The Vienna Waltz

The Musikverein's Golden Hall on an opening night is a thing of impossible beauty — and I have spent my life learning that impossible things rarely survive close inspection.

I tell myself this as I stand in the glass foyer, champagne flute sweating against my palm, watching the light fracture through the arched windows into a thousand pieces. The chandeliers catch it and scatter it across bare shoulders and black lapels, across silk gowns and the quiet, predatory gleam of old money.

It is the 75th anniversary of the Wiener Festwochen. Vienna has dressed for the occasion.

And so have I.

The gown is black, backless, severe in its simplicity. I chose it because it made me feel like armour. Standing here now, I realise armour only works when you know where the attack will come from.

I do not see him arrive. I feel him.

A shift in the air pressure. A stillness that spreads like ripples. A low greeting from the people nearest the entrance — Herr Lehmann, guten Abend — and the way the circle of conversation opens just slightly to receive him.

I turn.

And there he is.

Sebastian Lehmann is taller than I remembered. Or perhaps I had tried to forget. Dark hair swept back, a dinner jacket that fits him like it was made for him, a face that belongs on a Klimt canvas — sharp cheekbones, a mouth made for secrets. He moves through the crowd with the unconscious grace of a man who has always belonged in rooms like this.

His wife is not with him.

I notice before I can stop myself. The absence registers the way you feel a missing note in a familiar chord — the space where something should be.

He sees me. His step falters. Just for a breath, just long enough for me to know I was not prepared.

And then he is walking toward me, and the foyer of the Musikverein becomes a very small room indeed.