Als sie in die Lieblgasse einbog, ballte sie unwillkürlich die Faust ihrer rechten Hand um den Trageriemen ihrer weißen Ledertasche. Die Straße war um diese Zeit, 15 Minuten nach zehn Uhr abends, nicht sehr belebt. Vor einem halben Jahr hatten sie hier einige Skinheads angepöbelt. Der Vorfall war glimpflich ausgegangen, aber seither hatte sie ein ungutes Gefühl, wenn sie nachts diese Straße entlanglief. Sie wechselte die Straßenseite und lächelte unwillkürlich, als sie ihre eigenen Schritte hörte. Die neuen weißen Schuhe waren noch nicht eingelaufen. Die hohen Absätze klapperten hörbar auf dem harten Untergrund. An der nächsten Straßenecke bog sie links in die Puchgasse ein. Seit hier im September eine neue Polizeiinspektion eröffnet worden war, fühlte sie sich auf diesem Weg sicherer. Ihr neuer Heimweg führte über die Puchgasse, rechts in die Maculangasse und quer über die Tillmanngasse. So erreichte sie die Rückseite ihres Wohnblocks. Die Puchgasse, die durch ein Gewerbegebiet ohne Wohnhäuser verlief, war menschenleer, als sie an der hell erleuchteten Polizeiinspektion vorbeiging.

We went then to the roundabouts. He chose to ride not on a dappled horse - I had noticed already his dislike of horses -but on a swan. He enjoyed it, but he didn't want to go round again. It was an experience complete in itself.
Then came the Wurschtlmann. He's so famous the Prater is named for him and you can see why. A hideous rubber man with a red nose who, for a few kreutzer one can thump and pound and wallop to one's heart's content, knowing that he will right himself undamaged and come up for more. Give him a name - that of your mean-minded boss, your bullying commanding officer - and you can punch him insensible and walk away, purged.
'Would you like to have a go, Sigismund?'
Even before he shook his head I saw him instinctively shield his hands, hiding them behind his back - and that was the first time I remembered the concert.
In the end, though, the Prater is about the ferris wheel whose fame has spread throughout the Empire. It towers over everything else, its carriages take you a hundred metres into the sky. To be up there and look down on the city is to ride with the gods.
So I asked him: 'What about the giant wheel? Would you like to go on it ?'
His hand tightened in mine. A tremor passed over his face. She had not been frightened even at six years old, but the boy was scared.
'The view is very beautiful from the top. You can see all Vienna.'
He stood still in the middle of the path. He tilted his head and gave a small sniff.
'I want very much to be brave,' he said in his low, cracked voice. 'I very much want it.'
And suddenly it all dissolved - my long antagonism, my restraint, the resentment that I felt at being asked for what belonged only to my daughter. I saw him sitting beside his dead mother in the Polish forest, waiting for her to wake … Saw him wobbling on the Encyclopedia of Art, playing and playing because he could no longer talk. I remembered the silent patience with which he'd endured his uncle's bullying, saw the graze on his forehead of which he'd said no word.
And I knelt beside him and took him in my arms.
'You are brave, Sigi. You're very brave, my darling,' I said - and kissed him.
So now I can tell you this. They are entirely exact descriptions of what happens, those ones in the fairy tales which tell you what occurs when you kiss an ugly frog, a hairy beast, with proper love.Sigi didn't kiss me back or cling to me. He just straightened his shoulders and then in a calm, almost matter-of-fact voice, he said: 'Now we will go up,' - and then led me to the brightly painted carriages swaying high above our heads.