The Empress and the Cake

'The Empress and the Cake' by Linda Stift (translated by Jamie Bulloch, who has a much more extensive wiki entry) was an impulse purchased based on the title and the pretty cover. And it was wonderfully sinister ... no, that's the wrong word. Creepy? Disturbing? I'm not sure how to describe it. A young woman is offered cake by a peculiar elderly lady outside a patisserie, which sets off a chain of increasingly weird events and situations from which she finds she is unable to extricate herself. It's the kind of book where you don't want to give too much away. It's a very character driven book; the 'Empress' Frau Hohenembs, her servant Ida and the young (unnamed?) woman. The young woman, by the arrival of cake in her life, is tipped back into a lifestyle she thought tentatively that she had escaped (this is very disturbing and the first of many such description):

"I picked out a knife from the drawer and let it slide slowly through the Gugelhupf. I ate the slice standing up. The soft, slightly crumbly mass spread to all corners of my mouth. I could taste cocoa powder and lemon zest, with a hint of vanilla. I cut the next slice slightly thicker. On the third I spread apricot jam, which had stood unopened in the fridge for two years, and the forth I dipped into a jumbo mug of cold chocolate, which I had made myself. I cut the final piece into two and held a slice in each hand, both thickly buttered, then took alternate bites from them while squatting down to inspect the fridge. I took out everything that was more or less edible and ate it, rapidly and silently. I was abandoned by the day. A faint trance descended onto me like a silk cloth. I went into the bathroom and regurgitated the whole lot. The grotesque face of my abnormality, which had lain dormant within me, resurfaced. It was the first time in fifteen years. I had always known that there was no safety net. But I hadn't suspected that it would arrive so unspectacularly, that it would not be preceded by a disaster such as heartbreak or dismissal or a death. It was as if I'd absent-mindedly taken the wrong path when out for a walk." (p.23)

The three of them begin a series of 'outings' that become robberies, which simply makes her vulnerable to more extortion by the old lady. It descends into a sense of unreality pretty quickly, and the woman is so consumed by self-hatred and disgust that she does not even contact her only friend and is sucked into this new existence.

"Please call 55 60 600 as soon as possible. yours, Frau Hohenembs. I anticipated that this brazenly requested conversation would be about the duck press. Of course, I should have guessed that it was Ida creeping round my door, irresponsibly putting me in danger. I had no intention of calling. But I suspect Frau Hohenembs would not give up; she'd probably make Ida camp outside my flat until we'd spoken. Carefully adjusting one of the venetian blinds, I peered through the horizontal slats at the park over the road, but couldn't see anything suspicious. Only that the blinds urgently needed cleaning. A young woman was sitting on the bench with several supermarket shopping bags. She was looking vacantly up at my windows. Either she seemed to be pondering something or she was just staring into thin air, as people put it so nicely. I had the unpleasant impression that she looked similar to me, even though she was too far away for me to be able to see her features properly. There was something in the way she sat that unsettled me; it could have been me sitting there like that." (p.58)

It pushes on to a thoroughly satisfying denouement. A wonderful random find.

Stay safe. Be kind. Trust your gut.