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Authors: Maureen Lang

Tags: #FICTION / Romance / Historical, #Historical Fiction

Springtime of the Spirit (24 page)

BOOK: Springtime of the Spirit
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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.

And clearly, she couldn’t do that here. Not with Jurgen, who went from a socialistic appeal for justice to a communistic demand, then assumed she would go along.

Perhaps she couldn’t even remain at Christophe’s side, seeing his disappointment every time something came up to reveal just how far she was from believing in God the way he did. She needed to be away from both of them, where she could think.

Home was the first place that came to mind. But to go there . . . No, that would be going backward, not forward.

Then . . . where?

26

“You don’t know where she is?”

“That’s correct. I do not know.”

Christophe eyed Jurgen, not believing him. It was Jurgen who kept as close an eye on Annaliese as Christophe himself, whenever he was under this roof.

“She went out? When the city is still in a state of emergency, and nearly anyone could be arrested by a police force who isn’t even sure who governs them?”

For someone who earlier that same day had welcomed himself back into Annaliese’s arms, Jurgen looked surprisingly unconcerned about her safety. “I didn’t send her away. She went by her own design. I suspect it’ll be some time before she returns, though.”

Christophe had started to turn away, to leave through the door he’d just entered by, but stopped. “What do you mean, some time?”

“Because she took her little bag, the same one she arrived with, and left.”

Christophe lurched forward, hands that wanted to throttle the other man now shaking in restraint. “And you let her go without knowing anything more?”

Jurgen pushed aside the papers in front of him and stood. “She didn’t give me the chance, didn’t say good-bye. Bertita saw her walking away toting the bag, or even I wouldn’t have known.” He looked Christophe over as if mirroring the judgment he saw aimed his way. “You think me cold for not worrying over her; I can see that. It only proves I know her better than you. I’ve seen her take care of herself in a crowd, seen her confidence and know how independent she is. She doesn’t need you. Or me, for that matter. Let her go, and if she comes back to either one of us, it’ll be all the sweeter.”

Christophe didn’t stay to argue. He turned to the door, hurrying down the steps and out to the streets. To find her.

 

* * *

 

The church spire shot straight up, drawing the eye heavenward. Annaliese stood across the street from St. Luke’s, where she’d been for the past half hour, pacing and shifting her bag from one hand to the other, wondering if she should go inside. There was no reason to enter; there was no service today, no one inside at all as far as she could see.

Except . . . maybe . . . God.

Another cold wind whipped at her, stinging her cheeks, forcing tears from her eyes. At least it would be warmer in there than it was out here.

She glanced around again at the empty street. Nothing kept her away from the church except her own fears.

But why should God want any part of her? She’d been shaking her fist at Him since the day Giselle died. She’d grieved the parents He gave her. She’d denied His existence to anyone who asked ever since she came to Munich. Everything in her political choices refused to acknowledge the existence of God at all.

Despite all that, her feet had brought her here. Not by her design, yet here she was. Drawn as though God Himself
did
want to see her, to hear her speak to Him.

Christophe had once said if God came to mind, maybe it was His nudging. Maybe He’d nudged her all the way here.

She crossed the street and walked up the wide cement stairs. The door was open and she went inside, into the dim light. She took two steps past the narthex, where the sound of her footsteps reverberated within the cavernous sanctuary, echoing from the dome. She tiptoed after that, only as close to the altar as one of the side chairs at the back. Not far from where she’d sat the night Christophe had brought her here.

She stared ahead, seeing only what she expected. The columns, the mystery and majesty of the dome, so perfectly set, so huge yet so securely towering above her head. Beautiful, a work of worship in itself. Yet empty. Had she really expected God to be here, to tap her on the shoulder?

“If You’re the reason I’m here,” she whispered, closing her eyes even to the artistry of the man-made church, “then tell me. Tell me what to believe. I don’t want to believe things because of other people. I want to discover on my own what’s real. Faith in You or faith in this world . . . I don’t . . . know. . . .”

Then she sat, silently. She didn’t know how to pray, so she let her mind say what it would to the God who’d inspired this building. Giselle came to mind, and Annaliese told the God of the universe that He shouldn’t have let her sister die.

She thought of her father. A father who had let Giselle die. He’d said as much when he came back that day, when he’d sobbed in her mother’s arms. Annaliese had heard every word, though neither of her parents knew that. He’d said he saw Giselle running from the factory. She’d spotted him and run back, away from him, too close to the fire she’d set. It was his fault Giselle had been so close to the explosion that followed, because he’d frightened her simply by discovering her.

While her mother had turned to God for comfort, her father had resolutely refused to acknowledge God could benefit either one of them. His failure to save Giselle hadn’t softened him toward God. Just the opposite.

Maybe that was part of the reason it had been so easy to leave God behind, to adopt the politics of man that excluded any hint of a God concerned about governments and people. It had been so easy to leave God out, especially when others showed her how. She thought of Jurgen and Leo and Ivo, of how God had been absent to her since knowing them, silenced by their influence and by her anger toward her father for Giselle’s death.

Why had God surrounded her with so many people who didn’t acknowledge Him if He wanted her to know Him? Even her mother hadn’t spoken of Him with any regularity, though Annaliese had often seen her reading the Bible. Only Christophe . . .

Then, knowing it probably wasn’t her place to scold God, she thought of what she and Giselle had believed growing up, because of their mother. That God was always there, always with them. She wondered if Giselle remembered that after she’d been surprised into running back toward the factory, when she knew it was going to take her life. When she knew she would see God face-to-face.

Annaliese sat with her memories of people she knew, of things she’d done, trying to see God in any of it the way she’d seen Him bring her here tonight. Because here she was, complaining to the very God who’d given her life. In a building that had inspired enough love in someone to make it lovely.

Christophe came to mind more often than anyone else. Christophe, who’d broken her heart so many years ago. She was afraid he was doing it again. It was Christophe who’d said he didn’t want to be stingy in his faith. Maybe it was God who’d put Christophe here in Munich, not because of her mother at all. If not for him, would Annaliese be here, seeking God’s guidance on what to believe?

Surely He wanted the things she did: an end to poverty, help for the needy. If His plan to help people was to be carried out
through
people, then history had shown often enough they would have to be forced. Hadn’t it?

She settled back in her chair. Christophe believed it was up to the individual to make the world a better place, not the government. But individuals had let people down. And yet what government had proven up to the challenge of stomping out unfairness?

Christophe was undoubtedly right about one thing. Neither a government nor the people could make the sacrifices necessary to meet the needs of the poor—not without God’s help.

A God that Communists—and most Socialists she knew—refused to acknowledge existed.

 

* * *

 

Christophe turned yet another corner, noticing his own shadow defined by the moonlight on the cold pavement beneath his feet. He couldn’t wander the streets much longer; it was senseless. And yet where else could he search? He’d been to every corner she’d called hers, back in the days she’d used those corners for her lectures. He’d been to the old party office, the warehouse where some of the men still loyal to Jurgen—no matter the party—housed themselves. He’d even gone to the last place she’d been before joining Jurgen, the hotel where she’d known the widow. Not even Frau Haussman was to be found there, and no Annaliese.

He would return to Mama’s restaurant, where he’d already been several times to see if Annaliese had turned up. He would tell Mama to watch out for her, to keep her there until he came for her. It was late, past midnight, and he was tired from the weight of his boots and the weight of his spirit.

Where could she be? And why hadn’t she told him she was leaving or where he might find her?

Perhaps he shouldn’t try to find her; perhaps he should let her go. Maybe that was what she wanted.

Yet he couldn’t give up so easily. In the last few steps toward Mama’s, one passage from the Bible came back to him again, a passage that described the nature of love.

Beareth all things,
it said,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

He wouldn’t give up, not even if that was what she wanted him to do.

27

Annaliese stared out the window. The sight had nearly blinded her when she’d first turned her gaze to it that morning. Bright sun reflected on a ground quilted with the white of a late February snowfall. Even a lake in the distance was cast in pearl, shadowed by a cluster of pine trees whose branches served as platters for snow. Slopes swelled the landscape, picturesque and so reminiscent of the little village where she’d grown up.

BOOK: Springtime of the Spirit
4.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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