In this wry story by acclaimed Albanian writer Stefan Çapaliku, translated by Vlora Konushevci, a journalist arrives in Vienna on an assignment to document the funeral of Otto von Habsburg, the last heir of the storied Habsburg dynasty. But his plans are soon derailed: besieged by a persistent stomach problem, he’s forced to prioritize his bowel movements over frontline reporting. From the confines of a café bathroom, for which he already holds a peculiar affinity, he is reduced to hearing, rather than seeing, the majestic procession pass by. This undignified place winds up being the perfect setting for the narrator to meditate on what makes a life meaningful, and how to measure the worth of our accomplishments when we’re all the same flesh in the end.
1.
Morning. I open my eyes, as I’ve done countless times through the night. From the curtainless window, the view hasn’t changed: a city slowly morphing into a monster, its limbs aggressive, forged from red bricks veined with concrete and rods of iron stretching skyward. Then, almost suddenly, the sun appears, and with it, a sliver of hope seeps into my waking. The view begins to clear, shedding that initial layer of violence.
I step out onto the back balcony of my apartment to gauge the temperature of the day, confirming for what must be the hundredth time that the city is turning into one giant dormitory. It now resembles a sleeping quarter—sprawling and expanding like the hopeless belly of a morbidly obese man. The buildings, once erected in communist times, are now, in our age of liberty, multiplying in the ugliest of ways. Lumps, foolish extensions, architectural carbuncles sprouting from them…
I leave the house, find somewhere to sit, and open my office door. My office is my laptop. The door is its lid. It doesn’t matter where I am, at home, in a café, in the park, or anywhere else. I carry my office with me. I loathe all things conventional. My conventional office is in the city center, very close to home, but I hardly ever go there, even though it’s just 550 steps away.
And sure, 550 steps are nothing, but I’m lucky no one requires me to keep fixed hours. No one demands explanations. My work happens wherever I am. Every place is a suitable workplace for my profession, except the office.
I’m a journalist. I work for the smallest, most irrelevant, least trustworthy, and poorest news agency in Europe, called ATSH or, in full: the Albanian Telegraphic Agency. ATSH has long lost its purpose. Once, under communism, it shared the same mission as every other media outlet, to tell truths, half-truths, and lies. Back then, the only truth it ever reported was the day and the date; the weather report was half-true, and the rest were just lies.
Still, despite having outlived its time, the poor post-communist Albanian state keeps it going. Why it does, none of us working there really know. Nobody. Not even the director, who hails from the tightly packed ranks of the ruling political party.
But now and then, ATSH does something decent—like this most recent assignment—sending me on a reporting trip to Vienna. Yes. The agency has decided to send me to cover the funeral of the last scion of the House of Habsburg, Otto von Habsburg.
So I need to pack my small suitcase, the one that holds no more than ten kilos of belongings, since that’s what the ticket allows and, of course, my laptop bag and a book or two to read on the trip or in the hotel.
I have just enough money to afford a modest, crumbling guesthouse somewhere along the Danube, far from the city center and the site of the event I’m supposed to cover. Breakfast is, predictably, not included. I have two options: grab a bite from a street kiosk, or skip breakfast altogether. I suspect the latter will win as I’ve put on a bit of weight lately.
The flight to Vienna departs very early. Onboard, you’re offered only a brief bit of Strauss as the plane descends—sometimes even during takeoff—and a cup of water, provided the stewardess doesn’t find you asleep when she passes by. I don’t usually sleep on planes as I snore, so I manage to snag the water. My wife, as always, has prepared two sandwiches for me. Seated beside me is an elderly Albanian couple headed to New York, where their sons have lived for years. It’s their first time on a plane, and they’re beaming with joy as never in their lives did they imagine their boys would leave their mountain village and become successful in New York.
An old childhood friend meets me at the Vienna airport. He emigrated early and now works as a house painter. He’s skipped work just to pick me up in his car, which is cluttered with paint buckets, rollers, splatters, and plastering tools. Though he hasn’t exactly flourished in his trade, he’s made decent money and lives in a house of his own in the outskirts of Vienna.
Even though he asked me to stay with him, I refused thinking it better to explore the city alone. On the plane, I ate only one of the sandwiches. I thought I’d save the other for breakfast the next day.
2.
This morning, before leaving my modest little guesthouse, I ate the second sandwich, the one I’d forgotten to put in the fridge. It had an odd taste, but I ate it anyway and stepped out.
It was still early as I walked the streets of Vienna, my mind circling back to all the dreams I nurtured after the Berlin Wall came down… I, too, had wanted to leave Albania. I, too, had wanted to make a name for myself in my profession. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be famous. But none of that ever happened. Still, I was healthy, and that, at least, offered a small comfort.
Not long after, I felt the need to find a toilet. I wasn’t sure how these things worked here. I had the impression that, in Vienna, you could enter a café and use the restroom without needing to order anything. Still… I figured I’d give it a try. Turns out, no—you have to order something. “You need to buy something,” the waiter told me. I went for the cheapest option: a coffee. Then made my way to the bathroom.
My fascination with photographing public restrooms, those of cafés, restaurants, bars, train stations, clinics, theatres, cinemas, anywhere—had started the moment my workplace issued me a camera I never took off. Vienna had plenty of photogenic spots, but I was drawn to the underground ones, the overlooked, the mundane. You see, most tourists walk around with their heads tilted back, admiring the monumental facades and grand buildings. Not me.
When I stepped back out onto the street, I realized the coffee had only made things worse. I should’ve remembered it’s a diuretic and a potent one at that.
So once again, on the very day I was supposed to cover the grand event, I found myself ducking into a café, making sure the restroom was close at hand. I ended up at Vienna’s “Kleines Café,” one of the city’s oldest bars. A tiny place, as the name suggests, tucked into the Franziskanerplatz, just behind St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
It is July 16, 2011, as I said the day they were burying the last heir of the House of Habsburg, Otto von Habsburg. Also known as Otto of Austria, he was the final head of the Habsburg family and sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece, once the Crown Prince, who died at the venerable age of ninety-eight.
According to tradition, Otto was to be buried in the Imperial Crypt beneath the Capuchin Church in Vienna, while his heart would be laid to rest a day later at the Pannonhalma Archabbey in Hungary.
Back in the toilet, hunched over a Western-style toilet, I read in the newspaper that numerous dignitaries had come to attend the ceremony, kings, former monarchs, and others. At that very moment, they were gathered at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, attending a Requiem Mass led by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, after which the burial would take place in the Imperial Crypt.
This would be the last Habsburg royal burial in the crypt—a centuries-old ritual, home already to 145 members of the dynasty, including many Holy Roman Emperors and Austrian monarchs, interred there since 1633.
State protocol had estimated around 1,000 invited guests and some 100,000 attendees at the funeral in Vienna, which would also be broadcasted live by Austrian Television.
As an accredited international journalist I had been granted access through the cordon earlier, and as luck would have it, the burial site was right across from this charming little café in old Vienna.
And then it came the voice from the café’s sole television announcing that a procession, over a kilometre long, was escorting Otto’s coffin from St. Stephen’s Cathedral to the Imperial Crypt. The anchor repeated several times: “This is the last imperial funeral” to take place in Vienna.
Now, I know it’s not exactly the most elegant of topics, but anyone can be afflicted by diarrhoea, and it’s useful to know what causes it.
It can be triggered by viruses and bacteria, of course, but also by certain types of food. According to Dr. Shilpa Ravella, a gastroenterologist at Columbia University, the best way to prevent such issues is to keep a food diary. If you know which food upsets your system, it’s easier to avoid it, and the symptoms it brings.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health reports that about 50 million Americans may be lactose intolerant. If your stomach feels uneasy after consuming dairy products, you might be one of them.
Gluten can also cause diarrhea in some individuals. In any case, it’s recommended that you keep a record of everything you eat and consult a gastroenterologist at the first sign of trouble.
3.
Otto von Habsburg, or in German: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, and in Hungarian: Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Pius Sixtus Renatus, born on November 20, 1912 was the last crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a title he held from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in November 1918. In 1922, following the death of his father, he became the claimant to the former thrones, the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He renounced his title as Sovereign of the Order in 2000, and stepped down as head of the imperial house in 2007.
As the eldest son of Charles I and VI, the last emperor of Austria and monarch of Hungary, and his wife Zita of Bourbon-Parma, Otto was born as Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius von Habsburg, third in line to the imperial thrones, titled Archduke of Austria and Royal Prince of Hungary, Bohemia, and Croatia. When his father ascended the throne in 1916, Otto was expected to one day become emperor and king himself. Since his father never formally abdicated, Otto was regarded by his family and by Austro-Hungarian legitimists as the rightful monarch from the moment of his father’s death in 1922.
Otto was active in Austrian and European political life from the 1930s onward, championing both the Habsburg restoration cause and, later, the cause of European unity. He was a vocal opponent of Nazism, nationalism, and communism. Some have described him as one of the leaders of the Austrian Resistance. After the Anschluss in 1938, he was sentenced to death by the Nazis and fled to the United States.
Otto von Habsburg served as Vice President (1957–1973) and then President (1973–2004) of the International Paneuropean Union. From 1979 to 1999, he was a Member of the European Parliament representing Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU). In 1979, newly elected to the European Parliament, Otto made headlines by reserving an empty chair in the assembly to symbolize the absence of nations still behind the Iron Curtain. He would go on to play a visible role in the 1989 revolutions, co-initiating the Pan-European Picnic. Later, he strongly advocated for the inclusion of Central and Eastern European nations into the EU. A well-known intellectual, Otto published numerous books on historical and political themes. He was described as one of the “architects of the European idea and of European integration,” alongside figures such as Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, and Alcide De Gasperi.
Otto was interned in 1919 and was mostly raised in Spain. His devout Catholic mother brought him up according to the traditional Austro-Hungarian educational plan, preparing him to one day become a Catholic monarch. During his years in exile, he lived in Switzerland, Madeira, Spain, Belgium, France, the United States, and finally, from 1954 until his death in Bavaria, at a residence named Villa Austria. At the time of his death, he held citizenship in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia, having previously been stateless both de jure and de facto. He also carried passports issued by the Order of Malta and Spain.
At his funeral, everyone was dressed in traditional dress from their regions and nations. As for me, I have no idea what I was wearing, not that it mattered. In those moments of suffering, I found myself transformed into the most precise of accountants, counting each and every one of my unfulfilled dreams, which only deepened the ache.
4.
From inside the café bathroom, I heard the voice of the chamberlain—or the master of ceremonies—after he had knocked three times on the closed door of the church with his scepter. How could the church doors possibly be shut on a day like this? He was baffled by what was unfolding just meters away.
Moments later, a faint voice emerged from within the church, asking in an innocent tone who it was.
The chamberlain raised his voice and declared: The Crown Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, of Dalmatia and Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Krakow; Duke of Lorraine and Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma and Piacenza, Guastalla and Auschwitz, Zator and Teschen, Friuli, Dubrovnik and Zara; Prince of Habsburg, Tyrol, Kyburg and Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and of Istria; Count of Hohenems and Feldkirch, Bregenz and Sonnenberg; Lord of Trieste and Kotor and the Wendish March; Grand Voivode of Serbia…
Then once again, the soft voice of the Capuchin friar replied from behind the door, saying we do not know this gentleman.
The chamberlain, or the master of the ceremony, knocked again, three taps. As before, the same meek voice asked who it was or more precisely translated who wishes to enter?
This time, the chamberlain raised his voice further and proclaimed: Doctor Otto von Habsburg, President and Honorary President of the Pan-European Union; member and former President of the European Parliament; Doctor honoris causa of numerous universities; honorary citizen of many cities; member of multiple academies; recipient of numerous medals for his contributions to peace and justice.
Yet again, from the depths of that hidden chamber came the hollow voice of The Capuchin provincial: “We do not know this gentleman.”
Then the master of ceremonies, seemingly more focused after the first two failed attempts, knocks on the door three times again—this time certain he’ll once more hear the mystical voice of the Capuchin provincial from behind the door, asking: Who wishes to enter?”
And this time, the chamberlain spoke gently, almost tenderly that he who seeks to enter is Otto—a servant of God, mortal and sinful like all the rest…
Then, the voice behind the door shifted—no longer remote, but unmistakably human: “Then let him enter.”
The door opened and the Capuchin friars stepped outside and lined both sides, candles flickering in their hands.
Whereas I emerged from the café restroom, thoroughly demoralized. Didn’t all of this mean that, regardless of what you’ve done in life, in the end you’ll simply be one of the flock—indistinguishable and forgotten—nothing more? Wasn’t this a call for demotivation? Or perhaps a call to make peace with your unfulfilled dreams and other failures in life?
Palermo, April 15, 2025
Translated from the Albanian by Vlora Konushevci
Stefan Çapaliku is an Albanian writer, playwright, and scholar. He studied Albanian language and literature at the University of Tirana and pursued further studies in Italy, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. A prominent figure in Albanian cultural life, he has served as Head of the Department of Literature at the University of Shkodra, Director of Book and Library Policies at the Ministry of Culture, professor of Aesthetics at the University of Arts in Tirana and is currently the Director of the Center of Art Studies. Çapaliku is the author of more than twenty works across genres, including drama, prose, poetry, and essays. His plays have been performed internationally and recognized with national and international awards. His novel Each One Gets Crazy in His Own Way has been widely translated and is considered a landmark of post-communist Albanian literature. His work explores post-totalitarian identity, historical memory, and the absurdity of transition. In 2021, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.
Vlora Konushevci is a poet, literary translator, and essayist from Kosovo. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Prishtina. Her work explores themes of war, memory, gender, and post-conflict identity, often drawing from her experience translating for war correspondents and international missions in the aftermath of the Kosovo War. She is the author of the poetry collection Lavdi Vetes (2020) and co-editor of the bilingual anthologies Poezi pa kufi (2021) and Magma (2022). Her writing and translations have appeared in The Common, European Literature Network, AutoEthnographer, and elsewhere.
*****
Read more from the Asymptote blog: