by Maureen Lang
Christophe put his hand over one of hers and quietly prayed, not only in gratitude for the soup but also for their safety and for the future of Germany. Annaliese bowed her head but said nothing.
She hadn’t planned to ask but found herself speaking anyway. She asked Christophe if he’d seen the others.
“I saw Ivo,” Christophe said. “He told me Jurgen will return to the council tomorrow. Leo hid him away, but they both know the only power left in Munich right now is still with the council. The Provincial Assembly scattered during all of the chaos. Someone did burst into the gallery, just like you feared. He started shooting, killed one deputy and wounded another. He surrendered himself.”
Her pulse pounded. So . . . there was better reason than she knew for Leo to spirit Jurgen away and into hiding. He hadn’t abandoned her, after all.
“They’re calling for a general strike in support of the councils everywhere in Germany because they’re afraid the councils will be abolished otherwise. It’s still chaos, Annaliese. And for some people, Eisner’s death is an opportunity, not a tragedy.”
Anger pierced through her thoughts. “You mean for Jurgen, don’t you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He was waiting for Eisner to resign before formally supporting the Communists. Ivo told me half the council is Communist already. Is that what you want for Germany? To see every last capitalist thrown to the wolves?”
She shook her head. “I don’t . . . I don’t want any killing. It’s not supposed to be this way.”
“But it is.”
“What is your answer to all of this? To leave? To give up on Germany?”
“I know the answer isn’t in a group—Socialism or Communism—if it rejects God. Do you really believe there is no God, or have you put Him out of your life because the party said so?”
“I only believe what makes sense to me. And it made sense to me that the church might be part of the problem.”
“Some people in the church, maybe. Not God.”
“I don’t know!” She knew only that she wanted this conversation to end. But how could she say she didn’t know? How could she not know what she believed when she’d spent the last few months lecturing on the street to help others define what they should believe?
“If you don’t know, Annaliese, then why do you argue with everything I say?” He shoved back his chair, exasperated. “I want the same thing you do. I want the future to be better. But I don’t hold the past against the wealthy or the factory owners. Those are the ones risking their ideas and their money, maybe because they think their ideas might be popular or help someone or provide jobs or make society better. But according to you or to Jurgen, they do everything for money. There has to be a reward for all the risk, doesn’t there?”
“But they let greed take them too far! They take advantage of the ones who don’t have the same opportunities. It’s like they’re stealing—stealing years of life from those who have no choices. At least Nitsa was honest in her stealing, more honest than my father ever was.”
Instead of matching the anger behind her tone, Annaliese saw the light of confusion behind Christophe’s gaze, settling in faint humor. The look made Annaliese reconsider her own words, and she might have seen the humor in calling Nitsa an honest thief if her mood had let her. But it didn’t.
They finished their soup in silence.
“I don’t think anyone has the answer for Germany right now,” Christophe said at last, when neither made any effort to leave the restaurant. “Even if Eisner was on the right track, everybody is too angry. And people like Jurgen aren’t helping that.”
“Jurgen . . . and me?”
He neither confirmed nor denied it, and she knew he thought she’d had a part in the chaos too. Maybe she had, by reminding those who had too little of how unfair life was, that the factory owners and those with wealth had taken advantage of them not only in their work but by sending them to the fields of France to be slaughtered. It was easy enough to define what made people angry, easy to nurture that anger with a speech.
“What would you have had us talk about instead of demanding change? Don’t you think greed is a sin? Or should I just remind people how God loves them in their poverty? The churches do that, and it hasn’t helped.”
“Turning our backs on God isn’t the answer—He’s the only answer. Because greed is a sin, and if people believed that, they might change.” Then he was quiet, because Mama came and took their empty bowls away. Annaliese saw him attempt a smile at Mama, but Mama didn’t look at either one of them. Perhaps she didn’t like fighting of any kind, not even this kind.
Christophe folded his hands on the table between them and she knew he wasn’t finished yet. “They’re killing people in Bremen, in Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven, and there will be more death in Berlin. How long before it comes here to Munich? The best choice is to leave, at least for now.”
“No one is stopping you. Not me, anyway.” She held his gaze in a pause and her pulse sped. Anger and fear pushed her to say the opposite of what she felt inside. “One kiss shouldn’t keep you here. Go.”
He stared at her, silent, for what seemed a very long moment, and she wondered what he was thinking.
“Is it too soon to go back to the house?” he asked at last.
So he wouldn’t tell her what he thought—not that she couldn’t guess. He wanted to leave Munich. Christophe certainly had less to turn his back on than she did; it wasn’t as if he’d come to Munich because he wanted to. “I’m ready.”
The air outside felt all the colder in comparison to Annaliese’s warmed cheeks. She thrust her hands in her pockets, her heart so heavy she could barely breathe.
It wasn’t long before they rounded the corner of the block to their home, and Annaliese’s heart raced anew at a familiar sight. A truck was parked in front of the house—that same old, pockmarked ambulance.
Only now its sides were draped in flags. Red.
25
Christophe saw the truck, and while the sight had made Annaliese speed up, his pace slowed.
She flew up the porch stairs, and Christophe followed. The inside door, the one he’d left open for the last few days in order to better guard the front door, was open again. As soon as Annaliese crossed the threshold, the tall, blond outline belonging to Jurgen met her. He pulled her into an embrace, kissing her soundly. On lips that in this very room, only hours ago, had been pressed to Christophe’s.
She pulled away and slid a glance back toward Christophe, as if embarrassed, but he saw something else that he didn’t want to see. She was glad to see Jurgen, glad that he was back.
“Christophe told me someone stormed the assembly!” She was looking at Jurgen again now. “It was so awful that day. I tried to get in to see you, but we were sent away. Why didn’t you tell me where you were?”
Leo stepped closer, a smile on his face. “We’ve been at work, night and day. It’s done, Anya. We claimed Bavaria as a republic of councils—and even if the government refuses to honor us, it’s only a matter of time now.”
Jurgen nodded. “The assembly that was just voted in is powerless. I wouldn’t have hoped for a crazy assassin to show up at their first meeting and start shooting, but it made all of the power fall into our hands. The shooter thought the assembly had hired someone to kill Eisner! One assemblyman is dead, another wounded; one is still in hiding. Two fled Munich altogether, so far as we’ve heard. Our council is everything now—at least for the moment. It’s time, Anya. Now is the time to make sure the people everywhere are heard.”
“We saw the flags,” Christophe said, stepping farther into the room. “Have you joined Leviné, then?”
“Yes! With Berlin’s full support, too. They have communications from workers nearly all over the world.”
Christophe glanced at Annaliese to see if the words had any impact, but she wasn’t looking his way. Jurgen used to echo Eisner by saying, “Berlin isn’t Germany.” He’d supported Eisner in refusing Berlin’s edicts more
than once on behalf of Bavaria.
Evidently none of that mattered under Leviné.
“We’re uniting everywhere!” Jurgen continued. “Do you know, if everything goes the way we expect, there will never be another war? You among all of us here should welcome that, Christophe. What will we have to fight over if we get rid of things like boundaries and nationalism and militarism and capitalism? Oceans may separate us, but people everywhere will join together. It’s only the beginning, but it’s begun!”
“Unity will certainly be different from the last four years,” Christophe said, low, his eyes still on Annaliese’s profile. He wondered if she could believe such things, like international unity preventing future wars. Jurgen was certainly convinced, with all of his passion and confidence. As if by his faith alone, all of what he promised could happen. As if people who not more than five months ago had been sticking one another with bayonets, pitching mustard gas at one another, crushing each other with tanks and artillery, and dropping bombs and bullets from airplanes could somehow be made to get along. Forgive, forget. Unite.
He wanted to hope Jurgen was right; the last thing Christophe wanted was another war. Even Leo looked gleeful.
Instead, Christophe’s thoughts were just the opposite. Foolish, all of them.
He knew he had to walk from the room . . . before he voiced such words.
* * *
Annaliese watched Christophe leave, refusing to give in to a wish to leave with him. Why should she feel so alone without him in the room when she didn’t agree with any of the things he believed in?
Jurgen was like a man on fire, full of hopes and dreams and with the energy to push it all forward. He’d been that way ever since she’d first met him—but then he’d been pushing for an election.
Something Communists, if she wasn’t mistaken, had little use for.
Jurgen squeezed her hand, pulling her to the table where he’d strewn stacks of papers. He was searching for something just now among the flyers awash with red. He drew several from the pile.
“Here, look at this—from Berlin. We’re going to call for a national strike, beginning in just a couple of days. And here—flyers in support of the people from Hungary. And here, from England. And this—all the way from America! It’s the people’s turn. Now is the time as never before. Now that the war has proven what murderers capitalists are!”
She looked at the piles of literature, almost afraid to touch any. “I don’t know, Jurgen. . . . I’ve heard awful stories about what Communists are doing in Russia. It frightens me.”
He took her by the arms and laughed. “Of course some things must be destroyed in order to create! But once the old ways are gone, everyone will see this is the better way.”
He sank to the chair next to the table with a sigh of what sounded like pure satisfaction. As he pulled Annaliese to his lap, holding her close almost like a child, she saw the red rimming his eyes, the shadow of fatigue drawn on his skin.
He held her gaze. “We’ll teach you everything you need to know. But first, you must do your part and forget the rumors you’ve heard. We can’t teach you something if your fears get in the way.”
If there was any good to be learned from Communism, she trusted Jurgen and Leo would find it. But even now, she didn’t want to hear what they had to say. She needed time to think, away from him, away from his assurance and hopefulness, away from all of Jurgen’s persuasive sympathies that matched so many of her own.
“No, first you need rest,” she told him. “And probably something to eat, although we don’t have much. Bertita hasn’t been able to go to the market, and from what I saw at Eisner’s procession, most of the shops are closed anyway.”
“Coffee would be enough. But not yet. Stay. Stay right here.” He settled her head on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you yet again, Anya.”
She knew he undoubtedly expected a reciprocal comment, but she could not bring herself to issue one. In truth, she hadn’t missed him, and beyond thinking he’d abandoned her, she hadn’t thought of him very much at all.
“I’ll get your coffee.” She stood and passed a frowning Leo on her way to the kitchen.
A moment later Jurgen came through the kitchen door. Alone.
“I’ll have the coffee here. Will you join me?”
Nodding, she poured two cups. It was reheated from that morning and no doubt as tasteless as it was then, but it was better to employ her hands at her own coffee cup than sitting there not knowing what to say or do.
Taking the seat opposite her, he entwined his fingers with hers. “The months ahead will be glorious for the people. You may not be speaking on the street for a while—it’s too risky just yet—but soon, when the bourgeoisie accept the truth of their place, it’ll be safe again, and we’ll have need of your voice. Until then, I’ll be heard at the council, where the real power is. If you were there, in the gallery, waiting for me, cheering each word, agreeing with each decision I make for the people, I would know real happiness.”
She slid her hand away from his, back to the side of her cup. Why did he assume she would automatically agree and work toward something so different from what they’d worked for together? “I liked working for an election, the very first one where women had a voice. I still like the idea of voting, even if the majority wasn’t with us this time.”
“The election failed us because we didn’t have the time to prove that the fairest way of life is best for all. And I agree a vote might be best, but we have to take advantage of the circumstances we have now—it’s a rare opportunity. We mustn’t let things settle down again unless it’s into a new way of life, one that makes all of us equal. I need you, Anya. By my side.” He reached for her hand again, kissing it.
“For how long, Jurgen? How long will you want me if I stop asking you to wait?”
He smiled. “I’ll want you for as long as we both find all the happiness we can have together. I can make you happy.”
She pulled back, folding her arms, feeling the chair press into her. “I know that you want to. I know you want to make others happy. Ever since I came to Munich, you’ve been kind and generous to me. You gave me a place where I felt needed, a roof and food and safety. And I know you have noble ideas. A Robin Hood of Germany. There is so much I admire about you—”
He held up a palm and she stopped, although she wasn’t at all certain about what she would have said next. It was easy enough to count the virtues he possessed that had benefited her, but was she ready to refuse following this new direction he was taking? Just like that?
“You can stop, Anya. I know the kindest method to disappoint someone. It’s just as you’re doing. By serving sugar first. I’ve always said you have special intuition when it comes to dealing with people. And you’re so young.”
He’d known better than her where she’d wanted this conversation to go. “I’m sorry, Jurgen. Your ideas are too high a reach for me—at least with some of the boundaries you want to be rid of. Like . . . marriage, for one. If I ever fall in love, I’ll need security behind love, some promise we’ll remain together even when either one of us might think the happiness could taper off.”
“If you fall in love?” he asked. “I thought that was what took this conversation here, because you already are. With Christophe.”
She grabbed her coffee cup, shook her head, took a sip. It was bitter. “Why do you say that? It started with talking about politics, not love.”
“I saw the way you looked at Christophe when you came in. When I kissed you, you didn’t look at me afterward. You looked at him.”
“There is nothing personal between Christophe and me.”
Jurgen stood and rounded the table, pulling her to her feet and into a gentle embrace. “Then if there is still hope for me, I’ll tell you he isn’t right for you. You already know that, though. He doesn’t believe any of the things you’ve learned since you came to Munich.”
She wondered if he felt her stiffen. “Don’t you think I brought any
beliefs with me?”
“Whatever you believed before, you wanted to forget. I know this because you never spoke of your home, your family, the way you used to live. You only spoke of now, of my beliefs, what Leo and I taught you. It’s understandable. It’s natural to imitate; man is made to imitate. I don’t think our crowds would have been nearly so pleasant if this weren’t true.”
He drew her closer so that her head rested on his chest. But it wasn’t of her doing; he let his hand remain in her hair as if he knew she might pull away.
She wanted to do that very thing—pull away—and more, to deny every word he’d said. But she was motionless, only her pulse racing. She couldn’t refute a single word. Not really. He was only voicing the things Christophe had made her suspect.
“I wouldn’t like to see you take on Christophe’s beliefs,” Jurgen told her, and his voice seemed all around her. It emanated from his mouth and from within him, her ear pressed so close to his chest. “When he looks at the future, happiness can only be found in heaven instead of right here on earth. He is too glum. You would be glum, too, with him. But we have hope now, hope for a better Munich, a better world. With me you would be more hopeful, happier.”
She drew away at last, turning back to the table but not sitting down. Annaliese didn’t want to hear any more of what Jurgen had to say; she wanted to start over. Not as an imitator. She wanted her own thoughts, her own beliefs, her own future.