The Viennese have an obsession with death. Having a beautiful corpse ("Eines Schönes Leich") is a common joke, and a prime burial plot in a good cemetary is an investment much like owning a good piece of real estate. In order to obtain a plot, you must lease it from your cemetery of choice. A small yearly sum then guarantees your right to be buried in your plot, or to have someone else buried there. If the payments stop, the tenant risks eviction, a most embarrassing fate.
Herta's mother reserved a plot in the Ottakring cemetery. She had a huge tombstone made, engraving it with her own name as well as that of her ex-husband, even though he went on to be buried in another cemetary. When Herta's husband John died, his name was added too, although his actual remains went in the ground several thousand miles away in London.
In the end Herta's mother died, and it was revealed that she had decided to donate her body to science. So now there is a grave with three names and no bodies, a predicament less unusual than one might think in a city where the central cemetary (the Zentralfriedhof) has more inhabitants than the city itself..
