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Authors: Maureen Lang

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

Springtime of the Spirit (7 page)

BOOK: Springtime of the Spirit
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Instead of letting her go, he leaned closer and his mouth claimed hers. His lips were warm, soft, tender. Accomplished at making her want more. Slowly his arms went around her and she wanted to lean into him, to give in to his closeness. Maybe . . .

And yet she couldn’t.

She pulled away, reaching past him to take hold of the doorknob. “I’m sorry.”

Annaliese was relieved when he didn’t stand in her way.

7

The sun was high but the air cold, and Christophe turned up the collar of his old suit jacket. It was neither his finest nor his warmest. The warmest coat he’d owned had been issued by the army and had seen four winters in France, four of the coldest winters of his life. But the day before yesterday, when he spotted an old man just coming away from the food lines, Christophe knew even with a temporarily filled belly the man wouldn’t be warm for long. The army-issue coat had nearly been too heavy for the man’s frail body, but he’d been grateful nonetheless.

It had been easy to give away. Maybe some of the memories would go with it.

This jacket was inadequate, but at a brisk pace Christophe barely noticed. He pushed open the now-familiar shop door under the butcher’s sign draped with a flag depicting men and women reaching upward—no doubt toward the better life their politics promised. Politics and politics alone. From what he could tell of the flyers he’d seen, they weren’t reaching for God. The only kind of faith their pamphlets preached was faith in unity.

Inside, there was considerably more activity than yesterday when he’d signed up for his tepid membership in their party. There was still a man behind the desk who started to address him before another man stepped forward, the man who’d been so protective of Annaliese yesterday.

“Good day!” He held out his hand, all stiffness of yesterday abandoned. The hand he extended wasn’t an invitation to a handshake; Christophe noted he held what few fingers he had left close to the palm, as in a mangled fist. Rather the gesture was an invitation to enter deeper into the room, past the desk in front of him. The man cocked his head toward the other half of the room, and Christophe looked that way.

Nearby, two other men worked folding flyers, stacks of them. Others bundled papers or performed various clerical duties. Beyond them in the foremost corner, sitting amid the light streaming in from the window, sat an artist at an easel with a woman in a black skirt and white blouse bending over him. Her back was to him, but based on the picture and the familiar color of her light blonde hair, Christophe guessed it was Annaliese. At last.

He nodded a silent thank-you to the man who’d pointed her out.

“Yes, I see your point,” she was saying to the artist while they both stared at a rendition of a woman with two children at her side. “But it isn’t only children women must worry about. This is the second poster you’ve drawn emphasizing just one role women fill. We do worry about the protection of children and their education—but so much more. Why not draw an equal number of women at work to show that our contribution is equal—or can be? or the one I mentioned yesterday: women beside men at the ballot box?”

Even from behind, Christophe could tell the artist hadn’t caught her vision. He pitied the man; her idea was sound, but the reality of women working outside the home—and even voting next month—was something they would all need time getting used to.

“Annaliese?”

He saw her stiffen and wondered for a moment if she would turn around. Most likely she didn’t recognize his voice; perhaps she wouldn’t even remember him.

“It’s me, Christophe Brecht. Do you remember me?”

At last she turned, and he wished he were better at reading faces. All he saw was how pretty she was. Her skin was pure and white with a touch of pink highlighting her cheekbones. Her hair was piled up and he wished it were down, the way it had been painted, because it was full of waves. But of course she’d been younger in the portrait, the child he remembered her to be.

It was her eyes he wished most to read; although she stared at him—not just glanced, but stared—he couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad to see him. Not indifferent, which he might have understood. No, there was emotion behind that stare, but he couldn’t determine what it was.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I remember you. I wondered how long it would take you to show up here.”

“You expected me?”

“Well, I thought you might already have a place in the party. Here or perhaps with the Communists.”

That was the second time he’d been taken for a Communist. He could understand why she might think him a member of her party already—a number of those who’d given him information about her independent Socialist party had been soldiers, so he knew it was a popular movement among them. Perhaps the Communists were just as popular with soldiers.

He shook his head.

She looked at his inadequate jacket. “I see you no longer wear your uniform. Weren’t you a Hauptmann in the army? You might have removed the rank but kept the jacket.”

He hadn’t come to discuss politics—or to tell her he’d been a Major for over a year. “I wasn’t able to come home until recently, but army life is behind me.”

She stepped closer but kept the table between them, gripping its edge as if she needed its assistance. “And are you living in Munich now?”

He shook his head. “No, I went home.”

“I’m sorry about your brother. It was hard on Nitsa—harder I think than even losing your parents.”

“And I’m sorry about your sister. I didn’t know . . . not until I came home. It’s been so long since I’d heard from her, but I always imagined her home. Safe with the rest of you. Or as safe as anyone could be, considering everything.”

Her knuckles had gone white at the mention of Giselle. Annaliese looked away, and he noticed her profile was so different from what her sister’s had been. Annaliese had a small nose, delicate chin. Giselle had had a wider forehead and a slope to her nose he doubted he would ever forget.

“Thank you for stopping by to see me, then.”

He stepped to the side, putting himself in her line of vision. “I came because your parents asked me to find you. They’d like you to come home.”

One brow rose as if he’d spouted something ridiculous. Perhaps he had. In that moment it made sense to him. Here she was, working for a party that was as anticapitalist as her father was capitalist. A warmonger, the village called him—and so would anyone in this butcher shop–turned–party office. He was hated, so hated he’d had to buy the dogs and hire a guard for fear of his life. Enough hatred to inspire his upcoming flight to America.

Did Annaliese hate him too?

Christophe might not have been able to read her reaction to his arrival, but he could read her reaction to his words easily enough. She wanted no part of the reason he’d come.

 

* * *

 

He might be taller than the last time Annaliese had seen him, he might be older and even sport a new scar across one eyebrow, but he was every bit as handsome as the moment she’d first noticed him as more than just another boy in her village. The moment her child’s heart had listened to him describe what it was like to fall in love, when she herself had thought she wanted to love him someday, when she was all grown up and the five years’ difference in their ages would no longer matter.

When, she wondered for the hundredth time, had Giselle fallen in love with him? He knew when he’d fallen in love with her—he’d as much as told Annaliese that day on the park bench.

But what had he meant when he said it had been such a long time since he’d heard from her? Perhaps, to someone in love, it had only
seemed
a long time. Giselle had done what she’d done just four months ago. Before that, she’d written to him. Hadn’t she?

Annaliese sent a quick glare his way, wondering what he would do if she accused him right now in front of everyone in this room. Those letters—his letters—had been to blame for what Giselle had done. But Annaliese knew she wouldn’t accuse him. This man standing before her, who only shook his head with no further explanation about whether or not he was a Communist, might not see things as he’d seen them when he wrote those letters. She would keep her secret and not tell him anything at all about Giselle. He didn’t deserve to know, anyway. The knowledge gave him too much importance.

Annaliese repeated his words in her head. What had he just said? Her parents had sent him to Munich for her? to bring her home? She nearly laughed. Not only at the irony of him
doing
anything for them, but of him being
willing
.

“You of all people should not want to do their bidding, Christophe. Once a soldier, always a soldier.”

He reached for one of the flyers on the table between them.
Kameraden!
it said in bold black lettering.
Freiheit, Frieden, und Brot
. He pointed to the words. “Isn’t this what you believe? That it’s time for peace now?”

She took the flyer from him, replacing it on the stack. So he was ready to put it all behind him, the passion he’d written of in those letters. The passionate hatred of anything fueling the war.

Well, she wasn’t.

How she would have loved naming all the reasons she knew peace was impossible between her and her parents—and in particular between her and her father. Christophe should still understand that, even if he only wanted peace now.

He hadn’t been in the village when one by one their neighbors lost interest in the war except for the agony it brought. When people stopped talking to her family, when the blockades that were still in place slowly cut off the flow of food to starvation levels but somehow, from somewhere, metal was delivered to keep the munitions factory going. And her father brought in more money—enough to leave the village for that house, that big, awful house that was a testimony to the lives his weaponry had cost.

“Yes, it certainly is the time for peace,” she said, mindful of the fact that no one in this room—not a single one pretending to be too busy to hear—knew of her close connection to a warmonger. She needed to see this man out, not just out of the office, but out of her life. “You may tell my parents I wish them well. Good day to you, Christophe.”

She started to turn away but he held up a hand as if he would touch her, causing her to stop where she stood.

“Is that all you have to say to me, an old friend? Just good day? What about your parents?”

She faced him, but no other words came to mind. Not here. Not now.

“I’m a member of the party,” he said. “Your party.”

If that was supposed to impress her, it didn’t. The letters he’d written had been full of passion to change Germany, many beliefs that were right in line with her party’s—and even more radical, farther to the left, where only Communists and Spartacists could stand. “Why are you here at my parents’ bidding, then?”

Someone stepped closer, behind them. “Did you say you’re a member of our party—the USPD?”

Leo’s voice; he was one person who didn’t care if others knew he was eavesdropping.

“Yes,” Christophe said, standing at what would have been attention if he still wore his uniform. Thankfully, he did not salute.

“You were a soldier?”

Evidently refraining from that salute had made no difference in giving him away. Christophe nodded.

“Welcome! We can use a man like you, tall and strong and trained. Tell me, what is it you most want for Germany?”

“Peace,” he said without the slightest hesitation. “A lasting peace.”

“Good! That’s very good! It’s what we all want. You know, don’t you, that coming from a soldier, these words mean more to everyone else? to everyone filling the streets these days, wanting the same thing? How long were you at the front?”

“I was in France nearly the full four years. Assigned over occupied villages at first, before I had . . . more specialized training.”

Annaliese wondered why he’d paused and what
specialized training
meant. But she had no time to ponder that as she watched Leo pull Christophe farther into the office, going so far as to pat him on the back as if they were already partners in vision.

“Come in, come in, and talk to us. You’re here in the middle of the day. Does that mean you’ve not yet secured work? It’s hard these days. You might find your hours well spent here if you can support yourself for a while.”

Neither looked her way. She saw Christophe take a seat near the desk Leo most often occupied. She followed but did not sit; instead she leaned against the wall, watching. Unsure what to think, how to feel. It had been only a few months since Christophe had written his last letter to Giselle, at least the last one that she knew about. The end of the war might have mellowed him, but surely he hadn’t abandoned everything he believed in so short a time. If he had, she would demand he tell her why he’d inspired Giselle to do what she’d done.

She might enjoy watching him receive such news: that if it weren’t for him, Giselle might still be alive to accept his attention.

But first she would observe him, because even though he was willing to listen to Leo, it was obvious he’d lost the passion he once had. This calm, self-assured man before her didn’t seem at all like the frenzied man who’d written from the battlefield.

The poster artist caught her eye, waving her near, but Annaliese ignored him. This was one induction conversation she wasn’t going to miss.

8

“What do you think we fought for, soldier?”

Christophe settled back in the chair, noting that the other man didn’t seem interested in his name, just his role as a former soldier.

“We were told we fought for freedom,” he said slowly, “but after a while, the reasons for the war were as muddy as the trenches.”

“Exactly! And now is the time to restart our society; don’t you believe it to be so? We have an opportunity few other countries have. An opportunity to develop this country into something better than it was before. But we must do it together.”

BOOK: Springtime of the Spirit
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