by Maureen Lang
She’d only wanted to level the opportunities, not level results from those who put forth different efforts.
Jurgen caught her eye, and for a moment she was tempted to speak her mind, try convincing him away from what he obviously believed. He gave her one of his old, familiarly charming smiles that he must believe she would still welcome, and almost reflexively she wanted to give him one in return. Automatically, like the way she’d once taken on his beliefs. How naive she’d been.
“Leo,” she said softly, “I would like help finding Christophe.”
He stopped chewing. He looked from Jurgen to Annaliese, then back to Jurgen. “I thought . . .”
“No.” Jurgen glanced again at Annaliese and to her surprise he didn’t appear annoyed, or even surprised, that she hadn’t waited for him to bring up her request. For the first time, he looked as though he wanted to do something that wouldn’t serve him—but wanted instead to see her happy. “She’s chosen Christophe, not me. And because we love her—both of us, you and I, Leo—we’ll help her. Won’t we?”
“Well, I . . . I don’t know where he is. How would I? He left that night some weeks ago. We haven’t seen him since.”
Jurgen frowned at Leo. “I thought you spotted him once when you were rounding up more men that day. Didn’t you tell me you gave him that letter? the one that came from Annaliese’s parents?”
Annaliese looked at Leo. “There was a letter from my parents? Was it for me?”
Leo shook his head. “No, it was addressed to Christophe. It seems he came to Munich to find you—to stay with you—at their request.”
“Yes, that’s true. So . . . you read the letter?”
Leo had the grace to look momentarily embarrassed. “Yes, we thought the content might tell us where either you or Christophe might be so we could get the letter to one of you.”
“And where is the letter now?”
Leo stood, taking his empty plate and reaching for Jurgen’s, then placing them on the corner of the table. “Now that you mention it, Jurgen, I do recall having gotten rid of it. I was going door-to-door, scrounging up every last man for help. I did spot Christophe. I remember now. He was with Ivo, I think.”
Annaliese stood. “With Ivo? Where?”
“Here in Munich. More crowded than ever, I thought at the time.” He turned back to them, away from the table where he’d left the plates. “It was his mother’s flat. You recall, Jurgen, we used to visit there when Ivo first joined us.”
Annaliese ignored Jurgen’s nod and faced Leo. “Will you take me there?”
Jurgen came up behind her, stroking one of her arms. “Leo will send someone for Christophe, to bring him here. Won’t you, Leo?”
She could go to Christophe. She could go right now, this very moment. “But—”
Jurgen was already shaking his head, hushing her. “It’s too dangerous, Annaliese. You can wait for him here.” He sighed. “Soon things will be better. When our ways have been accepted. Then the streets will be safe, even for babies. You’ll see.”
* * *
Christophe jumped off the train when it slowed as it reached the station of a village in the foothills of the Alps. Here he was, miles out of the way. He knew he wasn’t the only one inconvenienced, but he was probably the only one who would dare go against the orders of the free corps army and travel the rest of the way to Munich by foot.
All of Munich must be surrounded by troops from other parts of Germany—or soon would be. He’d learned from the conductor that White troops, loyal to what was left of the ravaged but official German army, had already been fighting the Red Communist army in Dachau, north and a bit west of the city. That was why the train had been diverted, to keep clear of what was certain to be another battle—unless the Communists in Munich surrendered their arms without a fight.
He shifted his pack onto his back, keeping the rifle easily accessible, along with the pistol in his pocket. It was late already, but he would have to find a place to sleep somewhere along the way. Spring had brought weather warm enough to use heaven as a roof once again, and for that Christophe gave thanks.
Even as he begged God to help him find Annaliese—if she was still in Munich.
33
Annaliese scrubbed at a stain on the cement, wishing she could banish her worries the same way she could banish the smell. She wondered where some of the men had gotten enough vodka to make them vomit. Maybe it wasn’t alcohol at all that had infected them the night before. More likely it had been fear.
Men. Confined, bored, tense. Waiting. Probably much the same way they’d been in France for the past four years. Thank God she’d been too young to be expected to do this sort of work then—or worse, as a nurse having to tend wounds and blood.
A bang sounded from somewhere and she jumped from knees to feet. She stood staring at the door, fully expecting armed men to reappear—who knew from which side of this conflict. But nothing happened. The door didn’t even open. The bang could have been anything, but whatever it was, it wasn’t an attack on this building.
Since the men had left that morning, only their tension remained behind. Leo and Jurgen and a handful of men around them, serving as guards, inhabited the warehouse now. Word had spread like morning birdcalls that a White army had been gathering around Communist Munich, that the men behind the red flags must defend the city, defend their dreams for the future. For the hopes of everyone of lesser means.
Annaliese told herself to be sorry they’d marched off, knowing if there was to be a battle, some undoubtedly wouldn’t return. But the moment the warehouse cleared except for the scant remnant, she’d breathed her first easy sigh since her arrival the morning before.
Yesterday she’d waited eagerly for Christophe to come to the warehouse. She’d taken a chair outside the tent, opposite ones that Jurgen and Leo sat in. She’d let them talk about the battles that had taken place in the past weeks. How Leviné had taken charge of the councils, how easily he’d gathered an army of ten thousand men to guard Munich and protect its newly proclaimed Communist state. How he’d had anyone voicing resistance to the new regime arrested. They talked, too, of the tragedy of those who’d already died in street battles when men loyal to the Communist ideals clashed with those who didn’t see the future as brightly and clearly as Leviné and those like Jurgen.
But she’d barely listened. She kept looking at the door, each and every time it had opened.
Never once did Christophe’s familiar outline enter.
It wasn’t until well past dark that the men sent to find Christophe returned, telling Leo that he’d been at Ivo’s but wasn’t there anymore. He’d left Munich, but Ivo knew neither where he’d gone nor when—or if—he would return.
So all night Annaliese had planned how she would leave. She would ask Odovacar to take her to the train station in the morning. If she could find a train to take her outside the city, she would go home. Surely that must be where Christophe was now. Little wonder. Munich was another battle site these days, and she knew he’d had enough of that. At least he must be safe, far away from whatever threatened to explode inside this city.
But shortly after dawn, before she could even leave the tent, Odovacar had been summoned along with the rest of the men. She’d nearly burst into tears. And then she’d prayed. She must wait, and wait she would. The moment she could get away, though, she would say good-bye to Munich and not look back.
In the meantime, she scrubbed.
* * *
Christophe slipped to the edge of the marching army, an army he knew only too well. Not a single one of them asked him any questions. They looked no farther than the make of his rifle and the cut of his boots to know he was one of them.
The outskirts of the city were deadly quiet, as if it had been evacuated. He knew it hadn’t been. Outsiders might not be gaining easy access into Munich, but he hadn’t seen a mass exodus, either. They were there, hiding away in their homes, in much the same way so many French had hidden when Germans ha
d marched through in August of ’14.
That it was Germans hiding from Germans wrenched his stomach. How had this happened? Hadn’t they had enough, the same way he’d had enough? When would it be time to stop fighting?
Christophe had killed his last enemy, and neither these men nor the ones on the other side should be called that. He had no intention of adding any more faces to his nightmares. But he marched anyway because it was the only way to reach the last place he’d seen Annaliese.
He stared ahead, wondering where he would be today if Frau Düray hadn’t asked him to go after Annaliese. How else would he have found a way to care about what went on here in Munich, except through Annaliese? Without her, would he have cared enough to hope for a better future for himself? for anyone?
He couldn’t be sure. He knew he’d always wanted something better than this, and now he couldn’t imagine a future—a better future—without Annaliese.
He wouldn’t fight for Communism or Socialism, no matter what, and he doubted Annaliese would expect him to.
But he would fight for a future with her.
34
“They’re here! They’re in the city!”
The sentry, a boy who couldn’t be much older than thirteen, shouted his message the moment he’d opened the door, then ran toward the tent in the center.
Annaliese stood but did not join them. So the battle had begun. She wondered how long it would be before this battle was near enough to hear. She looked around, questioning if she should flee this spot that was obviously a place meant for soldiers, not civilians like her, or non-Communists like her.
But the same thing that kept her here last night kept her here again. She had no place else to go.
God save her. God save them all.
* * *
The stench was the same, the grunts and cries, the quiver of light from firing guns, the pale faces around him—paler still after they fell.
Christophe never drew his weapon, not even when men around him started falling. The one on his right was dead already; he knew that from the severity of the wound to the man’s head. But another to his left and then another in front . . . The one nearest he checked for a pulse at the neck, finding it despite the blood soaking his shoulder and arm.
“Hold on, soldier,” he said in his ear. “I’m going to take you to safety.”
Christophe pulled the man to conceal him behind a stack of chairs at what must have been an outdoor café. The man was still conscious, though stunned, and his gun fell away the moment Christophe clasped him around his chest. He left the weapon on the street.
Then he went to the other man who’d fallen and did the same, first checking for a sign of life and finding it—weak. More blood, unconscious, certainly more grievously wounded than the first man had been. Christophe grasped him beneath the arms, pulling him in another direction, to what he hoped was a flat between the shops. A flat where someone lived.
The door was locked, as he’d expected, but a kick to the knob had the frame splintered in no time. Screams pierced his ears, although he saw no one, not even in the shadows of the unlit room.
“There is a man here,” he announced to whoever had screamed, “a man needing care. He can’t hurt you.”
And then, taking with him the man’s weapons, Christophe left the soldier unarmed, hoping whoever lived in this shopkeeper’s home would see to the needs of a man who might otherwise die—a man who’d come to defend the rights of bourgeoisie shop owners.
He returned to the street. Men collapsed and blood spurted and Christophe, like so many stretcher bearers he’d seen doing the same, went from wounded to wounded. He gave aid where he could from the bandage roll in his jacket—the last one the government had issued to him the year before, something he should have thrown away long ago but had carried with him anyway, like a habit he found too difficult to give up.
Unlike the last battle he’d fought, Christophe was unable to tell the difference between these fighting armies—White or Red, none carried flags, and some on both sides wore a German uniform. Christophe didn’t care; he helped whom he could as an angel would. And surely angels were there, a shield between Christophe and the bullets sailing around him.
* * *
“Wounded here!”
Annaliese heard the cry and without thinking drew near. She’d heard the gunshots—hollow and short, like firecrackers in the distance. A fighter from the street stumbled over the threshold, dragging a man beside him until the guard at the door rushed to his aid. Between the two of them, they hauled the injured man to the nearest cot, where Annaliese met them. She had neither training nor equipment, not even a single bandage, but surely she could do something.
She nearly vomited at the sight. He was not merely pale but white, limp and unconscious. So much blood, so wet and shiny, still streaming from the side of a boy who looked even younger than Annaliese herself. What could she do? What could she do to save anyone from such a wound?
The fighter who’d brought him had a good deal of the man’s blood on his own hands and shirt. “His name is Shultz. You’ll help him, ja?”
Annaliese found herself nodding even though everything inside told her she was less than adequate to meet such a task. The fighter was already turning away, leaving her alone at this boy’s side. Not even the guard who’d helped move him to the cot stayed near. He returned to his post.
She ventured another step closer but was afraid to touch him for fear of doing more harm than good. “Shultz?” How absurd to say his name as if to ask his permission or his help in assessing what to do for him. But she was too stunned to do anything else.
Movement beside her banished her stupor.
Leo stood there, a frown on his face. “There’s nothing we can do for him.” Then Jurgen, who was a few paces behind, joined them. Leo turned to block him from the sight. “The fight must be nearing if they’re close enough to bring wounded here instead of the hospitals. Let’s go.”
Annaliese couldn’t imagine where Leo would take Jurgen. Back to the tent? That hardly offered any protection, not even with the half-dozen guards left behind. They were all as fragile as this boy bleeding to death in front of them.
But Jurgen wouldn’t let himself be pulled away. He looked beyond Leo’s shoulder, at the man who even now seemed to be melting into the cot beneath him. Jurgen stepped closer, closer even than Annaliese stood, and bent over the boy.
“You’re not alone,” he said, laying a hand to his forehead, smoothing back curly hair. Then, without turning to Leo, he added, “Aren’t there any supplies here? bandages? iodine?”
“Come away from there, Jurgen,” Leo said. “What do you think you can do?”
Resistance to Leo’s coldheartedness made Annaliese braver than she’d been a moment ago. “Pull away his jacket, Jurgen. Maybe the blood makes it look worse than it really is. I’ll see what I can find for bandages.”
“You’re both fools,” Leo said. “If they’re fighting close enough to bring him here, we could be attacked at any moment. Jurgen, come along now.”
“And go where?” He was already working on the jacket, ignoring the red discoloring his fingers as he freed each button. “If I’m going to die in this fight, Leo, I’d rather do it helping someone than hiding. So if you’re not going to help Annaliese, get out of the way.”
Annaliese didn’t wait for Leo’s response. She ran through the narrow aisles, calling out to the men who guarded the doors, others who lingered around the tent where Jurgen and Leo had been.
“Medical supplies!” she called. “Are there any here?”
The men at whom she’d directed the question, those in front of the tent, only looked at one another with as much of an inquiry on their faces as she must have had on her own. She turned when one of the men at the rear of the warehouse called out.
“We have bandages—here.” He held up what looked like a toolbox, green and metal and hopelessly small. No bigger than a breadbox. What sort of army was this, without any m
edical supplies? Had they expected this revolution to be as bloodless as the last? With countless armed men filling Germany?
She called the guard forward, taking the box from him. At least it must have something in it because it was heavier than she’d expected. Then she hurried back to the injured man’s side.
Jurgen had the wound fully exposed now, but she couldn’t tell the size for all the blood. She pulled open the box, spotting white bandages, gauze to soak up the blood, and cotton cloths and rubber gloves. Too late for Jurgen to use those now, but she handed him some gauze. She found a small bottle of iodine and one of alcohol, taking them out but pushing aside things she knew they wouldn’t dare use: thread, needles, and tubes of some sort.
God help her, she wouldn’t simply hand over such supplies and be of no use. If one more young man was brought through those doors, she would use these supplies herself and not cower in the effort.
* * *
Christophe pulled yet another man off to the side of the street. He’d forced himself to leave those who were dead or near dead, knowing there was nothing to be done for them. But this man was sitting up, having been struck along the side of his head, obviously dazed but fully alive. To leave him in the street would be to invite someone to finish him off.
Christophe shoved him under the shelter of a storekeeper’s awning, then moved away, intent on getting to the next who might need him.
“Wait . . .”