at the bar.

He is all quiet stillness in that easy hubbub of happy diners. He is bald, he is tall, he is slim, he is steady.

It is evening now, and the children have been put to bed. The Austrian sun sinks and is engulfed by the alpine horizon. Its light still reaches out, clinging to the clouds. It has been raining and the air is a damp towel of august humidity, sticking to your skin and the hairs in your nostrils.

The frantic merry making of the day has been replaced by the gentle murmur of Tuesday night business. The street lights are lit, the pace slows, the city unwinds its springs and its cogs and its coils.

We have found ourselves in The Waterfall; a tourist targeting restaurant, so named for the gimmicky trickle of water that runs down the entrance stairway. The food is reasonably priced for a tourist targeting restaurant. The food is edible enough for a tourist targeting restaurant.

The man listens to our chatter about the exploits of our day, and initiates a conversation.

'So you guys are English?'

How brutal! With a swift strike of the verbal sword the social protocol has cracked and shattered. I am fourteen, I have not yet grasped that sometimes it’s OK to talk to strangers. I am all adolescent angst, I can barely make eye contact.

My friend talks with ease, I am ousted by my awkwardness. She tells him how we had spent the day doing what holidaymakers do best; herding along in a rippling mass of tourists, a blur of flaking sunburn and bad tan lines. Dressed for the occasion, this particular variety of tourists had been clad in the Sound of Music memorabilia, eating chocolates adorned with Mozart’s face. Amused, we had watched them all, armed with their cameras and their back packs and their guidebooks, a writhing child in each hand. We had followed them along the gloried paths of sights to see, the churches, the castles, the public squares. We have been moseying through my baroque paradise.

He is a Buddhist coming back from three months meditating in an Asian somewhere to teach yoga in London. He is so far from my world, this man sitting next to me. But our lines have crossed, one of those rare happenings governed by our capricious doyen; chance.

I am in awe. I sit there silently, alone with my awe.

‘One day, I’ll have to learn to talk to strangers’, I tell myself.

'So what are your names?'

Mustering up all my bravery and pushing it through my vocal chords, I say 'I'm Caroline'.

And so it is, I begin to learn.