Springtime of the Spirit (21 page)

She turned, but Christophe was already upon her, his eyes full of worry, his grip on her arms frantic.

“I called and called to you through the crowd. Couldn’t you hear me? Are you all right?”

“Yes . . . yes. It’s Eisner—”

He was already nodding, pulling her close even though people in front of the Assembly Building thronged the steps, uncertain about where to go instead.

“Come back to the flat,” Christophe said, “away from here. Out of the streets altogether.”

“But . . . Jurgen is inside. He might not know.”

“He must, by now. The whole city is crying the news. Look, they’re not letting anyone inside, anyway.”

She glanced back to the door of the Assembly Building, where guards pushed people away. But some had slipped inside anyway, she’d seen it happen herself. With Christophe at her side, perhaps she might succeed.

“We should go inside—or at least try!”

But he shook his head and started to lead her away. She could barely follow. Her limbs moved as if filled with lead, while her head was so light, it seemed filled with air. She leaned on Christophe, thinking he was surely right, she should go with him away from the chaos.

Even as she did, someone rushed past, a man as broad-shouldered as Christophe, cloaked and indomitable, despite an apron flowing out from beneath his coat. One arm was stiff, as if he concealed something underneath. Judging by his face alone, he was set on some grim mission.

Annaliese stopped, watching the man force his way inside, past guards who had enough to deal with from those in the crowd more stoppable. “Wait,” she said to Christophe. “Did you see him? that man?”

Christophe shook his head. “No. Come away from here with me. Come now.”

“But that man! Did you see his cloak? The way he held his arm, his hand in one pocket. As if he had a gun.”

“Half the city is armed, and you shouldn’t be out. Come now.”

“No! Let’s go after him—to see what he’s doing.”

Christophe’s gaze followed hers, between the door she pointed to and the guards closer to them. “I doubt we can get in.”

“Tell them you’re one of Jurgen’s bodyguards. It’s true enough.”

She pulled his hand, grateful when he followed. But the crush of the crowd was great, and they made slow progress through a knot of others being pushed away from the door, more forcefully than ever.

“We’re with Jurgen! On the council,” she called to the guards over the noise around them.

“Step back! No one is allowed inside.”

“But I saw a man get past you—with a gun!” Only after the words left her lips did Annaliese regret them for fear of panicking the crowd. Like a shudder, the words rang out from one end to the other.
“A gun! A gun!”
As if some of them weren’t carrying a weapon of their own or didn’t see armed men every day of the week.

“What did you say?” At last a guard turned to Annaliese, the one nearby. “What man?”

Annaliese couldn’t see through the doors, though they were open. There were too many people in the way.

“Where is the council meeting?” she called. “Are there guards there, too?”

The sentry was still too intent on holding people back, including Annaliese and Christophe. “Step back!”

From behind them whistles blew and soldiers arrived, cutting through the crowd with their shouts and commands. Some obeyed orders to disperse, but instead of following those who went away, Annaliese stumbled toward an officer.

“I saw a man go inside—I think he had a gun.”

“Go home,
Fräulein
,” he shouted above the cries around them, then directed his gaze to Christophe. “Take her home. Do you want to be trampled?”

“He’s right, Annaliese. There’s nothing we can do.”

“But—”

Christophe was already tugging at Annaliese, and she knew she had no choice. What could she do? Christophe was right . . . and yet, to leave . . .

Another commotion sounded from inside the doors, shouts raised to new heights, a swarm of people no longer intent on getting in, but the opposite. People rammed the door from within, pushing at anyone in their way.

“Shots!”

Annaliese saw an opportunity to run through the crowd, in the space left open behind those fleeing the building. But Christophe held firm, throwing an arm around her shoulders, hovering over her as any of the bodyguards might have done in a crowd mixed with supporters and protesters. He gave her no choice.

Only when they were blocks from the Prannerstrasse did he loosen his hold, settling only for her arm looped inside his. Still, he said nothing, just led her on the shortest route back to the house they shared.

She wanted to fight him, to cry out that he should have let her go. But outside the crowd—which had offered protection of its own kind—the fear started to take hold, and she was grateful they were away. Along every street people ran amid cries of news or alarm, accompanied by the screech of automobile tires or the zoom of an engine going too fast.

Not until Christophe hurried her up the porch and got her inside the flat did he speak. “Isn’t it time, Annaliese? to leave Munich?”

Heart still racing, knowing he might be right, she still shook her head. Never mind that it was only Jurgen’s inconsistent attention that sometimes made her feel wanted. Leo no longer talked of a Women’s Council, not since the party had gained so few seats in the assembly. No matter how hard she worked to start one anyway, support for the councils themselves was in question. Never mind that under the whispers of everyone connected to Leo and Jurgen, she’d heard the word
Communism
too often to ignore. In truth, none of that mattered.

Hadn’t Christophe himself said her parents were leaving for America? Perhaps they were already gone; he’d told her they were sailing this month. Surely they’d sold everything, including that mansion she detested.

Annaliese couldn’t leave Munich.

Munich
was
home. She had no place else to go.

23

The horror of the day was slow to fade, particularly when neither Leo nor Jurgen returned. Even Huey didn’t come home, convincing Annaliese that Eisner’s death had ignited more than just a few hours of panic and confusion on streets that were always too close to desperation anyway.

That night she didn’t have to open her window to hear the noise from two blocks over, of shop windows being smashed, guns firing, men shouting or—more than once—women screaming.

By morning Annaliese was eager for news of any kind.

“I’ll go over to the warehouse with you,” she said to Christophe at the breakfast table, which they shared only with Bertita. “That must be where Leo took Jurgen.”

Christophe’s stare lasted just long enough to emphasize his words. “You’re not going anywhere, not until we know it’s safe.”

She started to open her mouth to protest, but he was already shaking his head.

“Nowhere, Annaliese.” His glance landed briefly on Bertita. “Neither of you. I’m staying here too.”

“That’s exactly what Huey told me to do, and I have no intention of doing otherwise.” Bertita looked at Annaliese. “We stay here. Right here.”

The day dragged on, made worse by Christophe’s pacing. He held his rifle across his chest, standing guard like the most loyal defender. But it made talking to him senseless. All she saw was his gun.

By the next day, she wanted a glimpse of the city, to see if the chaos had settled, if anything had changed. She longed for normalcy, for fresh air. But Christophe kept a watchful eye on the front door, night and day, leaving open the door of the flat he used, beyond which no one could come or go. After a couple of attempts to leave on her own, Annaliese not only gave up trying, she gave up speaking to him altogether. She stayed resolutely in her room, asking Bertita to bring her meals so she wouldn’t have to look at Christophe, the warden of her prison.

Although the street below Annaliese’s window usually remained empty, eerily so, occasionally someone would run by, or a march would pass that was blatantly absent any women or children. Once she saw a band of men being arrested for no apparent reason.

She guessed most women hid in their homes . . . or were hidden against their will, like her.

By the third day of being closed up in her flat, she had no intention of letting her imprisonment continue. At the very least, she wanted to see if a newspaper could be found. Even if it was full of half-truths, intentional lies, or mistaken errors, it would be more news than she’d had lately. The least she could do was go on a surveillance run. She wanted to know who killed Eisner and why.

She decided to leave and return before first light; Christophe would never know. She would tell him after she returned, with a newspaper in hand if she was lucky. Surely she could find something, and if not, at least she would see for herself if the streets were as dangerous as Christophe claimed.

Annaliese crept down the stairs, stopping abruptly when the stair beneath her feet creaked. It was still dark, but moonlight shone through the transom above the door. Slowly, slowly, she moved on, taking one step, then another until she was nearly at the bottom.

The door to Jurgen’s flat was open as it had been the night before and the night before that. From inside the room, she heard Christophe breathing. Deep, steady. Another pair of careful strides and Annaliese was at the landing. Nearly free.

The breathing changed then, drawing her vision inside the room. There he was, not in the bedroom he could have called his own, or any of the other two he could have taken over since Leo and Jurgen had disappeared. Christophe lay on the couch, fully dressed, without a blanket, his head on a pillow so small it didn’t seem to offer any comfort at all. Boots still on.

His breathing was erratic now, as if something far heavier than his own folded arms burdened his chest.
Leave, just leave.
She should go outside before he woke, or she would never have her taste of freedom, of air, of counterfeit peace in a street now quiet.

Yet she couldn’t go. She stood rooted at the threshold, watching him sleep, hearing his breathing become yet more strained.

Until he popped right up as if afire, eyes wide, a low cry escaping his lips. He stared straight ahead, directly at her. And yet he didn’t see her; whatever he saw, it couldn’t be her. Not with such a look in his eye.

Sweat glistened on his brow, despite the chill in the nighttime air and his lack of any blanket.

“Christophe?”

She took a step closer and he moved again, jumping from the couch, his gaze bouncing around the room as if he’d forgotten where he was or even who she was.

Then his rigid shoulders went limp; his legs—so strong—seemed unable to hold him. He fell back to the couch, rubbing at his face. From there, he looked up at her at last, and she knew he saw her.

“What—what are you doing, Annaliese? What time is it? Why do you have on your coat?”

“I was going for a walk.”

He looked at the window. “In the dark?”

“You won’t let me go during the day, so I thought . . .”

His lips went tight, but not as tight as they’d been a moment ago in sleep. “It isn’t safe yet.”

She was only a pace away from him, and when he stood, passing between her and the window, his shadow darkened the room altogether for a moment. He went to the door where she’d stood, as if looking to see if she was alone.

“Has Huey returned yet? Bertita said she had a note from him.”

That was news to Annaliese. “No.”

“Go back upstairs. When the sun comes up, you can sit on the porch in the back if you need fresh air. It’s too cold now, too dark.”

She had no intention of settling for such a short leash, but she wasn’t going to argue that yet. “You were having a dream. Do you want to . . . talk about it?”

“No. What I want is for you to go back to bed.” He looked beyond her, to the table next to the couch, the one that had a clock on it. “It’s four in morning. Neither one of us should be awake.”

“Do you have dreams like that very often?”

“Who said I was having a dream?”

“Of course you were dreaming.”

He put a hand to her elbow. “Wait until sunrise; then we’ll go out. The streets are quietest then.”

“They’re quiet now.”

“But not safe. Go upstairs.”

“Christophe. If you claim to have the right to keep me here, even if you think it’s for my own good, then I claim the right to ask you about that dream. For
your
own good.”

“It might be a fair exchange, if I believed the subject really was for my own good. But I don’t. So good night.”

She remembered something he’d said once. . . . “It had to do with those deaths, didn’t it?”

He stopped, not looking at her, profile frozen. “What deaths?”

“The ones you think you’re responsible for. When we talked about Giselle, you said you didn’t want me to add another death.”

He let go of her elbow, crossing his arms again, now leaning against the doorframe instead of staring at her through it. “All right, then. If you’re so curious, I’ll tell you. But you won’t like hearing about it any more than I’ll like talking about it.” Christophe hesitated then and took another wipe at his brow. He paced away, went to the window, turning his back to her. “It was a dream about the trenches. Battles and guns and ugly things like that.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t worry about what I want to hear. Talk about it anyway.”

He was silent so long, she thought he wouldn’t speak. Then, “In France . . . most of the time out there—at the front—men shot at anything that moved. It was usually dark or dusty or foggy. Most of the men didn’t know if they hit anything or not, but I suppose they must have hit something or so many men wouldn’t have died.”

He pivoted again, this time staring at her. There was something new on his face now, not reluctance to talk but anger. “It wasn’t so unclear from where I sat. For the last six months of the war I was in a sniper’s nest. They didn’t care about my commission or my rank; they put me where they needed me most. Out there, in a place where I could see exactly what I hit. Men, with real faces—just like mine, just like my trenchmates. Faces like my brother’s. Young men who had families waiting for them, mothers who loved them. A wife, a girl. A child. Men who never went home because their bodies were left to rot right where I felled them. Eaten by rats or bugs or the sun. Do you want to hear more? about the smell when the wind was just right? or perhaps about those who moved after I thought I’d killed them, so I had to hit them again just to keep them from their misery? Men, real men, put out of misery like animals . . . not like men God loves.”