The Beautiful Austrian
She was this grandmother in the subway – the traditional Oma who was gentle, with silvery hair and rosy cheeks. We were sitting across each other on the seat reserved for the elderly, the disabled, and co. She would not take her eyes off me, making me conscious of how I may have looked like to her: Dark skin, large sunglasses, cane. A black armband with three big yellow dots was all that was missing in my ensemble. Thanks to my gout, I might have been a sight that one summer day.
The subway stopped when I was about to ask her if something was the matter. I stood up – it was my station. Oma (grandma) did the same and took my hand to assist me in the door.
“This is also my station,” she said, “so let me help you get off.”
OMG! She thought I was blind!
“Careful now, there’s the gap,” she said while still holding my hand. I couldn’t believe this was happening! I was stunned I couldn’t say a word, so I just let it happen – her perception of what I was – a poor blind foreigner on his own.
She asked me if I knew where I was going. We were now on the escalator. I was going to our garden house, and I needed to take a streetcar to get there, I said. She led me to the tram stop, which was just across the street where we got off and apologized that she was going the other direction she could not be with me. She asked if I could manage by myself.
“Sure, don’t worry,” I said. “And thank you for your help; it was certainly kind of you. I appreciate it very much”. I was just not sure if I said it the way a real McCoy would – with the matching body language, you know. I doubt it. But Oma didn’t say anything. She pressed my hand, and her parting words were goodbye and take care. Such a sweet Oma! Now that was the personification of a beautiful Austrian. And certainly one of the many that you and I do not know but come around at times and places where you least expect them – in the subway, for example. She was one Austrian whose kindness and compassion towards the others –to strangers and less unfortunate most especially – easily offset whatever unpleasant experiences we may have encountered while trying to integrate and co-exist with them in their own country.
Oh, the streetcar stopped and went, and I didn’t take it! I remembered I had to go to the subway bakery to get some bread. Oh, never mind, I said to myself when I entered the store. I left as fast as I could, forgetting for a moment that I was supposed to be lame and blind. Oma – the Beautiful Austrian – was in the queue, and I didn’t want her to see me. She would be disappointed. And she could make me go limp and blind forever!
December 22, 2013