by Maureen Lang
Ripping away the string and paper, she held up the jacket for Leo to see. It was exactly as she’d told the tailor to make it: broad across the shoulders, with a touch of padding to make those shoulders appear fully capable of holding the world’s woes, just as he needed them to. And not black, but blue—dark, though, because anything too bright would be out of place in their tattered world. Yet blue would cast his elegant eyes in the best light.
But Leo was shaking his head. “He’ll look like a capitalist.”
“No jacket will hide Jurgen’s working-class background. It’s in the width of his shoulders, the strength and size of his hands. In this, he’ll look the way every man wants to look. Strong. Fatherly yet handsome; a leader. And the color will reveal the poet in him.”
Leo aimed a skeptical brow her way. “Fatherly? I wasn’t aware that’s how you viewed him.”
She ignored the comment; it wasn’t the first time Leo had tried coaxing free her infatuation with Jurgen. “It’s important that he not look like a military man, even if we do want the military behind us. We’ve seen enough leaders in uniform. And he won’t wear the top hat of a capitalist, either, or the shoes of a monarch. He’ll wear trousers like anyone else, only this jacket will show he can take on another’s burden without the excesses of an exploiter.”
“Yes, well, he’s doing that, isn’t he?” Leo fingered the sleeve—durable fabric, plain but for the dark blue color. “Well chosen, Anya. You’re young but smart; I’ve said so right along.”
Annaliese smiled at the praise, especially coming from Leo. Jurgen might be the one to receive public praise in the name of Eisner’s council—or the blame from those who disagreed—but anyone who worked beside them knew whatever Jurgen believed, Leo had believed first.
2
At last Christophe stood outside his home. From here he could almost make himself believe it looked the same. He had to ignore a few cracked tiles on the expansive roof, and there were weeds in the flower boxes his mother once kept. The door needed painting again, something his father never would have tolerated had he still been alive to make sure it was taken care of.
Christophe pushed the door open, and it squeaked on its hinges. Even in the dim light, Christophe could no longer fool himself. Everything had changed. No one was here. No family, not even a housekeeper or maid. He walked through the parlor and the dining room, noting that much of the furniture was gone too. In the kitchen, cabinet doors stood agape, revealing nothing but empty shelves. Everything held the gray film of dust, from the curtains at the windows to the kitchen table left behind, even down to the floorboards under his feet.
An item beneath that dust caught his eye, there next to the sink. He picked up the envelope, blowing away the coating and only faintly pleased to see his name scrawled across the front. He ripped it open.
My dearest brother,
I pray one day you return from the war to hold this letter in your hands, and I send my deepest apologies that I cannot be there to greet you.
It is my fervent wish that we will see one another again, but I fear that will never be. I am going all the way to America, where hard work will reward me in ways it can no longer do here. The sacrifices have been too great and the hunger so fierce, I no longer believe we are winning this fight the way the papers say that we are.
I go to our uncle in Milwaukee. He’s made arrangements for me to travel as a Swiss citizen so I won’t have any trouble being admitted. Perhaps you will follow me there, if you wish to.
I’ll write to you if ever there is peace for Germany again.
I think of you fondly. Always. Your loving sister,
Nitsa
Christophe crushed the paper in his hand. His eyes stung hot and wet and he busied himself by brushing aside some of the dust from the tabletop, then straightening the paper, smoothing it so it would slide once again into the torn envelope.
He slipped it into his pocket, even though part of him was tempted to do worse than crumple it. Why did Nitsa have to leave? She knew he would be coming home, didn’t she? Coming home as their brother, Hann, never would? Couldn’t she have waited? To be here so he wouldn’t have to see . . . this . . . alone?
He turned around again, the empty silence broken only by his quickened, angry breath. He had thought he would die along with Hann, that day they’d fought together in the second great battle at the Somme. But Christophe hadn’t died; somehow life had gone on for him, even when he hadn’t wanted it to.
His parents were gone too, dead from the heartache of losing their youngest son, from fear of losing Christophe, and from the rest of the horrors war brought with it. Malnutrition and dangerous substitutions in the food supply might have been the cause assigned by a doctor—at least for his mother, who’d never been strong. But his father? What should he call malnutrition of the spirit? Christophe didn’t know. He knew only that it could kill someone. It took a year from the day his mother had died, but kill it had.
And now he’d lost Nitsa, too.
He would have stumbled to a chair, but there wasn’t one, so he sank to the floor, all passion, all strength, abandoning him. God was here; Christophe knew that still. He wasn’t alone. And yet he could only sob for all the war had stolen from him.
* * *
“What we want is universal brotherhood. Germany should stand for that, after all.”
“We shouldn’t let the bosses and the owners have so much, and us so little!”
“We want bread for our families!”
“And care for the sick!”
Annaliese drifted through the room, assessing the mood, hearing the breathing, smelling the anger as voices rose with the acuteness of the various needs and opinions.
Jurgen himself stood, towering above the others, even those on the platform beside him. Where once a sales counter had displayed German delicacies, there now stood a table and chairs for the men who would lead the way to a better future, who defined what their message was to be.
“Gentlemen . . . and ladies,” Jurgen said with a familiar smile that seemed so natural on his handsome face. His eyes skimmed the crowded room, and Annaliese stood still, waiting until they landed on her, even though there were at least a half-dozen other women present. All wanting the same two things she did: a voice . . . and Jurgen.
She saw the blue of his gaze even in the dimming light. It passed over the other women before touching her, too.
But then kept going.
Of course; he had an audience to address. She hadn’t expected him to single her out. Hoped, perhaps, but not expected.
Soon this room would be too small to hold them. Their numbers grew every day; even now, more men waited just outside the door. This was their core support, those who did far more than just gather to witness Jurgen’s public addresses. He spoke in support of Eisner, who’d brought Socialism to power in Munich for the first time. Jurgen was the link between them, having the ear of both Eisner and the people. A link that would bring the votes Eisner needed in the coming election.
Jurgen held up a pamphlet in one hand, a copy of something they’d circulated throughout Munich. Something he’d drafted with his eloquent pen, the same pen that had once created poetry in celebration of women and nature but now offered promise for Germany. Words to spur Germany into looking forward and not back, offering security for those who’d been exploited too long.
“The enemy is no longer Britain,” he said. “It’s tyranny. And it’s here, inside Germany. It’s in Britain, too, and France, and everywhere the wealthy misuse their workers.” Affirmation echoed from one end of the room to the other. “Our voice is growing. We’re being heard. Being heard by all the people, from the hardest worker here in the city to the field-workers on the farms. We’ve all seen what tyranny can do. We’ve seen what war can do. We’ve seen the rich still able to buy what they need while we resort to whatever means we can to keep scraps on the table. Now it’s time for us—the factory workers and the soldiers who gave so much—to join togethe
r with farmers and anyone of lesser means and take part equally in the benefits this country and this earth have to offer. With your help, we can bring the change Germany needs. Each of us in the area of our strengths, working together for one another.”
Cheers bubbled, quietly at first, before Jurgen even finished.
“We’ve had enough of power in the hands of a few wielded over many. We do have a voice, and we’ll make it heard in the election. If we stand together!”
Raucous salutes burst through the room and no doubt beyond, because even from here, Annaliese heard those outside join in the noise. They couldn’t have heard a word but were eager to join those who had, trusting them and trusting the leadership that inspired them.
“But what about winning? Can Eisner win what some say he took?”
“There are more of us than there are of the rich. Eisner will win!”
“Eisner needs to win to stay where he is!”
Jurgen held up a palm again, nodding in the general vicinity of the question’s origin. “We want a fair vote; all of us do. And it’s true this election is coming sooner than we’d like, before the prime minister and we in the council have had a chance to prove our ways. But it’s another product of war, this rush to democracy, this need to have a formal voice to use in the armistice talks. Ours isn’t the only voice demanding to be heard. Our message is new, and the people need more time to hear and understand. Which is why we need all of you—men and women, too, now that they have the vote—to support the prime minister and those of us on his council. It’s the only way we can fight the tyranny of the monarchy, of capitalism, of warmongers who sent us to war in the first place.”
More cheers, followed by more rallying from Jurgen, until surely the crowd was as frenzied and parched as Annaliese. She watched him for a moment, mesmerized by his passion, caught up in what he believed, then slipped out the door. She passed through the people unnoticed, unrecognized as the one who had spoken just yesterday, gathering her own flock, many of whom were here today. With her blonde hair covered in a dark felt cap, a brown jacket over the white blouse she wore at all her rallies, and without the platform making her so much taller, she escaped attention.
The street was full to the end of the block. She walked around, pleased to see more people scattered even around the corner, those who were interested yet perhaps discouraged by the competition to hear a speech meant for the small group inside the building. Maybe some were only looking for the bread Jurgen sometimes had a way of producing. Finding her way to the rear of the building, she nodded to Ivo, who stood guard but let her pass. Ivo, who always had a smile for her, he with a missing tooth and mangled hands but a twinkle in his eye. Jurgen would be finished soon, and bodyguards would whisk him away. Along with her.
The wait was longer than she expected; Jurgen must have been enjoying himself more than usual to draw out his speech so long. But how could he not? She’d learned for herself what it was to have the crowd joined with a speaker, united in message, in dream, in spirit. Heady fruit indeed.
When Jurgen finished and joined them in the rear of the shop, Leo led the way to a truck waiting at the end of another block. It was hardly a plush mode of transportation, but few vehicles were left anymore, so even this old ambulance truck pockmarked like no-man’s-land itself was a precious commodity.
Annaliese handed Jurgen a flask of water mixed with only a touch of wine. It made the water more palatable, but the limited supply forced rationing.
He never drank plain water, not since the day just a month ago when factory workers, inspired by a sailors’ revolt in Kiel, had liberated him from a prison right here in Munich. He’d spent the past year of his life as a political prisoner for protesting the war through the poetry he’d written and circulated. Wine, he’d once said, was what he missed most about freedom. It stirred the poetry in his soul, and without that he was nothing.
They drove through a neighborhood full of parks and trees, to what once had been a fine residence for a single family. Rumor had it the entire family had died of the influenza. It had been cleaned out and converted to several units, one of which Leo shared with Jurgen. For the past month or more, Annaliese had been housed in another flat above, while one of the bodyguards, Huey, and his wife lived across from Annaliese.
“You should rest your voice,” Annaliese told Jurgen when he invited her to Leo’s flat rather then letting her go upstairs to hers. “For tomorrow’s march.”
Turning to her, he caught her hand and pulled her close. “One of these days, Annaliese, you will learn to take care of more than just my voice.”
His smile lingered in her direction, and for a moment she wanted to forget the rallies, forget his need for rest. It was a curious thing, this desire he often expressed to be with her. It fed her fascination with him. In the month since she’d found her own voice in the political group known as the USPD, the Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, she hadn’t been able to tell if she wanted Jurgen the way he seemed to want her . . . or if she only wanted his message.
She moved his hand from her hip, placing it on the railing beside them, careful not to smile. “Perhaps. Someday. But aren’t we supposed to be concentrating only on our country these days? Individual concerns don’t matter so much, but as a whole we can do great things for all. . . .”
He smiled at her quotation of one speech of his or another, or perhaps an encapsulation of all, even if she did use it to counter his flirtation.
Then she went up the stairs, conscious that he watched her. She didn’t breathe until inside her apartment, where she waited to hear his door close behind him, his voice mingling with Leo’s.
He wasn’t easy to resist. Jurgen was tall and handsome, with light hair and cerulean eyes that seemed to look inside every person he saw. Yet the sand of his hair was touched with gray, his eyes edged in feathers of maturity. Even so, his back and hands were strong from his family’s peasant background, and his mind stronger. He’d given much to Germany already in his poetry, his months in prison, and now in his passion for serving on the council. Any woman would be eager to be with such a man, to see to his needs both public and personal . . . as she’d witnessed a number of them do already.
She just wasn’t sure she wanted to become one more.
3
Christophe tried the gate but it was locked. The mere jingle, however, ignited a charge from two tall Doberman pinschers that must have been patrolling the wooded grounds. Christophe pulled his hand from the gate and stepped back, having witnessed at the war front how belligerent such guard dogs could be. Their wide, square chests heaved out a series of strong warning barks from the other side of the iron fence.
So this was how the Düray family greeted their invited guests these days.
A call from the shadows had the dogs heeling within a moment. But this man wasn’t Manfred Düray—Christophe saw that in an instant. He was someone Christophe had never met before, and he carried a gun. In the dimming light of the evening shadows of the woods, someone else might have missed that he’d secreted the weapon in the deep folds of a tattered, army-issue overcoat.
“Christophe Brecht?”
He nodded. “Isn’t this where the Düray family lives?”
The man reached for the lock. “Yes, they are here. They’re waiting for you.”
Without another word to either Christophe or the dogs, the sentry led the way. The Düray family Christophe had known all his life hadn’t been living here when he’d left for the war. Since then they’d moved into the finest home in the area, one that had sat empty when the old count had died and left no heirs.
Christophe had no idea why he was here, particularly if the rumors he’d heard in town were true. Giselle Düray was dead, and she was the only possible connection he might have had—ever dreamed of having—to this family.
The home was cast in a cottage style, though no one would call it that. Two stories and two wings made the home too large. From the tall gate to the zealous
dogs, there was nothing unassuming about a family who lived here. Not anymore.
As predicted, a maid answered the door. Once Christophe was handed into her care, the guard behind him disappeared, and along with him the dogs.
“Follow me, please.”
Christophe did, through a wide, impressive foyer boasting a staircase intricately carved no doubt by the finest German craftsmen. She led him through open double doors to a parlor, in which sat two couches facing one another in front of a man-size fireplace. Beyond plush chairs and occasional tables sat a polished grand piano, resting in the light filtering through the outdoor trees.
“Herr and Frau Düray will join you shortly.”
Then the maid left Christophe alone.
He looked around the room, noting the finery. Porcelain bowls and vases, a crystal lamp placed near the window to scatter a shower of colorful beams across the room. His gaze stopped at a family portrait hung above the fireplace, an appealing glance into lives of elegance. Christophe recognized Herr Düray immediately, with his mustache so like their Kaiser’s—their former Kaiser, he should say.
Frau Düray was seated beside him in the portrait, the detailed weaving of her gown precisely drawn, her hair upswept, a single jewel at her throat emblazoned with light.
Two daughters stood behind them, and Christophe’s eye was drawn inevitably to Giselle. Captured in the beauty that would be hers forever now, without witness to age or decay. Her hair, like her mother’s, had been twirled up for the occasion—though he remembered it falling beyond her shoulders, a slight breeze making it dance. Those were her eyes on the canvas, lightly drawn, and yet he remembered them grown wide in laughter, not quite so sedate.