by Pam Jenoff
He stops then and turns to me. “I was sorry to hear about your father. You must have been terribly frightened.”
“He’s recuperating slowly but surely. He’s a fighter, stronger than he looks.”
He smiles. “It runs in the family, no doubt.” Then his expression grows serious. “I wanted to come to see you, I mean him, but I feared it would only complicate matters for you.” It would have. I had not told Stefan about my encounter with Georg at the villa or the fact that he was in Berlin. A run-in between the two men would have been an unbearable reprise of that night in Versailles. But in my anguish, his comfort was the one for which I had yearned.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to talk at the house the other day,” I offer. “I was surprised to see you.”
“No matter.” His lips twist. “You must be quite busy with preparations for the wedding.” The last word is clearly distasteful, almost spat. He is angrier than I realized when we last met. Had seeing me again dredged up his feelings of betrayal and hurt, or had I simply been too caught off guard at our encounter the other day to notice?
I reach out and touch his forearm. “Georg, about that...” I debate telling him the truth: that I was about to cancel my wedding to Stefan and come back to him when Papa collapsed. But knowing how close we had come would only make the fact that we cannot be together harder to bear. I swallow, pull my hand back. “The wedding is tomorrow.”
“I know.” His words are neutral, but there is a pain to his voice he cannot mask. The notion of me marrying Stefan was hard enough when it was in the future. But faced with the immediacy of it, his veneer begins to crumble. Seeing him now, I understand that he had not fled the villa the other day because he was angry about Paris. Rather, being that close to me and unable to be together was simply unbearable.
I swallow, fighting back the urge to throw my arms around him. “Georg, I know how difficult this is...” Then I stop—my words sound condescending and I will not add to his injury. “I will hate your fiancée someday, I am sure,” I joke feebly.
But he shakes his head, unwilling to see the humor. “I’ve no intention of meeting anyone. I’m quite fine alone.” He has withdrawn again to the solitary man he was before he met me. His isolation and retreat to a place I cannot reach is almost worse than any jealousy I might feel over another woman. “Anyway...” He clears his throat and turns away and I can see the faintest glisten of wetness at the corner of his right eye. “I’m leaving Berlin,” he announces.
“But you can’t! What about your position with the new government?” He does not respond. I’m driving him away. Seeing me once or by happenstance was unbearable enough. But we travel in concentric circles, and though the city is large, we are inevitably bound to run into or hear news of one another. Knowing that I am so close, but that I am married and can never be his, is more than he can stand.
“It was too good to be true.” He smiles ruefully. “It had to be, didn’t it? Congratulations on your marriage,” he manages, his voice gruff. “Don’t be nervous about the wedding. I’m told that it is just a big party—and a bit about lifetime commitment.” He turns away.
“Georg,” I cry out, a note of desperation creeping into my voice. I cannot bear to have him walk away and, having felt the fire again, to now have it go cold. He looks back and vulnerability and rage break his face into a thousand pieces. “Goodbye.” He kisses me on the cheek, his lips pressing hard against my skin, as if he is trying to give me in that moment all that cannot be. I reach out and cup my hand around the back of his neck, holding him. Everything I have ever wanted is both inches and lifetimes away.
Then I release him and he straightens. “Godspeed, Margot.” As he walks away, shoulders low, the air grows empty and cold around me.
Georg disappears, enveloped by the trees. I watch sadly, fighting the urge to go after him. What did I expect? It isn’t fair to ask him to stand by and watch as I start my life with someone else. I retrace our route from the Tiergarten, feeling the emptiness of the space beside me where Georg walked. Laughter drifts from an unseen woman on the far side of the trees, her happiness somehow an affront.
As I reach the corner by the municipal building, Uncle Walter’s Model T appears and he steps out from the backseat. His face is thunderous and I wait for him to rebuke me for going to vote. “Margot.” There is a note of urgency to his voice I’ve not before heard. “Celia rang. She said it’s about your father, and she needs you at once.”
Chapter 20
The ground shifts sideways beneath me. Uncle Walter steps forward and helps me into the rear of the car. Inside, Krysia sits by the far window, brow knotted. “What happened?” I move closer and she squeezes my hand tight. The car turns not in the direction of the hospital, but winds out of the city on the motorway toward Grunewald. “It has to be all right, doesn’t it, if they’ve sent him home?” There is no response.
Thirty minutes later, we reach the villa and I leap from the car, scarcely waiting for it to come to a stop. As I race down the hallway to our suite, I brace myself for the worst. But when we reach his room, Papa is sitting up in bed, showing no signs of distress. “Papa, what is it? Are you feeling unwell?”
He shakes his head. “Quite the opposite. I feel better just being home. I was worried about you, though. I heard something on the radio about a skirmish at the polling place.”
“I’m fine,” I say. He should know, having sent Georg after me. “There was a bit of a fight, but then Georg...”
“There’s to be another wedding,” Tante Celia announces, cutting me off. She sits by Papa’s bed, clasping his hand, assuming her rightful place. I cock my head, confused by her outburst. Celia holds up her hand. “We’re engaged!”
So that was the emergency. For the first time since Celia’s call, I breathe normally. I gesture to Krysia, who has appeared but hangs back near the door. “You remember Krysia?”
Papa smiles. “Lovely to see you again. It is a great comfort to my daughter to have you here.” Then he turns back to me. “I’m sorry to have worried you. We wanted you to be the first to know—and to tell you in person.”
“Engaged,” Celia repeats, waving her hand like a flag.
I cringe, not wanting to look. Had Papa really given her my mother’s ring, the one she had left behind when she fled? No, he would not have been so cruel. The band around Celia’s fourth finger is a more modern design, just her sort of thing, with lots of stones and detail. I turn to Papa. “How did you...?” He must have bought it in Paris and saved it, waiting for the right time to propose. I remember then how he’d tried to get the three of us to dinner. But then I had learned the truth about my mother and forestalled things once more.
“We’re going to get married in the spring,” Celia says, giddy as a girl.
I feel Papa watching my face, searching for signs of disapproval. “After all that has happened,” Papa adds, “we don’t want to wait any longer.” It is more than that—all of these years, while my mother was out there still alive, he was still technically married. Finally, he is free. My thoughts turn improbably to Uncle Walter, who has disappeared from the room, and I recall his angry expression when he met me at the polls. What did he think of the relationship, now too public for him to ignore? Would he be furious that Papa had “ruined” one of his sisters before moving on to the next—or relieved to have the long-unwed Celia cared for?
I hesitate. Should I tell them that it is too soon after mother’s death? Papa would listen, perhaps persuade Celia to delay. They have waited years, though, caught in a limbo not of their own making. Part of me wants to keep Papa all for myself. But I cannot deny them this chance for happiness that might not come again. I force a smile. “Mazel tov.” Their faces break with relief in unison.
A footman enters the room then and sets down a tray of sandwiches. “I’d love for you to stand up with me,” Celia says. Not waiting for an answer, she lifts the plate of sandwiches from the tray and offers them to us as though we are at a
picnic. “I’m thinking about the spa at Baden for the honeymoon. The waters would be good for your father’s health.” She
really does, in her own strange way, care for him a great deal.
“Celia, would you mind looking over the flower deliveries that arrived this morning?” Krysia asks when we have finished eating. She is pulling Celia away, trying to give me a moment alone with Papa.
I take his hand, staring out the window, not speaking. “You seem troubled, my dear. Is it our engagement? I didn’t want to announce it on the eve of your wedding, but Celia...”
“No, it’s fine,” I reply quickly. I am a bit jealous—Papa and Celia are able to be with the person they genuinely love. But it is more than that: seeing their happiness reminds me of how I should feel about my marriage, and how I do not. “I don’t mind. And I’m so glad you’re home.”
“Then what?” His brow wrinkles.
I look down, running my hand along the edge of his bedsheet to smooth it. I should not be worrying him in his condition. Tears fill my eyes. “It’s nothing.” But avoiding the truth is what brought us to this place in the first place. I cannot keep it from him any longer. “What if I’m not ready to marry Stefan?”
“I think,” he replies, “that you will never be ready. That’s what you wanted to talk to me about the other day, wasn’t it?” I nod. “Then don’t.”
I stare at him, mouth agape. “You mean, I don’t have to marry him?” Even now, I cannot bring myself to admit to Papa that we are already married.
“This isn’t the eighteenth century, darling. You don’t have to marry anyone. I’d like to see you settled, of course, while I’m still here. But there are worse things than being unsettled.” He is thinking of my mother and the years of loneliness he faced after she left.
“But the wedding is tomorrow.”
He waves his hand. “It’s just a big party,” he says, his words a refrain of what Georg had said earlier. “Now go find him.” The emphasis on this last word leaves no confusion about whom he is speaking.
My eyes widen. “You mean that?” It is the first time we have spoken of the situation since Paris.
He nods. “The light in your eyes every time you look at him would be hard for a father to miss—and unfair to deny. Shame on me for pushing what society expected over your happiness.” The illness has emboldened him somehow, made him view things more clearly. “Go. Be happy.”
My heart lifts. He is giving me his blessing, uttering the words I never thought I would hear. “I appreciate that. But I can’t hurt Stefan after all he has been through.” Then I picture Georg’s face, alienated and alone, as we said goodbye. He could never trust me again. “It’s too late, anyway.”
“If Celia and I are proof of anything, it’s that it is never too late. Never mind, you know best on that front. But, darling, if it truly cannot be, let it go. Don’t be a prisoner of the past.” Before he can say more, Celia and Krysia are back. He squeezes my hand, silently assenting to whatever decision I make.
“We should let you rest,” Krysia says.
I wait for Papa to protest. But he lies back, his face pale from the effort of conversation. “Look after her, will you?” he says, and Krysia, now an old friend, laughs conspiratorially.
“That silly woman, scaring me like that,” I say when we are out of earshot.
“You aren’t going to change Celia, or anyone else. Why drive yourself mad trying?”
“It was Celia, you know. She summoned Stefan to Paris to keep me from Georg.”
“I see.” Her tone makes it clear that she regards this bit of information about the past irrelevant. “Did you have the chance to tell your father the truth?”
“I did. He brought it up, actually.”
We stop in the hallway, the door to her room on one side, mine the other. “What are you going to do now?”
“There’s nothing to be done. It’s too late.”
“Even if it is too late for you and Georg, that doesn’t mean you have to stay here trapped with Stefan. Go to America, see the world.”
“I can’t leave Papa.”
“You aren’t your mother,” she says gently. “Children are supposed to leave. And he has Celia now.” She opens the door to her room and walks inside, closing it behind her.
As I cross the hallway, the phone in our sitting room rings and I rush to answer it before it disturbs Papa. “Hallo, Margot hier.”
“Margot, it’s Stefan,” he says as though I might not recognize his voice.
I squeeze the receiver hard. “Stefan, is something wrong?” It is unusual for him to ring and I find myself praying for a small catastrophe, nothing too serious, just something that will necessitate postponing the wedding.
“Not at all. I wanted to call you one last time before tomorrow.” To confirm that it is real, make sure that I would be going through with it. “How’s your father?”
“Home and resting.”
“My cousins have tried to arrange a stag night,” he confides. “Out in the city, beer and cigars, the works.” There is a note of excitement in his voice, joy at being able to do the normal things a groom should do.
“Well, don’t strain yourself.”
“Perhaps I might call round afterward,” he teases. “A preview of the wedding night.”
“Don’t you dare!” A bit of playful creeps into my voice, reminding me of how we were before war and adulthood crashed down upon us. Perhaps our life together will not be altogether bad.
“But we’re already...”
“Shh.” I cut him off, suddenly apprehensive, as though it is not just he and I on the line and someone might learn our secret. Though, did it really matter that much anymore?
“Anyway, I just wanted to say good-night.” His call is a confirmation that all of this is real and that the wedding will happen as planned.
“I shall see you tomorrow.” I set the receiver back in its hook with a click. I might have had a hen night, the bride’s equivalent party, if I’d had the friends locally to plan one. But I don’t mind.
Restless now, I step from the apartment and make my way down the stairs. The portraits on the wall, solemn-faced men who had walked these corridors for centuries, look down on me piously, whispering. My stomach rumbles, reminding me that I had missed dinner and lunch. I walk through the darkened foyer to the kitchen. It is deserted, the freshly polished stove gleaming in the moonlight. The smell of lemon cleanser hangs in the air.
I stare out the window over the sink into the night, replaying Papa’s words in my mind. The notion that he would support my decision to leave Stefan for Georg, despite the fact that he is not Jewish and a thousand other differences, is monumental. But it doesn’t matter—I am already married to Stefan and I have taken a vow to stand by him. Even if I could just walk away, I had pushed Georg away, this time for good. There is no going back.
There is a faint rustling, the movement of someone behind me. I turn. “Hello?” But the space is empty. Suddenly the familiar kitchen seems somehow chilling.
No longer hungry, I start back to the apartment. As I cross the foyer, I stop before the open door of the great room. It has been set for the wedding, the rows of chairs divided by a wide aisle. A chuppa, more modern than the lace canopy I’d wanted but a concession by Uncle Walter, nonetheless, stands at the front of the room. An image flashes through my mind of the room set just like this one. But a coffin stands at the front in place of the canopy. I stifle a scream. It is a nightmare that I’ve had so many times, but could not remember until just now. Tomorrow is not my wedding—it is my funeral.
Upstairs, I walk to the open window in my bedroom, where a gentle breeze blows the curtains inward. Suddenly, seized with the urge to jump, I step back, terrified by the thought.
Don’t be a prisoner of those who have gone, Papa said. He was speaking of my mother, I know, and the way he had allowed her memory to stop him from living fully for so many years. But so had I. I’d been so caught up in trying to please e
veryone and fulfill expectations, I had not lived.
Leave, a voice inside me says. I would not have to marry Stefan. Papa has Celia now. I could, as Krysia had suggested, see the world.
The idea is growing now, gaining strength. Impulsively, I pull out a small travel bag and throw a few things into it. I can buy the rest of what I need once I have gone. I grab the scarf Krysia had knitted for me from the back of the chair and head for the door.
I look across the hallway at the room where Krysia is staying. I cannot go without telling her, not after she has come all of this way. I rap on the door lightly so as not to wake Papa or anyone else. “Krysia?” I whisper. She does not answer. I try the knob, but the door is locked. I will have to leave her a note, and one for my father, as well. I return to our apartment and find two sheets of paper on Papa’s desk, then look without success for a pen.
I carry the paper and my bag downstairs, start toward Uncle Walter’s study to find a pen. The door is ajar, I notice. How odd. In contrast to Papa’s night-owl habits, my uncle has always kept a strict day schedule. I hope Papa hasn’t tried to get out of bed to do some work.
I push open the door. The study is empty, lights dark. One of the housecleaners must have left it open. As I turn to leave, a whiff of something familiar tickles my nose. The smell of lilac perfume.
“Hello...” I call into the darkness, a funny feeling tugging at my stomach. There is no answer and for a second I am relieved. But then, as if propelled by a force not my own, I move forward toward Uncle Walter’s desk. The papers I’d been holding drop from my hand and flutter to the floor.
There, crouched by a file taken from the safe, is Krysia.